In a Monday forum at Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown University, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, proposed the Congress form a "truth and reconciliation commission" to seek out alleged Bush administration "misdeeds."
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This is one of those good news/bad news things. The good news is that someone's taking the crimes of the Bush administration seriously. The bad news is that they're not taking them seriously enough.
What Leahy's proposing is a commission that would be "modeled after a similar panel that investigated apartheid in South Africa," in which "witnesses would not face charges except if they commit perjury."
In other words, a waste of freakin' time. The reason for the SA truth commission was that crimes were so widespread on both sides that jailing everyone who'd committed one would've been disastrous and insane. There are only a few people in the Bush admin., so there's no reason to worry about a significant portion of the population being imprisoned.
What Leahy's proposing is a commission that would be "modeled after a similar panel that investigated apartheid in South Africa," in which "witnesses would not face charges except if they commit perjury."
In other words, a waste of freakin' time. The reason for the SA truth commission was that crimes were so widespread on both sides that jailing everyone who'd committed one would've been disastrous and insane. There are only a few people in the Bush admin., so there's no reason to worry about a significant portion of the population being imprisoned.
2 comments:
It's not a waste of time. It's the best chance, perhaps the only chance, of getting people to tell the truth, and getting the truth put on the record.
Without something like this, we'll be left forever guessing how much, if any, truth there is in each of hundreds of separate accounts. There will never be an authoritative version, nobody will ever be charged with anything, and rumours and conspiracy theories will never stop. And nobody will ever know, with any confidence, (a) what happened, and (b) what's to stop it happening again.
If all we get is a truth commission, I can tell you "what's to stop it happening again" -- nothing. They'll have gotten away with their crimes and the lesson future executive lawbreakers will get will be that the law doesn't apply to them and any investigations won't come with punishment.
For all intents and purposes, the unpunished crime isn't a crime at all.
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