You know where I stand, but here are the latest voices urging Obama to confront the crimes committed by those linked to torture.
First, (via Glenn Greenwald) there's Ronald Reagan:
Then there's former Reagan official Bruce Fein speaking on Bill Moyers Journal Friday:
"Or in the alternative, if he thinks that there are mitigating circumstances, and there's body language suggests that, then he should pardon them like Ford did Richard Nixon."
A pardon implies an admission of guilt. Failing to act, whether to investigate and prosecute, or to pardon those guilty of acknowledged war crimes, is not an option for the leader of a country which signed on to the convention against torture.
So says Fein.
Finally, Gary Kamiya argues it's time for America to face its "day of reckoning"--its "necessary dark night of the soul":
"Those opposed to reopening the book on the Bush years argue that doing so would tear the country apart. They're right -- but they forget that the country is already torn apart. ...
"This may be our great teachable moment, our one chance, Democrats and Republicans alike, to look clearly at our country and what it became under Bush. Already, people's attention is wandering, ennui is setting in, and a banal mood of easy acceptance is taking hold. If we don't act now, the chance may be lost. And then, the next time there is a terrorist attack, a cunning ideologue could once again lead America down the same primrose path."
Saying Obama "is wrong" is like saying Bush "made a mistake". They both are criminals.
"In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed habeas corpus and demanded more secret government. He has kept Bush's gulag intact and at least 17,000 prisoners beyond the reach of justice. On 24 April, his lawyers won an appeal that ruled Guantanamo Bay prisoners were not 'persons', and therefore had no right not to be tortured. His national intelligence director, Admiral Dennis Blair, says he believes torture works. One of his senior US intelligence officials in Latin America is accused of covering up the torture of an American nun in Guatemala in 1989; another is a Pinochet apologist. As Daniel Ellsberg has pointed out, the US experienced a military coup under Bush, whose secretary of 'defence', Robert Gates, along with the same warmaking officials, has been retained by Obama."
(Obama's 100 Days -- The Mad Men Did Well)
Posted by: Harry Kershner | May 04, 2009 at 04:09 PM