the non-impeachment rosetta stone

[sophiaserpentia]

A piece in this weekend's Washington Post is the Rosetta Stone that unravels the mystery of why Democrats like Nancy Pelosi took the impeachment of Bush and Cheney off the table - their hands are in the torture pie too.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

So, there you have it. The Democrats won't impeach for the same reason that Mukasey, during his confirmation hearings, could not even admit to have pondered whether waterboarding is torture: because it makes them open to prosecution too. They are personally and individually complicit in the Bush Administration's crimes against humanity.

Comments

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

That doesn't really compute to me. Impeachment was about lying about the lead-in to the Iraq war, and maybe Plamegate, not waterboarding. And being briefed about a practice does not necessarily mean you are liable to prosecution for it.

I mainly think they did not pursue impeachment because they didn't see a political plus for the Dems in it. The GOPers got a lot of animosity from impeaching Clinton.

But...

[publius-aelius.livejournal.com]

They are personally and individually complicit in the Bush Administration's crimes against humanity.

Barack Obama is not. Neither is Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich. It is still perfectly possible to believe in a handful of our national leaders.