What is the Sound of One Mean Ending?

Alright. I give; if Dick wants to go on about how justified the previous administration was in violating our principles, then let us, as Slick Willy once said, "Saddle up and have an argument." Speaking purely for myself, I was willing to follow Obama's lead and just leave it be; acknowledge a shameful episode in our national history and move forward. The precedents set by the subsequent legal proceedings could be...strike that will be horrific. If the previous administration wants to play with fire though and since their supporters can't seem to let it be either, I say damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!

Referring to my last post on the topic, I think I may have put the cart before the horse; I'm leery of Congressional hearings but if we are going to do this, then lets start there. The purpose of said hearing must be, simply and exclusively, to establish exactly what the actions of the administration were. Purely investigative, nothing more. Once that has been determined we can move on to the next step of having DoJ build a case for prosecution of parties for violation of the Geneva convention. The case should then be put before the Hague to cut off any chance of political favor trading; and I can't wait to hear what the response will be to Cheney's weaselly little "the Conventions don't apply to these guys because they weren't wearing the right clothes!"

So they are non-combatants, then? How do you justify that, Mr. Former-Vice-President?

In the interest of expediting the whole thing, the small fry should be left out of it; don't waste our time on individual agents and soldiers, go to the command structure, starting at the top and then work down to the lowest command level. Let the individuals who were actually doing the grunt work go with a plea; testimony for a non-punitive conviction.

The worst fear of this process is that it will set in motion a precedent of using retributive prosecutions of outgoing political rivals and this is a perfectly legitimate argument. How can anyone honestly expect elected officials to make difficult decisions if they have to worry about being prosecuted for them later, when the political winds shift?

This is the wrong question and reflects a flaw that has been revealed in our system; whether that flaw was present at the beginning or developed over time is a matter for debate. In any event, the point is that the question should be, "Why are electing officials who aren't aware of what the legal bounds and obligations of their offices are?" I know nobody much likes lawyers but maybe we should be aware that they at least bloody well know the law governing their actions. I'm not trying to suggest that the lawyers should be the only ones running for office but shouldn't we have some sort of minimum demonstrable competency? It's worth mentioning that the Chinese have always had a system of examining and evaluating their officials professional competence and that it was mandated that higher office required a demonstration of greater competence for promotion.