Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, Democracy, Obama Campaign Promises, War
Per the New York Times – and the President Elect himself – the incoming administration will only prosecute the architects & implementers of (ahem) “overzealous” Bush-era national security policies if it’s clear that “the law has been broken.” As we’ve argued before, this is the right result: as much as the righteous bloodlust is, for sure, ringing in all our ears, pursuit of criminal remedies against ex-Bush operatives would open the door to making prosecution of outgoing officials a regular part of the political game. The last thing we should want for our country is for criminal prosecution to become the due of every politician, the reward for a career of (ideally) wisely balancing severe risks (such was the course of the Roman Republic, to the point that Julius Caesar clung to power partly to avoid prosection).
While it should be clear that Cheney and other Bush administrations did not live up to the ideal of wise risk-balancing, the danger of criminalizing politics should be powerful enough to counsel against prosecution in this case. Those of you disappointed by the announcement just don’t get it: this is bigger than revenge.
Update: on a related story, Obama’s discussion of the difficulty of closing Guantanamo in his first 100 days went to the difficulty of implementing the order, not his willingness to implement it. As The Times reports, he’s liable to issue the damn thing on day one.
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This dovetails well with my post here.
In my company our management will often say to their high-level subordinates, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” I often think this is the best philosophy for matters of national security.
Comment by Mike at The Big Stick January 12, 2009 @ 1:33 pmI just think it’s important to hold our politicians to the rule of law.
I know everyone wants to play nice and forgive, but what stops it from happening over and over when there are no repercussions for breaking the law and breaching the constitution you agreed to uphold?
Like, I was listening to interviews with someone involved in the Frost/Nixon interviews and hearing them be so outraged by the thought of illegal wiretapping by Nixon and it being an important and grave offense to the American people. I’m not trying to say that the situations are exactly comparable, but I do think there should be this same moral outrage for some things that have been done over the eight years, that makes me worry when it doesn’t happen.
And I think this should happen with every president, regardless of party.
So I don’t want every possible sidestep or bending of the law to be deemed acceptable and ignored.
Greenwald at Salon has done some good opinion pieces on this that I’ve probably posted before.
Comment by Oneiroi January 12, 2009 @ 2:35 pmSo no secret special-ops in foreign countries? No actions against terrorists in countries that have not given us permission?
Comment by Mike at The Big Stick January 12, 2009 @ 4:07 pmMike,
The phrase, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission”, would imply that the one undertaking the action is willing to accept the consequences of those actions honestly once the deed is done and that the details would be brought to light in a timely and truthful manner. Trying to use this reasoning with respect to the administration’s application of torture and other controversial measures is disingenuous in that it implies that they intended to divulge the truth in a responsible manner. This is not the case in that the administration made every effort to cover-up or deny any allegations of wrongdoing. There is something pragmatically honorable about falling on your sword after the dirty work is done. There is nothing honorable about a president that almost ritualistically abuses wartime privileges and defaces the nation in the process.
Comment by Jello January 12, 2009 @ 4:41 pmI agree. I *personally* would like to see Bush/Cheney and the whole gang pushed the floor and handcuffed before being hauled to jail. But the role of government should be to ‘act on the better angels of our nature’, and NOT act on the more base vindictive nature of individuals like me.
If they are jailed, their history will become less about what they did and more about their punishment. Emotionally satisfying in the short term, but it just doesn’t get us anywhere long term.
That said, I totally support some kind of fact-finding process in the style of a ‘truth commission’.
Comment by Luke January 13, 2009 @ 11:37 pmSo you agree that these acts were immoral and illegal, but say the little people that actually carried out the acts should be punished and not the architects of the illegal acts?
Then let’s just face it: what you’ve described is an aristocracy.
Comment by Narc January 14, 2009 @ 7:28 pm[...] in lockstep on the issue of punishment for the Bushies who authorized torture. Last week, Ames wrote a post about Obama’s statement that his administration will only “prosecute the architects [...]
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