Sen. Leahy Echoes Clips & Comment; Calls for Truth Commission on Bush Presidency

Ever since I submitted two ideas to then President-elect Barack Obama’s “Citizens Briefing Book,” I’ve wondered whether or not anyone with any real pull read them.

My answer: Perhaps Sen. Patrick Leahy did.  According to the Associated Press today:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is proposing a “truth commission” to investigate abuses of detainees, politically inspired moves at the Justice Department, and whole range of decisions made during the Bush administration.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the primary goal of the commission would be to learn the truth rather than prosecute former officials, but said the inquiry should reach far beyond misdeeds at the Justice Department under Bush to include matters of Iraq prewar intelligence and the Defense Department.

Leahy outlined his suggestion for a “truth and reconciliation” commission during a speech at Georgetown University Monday.

“I’m doing this not to humiliate people or punish people but to get the truth out,” he said.

The panel he envisions would be modeled after one that investigated the apartheid regime in South Africa. It would have subpoena power but would not bring criminal charges, he said.

Among the matters Leahy wants investigated by such a commission are: the firings of U.S. attorneys, treatment and torture of terror suspect detainees, and the authorization of warrantless wiretapping.

“Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened” during the Bush administration, Leahy said.

Here’s what I wrote at change.gov and on this fine blog back on January 17:

… Here’s an idea – a truth commission.  What if the concept was based around answering the questions regarding the Constitution, the efficacy of torture, who was ultimately responsible, etc.  This could be done in such a way as to put off any public hearings or transparency until after a bipartisan panel of serious legal, policy experts and just plain citizens had a chance to pursue the issues with subpoena power under a media blackout.  Their product would be public. …

FIRST!

Change Begins – No More Torture Says Obama Executive Order

I actually started to get cynical before the inauguration, mainly due to the then President-elect’s picks for top economic posts in the Cabinet.  Today as I look at the Briefing Room on the White House website, the cynicism is giving way to hope once again.

President Barack Obama today signed an Executive Order essentially rescinding Bush Administration policies proscribing torture.  The order carries the title, Ensuring Lawful Interrogations.

This brought a smile to my face:

All executive directives, orders, and regulations inconsistent with this order, including but not limited to those issued to or by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from September 11, 2001, to January 20, 2009, concerning detention or the interrogation of detained individuals, are revoked to the extent of their inconsistency with this order.

Then there’s this:

Effective immediately, an individual in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government, or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States, in any armed conflict, shall not be subjected to any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual 2 22.3 (Manual).

So, what’s so big about the Army Field Manual?  It’s called setting and abiding by a standard that is in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, international treaty obligations and federal law.  It means no more episodes of “24″ playing out in Guantanamo or black sites in Poland.  You see, Jack Bauer is a TV character.  To move the plot along his forays into torture often lead to good information.  In the real world, harsh interrogation techniques often yield bullshit.

The order also calls for the closure of CIA operated detention facilities.  To the credit of some in the CIA, they were never for getting into the jailer’s business in the first place.  Obama established a task force to study and make recommendations on issues around agencies other than the Dept. of Defense employing Army Field Manual techniques and how to lawfully transfer detainees from one place to another, ostensibly the kinds of folks who have been picked up through the use of extraordinary rendition, some of who were innocent, one of whom was innocent and died in American custody in Afghanistan.

The Constitution and laws and the understanding of basic human rights are what separates us from the apes who live and think in the Middle Ages and seek to terrorize us.  Today, we began to reclaim the moral high ground.

My Ideas for the Obama ‘Citizens’ Briefing Book’

One Way to Deal With Torture Legacy:

If the country were not facing such an historic economic crisis, perhaps I would be one of those angered by signals that neither the incoming Congress, nor the Obama Administration, seem to have the will to investigate and potentially hold accountable those who broke the law in the areas of interrogation, detention and rendition during the past administration.

