President-elect Obama has spoken about the need to move forward and not to look backward when it comes to investigations and possible criminal indictments of the excesses of the Bush administration. While Mr. Obama's election does indeed signal a time of hope and a collective looking forward, it should not also mean that the American people do not deserve to know that all people, including elected officials, are bound by the laws of the land.
There appears to be little doubt that President Bush and members of his administration have violated the Constitution and have played fast and loose with the truth. Perhaps they have not committed "high crimes and misdemeanors," but at the very least they have violated the public trust. A few such instances that come to mind include: fabricating the threat of weapons of mass destruction to justify an illegal and immoral invasion of a sovereign country, wasting billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for the"reconstruction" of Iraq, politicizing the Justice Department with appointments and prosecutions based on political ideology and loyalty to the President, rather than qualifications. Then there is the touchy subject of torture. Now that president-elect Obama's nominee for attorney General, Eric Holder, has defined waterboarding as torture, and Mr. Bush has admitted to authorizing these techniques, doesn't this obligate the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute any criminal act that it finds?
Looking forward does not preclude addressing wrongs that have previously been committed, as President-elect Obama would have us believe. In fact, isn't our entire criminal justice system based upon looking backward? Doesn't every criminal investigation and prosecution depend upon our ability to look backward and determine whether or not a crime has been committed and how and by whom? Don't we, as a society, expect that if a crime has been committed that the police and the courts will do everything within their powers to bring the perpetrator to justice? In fact don't we believe that victims and survivors of crime have the right to see the perpetrators brought to justice as a way of obtaining closure?
Well then the obvious question is don't we as a society deserve the same effort at closure? How can we expect to move forward, if we don't reveal, understand and come to some level of closure with the excesses and atrocities that were committed in our name? How de we honor the 4,000 Americans and more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives in a reckless and illegal war, if we act as if nothing has happened?
While Mr. Obama is looking to the past to role models such as Abraham Lincoln and FDR to help him chart a course through this difficult time, perhaps there is another role model that he should look to, Nelson Mandela. After helping to free his fellow citizens from the long, dark night of apartheid, he did not call for retribution or punishment, even in the face of a horrific history of oppression, abuse and murder. Mr Mandela understood that to move forward, South Africans would first have to come to terms with their past. Rather than seeking retribution and continuing to turn black against white, the new majority South African government embarked on a course to seek truth and reconciliation.
In George Bush' thirteen-minute farewell address, and in his final press conference, he blamed all of his administration's failures on others and took no responsibility for its excesses. If we do not hold him accountable, how then do we tach our children, and indeed our national leaders, to be accountable? Without consequences for their actions, even if the consequence is merely public acknowledgement and acceptance of responsibility, the message that is sent is that it is perfectly acceptable to abuse power and privilege and to flaunt the law to push one's own personal agenda. We cannot let that be the enduring legacy of the Bush administration. As President, Barack Obama and his Justice Department will have an obligation to investigate and surface the many wrongs of the Bush years. Then, and only then, after the truth is revealed, can the decision be made whether or not to prosecute, and the nation can move on.
As Paul Krugman wrote in his op ed column in the January 16th New York Times Forgive and Forget? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/opinion/16krugman.html
"to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that's not a decision he has the right to make."
Perhaps it is time for a healing of the national psyche. As George Bush leaves office he leaves in his wake tattered Constitutional protections and a legacy of flaunting the law and common decency, both rendered subservient to an agenda that was both politically and ideologically driven. Moving forward includes understanding what has happened in the past to avoid making the same mistakes. In this case it is not so much about making the same mistakes, hopefully we all have learned from our mistake and will not elect and then re-elect another president from the same mold as George Bush. But allowing criminals who have squandered our national trust and leave a trail of wreckage in their path to walk away without accepting responsibility, sends the wrong message - that we are a country that believes its elected leaders are indeed above the law and that we as a society are powerful enough to flaunt international law.
Let's apply the lessons learned from Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa by creating our own Truth and Reconciliations Commission, helping us learn from and heal the past, so that we can move forward together.
