First, just a little point to make about retribution.
I don't think President Obama is any more saintly than the rest of us when it comes to retribution.
Obama's words regarding Osama bin Laden:
I think that we have to so weaken his infrastructure that, whether he is technically alive or not, he is so pinned down that he cannot function. My preference obviously would be to capture or kill him. But if we have so tightened the noose that he's in a cave somewhere and can't even communicate with his operatives, then we will meet our goal of protecting America.
Now of course bin Laden committed his alleged crime a whole lot of years ago and we all know killing him won't do much to destroy Al Quaeda or protect Americans. And Obama doesn't come off terribly bloodthirsty here. But retributive justice? Yeah, I think he's in favor of it ... just not in the present case with commissions and investigations on torture.
I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to see that when Obama speaks of "reflection, not retribution," and these kinds of things he is speaking politically and not morally.
And I am so tired of it, because it's causing a lot of useless arguments.
First, if retribution and revenge were my sole motivation, I would be advocating vigilante justice, just get out the pitchforks and go after these torturers and kill them, no trials, no prosecutions, nothing.
And there are probably folks who are so angry over what has happened that they actually do feel that way.
So fucking what?
Does anyone believe the left is going to become a bloodthirsty mob and storm Washington D.C., pull out politicians and beat them senseless?
If not, then this is just an idiotic meme, a political meme, that I hope to high heaven has served its purpose, because it is getting on my last nerve.
Revenge, retribution, hatred, anger, outrage. All those feelings are perfectly valid given the reality of torture. Hell, I've seen those feelings expressed in blog arguments on far less important topics.
Who among us has never felt a desire for revenge? Can you honestly look inside yourself and say, especially during the last eight years, that any of these crooks we've seen in our halls of power didn't stir feelings of revenge?
Did you go out and commit crimes based on that feeling of revenge?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
We have widely varying opinions on how Obama is dealing with the issue of torture and accountability. Fine, let's debate that. Because those arguments are political in nature and this is a political blog.
I am for prosecutions. I want to see these folks held accountable. I'm not going to try to persuade anyone in this diary to my point of view.
But I will say that my emotional reasons for this are extremely complex and cannot be reduced to simple revenge or simple retribution.
And I'm sick of folks using a political talking point to make that reduction.
So please, President Obama, please stop talking about how we shouldn't want revenge or retribution as a political strategy.
It's just really getting on my last nerve.
By the way, about my own motivations. I did some cursory search on the roots of our criminal justice system. Retribution was part of it, so was rehabilitation and restitution.
I don't think there is an appropriate way of retribution for torture. I don't think there's a punishment that fits that crime and I certainly don't want Cheney, et al. tortured, even in my nastiest fantasies. It would gross me out. Rehabilitation? Cheney is unrepentant, and I don't think it's a stretch to see that the other architects of the torture project are as well. I may be wrong, but somehow I don't think they can be rehabilitated. As far as restitution, I think it would be good if we can somehow help those we have tortured, with either money to their families or other kinds of aid, but we can never take away what happened to them in a meaningful way, I think.
So that leaves one other definition that I think describes most accurately (but again, not fully) my view on why we should prosecute:
Incapacitation - Designed simply to keep criminals away from society so that the public is protected from their misconduct. This is often achieved through prison sentences today. The death penalty or banishment have served the same purpose.
I want it proven in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, etc., are guilty of having broken the law. I want them not to be in our society, I don't want to see them on teevee or walking around with THEIR security details protecting them. I want them in jail because I believe they are dangerous to society and because they are unrepentant, they would continue to spread their poison in our society. I don't want them walking the same streets as me. I want the public protected from them.
I don't think this will end the battle against those who would commit these kinds of crimes. I'm not claiming any supreme solution. But that's one of the reasons I want prosecutions and jail terms, and it's not about revenge or retribution.
It's not the only reason. There's a whole lot of feelings I have about these clowns and they can't be put into one category. So please let's stop trying.