For eight years George Bush's lackeys took America's moral compass and discombobulated it with the magnets of torture, extraordinary rendition and so many other excesses that were seemingly justified just because they appeared alongside the words "War on Terror." Those days are finished. President Obama has made it clear that moral obligation is not reserved for times when the choices are easy.
In his Inaugural address, Obama declared, "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." With these words, the beacon of American moral leadership - thought to be extinguished - began to flicker anew. Obama maintained that "Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expediency's sake."
But Obama's commitment to human rights and the rule of law didn't end with this Inaugural declaration. During his first week in office, Obama signed executive orders that began the process of closing the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center and restricted the CIA to the military's interrogation guidelines. And in a sharp break from recent precedent, Obama has appointed high level intelligence and Department of Justice officials who recognize that what is right is not defined as "whatever America does."
Leon Panetta, Obama's pick to head the CIA, penned an Atlantic Monthly article last year tellingly titled "No Torture. No Exceptions." Eric Holder, Obama's nominee for attorney general, was similarly succinct at his confirmation hearing, stating for the record, "Waterboarding is torture." In fact, executive appointments throughout the Justice Department are renowned for their refreshing, uncompromising commitment to the rule of law.
But this forward-looking, clean break from the past - while welcome, necessary and overdue - is not sufficient. As Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., made clear during Holder's confirmation hearing, "As with so many of the mistakes and abuses of the last administration, I don't think that it's enough just to end the misconduct." People who committed serious moral and legal violations need to be held accountable - the Constitution demands it.
Some - like U.S. Senate Republicans - say we should do nothing about alleged abuses, that we shouldn't "criminalize policy differences." But prosecuting those responsible for torture wouldn't be criminalizing policy differences - it would be criminalizing human rights crimes. In a country that prosecutes petty thieves who shoplift bubble gum, to allow those who commit and authorize torture to walk free (and return to comfy positions in academia or private practice) is unconscionable.
Momentarily struck with a stream of lucidity, Chris Matthews plainly distilled the issue on his MSNBC program: "If waterboarding is torture and torture is criminal, and it came from Cheney's office, I don't see why there is a problem prosecuting. If waterboarding is torture and torture is criminal, and it's been ordered from the top, I don't see the problem with prosecuting unless there's a political reason to obstruct it and I don't think that's justice."
Worries about the upsetting effects prosecutions would have on Obama's promised spirit of bipartisanship may be legitimate (although questionable, giving last week's party-line stimulus vote), but such talk is superfluous. The rule of law should never be subservient to the rules of beltway backslapping.
Some who resist the rancor of trials prefer the less confrontational route of a blue-ribbon commission. Such a commission must have the subpoena power to find out what went wrong, and the public credibility to make recommendations on how we can protect America while still doing right. Public luminaries like Colin Powell, Bob Graham, Sandra Day O'Connor, John McCain, Lee Hamilton and Chuck Hagel should sit on this commission, and they should make sure its findings don't get renditioned to bureaucratic black-sites.
But the choice shouldn't be between prosecutions or commissions. We need both. Because when it comes to torture, as Leon Panetta wrote, "There is no middle ground."
Jacob Shelly is a senior in the School of Public Affairs and a liberal columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
