Spy vs. Pol May 15, 2009

It appears the nation is caught in the midst of a classic she said, CIA said.  We’re being asked to chose between believing a career politician (never a good bet, IMO) and the top sekrit spy agency that carried out torture and doesn’t want to be investigated for it.

They both have something to gain by lying here and both sides keep changing their arguments and Pelosi was not allowed to keep notes about her single briefing but the CIA was, only we’re not allowed to see those notes (although Republican Senator Kit Bond was?!).  This is like a bad episode of The People’s Court.  Only this episode isn’t about a broken electric bicycle.  It’s about war crimes.

I choose option C.  I don’t believe any of them.  This is why I absolutely think Obama, the Congress and the country should move on and forget about truth and reconciliation or prosecution or any of it.  Why?  There are tons of countries out there that now have universal jurisdiction and are probably much better positioned to assess what really happened.  America can’t be in charge of figuring out if America did something wrong.  That’s like letting Sudan investigate itself.  It makes no sense.  We weren’t waterboarding Americans (that we know about yet).  This was a crime against citizens of other countries and other signatories to the Conventions should be able to investigate (and prosecute).

Let’s stop having this pointless back and forth right now, move on with fixing our economy, our broken system that allowed this all to happen, and our reputation and agree to abide by the findings of the ICC.

P.S. – You know how every single time the CIA has something to be defensive about they hold a press conference in front of that wall with all the stars for lost agents?  Can we call shenanigans on that?  Yes, spies died.  That kinda goes along with the job, right?  It shouldn’t be the backdrop – literally- for every discussion we have as a nation about when they might have crossed the line.  That’s like the Pentagon holding all its briefings in front of Arlington Cemetery or the White House making major policy speeches in Dealey Plaza.