Waiting for the new Church Commission to investigate torture and rendition and other abominations.

Yeah, although John Dean sees a commission as a fall back position, I think it might work out OK. The commission could expose what happened, and if it doesn’t go around granting immunity willy nilly, could still refer cases to DOJ for prosecution. Further, should it turn out that there are conflicts of interest, or the volume of cases is too high, the work of such a commission could build up support and momentum for the appointment of a special prosecutor.

It could all work out yet

Thanks LHP. Great post, great summary. Important to keep this issue front and center.

Thank LHP

Hey Betsy, hope you’re doing well

On that basis no-one should ever be prosecuted for a crime. Just let’s sing “kumbaya”, hold hands and feel the love! They need to be prosecuted if they committed a crime.

We’re forgetting that Democrats of the highest caliber go after Democrats ONLY in the form of impeachment and investigations. Republicans don’t go after their own, but do applaud Democrats when they hold Democrats accountable. See? It’s very simple.

I have this idea for a political cartoon: a hooded torturer in his dungeon with rack and hot irons talking into a mike a reporter is holding in front of him and saying, “I don’t think we should criminalize policy differences.”

Besty! So glad to see you

Thanks, loosehead. wonderful post, with razor sharp expertise.
My mother worked for Robert Jackson — she said the testimony was horrific.
And that she prayed every night and thanked God she was “on the side of the angels.”

Where are we now? It makes my heart shudder. We need atonement. And someone to bring us to it.
A special prosecutor would be a good start. Fitz would the one, I think.

Hugh, That is fekkin brilliant. If you don’t have an artist at hand Can I get someone to draw that up for you?

Hey! I logged in to vote and the “most popular” question had less than 20,000 votes, and then I could not vote on the Fitzgerald topic once I found it using the search engine. Something stinks, and it’s not the Litter Box.

You mother worked for Jackson? I am such a Jackson groupie. What wonderful stories she must have. Get some from her, they would make an inspirational Oxdown series

To me, this is a classic instance of ‘pick your poison’. Either we deal with these people, or others will. If others deal with it, then we’re still poisoned by it, because we’re still implicated.

The only way to stop this is to have a public set of indictments and trials of those who implemented a policy of torture — without the consent or knowledge of those who they claimed to ‘protect’. It endangered us, and it endangered our military.

It’s safe to assume that the wingnuts view this (as they view everything) as some kind of us/them showdown, or contest. They’ve already framed it as ‘political’ and as a form of ‘political payback’. But why on earth would the US play on the field set out by the very people who got us into this trouble? That’s just more false argument by people who fear the consequences of their own actions.

If we don’t indict and try these criminals, we’ll be tainted by them.
If we do indict and try, we’ll have to deal with the hysteria of the FauxNoise crowd, who are basically the chorus section of wingnuttia.

Between those two choices, I’d say that the process of indicting and trying is the tougher, and therefore the more ethical, correct decision.
To avoid this choice is moral cowardice.
To cave to wingnuttia is craven.

One thing: I’m hoping Obama team is laying low so not to instigate kneejerk defense reactions from these WH criminals into absurdist dimensions
Second: Someone should rephrase the second question and put it on change.gov the second it is opened for a new round of questions. The question should be relayed to any blog possible.
Third: There should be several e-card designs available at different websites to print out and send or forward to our new administration & elected officials starting Tuesday January 20th. I’ll do one and send it out. My father would want me to do it in honor of the days he spent in the “hole” in various stalags during WWII.
NO EXCUSES THIS TIME THIS TIME.
UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU TO DO IT NOW DIANE, JAY, JANE & NANCY!

Sure. I would love to see it.

I think they started a 3rd round. Once the new round starts you can’t vote on the old questions any more.

However, pose a new –similar question, and then let Bob Fertik know and maybe you guys can drive the new version to #1 again.

We just have to keep pounding this

Nice start to the new administration–not everyone can vote.

Love the handle. As in, ‘waive the tort and sue in assumpsit’?

Thanks. Good to see you. Family stuff has been insane for the past month, but starting to settle down.

I heard, You and Cassie have been on my mind a lot. Glad to hear things are getting back on track.

