Obama would not have released the torture memos if he truly wanted the Bush War Crimes Era to vanish down the memory hole.
Obama is not happy that the only torturer to see prison walls has been Lindy England. Obama knows that's bullshit. But when he talks about this being a "time of reflection," he really means: "Show DC how vital it is that we prosecute torture. Make it politically untenable for us do anything but."
Obama wants to see justice done upon the architects of these horrors. But he can't do it alone. He needs US for this mission. Because investigation and prosecution would mean implicating key Democrats who knew enough about the program that they should have screamed about it. It would mean pissing off the nastiest, most vengeful parts of right that are currently burrowed like diseased ticks into the Pentagon and the intelligence community. Carter thought he was going to "clean house," and his own CIA turned on him and destroyed his presidency. Obama has more brutal enemies than Carter did.
That means it's up to us. We have to help Obama bring justice. We can't stand back and bitch about why or how he's not doing it. This time, the way we support Obama is by forcing his hand.
In an oft-repeated anecdote about an exchange between MLK Jr. and Lyndon Johnson, the President assured Dr. King he wanted to sign the Civil Rights Act, but he also let Dr. King know that he couldn't be the main impetus behind the push, or it wouldn't have enough power to be effective. King had to have boots on the ground--he had to make it impossible for Johnson not to sign.
That is what me must do. We must put boots on the ground. We must make a hell of a lot more noise than the douche teabaggers made. We know Keith, Rachel and Ed have our backs, and we may well have Anderson and Rick as well. More in the grassroots will come forward, as we get louder. The GOP in DC may be protecting their vampires from daylight, but the GOP population at large has no love for the Bushies these days, and is looking for a reason to distance itself further.
We must vociferously make the argument we know Obama wants us to make, which is that justice is not petty retribution. It's the opposite. It's the ONLY thing that can keep these horrors from happening again. We are in the eye of the storm because the GOP is temporarily out of power, but if you hadn't noticed, they're getting steadily meaner and crazier. Atrocities will hit us again, and worse, if we don't act now. If torturers know there's no penalty, they'll be back at the nearest opportunity, and with more vicious things planned. And those atrocities will be on our hands.
We no longer have to fear that we'll be dragged to Gitmo ourselves for speaking out. Hell, Governor Perry just flashed his ass at Obama by threatening secession. We have nothing to fear now but the future. All that pent-up outrage, indignation, and moral fury that we built up during the Bush years can now be--and now must be--unleashed in a deafening cry for accountability. This is what Obama is telegraphing to us. We need to get the memo.
Obama was right. This is our time.