While we’ve all been distracted by the administration’s bumbling back and forth over health insurance reform, the Obama team has been walking a second tightrope, this time on torture.
Yesterday, Eric Holder announced that the DoJ would begin preliminary investigations into whether certain CIA agents in bad faith exceeded the limits of the rules over “enhanced interrogation” set down by the government. In one sense, of course, any prosecution is welcome if its holds criminals accountable for their actions. But as Glenn Greenwald points out, pursuing justice along these lines runs the risk of reprising Abu Ghraib, where a small number of sadistic individuals were (rightly) hung out to dry but no high-level individuals were held accountable for creating the permissive environment in which abuse was cultivated.
Even ignoring the ethical questions involved – something, it has to be said, the Obama administration has been willing to do so far – the decision is highly risky in terms of executive branch politics. It has the potential to create a sour conflict between the DoJ and the CIA over policies that originated in the White House.
The IG report released yesterday explicitly admits that, “The EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques] used by the Agency under the CTC Program are inconsistent with the public policy positions that the United States has taken regarding human rights.” That is, the whole programme was in violation of US law, not just those few individuals who happened to step beyond the EITs' remit. Back in 2001-2003, agents raised their fears with superiors that “a human rights group might pursue them” for following orders, and that “the Agency would not stand behind them if this occurred.” I'm sure that many operatives will read the DoJ announcement of yesterday and conclude that this is exactly what's about to happen.
He may actually be in the right. But Holder is going to have a very tough time reassuring the CIA that the prosecution of egregious violators of the EITs is not simply a question of scapegoating the Agency for White House offenses (legitimated by DoJ interpretations). Hardly a good idea at the best of times, inter-departmental warfare is deeply worrying in the midst of a counter-terrorist conflict that requires unprecedentedly close cooperation between domestic and foreign branches of the administration.
Moreover, this middle route fails to satisfy those who want the people who were ultimately responsible to be prosecuted. But it will still antagonise those who think that all things are legitimate if they keep America safe, thus undermining the key reason for not pursuing prosecutions in the first place.
Mr. President, we were told that you wanted to “move on”, that you’d decided not to prosecute senior officials in the old administration for their crimes because you didn’t want to disrupt your domestic agenda. Well, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but that domestic agenda is looking pretty disrupted already... so perhaps we might now consider returning to the questions of who actually was behind this stain on America's conscience, and prosecuting them instead?
Update: Yes, well, exactly.
Jesus H. Beck
54 minutes ago
