I've seen a few diaries in the last day or two bemoaning Barack Obama's decision that, "Those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice... will not be subject to prosecution."
Torturers are war criminals, I hear. These people committed terrible acts and should be held accountable, I hear. The only way to ensure this doesn't happen again is to punish those responsible, I hear.
I suppose it should be no surprise that Daily Kos is a haven for idealists - people like my uncle, a Vietnam veteran in Minnesota who regularly votes for Dennis Kucinich in presidential primaries. People that say that we need to vote our consciences, that we cannot compromise our ideals for simple expediency. I used to feel like that, too, once. And then I grew up.
I love Daily Kos. It's full of people who want the same things I want from America. It's full of people who are well informed enough to care when scientists make new progress unraveling the mystery of disappearing honey bees. But sometimes, the chorus of like-minded individuals can turn it into an echo chamber to rival conservative talk radio. Torture is one such issue.
I care about torture. A lot. I have a heavy background in psychology, so I'm particularly aware of how worthless it is as an interrogation tactic. I have a heavy background in religion as well, and I cannot stress how strong are my moral objections. Torture is wrong, make no mistake.
It's also not particularly important.
Torture is, like it or not, a hot-button issue in today's society. Maybe in another four years, after Obama has had time to swing political discourse away from the depths to which it sunk under the Bush administration, the American people will get behind the idea that torture in all its forms is wrong. Unfortunately, given the widespread approval for capital punishment, I doubt most people care what we do to "terrorists", and I don't know if that's really going to change. But for better or wor... no, plainly for worse, torture is a hot-button issue.
Jack Bauer can't be wrong, you know. And if there's a ticking time bomb scenario, we have to do whatever it takes to keep Americans safe. Even if it means nuking the entire east Asian plateau so hard it glows for the next five millenia. Americans MUST be protected. And it's wrong to prosecute, or even vilify, those people who make the hard choices to keep Americans safe.
Torture is a hot-button issue, and in today's political climate it's a great way to lose political capital on a boondoggle. Obviously to anyone with a brain, justice is justice and the determination of whether a person has committed a crime should be entirely apolitical. But it's not. Thank the Republican party, which has been looking for payback since Watergate. We all know that the Clinton impeachment had nothing to do with justice. We all know that Alberto Gonzales did everything in his power to subvert his very own DOJ into a latter-day Republican politburo. The sad fact of 30 years of Republican rule is that justice IS political in the eyes of the American people. And whether or not they're culpable, Democrats in government get tarred with the same brush as Republicans, simply because Republicans have been so egregious about it all.
Torture is a hot-button issue, and Obama has a very, very fine line to walk in bringing the record to light and letting justice be served. Because he could lose all his political capital fighting this fight, and I suspect that there are few things that could be worse for the nation, or even the world, than Obama squandering his political capital in this way.
I want to see Yoo, Bybee, Addington, and all the rest indicted, tried, and sentenced. But I don't want to see Bush or Cheney indicted, and I don't want to see CIA operatives or military personnel needlessly indicted. Of course, if CIA or military personnel acted in bad faith regarding the OLC memos, put them on trial. If they went beyond even the Bush administration's flimsy defenses, then they lose their political protection. Even Republicans will be willing to disavow them.
But Bush, Cheney, and low-level personnel who were just following OLC guidelines in good faith? Pursuing these people would just lead the nation down a rabbit hole of conservative propaganda, and plenty of people would buy it. Most Americans don't pay enough attention to the news to know what's going on in their world. Most Americans, and an awful lot of my friends, will buy into the conservative line that these are the grossest of political prosecutions. Because that's a story we all know from the Clinton era, and it's easy to convince people that the same story is being retold. First the Republicans brought spurious indictments against Clinton; now the Democrats are doing the same thing to Bush, Cheney, and a whole lot of men and women who were just following orders in good faith.
Do I think these people, all of them, did horrible things of which they should be ashamed? Yes. Do I think they deserve to face justice? Yes. Do I want to see that they do?
No.
Because like I said, frankly, torture is not a big deal. Not when you compare it to the other problems we're facing right now.
The economy may be stabilizing, but as a nation we're still locked into a deregulationist legal framework. We need to reinstitute good financial regulations, to protect us from the cycle of boom and bust that's inherent to unregulated capitalist economies. The human suffering created through financial deregulation exceeds the human suffering created through torturing terror suspects.
We need to modernize our energy grid and stop relying on fossil fuels. Most scientists think we're within a few years of peak oil, if not already past it. Reliance on fossil fuels constitutes no less than a clear and present danger to the survival of world civilization as we know it. We need to change, or we will die. Without powerful new initiatives modernizing our energy technologies, we're staring down the barrel of a gun: war between China and Russia over the undeveloped oil fields in the Siberian tundra. And even if that doesn't come to pass, as oil production dwindles, we'll see crises like the gas situation last summer/fall happening constantly. The human suffering created through fossil fuel use exceeds the human suffering created through torturing terror suspects.
I could go on. Education. Science. Health care. On point after point, our country - our world - is in dire need of change. I can't remember the diarist, but back during Obama's trip through Europe following the G20 summit, an astute dKos member pointed out:
Barack Obama is the only popular politician left in the world.
Torture is important, just like revoking capital punishment is important. But if I was setting priorities for the Obama administration, I would put torture prosecutions very low on the list. Yes, they matter, but they matter much less than the other problems we face.
When I've expressed these opinions before, I've been roundly criticized by people who tell me that Democratic pragmatism is what let the Bush administration ride roughshod over the constitution. No. What let the Bush administration ride roughshod over the constitution was that it was staffed by a cadre of sociopathic ideologues who believed fanatically in the doctrine of the unitary executive. Sure, some Democrats voted for the warrantless wiretapping program; but did it matter? The Bush administration didn't even follow the rules they themselves laid out. Sure, some Democrats voted to authorize the use of military force in Iraq, but does anyone seriously believe that the war would have turned into today's travesty of blood and treasure if competent, pragmatic Democrats were helming the country instead of the "We will be greeted as liberators" crowd?
Idealism by those in power is what got us into this mess, not pragmatism by those in the minority. To say that pragmatism is the problem is to risk repeating the mistakes of the Bush administration. We need to prioritize. We need to look at what this country needs most, and work toward THOSE ends.
And frankly, what this country needs most is NOT the prosecution of low-level CIA functionaries.