Legal Commentary

Looking Forward By Looking Back

By Big Tent Democrat

Much to the chagrin of the Beltway Torture enablers and those who attempt to mainstream Bush/Cheneyism, President Barack Obama is acting forcefully on the civil liberties questions that have concerned many Americans. I have written about the developments here. One that escaped my notice was President Obama's Executive Order establishing a task force to review detention policy options. The task force is no small thing in that it includes the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Task Force will be charged with:

[C]onduct[ing] a comprehensive review of the lawful options available to the Federal Government with respect to the apprehension, detention, trial, transfer, release, or other disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations, and to identify such options as are consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice.

It seems to me that this Task Force will have no choice but to investigate and review what has occurred in the last 8 years. To look forward, this Task Force must look back.

For, in the words of Santayana:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Beltway, complicit, directly and indirectly, with the abuses and, yes, crimes, of the past 8 years, would like nothing more than to have the past 8 years forgotten. But we can not allow this for what happened the last 8 years must never ever be repeated.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 22, 2009 (boomark / email).