Cheney’s War

President Obama has ordered that an investigation be opened into the killing of hundreds of Taliban prisoners, for which the Bush Administration is at least indirectly responsible. The incident occurred in Afghanistan in 2001, and was perpetrated by Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord who left his alliance with Soviets in order to join United States ranks after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Dostum was in charge of moving the prisoners from Konduz, in the north of the country, to a prison near Mazar-i-Sharif. There are witnesses who maintain that they saw Dostum’s forces burning bodies, and a U.S. NGO even reported the existence of at least one mass grave. Although General Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, supported the investigation, Bush’s government would have prevented it from being carried out.

These revelations about the alleged killing of the Taliban members and the White House’s attempts to prevent the investigation come after it was made known that Vice-President Cheney, one of those most responsible for the “War on Terror,” ordered, illegally, that a antiterrorist plan be hidden from Congress. The administration and federal security and intelligence agencies seem headed for a confrontation with their recent past. The reason is that the fight against terrorism that was directed from the White House during Bush’s mandate was not just politically incorrect, but could also, according to what is starting to be revealed, involve serious crimes.

The situation is not easy for Obama to manage. New details about the alleged dirty war against the Taliban have forced him to revisit the initial approach with which he intended to tackle the legacy of eight years of neoconservative fanaticism. It is one thing that, as a newcomer to the White House, Obama might commit himself to looking to the future from a political point of view; it is yet another thing that, from a legal point of view, he may, or must, prevent the elucidation of some of those facts that will eventually be heard in a court of law. The problem does not center so much on what to do with the governmental policies that were behind these actions, in which ex-vice-president Cheney has a prominent role, as on determining how far responsibility extends.

If the revelations about the killing of Taliban members and the approach of the Bush administration are confirmed, the eight years of neoconservatism in the White House will have to be judged in a different light. It is not that Bush and his team committed excesses, because they were swept up in the urgency of the fight against terrorism; rather, it would be that the risk of regression was very real. To pervert a democratic system, as the neoconservatives intended, it was enough to have few scruples; in order to repair their damage, Obama has before him a long and difficult road.