Here’s an idea – a truth commission.  What if the concept was based around answering the questions regarding the Constitution, the efficacy of torture, who was ultimately responsible, etc.  This could be done in such a way as to put off any public hearings or transparency until after a bipartisan panel of serious legal, policy experts and just plain citizens had a chance to pursue the issues with subpoena power under a media blackout.  Their product would be public.  In some manner, either through the office of the President or the Congress an acknowledgement would be made and a strong statement, law or EO would be enacted to guide the government through these issues in the future.  An acknowledgement could be made that any mistakes in judgement or action were the result of trying, out of the ordinary times (although this shouldn’t be an excuse).

Click this link to vote for this idea at change.gov

Initial Focus on the Bridge to Our Energy Future:

Our economy and society and is intertwined with petroleum – a single resource – that there is no single alternative on the horizon.  Many speak of a Manhattan or Apollo project for energy independence, but this economic is much to complex to be solved in a timeframe akin to either of those two great American achievements.

Think of the bridge with its major parts, the spans.  We can begin our Apollo-style project of basic research, advanced research, work on prototypes, testing, the development of economic models, etc.  But at the same time, we can also build the bridge, span by span.  One span may be the Pickens Plan, an effort that will attract private as well as government resources.  Another span could be an aggressive tax credit program for making existing American homes energy efficient.

This also has the benefit of being a communications or message construct which will help educate America as to the pervasiveness of petroleum and the strategic disadvantage we are in due to our dependence on this diminishing, primarily foreign supplied resource.

Click this link to vote for this idea at change.gov

Call to Action: Citizens Briefing Book to Close – Vote or Submit Your Ideas This Weekend

I would encourage anyone who is online this weekend to visit and participate in the Obama team’s Citizens’ Briefing Book.

Let go of the cynic in you for just a few minutes and give them the benefit of the doubt that the ideas being collected and the voting on those ideas will actually be considered in the Obama policy agenda.  The signup was easy and after that you can ideate and vote to your heart’s content.

I posted two ideas today, which I’ll write about later.  One deals with a potentially constructive way to handle the torture legacy and another speaks to the need for a bridge to the energy future, not just an Apollo-style grand solution.

The more we use web-based outreach efforts by government, perhaps the more they will be offered.  Perhaps this attempt at transparency, or at least government collection of ideas and opinion will have effect.

One thing I will say is that if government at various levels is going to seek information in this manner, government cannot just “reply” to the ideas which they find “easy”  to speak on.  Some of the highly voted ideas are not mainstream, but due to their “popularity” an acknowledgment from somewhere in government might go a long way to fighting cynicism.  The briefing book closes at 6 p.m. Sunday.

Click Here for the Obama Transition Citizens’ Briefing Book

Bin Laden Could Be Thinking – ‘Mission Accomplished’

The Bush Administration official in charge of reviewing practices at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has told the Washington Post that the U.S. tortured a Saudi national.

“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Earlier this week, an Obama transition official leaked that President-elect Barack Obama may issue an executive order to close the Guantanamo detention center.  A day later, the Pentagon, oblivious to the signal sent by the Obama team trotted out numbers alleging as many as 61 former inmates at Guantanamo had “returned” to their terrorist ways.

President George W. Bush and V.P. DICK Cheney have spent the last three weeks on a farewell tour of sorts doing interviews on their eight years in office.  Over the past five years, evidence has mounted that Bush Administration at the highest levels essentially sanctioned torture by CIA and military interrogators.  In the face of that evidence, neither the president or vice-president have admitted mistakes in their prosecution of the war on terror.  Today, a very credible member of their administration did so for them.

The Bushies are leaving office and trying their hardest to build a case for a positive legacy.  What many around the world will remember is torture, black sites and renditions.  In the wake of one of America’s most trying times – 9/11 – our leaders succumbed to their baser human instincts and turned their backs on the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.  They created a climate of fear rather than one of strength of purpose.  They tore at the unique American fabric in ways we may not even yet realize.  In some respects, Osama bin Laden must be thinking, “Mission Accomplished.”

