Changed My Mind – PROSECUTE!
Sunday, May 17th, 2009Forget what I said earlier about not prosecuting those individuals who tortured people in the name of the United States. In fact, forget any argument I ever made about looking to the future, setting the right tone, and getting past the Bush administration. Forget it all because Dick Cheney won’t forget it. It’s time President Obama stood up for himself and for all of us and said to former Bush administration officials – WRONG IS WRONG.
Cheney won’t stop his harping that torture produced valuable intelligence, that Obama is making us less safe, and that we should all fear the fact that we have a Democrat in the White House. He hasn’t made any strong arguments, however, and mostly seems to be an irritating fixture on Fox News (much like their news-ticker at the bottom of the screen). You can’t defeat Cheney with arguments, nor can you logic your way out of a debate with any torture-supporter. And no matter how many memos Obama releases, Cheney isn’t going to shut up. No matter how many experts say that torture produces unreliable intelligence, Cheney will keep taking the spotlight.
How can we solve this problem? Have a prosecutor open an investigation into what Cheney knew and when he knew it. What did he advise people to do? Did he openly argue for the need of torture? In that case, he may be criminally liable in international court. Once justice starts rolling, I think it’s likely that Cheney will start being quiet.
But until we start looking at prosecuting these people, they aren’t likely to go away. Notice how investigations by the Justice Department against lawyers who gave the advice to torture did wonders to shut up those lawyers. They don’t want their jobs to be lost because they can’t give sound legal counsel. That meant that offers to appear on TV news programs weren’t so inviting after all. We need to do the same thing with Cheney.
It’s not likely to happen, but until Cheney sees that he can’t keep shooting his mouth off about breaking international treaties, we aren’t likely to have any peace. So, for truth, justice, and to put the issue to rest – PROSECUTE.