Log In | Register
When Franklin Roosevelt died, the fact that we had been developing nuclear weapons came as a big surprise to Harry Truman, his successor. You would expect that a person of such stature as the vice-president would be involved in something as important as the Manhattan Project, but that was not the way things were done during World War II.
Things are very different now. The bureaucracy is much bigger, government's responsibilities are more wide-ranging and complex, and nearly every action is staffed with such paralyzing thoroughness that it is a wonder decisions are made at all. Executive decisions are not made in isolation, and deciding to use coercive interrogation measures on captives was no different. Memos and other data reveal that there was a large number of highly placed officials who were involved in the decision to conduct waterboarding, and that there was a lively debate---and not a little objection---to the measure.
The release of the memos has engendered a great outcry in Congress, many of whose members are now noisily indignant that our government would engage in such uncivilized behavior, and some have already begun making life difficult for Obama by publicly disagreeing with his decision not to pursue inquiries into official culpability for the decision. But, as Pogo so accurately observed decades ago, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." A substantial number of our national legislators were cognizant of the tactic and at least tacitly approved it.
It is distressing that we should not be surprised. Only a small percentage of Congress has military service, and almost all those who have served did so 40 years ago. Very few have experience in armed combat, their official biographies notwithstanding, and only the most recent veterans have captured enemy troops on the unconventional battlefield and understand the dynamics that produce actionable intelligence. It is easy to see how such people, even those elevated by our political process to high office, can be convinced to agree with things about which they are largely ignorant.
More troubling, however, is the hypocrisy that underpins officials' hysteria surrounding the issue. Many of those who are now vociferously indidignant are the same people who acquiesced when the measures were briefed. Congress has awarded itself a measure of oversight, and it is disturbing when Congress does not exercise it but complains bitterly when patently objectionable activities over which it has some sway are undertaken. Perhaps we should be used to self-serving sanctimony from our leaders, but that doesn't make it any less distasteful.
And what of Congress's convening a "truth commission" to assess culpability among Executive Branch officials for the decision? President Obama is on record opposing such a thing, and many have called it a corrosive, third word-style precedent that will hinder decisive action in the future, precisely when we may need decisiveness the most.
But the president's opinion may not matter. In the end, Congress does what it wishes, bestowed with the overpowering powers in Article 1 of the Constitution and secure in the comfort of knowing that the single best predictor of election to Congress is incumbency.
Start Tracking
Stop Tracking
Thanks. As much as an extremist as I am---and as we all tend to be on some subjects, especially as we get older---I find it useful to cut to basics, something we all learned as brand new soldiers.
