Calls For Investigator/Prosecutor Increase
As Glenn Greenwald notes this morning, along with the New York Times
lead article in the Opinion section. Calls across the nation are increasing for the appointment of a special prosecutor/investigator to look long, and deeply at the abuses visited upon prisoners in the hands of U.S. invading and occupying troops.
Jonathan Turley has been especially present for a few months now. He speaks with the outrage of one who truly loves the law and is both sickened and shamed by the cruel and lawless behavior of the Bush Administration. He pointed out just two days ago to Keith Olbermann, that:
ultimately it will depend on citizens, and whether they will remain silent in the face of a crime that has been committed in plain view. . . . It is equally immoral to stand silent in the face of a war crime and do nothing.
He's absolutely correct. If these crimes, these vile acts of depravity are allowed to go unpunished or even unexamined, the damage to our nation might be irredeemable. With the pardons of Nixon, the commutations of other sentences we allowed the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Buchanan, Colson, and many others to remain in public life, and eventually return to power. Without having to admit that what they had done in the service of a corrupt administration, and a corrupt and vile ideology was ever wrong. No, they say, they were merely understood, or the victims of a rat like John Dean.
Not prosecuting those at the top who ordered the crimes to be committed allowed the idea that "if the President does it, it's not illegal," to flourish.
These are the results of that.
The torture ordered by the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of Defense, and many others was a clear crime. A crime against U.S. law, the laws of nations, and simple human decency.
They must, in our country, or in the World Court, be held to account for their actions.
Nothing less than the soul of our nation is at stake.
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