DICK Cheney and State Sponsored Torture

VP DICK Cheney appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation this morning.  This interview wasn’t substantively different from any of the others he’s done in the past month:

Cheney also urged the Obama administration to continue the Bush administration’s interrogation policies.

“I would hope [Obama] would avoid doing what others have done in the past, which is letting the campaign rhetoric guide his judgment in this absolutely crucial area,” Cheney said. “We were very careful, we did everything by the book, and in fact we produced very significant results.”

So many problems with that statement, DICK.  There are a great many smart people, including former members of the Bush Administration who warned you and David Addington about getting too carried away with agressive interrogation techniques.  Chief among their concerns was something we patriots like to call the U.S. Constitution.  There’s also this other little concern known as the Geneva Convention.  You can argue all you want that our foes in the war on terror are not lawful combatants, but the rest of the world needs to somewhat agree, or, it looks like selective application of an international human rights treaty.  And, what about the old bromide that we’re not going to stoop to their level.  There’s so much more than campaign rhetoric behind the criticisms of the Bush Administration’s endorsement of torture.

Read more

Fox News’ Chris Wallace Gets Long Interview with Cheney and The Word “Torture” Is Not Uttered Once

Chris Wallace may come from the same gene pool of his dad, 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace, but he couldn’t carry his dad’s reporter’s notebook.

As I watched Wallace interview DICK Cheney today on Fox News Sunday, I was given more reason to lament the hard times our U.S. newspaper industry is experiencing.  The only pure journalists left are at the nation’s dailies, where journalism is a craft and the pursuit of truth and both sides of the story is relentless.

TV just doesn’t have the time, or the journalistic talent for the most part to act as the Fourth Estate, the Watchdog.  Wallace failed his country miserably today when he did not press Cheney on the U.S. torture policy in the wake of 9/11.  Part of the problem must me be that he’s an airhead — does he lack basic information or the ability to synthesize it?  The other part of the problem is that Fox is going to run out the Bush Administration string and remain the “Republican Network” until January 19.

Here’s another thing Wallace did today that will hopefully have the elder Wallace on the phone bawling him out.  He gave in to doublespeak, the euphemism.  In a word search of the interview with Cheney, not once does the word “torture” cross either one of these guys’ lips.  Here’s the closest either one ever comes to calling torture, torture:

I think you can have a robust interrogation program with respect to high-value detainees. -  Dick Cheney

There is a legitimate argument to be made that much of what the U.S. did under the Bush Administration in the so-called War on Terror actually exacerbated the problem in many parts of the world.  By setting up Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, black-site dententions and torture, they did more to dishonor the Constitution and rile up a generation of Third World extremists than they ever did to keep us safe.

The butcher’s bill for the arrogance and paranoia of Dick Cheney will likely be paid well into the future.  Chris Wallace didn’t even scratch the surface.

What Crisis? Dow Posts Third Biggest Gain Ever – Most Americans Don’t See the Sky Falling

Look, I know the stock market isn’t “the economy.”  But days like this will make it all the more difficult for Washington’s politicians to convince voters that $700 billion should be staked to bailout Wall Street’s financiers.

I was in a meeting today previewing a presentation I developed to communicate with a group of people over a thorny issue.  At one point, a colleague said to me, “Pelikan, you’re gonna like this.”

“Are we trying to educate or notify? This first part is good – you’re educating, but then you move to notifying.”

My colleague knew I’d like that feedback because she said she heard a political pundit using the same language to describe how the Bush Administration failed to get public support for the bailout.

I don’t know where she heard that analysis, but it’s good.  I still have yet to discuss this whole “crisis” with more than a couple of people who are four-square behind it. 

I think that pundit was right.  Henry Paulson said just in the last couple of months that the issues in the credit and banking system were “manageable.”  Then all of a sudden there’s a plan to make him king of the financial mountain.

