Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Err in haste, repent at leisure: a caution


Meteor Blades has a post up with some important and serious comments by Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor who is no slouch in seeking justice in regards to the Bush Crime Group. She believes we should not rush into a special prosecutor situation. You may read her reasons here.

A sample:
What we continue to need, in sum, are unwavering spotlights, even more civic education, and, most importantly, an irrefutable and cohesive factual narrative - comprised of direct and circumstantial evidence - that links the highest-level officials and advisers of the Bush administration, ineluctably, to specific instances and victims of torture. What we will surely have, however, if a special prosecutor is named, will be precisely the opposite: The initiation of a federal grand jury investigation right now would be roughly the equivalent of ceremoniously dumping the entire issue of torture into a black hole. There will be nothing to see and we will be listening intently to radio silence, trying to make sense of intermittent static in the form of the occasional unreliable leak. For years. There may never be any charges and we will almost certainly never have the unimpeachable historical narrative that we need.


--the BB

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