Why Bush Must Go to Prison
Do you believe in “intelligent design”? It’s the argument that the universe is so logical that it must have been planned out by a master creator. Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, single-handedly disproves the existence of such a God.
Friedman is the nation’s most prominent opinion writer. He wins journalistic prizes. Audiences shell out big bucks to hear him speak. Book collections of his columns become bestsellers for months on end. Yet the dude can’t write. I’m not talking about his opinions. Friedman doesn’t know how to arrange nouns and verbs in a way that is pleasing to readers of the English language. He is to writing what George W. Bush is to oratory.
Stranger still is Friedman’s role as über barometer of conventional wisdom. When Congress, media tastemakers and thus most Americans bought into Bush’s Saddam-has-WMDs story, Friedman did too. When the Iraq War started to go wrong but officially acceptable opinion wanted to stay and “finish the job,” so did he. When everyone threw up their hands in disgust, Friedman was there with them.
Of course, he was wrong. He’s always wrong. But he’s always in perfect sync with conventional wisdom–which is almost always wrong.
Friedman’s prose appears to have barely survived the linguistic equivalent of a harsh interrogation technique: “Because that is when Al Qaeda’s remnants will try to throw a Hail Mary pass–that is, try to set off a bomb in a U.S. city–to obscure its defeat by moderate Arabs and Muslims in the heart of its world.” Did he get this sports metaphor from some think tank neocon, or was he lame enough to make it up himself? Whether he leads or follows the average mean of the mainstream, Friedman’s role as the nation’s ultimate bellwether is what makes him worth reading.
Which is why it’s so disquieting to read Friedman support of Obama’s refusal to prosecute torturers. Times Tom may be a fool. His logic is certainly hopeless. But the people who matter–Congress, editors and producers at the big papers and broadcast networks and thus most of the public–agree with him.
Seven years after accounts of torture by American soldiers and CIA operatives first became public, the revelation that one detainee had been waterboarded 183 times in a single month has sticken a Katrina-like nerve. Conventional, mainstream, average, generic U.S. public opinion wants something done about it–an investigation, maybe prosecution of a few of the attorneys who authored the Torture Memos–but nothing close to genuine accountability. Friedman’s April 29th column reflects this internal conflict:
“Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, has testified to Congress that more than 100 detainees died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, with up to 27 percent of these declared homicides by the military. They were allegedly kicked to death, shot, suffocated or drowned. Look, our people killed detainees [Friedman’s emphasis], and only a handful of those deaths have resulted in any punishment of U.S. officials.”
By Friedman’s math, the military admits to the torture-murders of 27 people. He’s low-balling. He doesn’t include detainees murdered by the military in other places like Guantánamo or the Navy’s fleet of prison ships, killed by the CIA at secret prisons, or slaughtered by foreign torturers after being “extraordinarily renditioned” by the U.S. Even so, 27 is a lot. No one would suggest letting a serial killer off the hook for 27 torture-murders.
Friedman does. “The president’s decision to expose but not prosecute those responsible,” he writes, is justified. Why? Because “justice taken to its logical end here would likely require bringing George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials to trial, which would rip our country apart.”
“Rip our country apart.” Wow.
Granting prosecutorial immunity to war criminals like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell is already “tearing the country apart.”
First and foremost, it confirms many people’s suspicion that there are two systems of justice in America: one for the rich and powerful and another for you and me. If I kidnap a man and hold him overnight, I face the death penalty or life in prison. Bush and his top officials ordered the kidnapping of tens of thousands of men as young as 12 years of age, the torture of thousands and the murder of hundreds. Until America’s official mass murderers are treated as harshly as its freelance psychos, Americans will view their justice system as something to be feared rather than respected.
Not only does extending executive privilege into retirement–and not even conservatives think there’s a legal basis for this–encourage lawless behavior by current and future political leaders, it feeds partisanship. Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a BJ. He was also disbarred (and rightly so). Nixon, on the other hand, resigned before being impeached and never faced a jury. If Bush and his minions get away with murder, does that mean that only Democrats are subject to the rule of law?
