Well, I was there and I saw what you did
Saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you've been
It's all been a pack of lies
-Phil Collins-
The truth can set you free, and it can get you hanged. It all depends on who you know and how much they owe you. Yes, we may live in a world of denialism, mythology and cover-ups but I hope truth still has a few teeth left. That's why I'm rarely the first to scream 'treason' when someone blows a whistle or leaks a secret. Sometimes it even gives me hope.
So people have been asking me, since my last post on the latest Wikileaks fatwah, just what we learned that was useful enough to warrant embarrassing our delicate diplomatic efforts. Well a number of things, in my opinion. For one, we now have cause to reflect upon the Obama administration's efforts to thwart international prosecution of Bush, Cheney et al, for using torture to extract confessions from suspects.
Spain has had a lot of experience with torture and gruesome treatment of prisoners from the Inquisition right up through the last of the Fascist dictators. I think they've grown a bit intolerant and perhaps touchy on the subject of right wing excesses. So perhaps when that country set out to prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, our current administration had many reasons to worry about turning tables, embarrassing revelations and the repercussions of such an investigation on our future conduct. Without Assenge and Wikileaks, we might never have known that Obama and company had a rare bipartisan success in 'persuading' Spain to squelch the effort. It's nice to know and it sheds some light on the puzzling friendliness that Bush has recently shown the man his party has been presenting as something loathsome and dangerous.
We didn't need any breaches of state secrecy however to learn that Dick Cheney's vast ossuary of a closet still has occupants with inconvenient stories to tell. Nigeria is planning to charge him and his Halliburton cronies with bribery and to issue an Interpol warrant, says Bloomberg Businessweek. You may recall that the Right Wing US Chamber of Commerce has been pushing Congress to ditch The Foreign Corrupt Practices act which makes such practices illegal under US law. If you were puzzled as to why we needed so badly to do that so quickly, perhaps we now can answer the question.
Will Wikileaks make Obama think twice about protecting war profiteers and international criminals - maybe even think a third time about trying to portray leakers as dangerous traitors now that we have had a glimpse of what's been going on?
From your keyboard to Obama's ears.
ReplyDeleteIn a perfect world your words would indeed reach the ears of the Commander in Chief. Until then, we need to remind the folks we voted for that allowing war criminals to torture in our names is unacceptable. If our Justice Department is too "political" to do the dirty work, we should insist upon a special prosecutor to look into the crimes the whole world knows we've committed. I have no problem seeing a former president and Vice President and Secretary of Defense in shackles before a War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, and if this president wants to obstruct justice he can stand with them in the stockade.
ReplyDeleteAt no point should be turn a blind eye to the crimes committed in our names. If anything, we owe it to our grandkids to see to it that those criminals are held accountable. Anything less is an affront to justice.
I wish this was the only way he was going to bat for the bad guys. The White House seems to be working as hard as it can to give in to the Republicans on everything important. This is one of the saddest political spectacles I have ever seen, led by a man who seems determined to prove that the wingnuts who said he wasn't up to the job were right.
ReplyDeleteThank you for "Dick Cheney's vast ossuary of a closet." That will keep me going for days. Rattle rattle.
ReplyDeleteThe Democratic Party became criminal accomplaces when Pelosi took "impeachment off the table". Impeachment is a vital Constitutional provision for a just government. Therein lies the betrayal.
ReplyDeleteThe word in the news now is that Wikileaks has been the target of hacking and denial-of-service attacks. Hmmm, I wonder who (as in what government) might be responsible for launching such "cyber warfare"?
ReplyDelete