Watching Monsters

How glad I am to be here at home watching Bill Kristol postulate, on a panel on interrogation techniques, that we will just kill suspects since we can't torture them. His preferred method is 'by drone'.

Human Rights First representative Gabor Rona is expressing wonderment at the concept. It would take a lot of practice for me to restrain myself to his level of mildness. He has interviewed Ali Souvane previously, and has passed on the practiced interrogator's opinion, that many years were wasted in chasing down bad leads from tortured suspects. If for no other reason, that should have kept it from ever happening. Sadly, not all of my fellow citizens are civilized, or in Kristol's case, even sane.

Had our highest office holders been reasonable and/or good public citizens, we would not be watching this horror, or hearing that the previous maladministration had reasonable methods and results, when only court orders pushed it back within the bounds of reason.

The present administration has a proposal that will move away from the worst of the mess, by changing administration of detention to the FBI. Leaving no indefensible history to defend, that should help to escape from the horrors they committed.

The FBI and Justice Department plan to significantly expand their role in global counter-terrorism operations, part of a U.S. policy shift that will replace a CIA-dominated system of clandestine detentions and interrogations with one built around transparent investigations and prosecutions.

Under the "global justice" initiative, which has been in the works for several months, FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option, officials familiar with the effort said.

Though the initiative is a work in progress, some senior counter-terrorism officials and administration policy-makers envision it as key to the national security strategy President Obama laid out last week -- one that presumes most accused terrorists have the right to contest the charges against them in a "legitimate" setting.

The approach effectively reverses a mainstay of the Bush administration's war on terrorism, in which global counter-terrorism was treated primarily as an intelligence and military problem, not a law enforcement one. That policy led to the establishment of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; harsh interrogations; and detentions without trials.

The "global justice" initiative starts out with the premise that virtually all suspects will end up in a U.S. or foreign court of law.

Just as ex-Darth seems endlessly driven to defend his crimes as if they were the actions of a sane and reasoning official, the CIA will have to hold to its line that it was convinced that it was doing a reasonable act when it committed war crimes.

Punishment should follow crime. For now, this is one way at least of preventing further coverups.