Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on âFace the Nationâ Sunday that â like most Republicans and even some Democrats, including some in the presidentâs cabinet â he thinks President Obama was right when he said âwe ought to go forward, not back.â
But then he went on to say, as Glenn Greenwald tweeted yesterday, that âI think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture that we ratified under President Reagan.â
Now, once you acknowledge that the CIA, at the direction of senior cabinet officials, violated international humanitarian law that requires the United States to prosecute the perpetrators, the only way to justify not investigating is to say that the executive branch of government is above the law â or, put more pragmatically, that itâs politically too messy to investigate senior leaders in the U.S. government.
Republicans didnât hesitate to investigate when it involved Democratic President Bill Clinton, however, or to bring charges against him for lying about a personal matter. And Congress didnât turn its backs on the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, which led to 14 senior officials charged with crimes, and 11 convictions. And of course the Watergate affair led to the indictment and conviction of senior Nixon administration officials, and impeachment charges against the president. Congressional investigations of sitting and past administrations are far from unprecedented.
So how does McCain explain why we ought to forget the whole torture problem â which led to the deaths of a still-unknown number of detainees in custody, some of whom the CIA still canât account for â even as he acknowledges that it violated international treaties that legally obligate us to prosecute?
âI think these interrogations helped al-Qaeda recruit,â McCain said yesterday, adding: âthe damage that it did to Americaâs reputation in the world weâre still on the way to repairing.â
Even setting aside the legal requirements, as a practical matter, a public acknowledgment and investigation would seem to be the only way to repair that damages.
As McCain put it: âThis is an ideological struggle as well as a physical one.â
http://washingtonindependent.com/57121/mccain-admits-bush-administration-violated-international-law
But then he went on to say, as Glenn Greenwald tweeted yesterday, that âI think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture that we ratified under President Reagan.â
Now, once you acknowledge that the CIA, at the direction of senior cabinet officials, violated international humanitarian law that requires the United States to prosecute the perpetrators, the only way to justify not investigating is to say that the executive branch of government is above the law â or, put more pragmatically, that itâs politically too messy to investigate senior leaders in the U.S. government.
Republicans didnât hesitate to investigate when it involved Democratic President Bill Clinton, however, or to bring charges against him for lying about a personal matter. And Congress didnât turn its backs on the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, which led to 14 senior officials charged with crimes, and 11 convictions. And of course the Watergate affair led to the indictment and conviction of senior Nixon administration officials, and impeachment charges against the president. Congressional investigations of sitting and past administrations are far from unprecedented.
So how does McCain explain why we ought to forget the whole torture problem â which led to the deaths of a still-unknown number of detainees in custody, some of whom the CIA still canât account for â even as he acknowledges that it violated international treaties that legally obligate us to prosecute?
âI think these interrogations helped al-Qaeda recruit,â McCain said yesterday, adding: âthe damage that it did to Americaâs reputation in the world weâre still on the way to repairing.â
Even setting aside the legal requirements, as a practical matter, a public acknowledgment and investigation would seem to be the only way to repair that damages.
As McCain put it: âThis is an ideological struggle as well as a physical one.â
http://washingtonindependent.com/57121/mccain-admits-bush-administration-violated-international-law