I would really like to see something – anything approaching the harsh consequences required for such criminal behavior move forward. I’m skeptical that a country can hold its own war/torture criminals accountable. But I hope we try.

fwiw, I think it’s interesting that we elected such an insular stooge to be POTUS in the first place. Bush had never traveled abroad, had he? Or eaten anything other than a hamburger? My point is that he has no sense of what it means to be a world citizen. So travelling outside the country isn’t exactly a takeaway for him.

Good work, LHP. I look forward to seeing PEBO forced to choose: defend the rule of law and prosecute torture, or defy the rule of law and — in so doing — become accessory after the fact to the Bush torture regime’s crimes against humanity.

This week I heard Phillipe Sands telling Terry Gross that on January 20, PEO will have a matter of hours to either turn his back on the US Government’s longstanding embrace of torture as a tool of American Power, or to accept our Empire’s torturers — and his role as their protector.

Hi Tex! I was thinking about Cassie when I was reviewing a list of college scholarships…does she know there’s money for young political bloggers? really!

She moved out this morning but I think it will be OK. Also, both of my parents are in the hospital up in NJ, but it looks like my dad will be released today.

oooh! send links! tex betsy at gmail

I love our Austin bunch. ;) hugs to you all.

*g* I will try to re-find it asap and send. Of course I thought of Cassie when I saw it!!!

If we lose our moral compass, the economy doesn’t matter any more.

For me God is reality. We cannot change what we don’t accept.

I think its a waiting game.

Obama doesn’t want to show his hand to Bush before the Inaugural. Bush could pardon anyone being considered for indictment by Obama’s team. Let Bush/Cheney think that you going to let bygones be bygones so they’ll exit stage right with only a few pardons; then strike after 1/20 with a vengeance.

I’ll hold off my venom on this matter until we’re in the clear of the Pardon Pen.

OK dear. ygm!

i hope they both recover, though in some ways maybe beng released is less convenient. If they were both in the same hosp. visitig would have been easy.

I hope I don’t seem venomous. I do want PEBO to have this on his mind though. I want to keep this issue front and center.

I am content to wait until 1/20 for PEBO’s response. Holder however, has chosen to have his confirmation hearing before then. There is no way Holder can escape the question.

Absolutely.

A nation’s economy can recover in a generation.
Civil liberties and a moral compass must be built from the grass roots — it takes a century.

except for the fact that i am 1600 miles away

C&L has some info on gitmo and a slightly different take on Holder
http://crooksandliars.com/cern…..ut-torture
235 hrs & 46 min

Excellent interview

http://www.npr.org/templates/s…..d=99061358

If Obama DOES want to go after anyone for torture or illegal wiretapping or anything else, he’d best not mention it now or they will all be pardoned by Almost not a president Clusterfuck.

Still it would be a messy prosecution. Where would one draw the line? Would you go after the lower level people who actually did the torturing AND Bush AND everyone in between? It would be ugly and the public would have no taste for it when it discovers that a lot of ordinary Joes are going to jail for just doin what they were told.

Just goin after the politicians would create a circus- and it would be hard to avoid the charge that it was a political prosecution.

My guess is that Obama makes it clear that these acts are illegal and let’s the sleeping dogs lie.

Did anyone see Olbermann last night? He did a quick snippet about an American (or British) fellow who had been rendered (kidnapped) from a coffee shop and tortured by a country outside our usual box. And it showed what a pandora we have opened.. and how little we can say or do when it happens to our own citizens now.

And as always, thank you LHP, for all your work.

Bygones

It’s gonna be a bygones presidency.

Look forward, not backward — giving murderers, rapists, and thieves everywhere cause to wonder, “Me too?”

In addition to the issue of justice, is the issue of accountability to our own citizens.

This argument was made from day one irt the threat we were exposing our own service personnel to. I do not think anyone took it beyond service personnel to the everyday citizen.

Any citizen rendered by another country, due to our own leadership’s policies, should take legal action against those who created US torture policies and those who carried them out…

this is why I don’t think prosecuting internally/domestically will ultimately work. Has it ever worked in any other country? I can’t imagine Germany really holding Hitler’s winged monkeys accountable. It takes a third party.