There’s another reason why regular folks are skeptical.  It’s the rush.  The Bush Administration has a very poor record when it comes to public policy decisions hastily rammed down their collective throat:

1. WMD & Al-Qaeda running rampant in Iraq – There were no WMD and Al-Qaeda didn’t exist in Iraq until we destabilized the country.
2. Patriot Act – Constitution shredded
3. U.S. Official Torture Policy – Thanks to Dick Cheney, David Addington and John Yoo, Constitution shredded, treaties pissed on, FBI and Dept of Defense ignored, innocent people tortured along with bad guys who were tortured and gave erroneous information, Amerian moral authority erroded.

Now, 30 days before a presidential election, with less than a week to consider the problem, the Bush Administration wants to fork over $700 billion to investment bankers?

This can’t be good.

Tuesday a.m. – Cuyahoga Corruption, UHC fined, GM, DoJ Hiring, Obama, Tim Kaine, Torture

Ohio News

• Editorial: Cuyahoga reform FBI-style – Cleveland Plain Dealer
• City OKs streetcar study – Columbus Dispatch
• State fines United Health Care – Columbus Dispatch
• Editorial: Right to repeal – Columbus Dispatch
• Editorial: Which Way? – Columbus Dispatch
• Dann aide remains under scrutiny – Toledo Blade
• Editorial: Obama’s Journey – Toledo Blade
• GM to cut second shift – Dayton Daily News

National News

• Report faults aides in hiring at Justice – New York Times
• Obama, Clinton ticket seen as unlikely – New York Times
• 10 things to scratch from your worry list – New York Times
• Justice Dept. report cites illegal hiring practices – Washington Post

• Obama, Kaine in serious talks – Washington Post
• Op-Ed, Eugene Robinson: A torture paper trail – Washington Post

The Case Against Torture – Transcript: Bill Moyers inverview of Jane Mayer

Jane Mayer, a writer with the New Yorker and formerly of the Wall Street Journal has published her new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. She was interviewed Friday night on Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS. Moyers’ report on the Congressional hearings on Bush Administration-sanctioned torture and lengthy interview with Mayer was riveting television. It also made me feel like I’ve been tuned out of a debate that no American should ignore.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee subcommittee which conducted the hearings on torture, detainee treatment, etc., did so over the course of around six weeks. They should have had these four hearings, back to back, four days in a row and gotten more of the public’s attention to this issue.

Philippe Sands, a University College of London law professor has also written a book detailing story behind the so-called torture memo signed by then SecDef Rumsfeld. Material from Sands’ book, Torture Team, became this article in Vanity Fair.

 

Now is the point in the post where I should write something about the rule of law, unintended consequences, and a presidency which tramples the Constitution, U.S. and international law. But, Sands said it best in his prepared testimony before the House Judiciary Committee:

From these conversations it became clear to me that the Administration has spun a narrative that is false, claiming that the impetus for the new interrogation techniques came from the bottom-up. That is not true: the abuse was a result of pressures and actions driven from the highest levels of government. The Administration claims that it simply followed the law. My investigation indicated that – driven by ideology – the Administration consciously sought legal advice to set aside international constraints on detainee interrogations. The Administration relied on a small number of political appointees, lawyers with no real background in military law, with extreme views on executive power, and with an abiding contempt for international rules like the Geneva Conventions. These are rules that the United States has done more to promote and put in place than maybe any other country. As result, under international law war crimes were committed: I have no doubt that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions was violated, alongside provisions of the 1984 Convention prohibiting Torture. The spectre of war crimes was raised by US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in the 2006 judgment in Hamdan v Rumsfeld. That judgment corrected the illegality of President Bush’s determination that none of the detainees at Guantanamo had any rights under Geneva.

For the complete transcript of Bob Moyers’ interview of Jane Mayer Read more