It's not bean bags

Owner of Mighty the Monkey,
deceased pet, sues over
the neglect of his grave.

There are those who apparently believe it would be improper for the current administration to investigate the last administration. Their argument, as I understand it, has mostly to do with the fact that it might establish a precedent for incoming administrations to investigate outgoing ones and that would lead to all kinds of problems, if not chaos. I think this is nonsense. In fact, it might be a good thing if administrations knew they would be held accountable for their misdeeds, perhaps they wouldn’t so readily engage in improper activities. In this particular case the present administration is bound by law to investigate the last one because in this case it involves potential war crimes. For reasons I cannot fathom, Obama and Holder so far at least are ignoring rather than enforcing the law. This makes them equally guilty, at least in principle. Whether it becomes standard practice for one administration to investigate and prosecute the proceeding one, this particular case is entirely different precisely because it involves war crimes. This is a difference that truly makes a difference.

To use John McCain’s infelicitous phrase, we are not speaking here of “bean bags.” We are talking about war and other crimes of the utmost seriousness and importance. It is not as if one administration is spending time and money investigating whether a consensual sexual act between adults took place (oh, yeah, the Republicans already did that), it is, rather, whether the previous administration deliberately conspired to start an illegal, unconstitutional, and unnecessary “war” in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed, millions were displaced from their homes, lands and properties destroyed, people were tortured and even murdered in illegal interrogations, war profiteering was rampant, multiple war crimes occurred, and Congress and the American people were lied to repeatedly. If the Republicans who are critical of investigating the Bush/Cheney administration cannot see this as a unique and troubling case that must be investigated, they must be devoid of any sense of morality and justice whatsoever (personally, I do not doubt this is true of our current crop of Republicans).

It is simply beyond belief that we are arguing about whether or not waterboarding is torture, whether or not it works, whether a few Democrats might have known about it, whether the ends justify the means, whether it was done from patriotic or other motives, whether it was technically legal or not, whether or not it should be investigated, whether or not the guilty should be held accountable, whether or not it was a crime, and whether or not it even happened. We know it happened. There are not only confessions, there is overwhelming evidence of what happened, how and why. And we know who the major participants were, and where the major responsibility lies. Just because they wear shirts and ties and sit in plush offices doesn’t excuse them from the blood on their hands, the blood not only of some of our finest young people, but of hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children as well. Those who want to argue that it might hurt someone’s feelings or embarrass them or cause distress in the body politic should come to their senses and realize this is something that absolutely must be investigated and prosecuted. It is not simply “bean bags,” and it is not something that can just be passed over, letting bygones be bygones.

Hopefully, as more and more information is becoming available, it appears this problem cannot be ignored much longer. It seems there is now some evidence, leading directly to Cheney’s office, that they wanted a POW waterboarded to get him to confess to a connection between Al Quaida and Saddam Hussein. The interrogators involved refused to do this as they believed it was suggested for political reasons and they were already satisfied with the information they were getting without employing more “intensive”means. Robert Wexler has also reported that Eric Holder is going to investigate more seriously the deaths of some prisoners at the hands of interrogators. Nancy Pelosi has struck back strongly at accusations against her and insists that the CIA misled (lied to) her, and she is not the only one who believes this has happened (Bob Graham agrees with her). It appears that things are moving in the right direction, but much too slowly to suit me. The more Cheney bleats about this the closer he comes to a day of reckoning (I hope).

Rush Limbaugh, that bloated sack of pure pig pucky, is now arguing with John McCain’s 97 year-old mother. Sarah Palin, former beauty contestant, not one to miss out on publicity, has aligned herself with Miss California, demonstrating that neither one of them knows what they are talking about. The Senate has refused to put a 15% cap on credit card interest rates! Obama is about to announce his candidate for the Supreme Court (you know, the nonpartisan court that made George W. Bush President). America moves on (I think).

Question: Do you think there is enough gold in the entire world to allow the U.S. to return to the gold standard?

LKBIQ:
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion (sic). Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious (sic) people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
John Adams

TILT:
Clean coal is an insidious oxymoron.