This is one of those Gordian knot situations that only seems complicated because you are agreeing that untying is the only solution. Mr. Obama needs to cut through the complexity with a nice, simple, legal sword. Ruthless, chips-falling-where-they-may prosecution is the way to go, with draconian punishments for the powerful and leniency for the weak who testify against them.

I don’t believe that the intelligence services will be in revolt. The Bushista coup depended on factionalizing military and security forces, generally by preferring the dangerously inept (Foggo) and the mercenary (Intelligence Field Activity, Titan, etc) to the career professionals. The current let-bygones-be-bygones policy continues the marginalization and demoralization of the professionals. They need–and, I think, want–to see the chickens come home to roost, the sweetheart contracts cancelled, and the honor of their profession restored. They thought they had lost by obeying the rules rather than the orders. We need to show them otherwise.

The same argument applies across the board, to all of our abused and shamed institutions. Retired generals should be recalled to the colors and collaborationist officers should be sacked and court martialled. Allies that collaborated rendition and secret dungeons should be pitilessly exposed. Books should be audited, names named, and careers and reputations ruined.

In short, examples have to be made.

Examples have to be made to encourage those that held out and put obedience to the law above obedience to the executive. The administration needs to vindicate the professional intelligence analysts. It can do that by exposing the torturers and illegal wiretappers in open court and sentencing them to long imprisonment. It needs to reestablish discipline and respect for military codes of conduct. It can do that with court martials. It needs to to vindicate those that chose the law over orders from above by punishing those that gave the oreders. It needs to restore our reputation in the world. It can do that with all of the above.

Examples have to be made for the very reasons that apologists say they should not be. If we punish an intelligence agent (or contractor) for obeyng orders and committing crimes, then agents (and contractors) will be second-guessing their superiors and questioning orders. Exactly. No more Good Germans. If we publicly expose a foreign country that housed a secret prison after expressly promising not to do so, the argument goes, no country will agree to so accomodate us in the future. Precisely. Set the precedent and treat intergovernmental agreements like military orders: illegal ones give you noprotection and are not binding on law-abiding, successor governments.

This is how we undo the evil tangled hairball that Cheyney thinks he has stuck us with.

Cheyney et al plotted a coup. They largely succeeded (so far). But that does not mean that they are all that smart. What they have done can be undone if we–and our President–have the will to do it. It does indeed get harder the longer we wait. But only because we thus give ourselves longer to convince ourselves that we re helpless.

In its April 3 brief, the DOJ took the phrase “person or entity, other than the United States” from sections of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that describe penalties for violations of the law by persons or entities other than the United States (e.g., state or local governments). A different section of the law describes penalties for violations of the law BY the United States.

“Cheney pulled off what was, in effect, a coup and nobody noticed.”

Arrest him.

There is very little redaction, or blacking out, of detail in the memos, the officials said