President Elect Obama has promised: “Under my administration….we will abide by the Geneva Convention.”

The Geneva Convention provides:

Chapter IX. Repression of Abuses and Infractions
Art. 49. The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.

Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, arid shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.

If the Obama administration is to fulfil its promise to abide by the Geneva Convention, it has an affirmative duty to seek out and prosecute those who have committed war crimes. The Convention language is unequivocal. Let us hope that Obama will carry out his legal responsibility.

This is a great article, looseheadprop!

pasuane told us about her mother working for Jackson on a past thread. I then asked her if she had letters and photos. She does! I suggested that she write a book.

Your series on Jackson is a great idea! In shining a long-term bright light on him it will (hopefully) cause Obama and his DOJ team to consciously or unconsciously compare the steps they are going to take on this to those that Jackson DID take.

Thanks for all your work!

In response to egregious @ #19. This website is well informed.

Well done!

One other thing. As looseheadprop well knows, you have to have referees to enforce the laws if only to protect the weak, i.e. the wings.

no, I meant you parents visiting each other

Nice pickup!

Really nice

Hello again, posaune! I remember your comment on an earlier thread. I think Looseheadprop has a great idea to do a series here (or Oxdown) on Jackson using your mother’s notes, letters and photos. And I think the timing is perfect and needed badly. Maybe one of the big MSM will pick it up and raise the public voice even more.

Bless you for keeping that little trunk!
Peggy

Not but a few weeks ago i heard both of these interviewees and their statements since then have become decidely more harsh and blunt.

Wonder if it has anything to do with the new time frame, T – 10?

Best commentary that i have heard on the CheneyBush War Criminals ever.

Should be mighty interesting to see how many start getting truly serious about this issue of national and international crimes committed by our leaders.

thanks for all the great work FDL!!!

LHP, just a quick drive-by to say thanks for being one of the key people that is helping to make sure this doesn’t go away. I doff my cap to you ma’am.

Welcome, x174. Haven’t noticed your name before. We’re a bunch of kindred souls here; not to say there’s not plenty of differing opinions. (heh, heh).

I think its a waiting game.

Obama doesn’t want to show his hand to Bush before the Inaugural. Bush could pardon anyone being considered for indictment by Obama’s team. Let Bush/Cheney think that you going to let bygones be bygones so they’ll exit stage right with only a few pardons; then strike after 1/20 with a vengeance.

I’ll hold off my venom on this matter until we’re in the clear of the Pardon Pen.

I too hope that Obama is playing his cards close. After all, it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to tell your predecessor that you are going to clap him in irons asap upon assuming his old job. With these guys, it might be dangerous.

I watched these clips last night with rising joy and hope. And I don’t think that anyone realizes how many will be behind bars as this goes along.
I don’t think it should be a “commission”. I keep thinking “warren commission”,”911 commission”, etc and how those were used to lie to US. We STILL don’t know what happened to Kennedy. Hell, we don’t know what happened to Lincoln!
I think for it to be real, it HAS to come from the Justice Dept. AND I believe all sorts of cans O’ worms will be opened and shrivel in the light of day as American outrage explodes and even the Koolaid drinkers realize what has been done to thsi once great nation.

second that.

I hear you. I’m just so paranoid when it involves Bush/Cheney. They are NOT normal people. They do NOT work and play well with other. Holder has a full plate when he sits before the committee, from both sides. He has to be better than anyone is expecting.

Bush wants a list for his Pardon Pen. He may just pardon the whole damn administration, but that’s doubtful. We have to be a bit more patient, then strike hard once the oath is given.

Party hardy, then get your ass to work. That goes for all of us!

I know I’m late to the party, but I want to add my vote to those who suggest Obama is playing a waiting game. Look at the court cases already piling up. All Obama’s AG has to do is to stop being the firewall that Mukasey is being, and comply with subpoenas, past and present. There will be a flood of lawsuits by ACLU, EFF, and other interested parties. And he can just sit back and watch.

Thanks, LHP! Keep on keeping on with this!

Bob in HI