Saturday, March 14, 2009

A Real Criminal Investigation of Bush/Cheney; No Truth Commission!

Posted in by Illuminated One | Edit
A Real Criminal Investigation of Bush/Cheney; No Truth Commission!

By Martin Garbus, Huffington Post. Posted March 9, 2009.


It's really quite simple. Truth and Reconciliation commissions, Congressional committees and blue ribbon commissions like the 9/11 Commission, are not deterrents to torture, illegal surveillance or lawyers on the Justice Department who attempted to justify the torture. They have a very limited function.

But they don't punish anyone; don't deter anyone, don't even put pressure on the people who committed the acts and cannot really get at the truth to determine responsibility. They do not bring the full force of America's 230 years of law down on the offenders. They don't truly help rein in the powers of future presidents or defense secretaries who want to do the same or similar acts the next time they react to what they see as an extraordinary crisis. And different presidents, Democrats and Republicans from Woodrow Wilson and the prosecutions during the Red Scare, to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the internment of 110,000 Japanese, Lyndon Johnson, lying about the Gulf of Tonkin and to dramatically increase troop strength, nearly always find crisis and overreact.

SOURCE: ALTER NET

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