Pat Dollard

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by TPS

Scenario 1: The country stood on the brink of war, and his policies, both in the military and diplomatic spheres, helped trigger combat that ultimately killed thousands of men and triggered enmity that lasts to this day . . .

Scenario 2: The country stood on the brink of war, and his policies helped position the opposing side into firing the first shot that ultimately killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and led to the implantation of “total war” on his own homeland . . .

Scenario 3: He thought he was doing the right thing. His country had been attacked without warning, and thousands of Americans were killed and wounded. Was another attack imminent? Everyone thought so. He moved to act, quickly . . .

Scenario 4: He believed he was protecting national interests when he signed orders to prepare for the invasion of another country. Unable to undertake the effort in timely fashion, it fell to his successor to launch the endeavor, which had international repercussions and killed and wounded thousands.

President Obama’s recent decision to release “the torture memos” (itself a loaded description) has lighted a fire under the 24/7 news cycle. His tortured (no pun intended) flip-flop that leaves it to his Justice Department whether to prosecute Bush officials who sanctioned “torture” has thrown gasoline onto that fire. The response of the chattering class has been to debate the issue of whether waterboarding or putting an insect into a terrorist’s cage is torture.

“The Bush Administrations tortured enemy combatants!”

“No, it wasn’t torture because . . .”

This argument, sophomoric in its development and imbecilic in its implications, is better suited to the high school classroom or some low level policy institute. Why? Because it is not the real issue that lies smoldering within the wreck that is Obama’s decision to release this critically sensitive information and then perhaps prosecute others for implementing it.

Let me explain the primary issue by returning to the scenarios that opened this essay. In Scenario 1, President James K. Polk undertook diplomatic and military efforts (including sending an army into land claimed by Mexico) that most historians today argue was intended to touch off a war with Mexico. He succeeded. (Polk wanted land that stood between us and California; Mexico owned it and refused to sell it to us.)

In Scenario 2, President Lincoln went on to suspend Habeus Corpus (that means he arrested American citizens and held them indefinitely without charging them with a crime). Lincoln imprisoned Maryland politicians when he was worried they might vote for succession, imprisoned and later exiled a Democratic Congressman when he spoke out against Lincoln and the war (recall the First Amendment), and condoned the implementation of what some historians refer to as “total war” when General Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground and slashed and burned his way to the sea, and General Sheridan undertook similar action in the Shenandoah Valley. These examples are but the very tip of the Lincoln iceberg of questionable policy decisions and blatantly extra-constitutional actions of our most beloved former commander-in-chief.

In Scenario 3, Franklin D. Roosevelt rounded up and imprisoned thousands of Japanese Americans and confiscated their property without any real evidence that they were about to commit any crimes. He went on to firebomb Japanese cities in raids that killed more people than the dropping of the atom bombs. He did the same in Germany, intentionally targeting civilian populations and sleeping quarters for those who worked in the factories. FDR’s directives directly killed hundreds of thousands of women and children.

In Scenario 4, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had the CIA train, equip, and prepare for the invasion of Cuba because he did not like their government. President John F. Kennedy implemented the plan, and then failed to support it at the last minute, leaving thousands to be killed and wounded.

I teach my students that when someone throws a rock in the water (argues a main point), don’t watch the rock (distraction), watch the ripples (the downstream effects). The crux of most issues is rarely the one being publicly discussed. Almost always it is instead the effect of the underlying action(s)—the ripple—that one must be wary of.

So . . . why is the decision to open the door to prosecuting former Bush administration officials important? Was it because they condoned torture? No, even if what they did was torture (which in my opinion it clearly was not).

The key here—the ripple—is that President Obama and his team have edged open the door that might one day eliminate our sacred history of peaceful presidential transitions.

Never in our history have we sought to prosecute prior administrations for policy decisions with which successor administrations disagree. Change questionable policies? Sure. Debate them behind closed doors? Yes. Argue them in public with force and clarity and reason? Absolutely. Criminalize them because of political differences? Never.

Obama’s actions seek to potentially punish good, honest, hardworking attorneys and others (some who put their lives on the line each day) for honest, legally sound, constitutionally reasoned policy decisions backed Congressional and Presidential oversight. Obama and the Leftists who support him differ with these decisions. Now they seek to criminalize them for political gain over their adversaries.

They do this in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other banana republics. They imprison their predecessors and confiscate property, all in the name of political differences. We do not, and we have never done so.

As my off-the-cuff examples aptly demonstrate, we would be hard pressed to find a single president who has not made policy decisions that succeeding administrations can and will differ with—sometimes vehemently so. Should we have prosecuted Polk and his generals and diplomats? Maybe we should have imprisoned Lincoln? President Truman could have put FDR in the dock and charged him with war crimes. But wait! Truman would have been indicted for dropping the atom bombs by incoming President Dwight Eisenhower, right? But wait! Eisenhower could have been charged by Kennedy with planning the Bay of Pigs, and perhaps even for conducting war crimes during World War II; after all, his D-Day bombing runs killed and wounded thousands of innocent French civilians. But wait! . . . (Johnson and lying about Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate, Ford for pardoning Nixon, Carter for . . . Well, you get the point).

The sacred door of trust, constitutionality, and civility that Obama has now opened can never be closed again if he decides to walk through it. You would have more luck unbaking a cake.

If outgoing presidents who faced especially tough situations (i.e., war and the terrible decisions those entail for the defense of our country) are faced with opponents calling for their heads on a platter, and we establish a precedent for indicting them, how willing will a president be to voluntarily give up power? Walk that back a step. How willing will he and his subordinates be to do everything they need and must do to keep us safe (and win major wars) if policy differences might land them in jail and bankrupt their families with legal bills? How many Americans will die as a result?

That, my friends, is the ripple in the water. The slope Obama and his Justice Department are teetering upon is not only steep, but slathered in thick ice without a piton or pickaxe in sight to stop the slide should they shove our peaceful transition precedent over the precipice.

Pray they do not do so.

P.S. There is a subset ripple here: I believe Obama and Biden know we are going to get hit again—Biden has said as much publicly. By airing these memos and flashing torture photos around the world (yes, they are planning that, too), they will try to make the case that when we are struck, this is why the peaceful misunderstood Muslims did it—to avenge Bush torture. That, in turn, will allow them to . . . blame it on the Bush Administration. But that is grist for another article.