Page 1 of 1
Prosecution?
Posted: April 24th, 2009, 6:47 pm
by Yejun
The assertion of total power through unchecked violence - outside the Constitution, beyond the reach of the law (apart from legal memos from hired hacks instructed to retroactively redefine torture into 'legality') - will be seen in retrospect as the key defining theory of Bush conservatism. It ended with torture. Why? Because reality may differ from ideology; and when it does, it is vital to create reality to support ideology. And so torture creates reality by coercing "facts" from broken bodies and minds.
This is how torture is always a fantastic temptation for those in power, even if they first use it out of what they think is necessity or good intentions: it provides a way for them to coerce reality into the shape they desire. This is also why it is so uniquely dangerous. Because it creates a closed circle of untruth, which is then used to justify more torture, which generates more "truth." This is the Imaginationland some of us have been so concerned about.
The Western anathema on torture began as a way to ensure the survival of truth.
And that is the root of the West's entire legal and constitutional system. Remove a secure way to discover the truth - or create a system that can manufacture it or render it indistinguishable from lies - and the entire system unravels. That's why in the West suspects are innocent before being found guilty; and that's why in the West even those captured in wartime have long been accorded protection from forced confessions. Because it creates a world where truth is always the last priority and power is always the first.
This is not a policy difference. It is a foundational element of Western civilization. The way Cheney constructed it, it was not even a mere war-power as we have usually understood it - because the war was defined in ways we haven't usually understood it. Since the war had no geographical boundaries, since an "enemy combatant" could be an American citizen or resident, since the enemy could never surrender, and since the war could never end, the dictatorial powers, allied with the power to torture, undermined the balance of the American constitution. Until this is fully accounted for and the law-breakers brought to justice, that constitution remains with a massive breach below its waterline. It may not sink immediately; but its fate is sealed unless this precedent is not just moved on from, but erased.
--Andrew Sullivan
I am not as enthused for prosecution as some are but Sullivan makes a compelling case. Regardless of what happens to the criminals, isn't it time to seriously consider amending the constitution? We have an an executive branch that went nuts over the last eight years. If it happened once, it will happen again. We need to create a stronger checks and balances system to insure, not that Bush is erased, but that what Bush did never happens again.
This has been obvious to me for several years and yet even as theo-neo-socio-psycho cons scream about Obama's power grabs, they never consider the obvious solution.
Why is that?
Posted: April 25th, 2009, 5:26 pm
by hester_prynne
AMEN!!!!!!
H
Posted: April 26th, 2009, 7:05 am
by Nazz
I like your thoughts here, Yejun. From 2006 on, it seemed to me like impeachment might be the way to (finally) try to censure and check the Bush mob, but our legislative branch refused to pursue it. Not sure why.
This whole idea of "executive privilege" (just because the executives say so) is insidious, along with the sacred notion of "Commander-in-Chief". I know it's an all-volunteer military, but a lot of kids join to get an education and for broad-based love of country and sense of "wanting to serve".
The invasion and occupation of Iraq was fraudulently sold, and once the troops were in and the truth about our Commander Chimpy McFlightsuit's deception became more apparent, we the people had no recourse, and there continued to be much corporate welfare, abuse and corruption and near-zero accountability for all connected with the war. That hardly sounds like meaningful "representative government" to me, more like a gradual slide toward quasi-fascism.
Yes, we need stronger checks and balances, I completely agree. But I'm not sure how we'd go about getting them, and I guess we can't always insure that the branches will use any of the checks that might be established or already exist. It may not be a simple matter of revising the Constitution, if the executive branch can simply claim executive privilege due to "national security" or some such thing in violating the Constitution. Not sure what the best answers are.
Posted: April 26th, 2009, 6:41 pm
by Yejun
Yes, we need stronger checks and balances, I completely agree. But I'm not sure how we'd go about getting them, and I guess we can't always insure that the branches will use any of the checks that might be established or already exist. It may not be a simple matter of revising the Constitution, if the executive branch can simply claim executive privilege due to "national security" or some such thing in violating the Constitution. Not sure what the best answers are.
That's a good point. Yet, I find hope in the memos and in the unitary executive theorizing. Most of these revolve about the rule of law and the constitution. In that is the basis for real change.
The scary part is that so few people seem interested in pursuing this. Even the pundits and critics seem content to blame the other guy (I have only found one article in
The Atlantic on this subject and that has made no impact). At least one person simply said that it wasn't the system, it was the person that is flaunting his power that's the problem.
Doesn't that mean there's something wrong with the system?
Posted: April 27th, 2009, 12:51 am
by mtmynd
Doesn't that mean there's something wrong with the system?
A system is only the result of those that devised the system. If no effort to correct the system comes up, the system endures until such time a more honorable and trustworthy system supersedes. But that requires honesty and need to have such a system. We the people don't seem ready for anything but a job and credit. This way of thinking will never fix said system.
Posted: April 27th, 2009, 12:56 am
by stilltrucking
Speaking of finding a job. One good thing about the economic mess. Military recuriters are walking in tall cotton these days.