Tap dancing

When Obama supporters on Change.gov asked Obama "Will you legalize marijuana?" Obama answered, briefly, "No". But now, as Ari Melber notes in a great post over at The Nation, they're asking whether Obama will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush administration abuses like torture and wiretapping. And that's a question--actually two questions--that can't be so easily elided.

Wiretapping first. To me this is a no-brainer. There should be a comprehensive investigation of the Bush's activities, the perpetrators should be prosecuted, and the details should be made easily available to the public as soon as possible so that they can be used as evidence in future civil suits. This wouldn't be an easy undertaking, but a doable one. And as strong as resistance from predictable quarters would be, it's vital that people with the power to illegally spy on Americans know that there are real consequences to such abuses. It would also restore legitimacy to our surveillance activities and, I think, ultimately make our intelligence system significantly more efficient.

Torture is a trickier question. It's difficult to argue that laws prohibiting torture should be ignored, and I'm not really prepared to do so. But the political concerns matter quite a bit here. I'm fairly convinced, unfortunately, that investigating and prosecuting Bush officials for torture will set back for quite some time progressive efforts to strengthen institutions like the International Criminal Court and increase American participation in them. Those efforts might be doomed anyhow, and people (activists and Obama officials alike) need to think seriously about which efforts are likely to bear fruit. But given a choice (and I don't think it's a false choice) between putting Bush officials in jail and getting America on board with real, cooperative, international efforts to prevent and prosecute these kinds of abuses in the future, I might pick the latter.

For what it's worth, that's basically Alberto Mora's position as well.

During a brief recess, I asked Mora how the US government can mitigate the harm done to the country's world standing by these policies, and how best to hold the architects accountable for their actions. Mora suggested that government leaders need to "create a common language with our allies that goes beyond the protections of Geneva,".... How to hold former public officials accountable for implementing these methods, he added, "is a difficult question. Politically speaking, achieving an agreed-upon framework with our allies going forward may require forgiving past transgressions. And that's a concern. That's a problem."

And, also for what it's worth, none of this is meant to suggest that the cruel history of American torture shouldn't be thoroughly investigated and brought into the light. Under any and all circumstances, it should.