As a longtime full-throated supporter of impeachment, I am skeptical of any other alternative that would aim to roll back the crimes committed and reestablish the Rule of Law in our country. Until now. Let's talk.
I never heard of the term 'Transitional Justice' before Mark Schmitt at TPMCafe introduced it to me here. Schmitt considers Transitional Justice to be a worthwhile alternative to impeachment that will still reestablish the "way of doing things" in our American democracy. Here is his short description of what Transitional Justice actually is:
Consider, as an alternative to impeachment, and a means of reestablishing the lines of what just isn't done, a process modeled on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-Apartheid South Africa. Efforts of this kind fall under the label, "transitional justice," described by the U.S. Institute of Peace as a way for "emerging democracies to reckon with the abuses of past regimes." This may be an inflammatory metaphor, and of course ours is not an emerging but a renewed democracy, and the abuses are not the massive internal human rights violations or even genocides that have characterized the "past regimes" in most of the countries that have created such commissions. But nonetheless, these past six years have been a dark, obscure and singular episode in our history, and we need to understand the truth of it so that it will not be repeated or, worse, normalized.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be an unabated attempt to set the record straight on what the Bush Administration did, and how we can prevent this from ever happening again. Schmitt goes on to imagine how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission would actually accomplish this task, and last week Eternal Hope fleshed out some details on forming this Commission here.
Unfortunately, this is where I think we run into problems. For example, the subpoena power of a Truth Commission is meaningless in the face of the meaningless subpoena of the U.S. Congress. Also, although Schmitt thinks this Commission would only take 6 months, I imagine unraveling all of the Bush Administration's actions would take at least 2 years. Despite my reservations, in a new Democratic Administration with an even larger Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress, I'm hopeful that this Truth Commission could actually accomplish its mission.
As much as I want to quote more from Schmitt's piece, I think that would probably violate DailyKos' fair use guidelines. I'd rather point everyone to it (and Eternal Hope's diary) as a starting point for a discussion about how to prevent future Administrations from repeating these crimes. Although these are long pieces, I highly recommend you read them, as they both explain why something must be done in response to the Bush Administration's tenure.
When you're done, please come back here and talk about it.