A new administration that prosecutes the previous administration over what are essentially matters of judgment sets a dangerous precedent. The possibility that CIA agents will be prosecuted for following the orders of their superiors and the advice of the U.S. Justice Department leaves the U.S. intelligence community vulnerable to political whims.
For the sake of national security, the Justice Department had better back away from any prosecution of CIA interrogators. Prosecuting interrogators who used harsh techniques has been pushed by some liberal Democrats who see another opportunity to isolate and embarrass the Bush administration. Besides embarrassing the Bushies, this course could harm the CIA and set a dangerous precedent for future politics.
In the months following Sept. 11, 2001, when everyone expected additional terrorist attacks on American soil, U.S. intelligence agents and soldiers were doing everything possible to uncover and stop the planning and execution of terrorist attacks. Justice Department officials gave a green light to harsh techniques, including "waterboarding," which gave detainees the false impression that they were being drowned. Whether these techniques provided information that otherwise would not have been available remains a topic of debate. Subsequently, the Bush administration abandoned waterboarding and similar techniques, and the Obama administration has officially forsaken torture as a means of gathering information.
But prosecuting CIA agents for what they did at the direction of the administration then in power can only have bad results. Those agents did not set policy; they merely carried out policy at the direction of policy makers. Top Justice Department lawyers in the Bush administration declared harsh interrogation techniques to be legal, and while this policy comported with Bush-Cheney desires, there is no evidence that the attorneys were dishonest in their opinions. Other attorneys see matters differently, which is not unusual. It is as if President Roosevelt had lost the 1944 election, and a new administration, disagreeing with war policy, decided to prosecute B-17 crews for killing German civilians on their bombing runs.
Advocates of prosecuting Bush administration officials and agents are proposing that political differences be criminalized, a strategy that would cripple progress in Washington forever. Obama was right: Let's look to the future, not the past.
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3 comments:
"The previous administration had investigated the matter and concluded that no prosecution was warranted". LOL
The question is not a new one: when does a breach of the law by government officials and their agents become so egregious that despite the best of intentions and motives, the long term harm to our collective national values outweighs the short term damage to national security that may occur by continuing to condone such behavior?
At the height of the Nazi and Japanese threats to the US and its allies in the early days of WWII (when fear of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast was widespread, and the likely fall of Britain and Russia would create a Nazi superstate in Europe), the US government (under Roosevelt) did not condone the questionable techniques endorsed by Bush and Cheney. Absent more firm and decisive leadership from Obama to effectively stop pandering to his base and shut the door on this issue, AG Holder appears to be left with no alternative but to carry out the duties of his office as the chief U.S. law enforcement officer, while trying to keep this issue as de-politicized as possible. At the same time, if there were CIA agents that went significantly and unambiguously beyond the expansive interrogation guidelines promulgated by the Bush Administration, then there is no question they should be prosecuted. If that harms morale in the CIA, then we have the wrong people there in the first place.
Didn't the US prosecute government officials from Germany and Japan and other countries? So where was the "move on" rhetoric then?
What it comes down to is Bush's WH was a dictatorship. A rogue government that ignored international law and the Geneva Convention. Choosing to implement sadistic, inhuman measures to justify their illegal (they lied) and immoral war.
"Let's look to the future, not the past." Ok. So I guess that means not another word about Easley? Yeah right.
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