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Fifteen years ago today, the U.S. began the invasion of Iraq, a war of choice constructed on a foundation of lies. That invasion was the outward manifestation of the Bush-Cheney "war on terror," and underneath was a web of illegal, immoral, and un-American policies and practices from warrantless wiretapping to torture. When the Bush-Cheney years came to a close, and the Obama administration ascended, "healing" took precedence over reckoning. Those responsible for the lawless conduct of the war were allowed to carry on with their lives and in many cases their careers, having to answer to no one for their war crimes.
Now's a chance for at least a partial reassessment, and some accountability. Gina Haspel, the CIA officer who was chief of a secret detention facility, or "black site," in Thailand has been nominated by the occupier of the Oval Office to be CIA director. The current CIA director, Mike Pompeo, is nominated to be secretary of state. Senate Democrats are inexplicably and predictably debating internally about whether they should oppose these nominations.
With Senate Democrats still trying to heal a schism between moderates and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) over a banking deregulation bill, the Pompeo and Haspel confirmation fights offer the chance for a moment of reconciliation between the wings of the Caucus—or a further fracturing that finds vulnerable red-state incumbents on the GOP's side.
It's even unclear where Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a blue-state veteran who's spent years fighting the legacy of the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program, will end up. She faced an early jab from her liberal challenger to take a tougher line against Haspel and is now moving in that direction. Still, Feinstein and many in her party are not saying where they stand before confirmation hearings begin.
"Democrats are losing this opportunity to define a moral backbone for the party, to distinguish themselves on values," said Faiz Shakir, national political director at the American Civil Liberties Union and a former Senate Democratic aide.
"Certainly, Trump loves torture—he's said it, it 'works.' This is a clear opportunity to say, 'That's him and this is us.' A complete break." […]
With Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) absent and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) opposed to Haspel and Pompeo, the Trump White House is likely to need Democratic votes to win confirmation. That means a handful of senators are in line for a maximum pressure campaign from the left.
McCain can be a bit of a gadfly when it comes to principle. In this case, though, as the only member of the Senate to have actually experienced torture, his opposition should be enough for every Democrat in the body to oppose these nominations.
They can make it easy on themselves. Don't approve Pompeo—there's plenty of fodder there from his Iran saber-rattling to his extreme anti-Muslim bias—and the CIA post doesn't even open up for Haspel. If they're too worried about offending delicate Republican sensibilities to demand an accounting from Haspel on torture, there's their escape route.
You could make the argument that we have Trump as president now because the Democratic Congress at the beginning and throughout the Bush-Cheney regime—and with a Democratic president after that—refused to stand up for the rule of law. They allowed the Republicans to so destroy the norms and traditions of governance that when someone so blatantly corrupt and unqualified as Trump showed up, he was embraced and elected.
It's about damned time that Democrats stop acting as if anything happening now is normal. They've failed for 15 years to see what was going on around them. That refusal to respond is now unsustainable, because the republic as we know it, what's left of it, is at risk. They've got to shut Trump down. These nominations are a start.