I get furious when the punditocracy doesn’t recognize that Cheney’s position on accountability for torture makes the Constitution a dead letter, and the President a dictator who can define what the law is by fiat. By extension, to refrain from prosecuting and convicting those who violated the law by engaging in torture, is to legitimate the claim that each President is a dictator who cannot be prosecuted for his unlawful acts and who can insulate his minions from prosecution and convictions, as well.
We cannot maintain a constitutional democracy without refuting such claims through the necessary investigations, prosecutions and convictions. So, up till now, we must say that the President, through his inaction, has continued to place the survival of our democracy in jeopardy. It is the most important and the most egregious thing he is doing. And if this failure to investigate and prosecute goes on for long enough it will be grounds for impeachment.
To those who say that prosecutions will undermine the morale and the functioning of the CIA and could very well lead to successful attacks by terrorists in this country, I say that, neither the CIA and its proper functioning, nor complete success in preventing terrorist attacks in this country is worth giving up our democracy for. We are not America without our democracy. We are not America without the rule of law limiting the executive power, so the executive can’t take away our liberty. We are not America when the President and those who work for him can do whatever they think is necessary regardless of what the law says. And we are not America when the law is merely what the President says that it is.
How much is our constitution, the guarantor of our liberty, worth? Is it worth 3,000 American lives, or 6,000, or 12,000, or 500,000, or 5,000,000, or 50,000,000? We all will have different answers to the question of what the price of our liberty is, and some will even insist that it is beyond price. But whatever one’s personal answer to this question about what the price of liberty is, I suspect that there aren’t many Americans who think that the price for which we will exchange our liberty is merely greater confidence that a terrorist attack on the United States will not occur.
We must communicate to people that what Cheney is trying to do, is to persuade us to give up the protection of our liberties provided by the constitutional limitation of executive power, and subordination of the executive branch of Government to the same laws that all of us must obey, in return for his assurance that torture works, and that it has kept us safe for the 7-plus years of the Bush Administration, after 9/11. And that since this is true, he says, we ought to keep on using it, and also refrain from investigating and perhaps prosecuting the President, the VP and their minions for breaking the law. Then, after providing this explanation, we must ask people whether they set the price of their liberty so low, that they will give it up just for these or similar assurances from Dick Cheney or anyone else?
To all those who would give up their liberty in return for these assurances, even if they believe that these ridiculous claims are true, I say that you are traitors to the United States of America. You are the ones who are disloyal to what we have built here slowly and laboriously with much suffering, since 1776 and before. You are the ones who fail to understand the character of this nation and its historical mission, and you are the ones who are damaging us far more than the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 did or ever could.
Mr. Cheney claims that President Obama’s policies are making the United States less safe than it was under the policy of law breaking and torture pursued by the Bush Administration. That may or may not be so. I believe that the new policies, which claim to prohibit torture, but still leave much to be desired, are making us safer. But even if that were not so, I would still see them as an improvement over Bush/Cheney policies; simply because opposition to torture is not a matter of looking at consequences and deciding whether or not something works. It is a matter of moral principle, of obedience to our laws, and fulfillment of obligations to uphold the constitution and our laws. We cannot compromise them and still remain America.
So, whether or not Mr. Obama’s policy on torture saves us from further attacks or provides openings for new ones, they are the policies that save America, because they return us to who we are as a nation. While the policies followed by Bush and Cheney, whether or not they did or did not prevent attacks after 9/11, destroy America, simply because they destroy what we are as a country and who we are as Americans. We must never be tempted by danger, insecurity, and fear to follow them, ever again. And we must move to investigate, prosecute, convict and punish those who followed them. We must do this not because we are seeking revenge, and not because we are engaged in politics, but to do justice, and also because we must make clear to them, to ourselves, and to future generations of Americans and other nations, who we are, and what America is.
All of last week we heard the words: “. . . the work goes on. The cause endures. The hope still lives. And the dream shall never die.” When listening to Dick Cheney and the Army of Republican apologists who place loyalty to their party and to their careers as party shills over loyalty to America and what is best in it, we must keep in mind that part of “the dream” that “shall never die” is an America that loves its liberty, and that will never sacrifice it whatever the stresses and strains we encounter in pursuing that dream.
In the past eight years we have been in danger of losing that dream. And even now, there is a question about how strongly the present Administration is committed to it. But one thing is very clear. The voices of Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, and the cable pundits who support them are telling us that we had better kill that dream, because the only thing that counts is our physical safety. They, therefore, are the enemies of the dream that defines the character of America and our very identity as a nation. They must be rejected, summarily, and with great purpose. For if they are not, the most noble political experiment in the history of humanity will have failed, and we, and all of those in other nations who love liberty, will weep at the loss of liberty’s greatest champion.
(Also posted at firedoglake.com where there may be more comments)