President Obama did an amazingly important thing by releasing the torture memos. In his statement, he made a commitment not to prosecute those who were following the law that these memos established — but he was silent on the subject of the lawyers who wrote the laws, and those in the administration who ordered them to do so.
In making the memos public, Obama gave the public everything we need to demand that they be investigated. The evidence is harrowing, and it’s clear that these people were wantonly transgressing the law. It’s our obligation as citizens to take it from here, and to create the climate for doing what needs to be done. The media doesn’t want to use the word "torture" — but it’s instantly obvious to anyone who reads these memos that it was torture by any rational standard.
We’re working with Glenn Greenwald to organize right now, and here are the efforts we’ll be whipping support for next week:
• Jan Schakowsky is talking with the Justice Department, and asking that contractors not get the same immunity as CIA officials. She’s specifically talking about James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen who developed the torture program.
• Jerold Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, is calling for a special prosecutor: "We must have a criminal investigation if the U.S. is to reclaim its moral authority and prevent repetition of these crimes.
• DDay and other California bloggers are pushing for a resolution at the upcoming California Democratic Party Convention calling for the impeachment of Jay "Insect Memo" Bybee, who is still sitting on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
We’re also communicating with other organizations and coordinating a consolidated campaign to push for an investigation, and we’ll be delivering signatures to the Justice Department calling for a special prosecutor (you can add yours here). If anyone has good online communications skills and some spare time and is interested in helping with these efforts, drop me a line.
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I’m not sure how good my online communication skills are, but I’m willing to make myself available. I don’t want there to be any question that we were not willing to stand by and wait for “officials” in the WH to act. It really does seem that this administration needs prodding to do the right thing so let’s make them do it.
• Jan Schakowsky is talking with the Justice Department, and asking that contractors not get the same immunity as CIA officials. She’s specifically talking about James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen who developed the torture program.
That’s nice if you are a monstrous torturer, but why the heck immunize anyone before investigations get underway, Congressman?
Maybe some bargains will be needed along the way… maybe some pardons will be appropriate in years to come… But this is no time for Dems to champion fecklessness from the get go, yet again.
yay, action.
jane, did you see that taguba is calling for an independent commission to investigate war crimes by the bush administration?
http://www.hlrecord.org/
if the link doesn’t work, it’s on the front page of the Harvard Law Record.
Only Traitors torture.
This seems like treason to me. Violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, esp. the betrayal of one’s own country by waging war against it or consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemy. Definition found in Am Heritage dictionary.
If the people sucked up into this system and spit out didn’t take up arms against us they would be nuts.
If torture is ok is rape next? How about honor killing? O where should we draw the line?
Perfect. Taguba is the man for the job.
Jane: Thank you. This is so essential. Good on you for this important work. We need to get organized, be aggressive and rational. Thank you.
The details in the torture memos is reminiscent of Nazi record keeping.
Here’s the message I added to the emails that Democrats.com are sending to my Senators and Representative (That’s you, Earl) in my name:
he’s a good one alright.
de fazio was my rep when i lived in oregon. i love that man. i’ve got another good one here in texas – lloyd doggett – i sent him a note this morning letting him know i’d like him to see what he can do to start impeachment proceedings against bybee. my senators are beyond the pale.
Two psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, “… developed the torture program.”
Utterly incredible.
That psychologists, supposed ‘healers’ and members of a profession which I was once pleased to be a part of … could do this suggests that a number of ‘institutions’ in the higher education realm, not just law schools, could use a little sprucing-up of their sensibilities and what they promulgate as ‘best practices’.
At the moment, my disgust with certain people (the number of whom grows larger every single day) knows no bounds.
President Obama is incurring a horrific precedent; we might as well dismantle the entire criminal justice system if we aren’t going to prosecute these, the worst of crimes. All criminal justice is looking back.
And he knows this.
That is what is possible in American-a Texan senator beyond the pale.
I like it and want more of it.
