When the righteous are tasked with cleaning up, accounting for, or fully investigating a set of circumstances, inevitably some common sense guidelines will be followed resulting in a clearly cleaner, accounted for, or fully investigated outcome. Sadly, after boatloads of U.S. government cleanups, accounting, and investigations we find ourselves ever deeper in muck. Unless we believe in unprecedented levels of ineptitude, it becomes obvious that neither clarity nor an honest accounting was ever the objective of these endeavors. As stated in the Yale Law Journal‘s somewhat apologetic article, Parrhesiastic accountability: investigatory commissions and executive power in an age of terror, “… commissions operate at the behest of elite political forces that have considerable investment in the status quo.” Commissions are obviously formed to conceal the crimes which lead to their establishment. Participating in such whitewashing is itself a crime. (By the way, a note to the Yale Law Journal: We don’t live in an age of terror, we live in an age of fraud.)
The Warren Commission, the Kean 9/11 Commission, the Iraq Commission, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission – these are just a sampling of the fairly recent. There are probably hundreds you never heard of, or have long forgotten, that just as surely swept facts under the rug. You can watch the posturing as Congress “grilled” Paulson, Bernanke or the SEC’s executive group of captured stooges. Quite a little theater they got going there in DC. With all the grandstanding, finger pointing, evasiveness, memory losses and denials I can almost believe they’re not meeting later for drinks. In the end, trillions are freshly printed for passing amongst cronies, conflicts of interest blithely ignored, and our once great country blunders along on it’s way down the pipes.
I doubt I’ve ever met anyone with a pair of firing neurons who implicitly trusts investigatory commission findings. Whitewash investigations are “de rigeur” in the final acts of all high crimes. Often enough, a commission becomes a long-standing aide and benefactor to the very same criminal elements it should curtail. In fact, you can be virtually assured either a heinous crime has transpired and is about to be covered up, or someone’s political opposition is about to be sidelined when you hear that a commission will be formed to investigate. Undoubtably, a scapegoat will emerge from the ranks of the lesser minions, with the blame squarely shouldered.
The Washington Post announced the latest charade today, Attorney General Eric Holder has determined he ought to hold up the façade of law and order by appointing a special prosecutor to “investigate” CIA violations of anti-torture laws. Don’t expect to see Bush and/or Cheney perpwalking. Bet on seeing the scapegoats trotted out. Even the Post has to inadvertently admit the pointlessness of the faux investigation/spectacle, the article ending with an upbeat spin on dismal news:
“(Holder and his team appear to be)…rejecting a broad inquiry that could result in possible prosecutions of Justice Department lawyers in the Bush years as well as cabinet officers who developed counterterrorism policy; but giving civil liberties advocates at least part of what they wanted without supporting a full, independent truth commission to examine a host of Bush national security practices.”
You want a feast, you get a spoonful – most likely of food gone bad. Criminal style compromise at best.
These shenanagins take place only with our tacit approval. Remember, those running the show are far outnumbered by their victims, or soon to be victims, and their success depends entirely on you doing nothing.