Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

This is the problem with Washington, always trying to cover the misdeeds of their friends in a nice a sugar coated manner. When the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman proposes a Truth and Reconciliation Commission similar to the now famous of them all, South African, although there have been other in Chile and Rwanda just to mention but two. It seems that Sen. Leahy must have been smoking something. Here is what he proposes

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is proposing a "truth commission" to investigate abuses of detainees, politically inspired moves at the Justice Department, and whole range of decisions made during the Bush administration.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the primary goal of the commission would be to learn the truth rather than prosecute former officials, but said the inquiry should reach far beyond misdeeds at the Justice Department under Bush to include matters of Iraq prewar intelligence and the Defense Department.
Leahy outlined his suggestion for a "truth and reconciliation" commission during a speech at Georgetown University Monday.
"I'm doing this not to humiliate people or punish people but to get the truth out," he said.
The problem is that Sen. Leahy either seems to have forgotten the real roll of a TRC or just doesn’t seem to know what its purpose is/was. If he were keen enough to read and understand the underlying reason for there creation he would automatically understand why they wouldn’t be entertained in the US and should be feeling ashamed for even contemplating the thought. Be as it may, I will take a minute or two to enlighten him and others what a TRC is and why it wouldn’t be entertained here in the US. Let’s take a walk in the memory lane.

South Africa (EP) - apartheid means “separateness” and in 1948 it was officially written into the statue book which was enforced by South Africa’s minority white rulers. They were less than five million controlling a total population of 36 million whites, Africans, coloreds, Indians and others. The white 13 percent of the population owned 87 percent of the land. They had restricted where the black majority could live (think of it akin to Europeans coming to America and putting the Indians in reservations…and later allowing them to own casinos to make up for what was done to them). After such a long time of government misdeeds, people dying, going to jail for opposing the government, police brutality and the like,it was necessary to move forward but at the same time preserve history as much as could be collected. The only way to do that without wasting time and money (which they didn’t have either of since people were dying of old age just to mention one cause) was…you guessed it! Form a TRC.

Chile had the same concept only difference was that the crimes involved rape, kidnapping in the middle of the night by government forces, murder and what have you. And in Rwanda there was the genocide that horrified the world.

By now Sen. Leahy you might have noticed that all these cases are in the third world countries where record keeping is not at par with the rest of the world and the judicial system is but a joke as compared to the US. But now I do hope that I have changed you silly idea of TRC. We have good recording keeping a few Americans have been snatched from somewhere other than their houses in the middle of the night, and the rapes that occur even within the military bases are prosecuted by the law. One issue I may have forgotten, the US government has time and money to prosecute anyone from the previous administration for misdeed. It has only been eight year of Bush administration as opposed to 42 years in the case of South Africa.

Since we live in a capitalist country trust someone to write a book of the misdeeds and let’s now let the whistle blowers to tell all. If you really want a TRC I suggest you get one for the KKK and as for the bush administration you may wonna try something like the Nuremberg trails, why didn’t we ask for a TRC then?

All those who broke the law in our name let us hear your side of the story in court. Nice try Sen. Leahy. And am tired of Washington ruling based on poll number FYI if Moses ruled by poll number the children of God would not have left Egypt.