In her NPR interview today, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice responded to these questions:
| And Guantanamo wasn't sort of the only issue that tarnished the U.S. image. There is also the treatment of terror suspects, waterboarding, other methods of torture ... Well, you know that I'm going to have to object, because the United States has always kept to its international obligations, which include international obligations on the convention on torture. The United States, the president, was determined after Sept. 11 to do everything that was legal and within those obligations, international and domestic laws, to make sure that we prevented a follow-on attack. And information to prevent an attack is the long pole in the tent when you're dealing with terrorism. You can't wait until somebody's committed a crime and then go and punish them. ... Are you — but are you worried about you, personally, though? Because there were all these reports that you were involved in pretty thorough discussions about techniques to get information out. I was national security adviser, and, quite clearly, you would expect the policies of the United States to come through the National Security Council. But I absolutely was — believed and was told and continued to believe that we were doing so under our treaty obligations and under our domestic laws. And in those circumstances, I really do think that the president of the United States and those responsible, in positions of responsibility, have an obligation to try and protect the American people. |
Still peddling that BS about how you and the President didn't know about the ongoing torture? Still calling what was done legal but implying that even if it wasn't, it was necessary? Pardon me while I puke.
On “Countdown,” Tuesday night, Keith Olbermann rightly took Rice to task over her comments. But he made a debatable prediction:
| Well, you can object all you want. And you and the boss can have been determined all you want. But in terms of keeping this country’s international obligations on the Convention on Torture and doing everything that was legal and within those laws, you failed. You utterly, absolutely, no question about it, failed. Didn’t come close. Madam Secretary, you, the President and the rest of the cabal will go down in the history books as a bunch of extra-constitutional, treaty-bustin’ rodeo clowns. |
If there's prosecution for these war crimes, or if there's a full-bore investigation, or, short of either of these, if there's some version of a Truth and Reconciliation commission (a la Rwanda), then maybe the cabal will be vilified by the history books, and our children, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will get the straight skinny on the Cheney-Bush years.
Without some such accounting, those books will never reflect the truth and we and our progeny will be faced with great piles of garbage about those years, just as we now are afflicted with phony assertions about how the Nixon and Reagan teams didn't do anything all that bad.
Prosecution followed by the appropriate punishment upon conviction would be the best choice, the best hope that what happened this time won't happen in the future, the best hope that Condi Rice and others in this administration won't be transformed after a few years of memoirs and other obfuscation into American heroes.
Short of fulfilling these best hopes, let's at the very least not pretend we can have reconciliation without truth.
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The Overnight News Digest has been posted and includes the story September 11 families denounce Guantanamo trials.