WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Well, it's official. America's fascination with bizarre legal investigations is now affecting our national security. For two weeks, the media has given more attention to lawyers, inquisitions, second-guessing and grandstanding politicians than to the War on Terror. Like the O.J. Simpson murder trial, which the cameras turned into a circus maximus before the bumbling Judge Lance Ito, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the so-called "9-11 Commission" are now competing with each other for the most outrageous barrage of bombast on the nightly news.
On Capitol Hill, the Senate Armed Services Committee, enamored with grand conspiracy theories worthy of Seymour Hersh and Oliver Stone, continued its public flagellation of the U.S. military. This week, the committee dragged Gen. John Abizaid, the head of Central Command, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, leader of coalition forces in Iraq, from the war zone to the bloodbath on Capitol Hill.
And in New York City, the highly politicized "9-11 Commission" set up shop at the New School University in Greenwich Village -- the institution lead by commission member and former Sen. Bob Kerrey -- and proceeded to pillory Mayor Rudy Giuliani's administration, and New York City firefighters and police officers for not doing a better job in responding to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the "9-11 Commission" have mandates to serve the public good. Both have responsibilities to help ensure that the war -- and it is a war -- against Jihadist terrorists is prosecuted properly. Unfortunately, neither body seems capable of rising above petty personal self-service in fulfilling their responsibilities. Instead, members of both bodies have seized the moment to grandstand before the cameras.
On Capitol Hill, where grandstanding is an art form, senior politicians in both parties have engaged in appalling accusations against career military officers whose dedication and service are now forever tainted by the misconduct of a handful in Abu Ghraib prison. Rather than "getting to the bottom of this scandal" as the committee chairman claims, this week's hearings turned into a forum for wacko speculation in which protestors shouted down speakers, waved signs and emboldened our enemies. They are providing great ammunition for those who would have us withdraw from the War on Terror.
Abu Ghraib has now become a double scandal. The first was six months ago, when a handful of citizen-soldiers committed crimes against a few dozen Iraqi detainees. The second is the committee hearings in which members have engaged in wild-eyed speculation, given credence to unfounded conspiracy allegations and ignored that the prison wrong-doing was reported and investigated, and the perpetrator properly prosecuted and punished. The military's judicial process is playing out as it should. Those who perpetrated the Abu Ghraib offenses are being held accountable. There was no "cover up." There is no "plot" by high-level officials to break U.S. laws or military regulations, or violate international treaties.
Rep. Duncan Hunter has it exactly right. Referring to the prolonged Senate hearings, Hunter said, "We've got 135,000 kids over there that need leadership, and their leadership can't be dragged back to Washington every couple of days to focus on seven people. And that's what happened," said Hunter.
"Those people are now being pulled out of those battlefield positions," Hunter explained, "and brought over to continue to hammer on an investigation, which already encompasses six full investigations in which the seven bad apples who have been focused on so far will end up writing books, being well-publicized." Reporters have "given more attention to these seven people and what they did than to the invasion of Normandy," Hunter said. Continued... |