If the officials who ordered torture, the legislators who let it happen, the lawyers who justified it and the men and women who carried it out are not held accountable, the message will not be–as Obama seems to believe-that the Bush years represented some weird aberration in American history. Obama will be telling the world that the 2008 election changed nothing, that legal illegality could return at the drop of a hat (or the detonation of a dirty bomb), that his Administration protects the criminals and thus endorses their crimes. Millions of Americans, many of whom voted for him, already feel alienated from a country that expresses values that it doesn’t live up to. Refusing to prosecute Bush deepens their cynicism.
Cynicism, Mssrs. Friedman and Obama, is what’s ripping the guts out of America every second of every day. Only consistent and fair application of the law can begin the healing.
COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL
22 Comments.
I'm all for freedom of speech, but when does publicly defending these pieces of shit (for any reason, in any way) become prosecutable as being an accessory after the fact, all the way to the top of the current administration? I'd like to know.
In case I'm not clear enough in my above question, by "pieces of shit", I mean the alleged Bush criminals, not the alleged muslim ones.
What must other countries think about our justice system? And what can people, who really care about this, do to get some prosecutorial action going?
Granting prosecutorial immunity to war criminals like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell is already "tearing the country apart."Indeed, it has already ripped the "moral fiber" right out of America's spine.
More to the point, Reverend, is that any delay in prosecuting them is obstruction of justice.
Anybody who claims that they should not be prosecuted is guilty of obstructing justice.
…what can people, who really care about this, do to get some prosecutorial action going?
Elect Russ Feingold president in 2012. I can't really think of anything else right now.
Right behind Tom "Chicken Little" Friedman is Garrison "Chicken Little" Keillor. GK seems to forget that failing to pursue the vote fraud in the 2000 Presidential election (because it would rip our country apart) got us Bush, Cheney and the rest of the war criminals of the Bush administration.
America finally had enough of Joe McCarthy in the early 1950s, but during the time we allowed him free reign to ignore our Constitution, he did irreparable damage to many innocent lives, even people who had served honorably, and some who were wounded, in WWII and Korea while Joe McCarthy lied about HIS military service and no one said beans about it. Sound familiar with George W. AWOL Bush?
One doesn't have to be a conspiracy nut, either, to believe Lee Harvey Oswald is the scapegoat for a TEAM of assassins who killed JFK. Gerald "No Helmet" Ford went to his grave pronouncing the Warren Report fact directly from GOD's lips.
It's nearly impossible to comment on the traditional state of affairs of our government and military without descending to expletives and rants. But after the two terms of Bush, words no longer work. There just isn't any word or combination of words, even expletives, to express the madness of the Bush era. While a total fuckup like Rush Limbaugh gets PAID for labeling Obama a killer of Black Teens (the Somali pirates). Ahhhhh!
Ted,
If you prosecute the small fish then that will lead to prosecuting the whales and the sharks, aka Bush, cheney, Rumsfield, Rice
and some top geneals down the chain of command. THAT WILL NEVER
HAPPEN.
You visited this subject before several times before with no avail. So, Ted, it is time to give it a rest and move on.
IMHO that the flaring again of the torture issue by the release of the four memos is nothing but a distraction from the power-that-be to divert attention from the trillions of dollars being shoveled to the fraudsters and banksters of Wall Street. It is make-belief bullshitting without any substance.
Yes, there is system of justice for the powerful and connected and
differnt system for the common folks, but who said life is fair.??!!
Obama is like Gerald Ford, but more cowardly. Ford actually pardoned Nixon.
Then again Ford only pardoned Nixon for a cover-up of a 2-bit robbery, not the millions of Asians he murdered.