I really don’t understand this. Schakowsky is saying immunity negotiations for CIA folks is already under way? If so, why, and how long has this been going on?
Didn’t Obama say yesterday morning that he wasn’t going to prosecute anyone at the CIA who operated under color of the memos from OLC? I think this is the “immunity” being discussed; Schakowsky is trying to ensure it doesn’t also apply to contractors.
According to TPM article a British sleep expert was surprised and saddened that his research was twisted in the torture memo
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..hp?ref=fp1
Good grief, this could very well become a generational defining moment. But there’ll be hell to pay, and later there’ll be payback or blowback, yeah worse than any justice. Be careful and afraid? I wish Jane Hamsher could find a good & kindred devil’s advocate.
The restrictive “online” modifier notwithstanding, ‘communication skills’ leaps off the screen like a laugh.
Looks like Conyers is on the job too
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04…..in.html?hp
I’m sorry, did you say something… I was just outside throwing a television off the side of a mountain. /s I’ve decided screaming into pillows no longer cuts it.
Protecting anyone before an investigation… makes the entire thing a waste.imo.
Why am i not surprised that Bushco would twist a scientists work?
God love ya, Jane. I sense a Frank Capra movie coming to life.
and I agree Obama wants us to crash through this opening.
I saw that mike, and can only imagine how Horne feels about the attempted perversion of his work.
He certainly minced no words in his condemnation of Bush and company.
What shocks me is that any person could go to work and write these memos with having many, many second thoughts.
We should be calling John Conyers; impeachment would start in his committee.
Bybee needs to be impeached. The memos he signed can be treated as his confession, and the very act of writing those memos, given the circumstances, suffices as a high crime.
Bybee knew that the acts he wrote about would take place if he authorized them and would not take place (or at least be less likely) if he didn’t.
Impeach Obama if he won’t prosecute.
We need to send a very clear message about rule of law.
Well, all criminals arrested, should try the “please let me off, I’m looking forward and should not be prosecuted”.
After all they have a precedent.
Until the US Gov invents thought crimes (detected under the NSA telepathy program), all crimes are prosecuted after the event, looking backward.
From the NYT linked article:
Exposed flanks. What goes around, comes around, eh? And, by all means, let’s worry about how what you did might impact YOUR personal and professional future.
Today is both a sad and an angry day for me.
Here is President Obama’s letter to CIA employees where he says the following:
Further up that same page, is CIA Director Panetta’s letter to CIA employees where he says this:
And on the WhiteHouse.gov site, this is from President Obama’s statement on the release of the OLC Torture Memos:
I would note that President Obama’s press release at the WhiteHouse.gov site seems far broader in providing legal immunity from prosecution to:
My reading of it is that it could cover contractors, lawyers, and perhaps even Bush and Cheney.
“Those” could mean every-fookin’-body!
I thought bct wrote a very good letter last night.
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/4811
you get the rewrite job at the NYT desk
Just a thought: The person who gave us the secret ICRC report is a hero. And the ACLU for demanding these memos. We wouldn’t be this far if not for these.
Seems like there’s a whole lot of pucker-butting going around.
Might be time to invest in Depends stock.
Ah, but not those who wrote the legal advice. And those (Bush, Cheney) who ordered it written.
Pressure should be put on the bar to revoke the licenses of these
lawyersenablers with JDs.
We have no choice but to take action, to do anything less, would be no different than condoning these actions
Jonathon Turley says Holder is the first Attorney General to announce he won’t prosecute war crimes. It’s a terrible precedent.
Yes, it sounds like the president put pardons-for-everyone on the table, if it comes to that, which is what he means by waste-not, want-not. Also, if I were POTUS and had to choose between pissing off either the ACLU or CIA, well, it goes without saying. If Obama’s like me, he contributes $$ to the ACLU and worries about CIA.
