the citizen-viewer

“It’s a national disgrace that more than 100 inmates have died in American custody in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo,” writes Nicholas Kristof in today’s NYT. “…many of the people we tortured were innocent…it was clear from the moment Guantánamo opened that one-third of the inmates didn’t belong there.”

After summarizing neatly the grotesque crimes committed in the name of the United States, Kristof offers up—in the classic liberal fashion he decries in his article—a compromise for starters: “The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing.”

Funny, when the citizen-viewers commit heinous crimes against the highest laws of their country, on a massive scale, and leave a trail of evidence a mile wide, we don’t get a truth commission. We get an indictment. That’s the first step.

Creating a truth commission, especially one with subpoena powers, entails giving immunity to those who least deserve it. The truth commission process is both the first step of accountability and also the last. In South Africa, where government changed its basic character after the crimes and before the commission, it may well have been the best option. But this is, or was, a nation of law.

A process of soul searching? No, we need a process of putting criminals in prison. That’s the national cleansing we need.