America's necessary dark night of the soul (/ Salon)

[struggle4progress]

We need to investigate the Bush years, even if it means tearing the country -- and ourselves -- apart.
By Gary Kamiya

... Almost eight years ago, a terrorist attack destroyed two towers in America's greatest city and killed almost 3,000 people. A year and a half later, still half-dazed by that trauma, America sleepwalked into the weirdest war in our history, a pointless, ruinous conflict fomented by ignorant ideologues, launched on false premises, justified by bogus evidence -- and supported by the majority of the American people, both political parties and most of the media. Under cover of that war, President George W. Bush and his top officials created a separate prison system not governed by U.S. laws, ordered the torture of detainees, sent others off to be tortured abroad, illegally wiretapped Americans, and in general ignored and flouted the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law ...

Now, ready or not, America faces the summing-up. The clamor for a truth commission to look into the lies, excesses and illegal acts committed during the Bush years has forced the country to decide not just whether it wants to investigate and possibly prosecute former officials, but whether it wants to look into the mirror -- whether it wants to investigate itself. For the painful truth is that for a long time, a majority of Americans implicitly or explicitly supported most of Bush's policies and actions. As Garrison Keillor noted in these pages, "I think the American electorate knew whom they reelected in 2004. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney did not run on a human-rights platform. They ran as rough men who would guard our sleep. So go talk to the voters of Ohio about war crimes."

Those opposed to reopening the book on the Bush years argue that doing so would tear the country apart. They're right -- but they forget that the country is already torn apart. The gulf between Democrats and Republicans has never been wider. The Republican Party, the home of those who still defend the Bush years, has become a reactionary and increasingly marginal movement that is in fealty to crude demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and whose hysterical denunciations of Obama sound more and more unhinged.

What this means is that those Americans who would be truly outraged by an investigation are already outraged. It could not make them any angrier or more bitter than they already are. And even if it did, how much difference would that make? The GOP base already regards Democrats as terrorist-coddling communists. Are they going to all join militias? ...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/05/01/torture_investigations/

[stillcool]

1. there is no such thing..

as 'moving on'..it will follow.

[tularetom]

2. Obama is stalling for time so he can get his programs adopted and active

before the dam bursts on all this torture shit and ANY hope of bipartisanship disappears.

By that time of course, bipartisanship will not be necessary as the assbite repukes will have painted themselves into such a small corner as to make escape an impossibility. But still, they can and will make a lot of noise.

Trials will happen of course, both domestically and abroad, and the reputation of America will be soiled. Hopefully Obama can mend some fences and make progress on issues like health care, environmental and economic recovery and foreign relations first.

[struggle4progress]

3. There really hasn't been any hope of bipartisanship for a decade or so: the political

question is whether/when the public gets wise to Republican posturing. But I suppose that may be quibbling on my part, since my point of view doesn't seem to lead to a different pragmatic stance than yours