Reply #11: A Truth Commission entitled "'Off the Table': A Nation Betrayed" is what. . .

[pat_k]

. . .I want to see.

The failure to impeach strikes me as a fit subject for such an assembly. The damage done by the failure to impeach can never be repaired, but it is something we must reconcile ourselves to if we are to move forward in honesty.

Invite the perpetrators -- the Members of Congress who abused their power to keep impeachment "off the table"; the strategerists and "opinion makers -- to come forward and testify about their role, express their remorse, and commit to reject the "politicization" of inviolable Constitutional principle in the future.

Invite the victims. Those who were subjected to torture while the Democratic "leadership" bleated "off the table" and "backlash!" The Americans who were ordered torture while our elected officials hid their heads in the sand. The participants in the "program" who are horrified by what they witnessed, or what they did.

And the people who stood up and were silenced and left hanging.

But, WRT a "Truth Commission" on the war crimes -- I must agree with Jonathan Turley. Dealing with the crimes is for the criminal justice system.

Countdown http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30369056/">April 22, 2009

TURLEY: Well, there is no significance to a commission, a truth commission. First of all, a truth and reconciliation commission is an insult for a country that believes it is committed to the rule of law—that is often seen in emerging democracies. We have nothing to reconcile.

The people who committed torture have to reconcile themselves to the criminal code. We don‘t have to reconcile anything as a nation. Now, I‘m not opposed to the Congress studying this. They should study it.

But the primary and main question is the appointment of a special prosecutor.

And God help us if the only thing we get out of this is a commission modeled on 9/11. That was a commission that was really made for Washington; a commission composed of political appointees of both parties, that ran interference for those parties—a commission that insisted in the beginning it would not impose blame on individuals. So, it‘s the ideal Washington commission—a commission that would investigate without any repercussions.