If criminal justice actually existed in the U.S., Obama would be pardoning Bush for the murder of all the people killed by the illegal war(s) he started, not just this torture issue…
Ted,
You make a great argument for why Bush and Co. should be prosecuted and, to me, it makes sense. Why and how do other people see it differently? I don't understand how it doesn't. How can they justify letting them off the hook. When the picture of Michael Phelps smoking a bong came out, the Sherrif in North Carolina or wherever wanted to prosecute, but we'll let Bush and Cheney get away with murder. (they never did prosecute Phelps, but our priorities in this country are ass backwards.
Anon 2:32 PM. What people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill Kristol and countless others have long since realized is that their arguments don't need to make sense. Defending the status quo NEVER has to make sense, because it is backed up by the authority of status quo power. Consequently, it never takes real courage to recite the lies of power as opposed to speaking truth to power.
Friedman is choosing his position and then coming up with the best argument he can to defend it, even if that argument is erroneous and comical. However, the burden of proof ALWAYS falls on the advocate who seeks change, never on the people who stand for the status quo.
Ted Rall can make exquisite arguments one after another, and nothing will ever actually happen. Not because Ted is incorrect, but because the likes of Dick Cheney get away with simply not responding to demands from the populace he supposedly is charged with serving.
That's what you get when you elect fascists to government. Personally I'm content just to understand the circumstances, I feel no responsibility to commit myself to see that things change.
"Justice" in the U.S.A. is for those that can afford it. The rest get "The Law". Case in point, o.J. as long as he could afford "Justice" he got it. When he could no longer afford "Justice" he got "The Law".
synic said…
Ted,
If you prosecute the small fish then that will lead to prosecuting the whales and the sharks, aka Bush, cheney, Rumsfield, Rice
and some top geneals down the chain of command. THAT WILL NEVER
HAPPEN.
———–
Why not?
Here's the deal:
Do you really think the System is going to allow Itself to be prosecuted?
If Obama seriously started to try to prosecute those murdering bastards, he would be killed long before such a project could get off the ground.
They know that. Obama knows that. I know that. You do, too.
So I guess you're right when you conclude that Obama's wrong to allow this to slide. Of course it's wrong for that to happen.
Generally speaking, though…the bad guys win.
Speaking of 'justice,' many names have begun to appear as potential 'minority' candidates to replace Justice Souter. No one, however, has mentioned the late Sammy Davis Jr. (Black-American AND Jewish) exhuming himself as a member of the Ghoulish Minority, white wig and oversized gavel, the Ghoulish Minority sorely lacking representation in America's legal system…Here Comes the Judge! Here Comes the Judge! The Court's in Session! The Court's in Session! Hey, if George W. Bush can be (p)Resident for eight years, Sammy Davis Jr. can be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Friedman is a fool. What's worse is that he's not clever either. http://tinyurl.com/9kjgog
Susan, prosecuting the small fry has never lead further up the food chain. Remember Reagan?
Ronny Raygun's administration still holds the Guiness Book of World Records for corrupt executive branch administrators bought to justice. Yet, some of the convicted, like Vice Admiral Poindexter, were brought back for big-fish positions.
Also, something odd showed up when I went to look at how corrupt Reagan's reign was: he is being actively white-washed. [Maybe that's what laid-off newspaper reporters do for a living now?]
The most corrupt president, according to any search, is Clinton. I think Obama should rethink his place in history. If he keeps working for the interests of Monsanto or Clearchannel or Halliburton, then Obama will be recorded in history as being more corrupt than Clinton.
The government has the constitutional right to engage in mass murder (war) but it's only supposed to be after an offical declaration. The government has the right to kidnap and detain people (arrest & prison) but it's supposed to follow judicial procedures.
It's not the things that Bush et al did it's how they did them that made them illegal.
Personally, I don't want to see them put on trial as much as I'd like to have them interrogated.
Ted,
I do disagree with you about whether or not Friedman can write. Uncle Tom is an excellent writer, and very good at detailing the conventional wisdom you point to. Just because you think he's a tool….which he is….doesn't make him a poor writer.
