McCain and the Bush Prosecution

Speaking to George Stephanopoulous of ABC News today, McCain made a bureaucratic decision regarding Congressional responsibility to investigate abuses of power in Iraq by individuals at all levels of government and in the military. He and Senator Levin did not believe that they held responsibility for holding anyone accountable for crimes yet, in the report, they acknowledge that senior administration figures did commit crimes. Is he making the argument that another Congressional committee should hold a trial, or that it's up to the courts to decide? Without stating explicitly who is responsible for holding the executive branch accountable for the criminality of the last eight years, McCain wants to let bygones be bygones.

McCain seems content to leave history behind, preferring only to "prevent it from happening again." This type of thinking exemplifies precisely the adage that those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it. If Congress does not exercise its oversight power on the executive branch in the form of criminal charges (the only sort of sanction it can impose), future generations will have no sure way of knowing where the majority stands on the issue of torture. Our progeny will look back in disbelief that we did not speak.

America cannot afford to repress the national trauma of September 11 by refusing to discuss the painful errors we made. Europeans liked for awhile to speak of America as a "gawky adolescent" who was experiencing growing pains when we stumbled after that day. While often used to denigrate the United States, the characterization can also help us to understand how exactly to move forward from the aftermath of September 11. Instead of burying the past and lurching into a rose-colored future, let us sort out the good from the bad. In order to heal, we must prosecute anyone who's actions do not pass legal muster. Failure to expose our faults and work to solve the problems will continue us on a dysfunctional path.

John McCain can redeem himself by leading the vanguard in Congress to punishing the criminals among the Bush Administration.