From Reuters:
A U.S. “truth commission” should investigate Bush administration policies including the promotion of war in Iraq, detainee treatment and wiretapping without a warrant, an influential senator proposed on Monday.
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, urged a commission as a way to heal what he called sharp political divides under former President George W. Bush and to prevent future abuses.
He compared it to other truth commissions, such as one in South Africa that investigated the apartheid era.
Ah yes, the path to healing is always paved with inquisitions and comparisons to apartheid. Not sure what this guy is smoking, but he may want to get himself checked considering the post before this one.
War in Iraq?
At the time, everyone believed Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, we knew he had used them before, we knew he coveted nuclear weapons, we knew he was funding terrorists, we knew he was shooting at our fighter jets, we knew he was refusing to comply with UN resolutions, we knew the “first” Iraq War was not over but actually in a cease fire mode, we knew Hussein was killing his own people with chemical weapons, we knew he was maiming and torturing dissenters, we had Democrat senators like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry fighting for time in front of the cameras to sound tough during the lead up to military action, and we knew that regime change was the official policy of the Clinton administration.
There… I saved you millions of tax payer dollars. I can write it up and send it to your office Senator.
Detainee treatment? Yeah, there were some really bad incidents that should be, and have been, punished. Maybe we should focus on having a “truth commission” for our current president instead of worrying about the guy who just left. Every day it seems like I easily spot at least one lie.
Wiretapping without a warrant? Thought that issue was resolved when the DEMOCRATIC Congress passed a law in 2007 affirming it’s legality.
“We need to come to a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past,” Leahy said in a speech at Georgetown University.
“Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened,” he said. “And we do that to make sure it never happens again.”
Right… good to know an “influential senator” who was involved every step of the way now needs a “truth commission” to find out what really happened… very Orwellian of him. Good to know this has nothing to do with vengeance… actually didn’t think it did. More like an irresistible obsession with the hatred of all things even marginally on the conservative side of the spectrum.
“If every administration started to reexamine what every prior administration did, there would be no end to it. This is not Latin America,” the Judiciary committee’s top-ranking Republican, Senator Arlen Specter, told reporters last month.
Case in point, Bill Clinton who skated away from prosecution because George Bush rightly decided that it was not in the best interest of the country.
President Barack Obama suggested shortly before he took office in January that he did not favor prosecuting Bush administration officials over their counterterrorism policies, but said he would look into “past practices.”
How nice of him. Perhaps in 4 years, if Obama somehow manages to keep us safe, the next president will show him the same kindness.
Issues to investigate would include the Justice Department’s firings of several U.S. attorneys, which Leahy said may have been motivated by a White House aim to influence elections, policies on the treatment of terrorism suspects and other areas “where (congressional) committees were lied to.”
Will you please just get over it! President Bush, just like every other president, has the absolute authority to fire US attorneys and can do so without cause, for any reason, or for whatever reason… why does Leahy insist on wasting taxpayer time and money… oh, silly me… he’s a liberal.
This included the war in Iraq, he said. “There were lies told to the American people all the way through.”
Get… over… it…
Even if there were lies, and there probably were, is this really the precedent we want to set? But the lies he is referring to were not lies at all and, unless he is studying at the Rosie O’Donnell school of idiotic conspiracy theories, he should know better.
Bush has acknowledged that intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was wrong, but said he never lied to the public about the war.
Gee, maybe that’s because Bush never said we were invading Iraq because of the weapons. And if Leahy or any other senator knew there were no weapons, why didn’t they say something. Because they didn’t know. In fact, leading up to the war, nuts like him were shouting about all of the casualties we would incur by invading Iraq; that our troops would die in the tens of thousands from chemical and biological attacks; that Iraq was so strong we had no chance.
Then after we won so fast, they started complaiining that it was too easy… can’t make these guys happy unless it’s their guy in the White House.
Leahy said he wanted the Defense Department investigated for filming Iraq-war protesters, which he said came “shockingly close” to the FBI’s Vietnam War-era Cointelpro operation to investigate domestic war protesters. “We fought a revolution in this country so we could protest the actions of our government,” he said.
Yes.. shockingly. Please…. And about that “revolution”, you didn’t do anything but make it impossible for this country to fight that war in Vietnam in a way that it could be won. Should we have been there? Probably not. But you can blame Kennedy and Johnson for getting us deep into that “quagmire”.
I’m getting to the point where, contrary to Michele Obama’s view, for the first time in my life I’m not proud of my country… not when the loons are running the show.
I hope we don’t wake up four years from now with a socialistic headache for which there is no cure.