I've been reading Friedman since the mid-90s, and you're absolutely right that he's a great barometer for conventional wisdom. Uncle Tom also is excellent at jumping on a band wagon 10 years after it's relevant. After the invasion of Iraq, he defended his "advice" to the administration (really he was a full-on proliferater of nostalgic propaganda) by saying that he was convinced all along that they were going to invade no matter what.
If that were the case, it was his obligation to point that out months before the war started, when people like you and I were accusing them of choosing war as the first, rather than the last, option, and therefore outright lying about their motives. THAT is when it would have mattered.
His gripes about green energy and financial prudence are way after the fact now. It would have mattered if he had been on that band wagon a decade ago, like people in the academy. I love reading Friedman's work, and think he's an excellent writer and excellent at conveying complex ideas in at an adolescent level. Reading him through the years has been like watching a child grow and explore the world. His observations are at a common level, meaning that he is always commenting on the after-image of relevancy.
That doesn't make him a poor writer, it makes him a poor scholar. But he's a journalist, so I forgive him, like I forgive most journalists.
"But he's a journalist, so I forgive him, like I forgive most journalists."
———————
What kind of journalist is that? When was the last time he has ifted his fat butt from the comfort of his gazillion dollar mansion an gone out into the world he pontificates about to see for himself?
As for his writing: Sure – his ideas may (inchoately) come through, but they're articulated in a way that borders on incoherence. As you say, Aggie Dude – with your marvelous irony –
"He's an excellent writer and excellent at conveying complex ideas in at an adolescent level."
As a 7th grade writing teacher, I'd encouragingly acknowledge the enthusiastic originality of his ideas (even though I disagree with them) and his eagerness to express them – all in the hope that he'd eventually learn to express them in a way that made sense,
Why the FUCK does the New York Times give space to his rantings on the Op Ed page?
"If Bush and his minions get away with murder, does that mean that only Democrats are subject to the rule of law?"
Yes. Of course. Same as it ever was. As Atrios at Eschaton put it years ago:
It's O-Kay If You're A Republican.
–Daddy-O
The approval for the torture went all the way up to the President, but it went higher than that. In elections, millions of voters supported him and his accomplices.
IMHO, it would be folly to prosecute Bush for actions that were approved by so many. After all, isn't the law meant to deter acts that are universally considered wrong? (As a general rule, if reasonable people disagree about something, both alternatives are legal…)
But we want torture to go away. I think the cure is exposure but not prosecution. By this recipe I hope that it will be a long time before that many people back such a bad idea.
Cynicism is what is tearing this country apart. We have as many opinions as there are points on the compass each polarized in as many different degrees. If we are to try the Bush administration, then we open the door for more litigation for acts committed in the name of security during the Bosnia Herzegovina conflict, the 'Cold War', Vietnam War, Korean War, WWII, WWI, and so on. Then we also must try our nation in the name of economics for acts committed to people brought to this land in chains for slave labor. What next? Should we then try our nation in the name of expansion for acts committed against sovereign nations and people who occupied the 50 states and territories before "Manifest Destiny?"
Instead of trying these cases in our nation’s highest courts, let us remove our faultfinding nature about past leadership and commit our country toward rational civilized behavior going forward. Instead of divisive lengthy legal battles over past reactionary leadership, let us aspire toward the true ideals of America….life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have flawed in the past, and I suspect we will fail again in the future – as collectively and individually, we are … human. We must be mindful that people intent on doing harm to our nation will occasionally succeed, and we….full of grief, anger, and revenge…must bury our kin and carry on as a nation. It can be argued which country committed the first act of in-humane treatment of political detainees but the US can commit to end all future in-humane treatment to political detainees. Knowing we have more challenges to our security within our boarders from natural born US citizens as in the Oklahoma City Bombing; and people of other nations opposed to our way of life as in the 9/11 Bombing, I sense we will and should continue policies designed to gather information to thwart hostile acts against the greater US citizens. I do not see President Obama’s current course as fence-sitting. I see the President steering this nation on a course toward a better way of dealing with ‘political detainees.’