Reasons to Investigate

I heard NPR's Tom Gjelten this morning tell me that CIA director Hayden had warned against investigation of the CIA's imprisonment and interrogation practices under the Bush regime, because it would ostensibly "demoralize" our CIA operatives, and make them unwilling to take future assignments when the President needs them to do something.

Having spent hours this week engaged in filling out the forms for my day job's Annual Performance Assessment, I found this a bit, well, irritating. It's going to "demoralize" them? If having your job performance examined is profoundly demoralizing, imagine the damage being done in businesses across the nation! Millions of people in corporations all over the country have their job performance assessed, critiqued, and cataloged, often in extensive processes that drag on for weeks. Management schools actually have the temerity to suggest that employees should have regular reviews, and clearly articulated and documented goals and objectives.

Curiously, I have not found myself unwilling to accept future assignments from my boss, merely because I have been forced to undergo this performance assessment process. The idea that my boss is "looking over my shoulder" is, well, kind of how I've always thought things were done. I don't have unlimited authority, and if I cross the line, I don't expect my boss to approve. If this is new for the CIA guys, well, that needs to change.

I understand that Obama wants us to move forward, and build for the future, and I support that, but we've got to realize we still have a basement full of murky flood water and toxic sludge. If we don't spend some time cleaning that out, it will be a waste of time trying to build on top of it.

And despite all the many scandals and horrors that have already come out, to the point where even common media wisdom pretty much concedes they did actually happen, there are other stories that have barely been touched on. We can't just pretend the Bush years didn't happen.

I, for one, would like to know more about the case of Susan Lindauer.

From 2000 until her arrest in 2003, Lindauer provided Card with 11 letters detailing the progress of talks to resume the U.N. weapons inspections and anti terrorist cooperation offered with the United States by Iraq. The last of this series of letters to Card was the sole basis of the charge that Lindauer attempted to influence U.S. government policies, while acting as an "unregistered agent" for pre war Iraq.

The Card letter was the "high water mark" of the government's charge of acting as a foreign agent according to former chief judge of the Southern District, Manhattan federal court, now Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey. In that letter, Lindauer urged the Bush administration to stop plans to invade Iraq and to seek engagement through negotiation. Lindauer wrote that U.S. soldiers would face stiff opposition based on Iraqi hostility resulting from a lethal ten year embargo and daily bombing during the 1990's.

She also advised Card that an invasion would create a new wave of terrorists threatening the security of the United States. This letter was hand delivered to Card with a copy, also hand delivered, provided to then Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Lindauer claims she was working for US intelligence. The Bush administration said she was crazy and locked her up in a mental ward on Haldol.

Maybe she is a kook. I can't tell, based on the limited information available from news sources of unverifiable trustworthiness.

And that is part of why we need investigations. Because, given the things we know the Bush regime did that were previously beyond the pale and unthinkable, we really have no way of knowing anymore. It used to be that we could think that our government wouldn't needlessly go to war, or declare political opponents insane and keep them drugged in psychiatric wards. That was the other guys. They are the ones who torture, and secretly disappear people. Not us. It used to be that people who said we did those things were paranoic or delusional kooks.

But now?

Part of returning America to its ideals, part of returning to our position as a beacon of liberty in the world, involves being honest and admitting our failings. Yes it will be uncomfortable, and embarassing, and it will take time and energy that could be spent rebuilding our economy or crumbling infrastructure or health care. But, if we want to have that hope, and that change, we've also got to understand exactly how far we have fallen, and understand just how mistaken we were when we gave those men and women power. We need to know what they did in our name, so that we can fix it, and never do it again.