Human Rights Law

Subpoena Power, Sugarcane and Sundries on Sunday

By Alexa

President George W. Bush ought to pardon any official from cabinet secretary on down who might plausibly face prosecution for interrogation methods approved by administration lawyers.

More on how I'm not feelin' it, dude -- WTF? after I dis my own people and tell you how Barack Obama listened to my wise counsel and now that Barack listens to Alexa again, all the planets and stars of the universe align to assure his success - and ours. (Note to Barack: The purple tie makes you look . . . well, almost guapo.) Only when I squint, mind.
I Am Cuba

This week marks the 49th anniversary of Fidel Castro's revolution. A day that enshrouds mi Papi with big time desolación and a supersized side of bitter. And since all Cuban girls are raised to think of Papi only slightly secondary to God, this ain't my favorite week of the year. You think you don't like it? Try listening to it for the 27th year of your life. (I remember Radio Marti from the crib.)

I've tried to introduce some levity into the situation (Raul Castro provides me with an endless supply of malicious glee). I've even speculated that the Cuba Papi remembers simply doesn't exist anymore. Did my attempts change anyone's mind?

Do you think a single exile in Miami-Dade County isn't living for the day when that hijo de la gran puta Castro finally dies and they can reclaim their Once and Future Cuba?

The tendency to remember only the good of a place you miss is fierce. Your beloved homeland never looked so good as after you left it - or lost it. Hate to interject facts in the midst of a perfectly good week-long wake, but it must be asked: How much fun could it've been to live in the iron fist of Fulgencio Batista, a malcriado of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy?

Take a drive along the Tamiami Trail and you'll see a series of billboards with slogans, created by some of the most fiercely nationalistic morenitos on God's earth.

Lo nuestra es lo nuestra

What's Ours Is Ours

Although it is true that Batista had a solid gold telephone, it's equally true that the entire island lived like campesinos in the most extreme conditions of poverty. If you were a tourist or a companero or culito, pay no mind, party on 'til the break of dawn. If you were everyone else, well . . you were like Batista in his early years, working for United Fruit Company in what can only be described as a low level position (basurero.)

Batista was a garbageman, but I submit to you: So what? It was an honest living, and Batista had no education or influence or social position before Roosevelt decided the viejo would be his Man in Havana. When was that? Around the time Batista set fire to the canefields with white phosphorus.

If you want to sing the praises of Castro, Batista or even the most famous non-Cuban of all, Che Guevara, feel free. You don't need my squeaky soprano in that choir. I detest all three. You can look forward (haha) to some discussion of the Cuban Revolution this week, beginning of course, with Castro's History Will Absolve Me. Misery loves company. How many in the Bush maladministration think that history will absolve them, too?

Going back to the Newsweek piece that made me scream obscenities, let's explore the reasons why Stuart Taylor believes pardons for all the torture administration are the best idea evah.

What this country needs most is a full and true accounting of what took place. The incoming president should convene a truth commission, with subpoena power, to explore every possible misdeed and derive lessons from it. But this should not be a criminal investigation, which would only force officials to hire lawyers and batten down the hatches.

Full and true accounting? No question. I want to know every detail. But truth commission? Please tell me when this bunch of maladroits ever spoke the truth, with or without subpoena power.

For the record, Harold Ford agrees with Taylor, on the basis that "the Constitution doesn't poll very well."

I disagree with Harold Ford on nearly everything, but here, he may have a tiny point. The Constitution is important to me and if you're reading, it's important to you. But the corporate media, lobbyists, influential persons and your neighbors or relatives who watch Fox News Channel don't feel the same.

If you doubt it, let me remind you that even the most self-described progressives on the internet were just recently bemoaning the Obama Betrayal. Not his vote on FISA but the fact that many of us call it a betrayal (and it is, but it won't be the last) and although we'll vote for him, we've lost confidence in the vato. Bloggers I considered intelligent said things like:

FISA is no big deal to me.

What's the big deal about FISA? I'm worried about health care. I don't care about FISA.

I'm not hiding anything. WYFP with FISA?

Kos announced he wasn't giving Obama a $2,300 campaign donation! GIVE HIM HIS MONEY, KOS!!

. . . and so on and so forth.

Pendejo, please. I don't like being the bearer of bad news, but did you somehow miss high school government class and discussion of the Fourth Amendment?

My next question: How are you going to react when Obama pardons Bush?

This is practically guaranteed. Troll ratings won't prevent it. Blog posts won't, either. Do you think Obama wept shameful tears at being taken to task by a few defenders of the Constitution online, the last hold-outs, over his FISA vote? Politics as usual. I know some of you have idolized this candidate as your Messiah. And frankly, that's on you. Invest your faith in Saint Barack and you'll be disappointed. Or remember that he's a politician and don't get outraged when he acts like one. Your choice.

A criminal investigation would only hinder efforts to determine the truth, and preclude any apologies. It would spur those who know the most to take the Fifth. Any prosecutions would also touch off years of partisan warfare.

Viva zee bullshit. What would an apology mean to pobrecito Omar Khadr?

If we follow Stuart Taylor with this Big Gulp Slurpee, when exactly do Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, Haynes, Gonzales et al sing kumbayah and cleanse their souls with confessions to the American Public? When exactly will they begin to consider the cost of their accumulated sins against Iraqis and Afghans and Arabs whom they've brutalized and killed for years?

The grave nature of these sins and wrongs can't even be calculated while we have men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mi'jos, I can normally chat happily in a hurricane, but even I flinch at the inevitability of the jihad these clowns have rained down our innocent children's and grandchildren's heads for decades? millenia? to come. You can't expect anyone to not hate us for what we've done.

Then five Supreme Court justices gave the administration a nasty surprise. Rejecting the views of a federal appeals court, President Bush, the OLC and four other Supreme Court justices, the majority held that Geneva does protect Qaeda members and other Guantánamo detainees. This brought into play the federal War Crimes Act, under which Geneva violations can be prosecuted as federal crimes.

But any such prosecutions would probably fail. Congress has retroactively amended the War Crimes Act to block any prosecutions for brutal interrogation methods short of torture. And officials could raise a nearly airtight defense of good-faith reliance on advice of counsel-OLC memos on approved methods would be like "get out of jail free" cards.

I'm not an Old Testament kinda girl, but one can't help but wonder at the possibility of justice in those very stark and uncompromising terms. I'm not advocating violence, keep your pantaloons on. I believe in nothing short of a full and complete investigation and justice for all. Reparations to the victims, their families, and restitution by whatever means are available. None of this Convenient Christian Spirit as Stuart advocates, most likely looking askance at this date on his calendar.

What say you?

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on July 20, 2008 (boomark / email).