A Twitter-plus thought on law and order

The Beltway Villagers like Roger Cohen are mortified at the thought that torturers would be prosecuted for their very serious crimes. The Villagers are suddenly are becoming very fond of the idea of a Truth Commission, which sounds more every day like "let's set up a commission", the classic Washington solution to make a problem go away. When he was asked about war crimes in Afghanistan and the Geneva Convention in December, 2001, Don Rumsfeld sneered that he didn't care whether our allies were following "some convention" or not. And characters like Cheney, Rummy, Condi-Condi, and the rest of the whole rotten lot involved in the torture program don't care what "some commission" would say either. We need law and order on the torture crimes, not another report to say, oh, gee, it's too bad this happened, what a shame.

It can't be long until the Village people decide that the most urgent priority for the country is for Obama to issue Presidential pardons to everyone involved in the torture program. I figure it's inevitable. And once they decide that's the priority, the Pod Pundits will be drilling every Democrat they talk to, asking if they don't think Obama is being irresponsible by not already pardoning the torturers. Another prediction: when that becomes the Village script, none of the TV talking heads will bother to mention that the treaty provisions of the Torture Convention probably make any Presidential pardon for torture prior to actual conviction illegal and invalid.

Tags: accountability for torture, torture

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