The Bush Administration, On the Bench

Six months after his inauguration, U.S. president Barack Obama is being pulled along by Congress to dig up and try in court the many alleged crimes committed by the Bush administration in the war against terrorism after 9/11.

He has resisted doing so in fear of losing his first term in office to a witch hunt that would make him openly confront the Republican Party, while consuming a good part of his time and effort, and moving the public’s attention and resources away from the three big battles: the recession, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In taking on the task, he risks his political future, and surely, his re-election. He is also worried about the boomerang effect than an exhumation of his predecessor’s doings could have, in the case of another 9/11.

Although it would be an inconvenience, and the price is high, democracy cannot look the other way. The U.S. cannot ignore bad behavior, such as that of former Vice President Dick Cheney and other high ranking officials of the Bush administration, who, for sake of security, sacrificed U.S. and international laws for years.

The most recent pieces of information found confirm the worst suspicions. In a letter dated June 24th to the intelligence committees of Congress, the current head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, admitted that the agency, by orders of Cheney, had been hiding information from the legislature (violating the Law of National Security of 1947 and other prior laws). This was a secret plan, in operation since 2001, that undertook the selective assassinations of al-Qaeda members.

The offense, according to the U.S. legislation, would not be in the selective assassinations of the enemies of war, but in the hiding of the plan.

Some days ago, parts of a report commissioned by Congress was published to five inspectors of the main secret services. This confirmed and increased what was already known about another of Cheney’s creations: the program of electronic eavesdropping on Americans. This listening in was done without judicial authorization, both within and outside of the U.S., and is a crime punishable by U.S. and international laws.

In the beginning of April, the Justice Department admitted to the systematic use of methods of torture, passed in 2002 by the main members of the Bush administration and by leading officials of Congress. This included water boarding described in the interrogations of those under arrest in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by members of al-Qaeda.

So torture is another crime that implicates them, with Cheney at the helm. This crime is justified by two arguments, each more deceptive that the other. The first was the claim that torture was effective in order to avoid very serious attacks and [the second] was that they assumed the approval of the judicial and the legislative branches.

The torture began months before the justice and legislative departments approved of any techniques and the effectiveness of these methods is still yet to be proven. However, the examples of the ineffectiveness of these torture methods would fill several encyclopedias. It is extensively shown that subject to torture, few human beings are unwilling to say what their tormentor wants.

Philip D. Zelikow, who advised Condoleezza Rice in 2005 and 2006 over the matter, has publicly recognized how the law became so twisted. The legislators who allegedly authorized the torture methods – such as the current speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi – claim they voted in favor of it because the CIA had deceived them.

The Democrats demand a commendable answer from Obama. Lies or deceit on the other side of the Atlantic was always much more serious than the actual alleged crime itself.

The intelligence committees of the capitol were established in the middle of the 1970s in order to avoid further assaults like those of the Secret Service: let’s not forget that the CIA is only one of 16 agencies, and not even the most important. They have committed crimes since their beginning, and according to all the indications, have returned to committing crimes between 2001 and 2008 by order of the Bush administration.

After knowing the conclusions of the Church Commission, President Ford banned assassinations through an executive order in 1976, but the prohibition did not include enemies of war. It seems clear that Bush and Cheney never understood the difference between assassinating a member of al-Qaeda by a shot to the neck or with a missile dropped from a plane.

Does Obama understand the difference? The U.S. justices stand divided, but the Supreme Justice set a precedent in 1989, passing judgment that the assassination of terrorists does not violate the law of 1976.

The search for the truth and the persecution of the crime will always have a price, but one must pay for the good of democracy. Miss the chance, and it will cost even more to set a precedent than it costs to remain in the shadows of Bush, incompetent and blind. Though equally responsible, Cheney and others will be free to leave their posts as if nothing happened; this after violating U.S. and international law.

In order to avoid this impunity, Obama should have supported Attorney General Eric Holder, who already seems inclined to name a special public prosecutor and set off his own investigation. The sooner they do it, the better.