I’ll give you the “lawyers” Yoo, Bybee and Bradley, but I could well imagine Bush and Cheney playing dumb (not hard for Junya) and saying:
“We relied on the legal advice of the OLC in authorizing this stuff. Who knew that these OLC folks were all dumb as Pet Rock graduates of Regent U Law School?”
Mind you, I’m not saying any judge or jury would buy this BS, but I can almost guarantee you that Junya and Deadeye would give it a try.
question.. did US courts ever rule on Arar v Ashcroft (the Canadian national we disappeared from New York than renditioned to Syria for a year of torture)? I think the poor guy’s lawsuit against the US government was supposed to be re-heard in US District Court in December ‘08, but I don’t recall reading anything about it. I can’t think of a more dramatic case of shrubco torture lawlessness than that one, since they guy was officially cleared by two Canadian proceedings of any wrongdoing or, I believe, even of contact with or expressed interest in terr’ist groups… basically, we kidnapped, disappeared, renditioned and tortured the wrong guy, and never acknowledged we ever did anything wrong. I know the Canadian PM gave him an official apology, but I think I read somewhere that the US continues to bar him from entrance to the country.
I guess I’m sort of hoping that cases like that will result in the disclosure of such damning evidence that there will have to be a prosecution somewhere.
I’m not a lawyer – I bake for a living – so I’m wondering if anyone knows whether a defendant, or even a lawyer coming before a judge to try a case, can protest having a person like Bybee preside over a trial? After the garbage Bybee spewed in the torture memos I certainly wouldn’t have any confidence in his ability to adjudicate even the simplest of cases. His torture memos suggest that he is guided not by the law, but by his ideology, which in this case has wrought truly twisted and disgusting “reasoning.” I don’t think I could tolerate sitting in his courtroom for 5 minutes.
Love your question, SugarCookie. Sweet reasoning.
For the same reasons you describe, how can any member of the Bar willingly appear before Bybee? Now that he’s been revealed, how could any attorney obliged to appear before him not request the presiding 9th Cicuit judge that – in view of Bybee’s moral turptitude – their case be assinged to another judege?
We “Holder” these powers (of the Political Cla$$) to be self-evident …
Let the Sunstein shine …
(However, the memos are out of the bag … and more ‘things’ will follow, probably many more things, a veritable parade of ‘things’ … ‘things’ that will not obediently go away … as if they never were.)
Motion denied. No harm, no contempt. Wanna appeal?
MadDog, I think the key phrase is
. I read that as suggesting a big fat bullseye on the folks who gave that specious legal advice.
Just catching up a little, way late but what the hey.
Re: your 1st paragraph, Jane. Whoot!?!!! That same idea smacked me upside the head yesterday. Obama really was ONLY talking about hands-off the grunts at the bottom of the authority food chain of torture policy. Clearly so, I thought. If I were Yoo, Addington, Gonzales, dubya or deadeye, I’d be squirming right now and lawyering up fwiw. I’m not usually a vengeful person, but I hope they are absolutely nailed with this hideous policy and made to suffer its consequences for the rest of their days.
I’d even be in favor of taking up a collection to help the boyz take an exciting, lifetime-experience camping trip to Spain, or some such welcoming snakepit full of pent-up, unfettered revenge.
Yeah. That’s the ticket.
Now, some cleansing brain-bleach, and back I go to organizing our mess of a downsizing effort here at home. Right now, it’s not a pretty sight, but we see a glimmer of improvement each day. Hopefully we’ll make it to our little retirement cottage before we tip over from prepping present home for another loving family. We’ve delighted in living here. Everything from deer, exotic thrushes, warblers and magnificent hawks to hummingbird- and luna moths, free fresh homegrown veggies year round, goats, chickies, home-grown edamame (long before MarthaStew informed us what we were SUPPOSED to call the stuff to be absolutely snooty-precise)… It’s been a fun ride.
Perhaps there is a bigger picture that we are not seeing. Speculation it is but please consider-Obama has an opportunity to pretty much remake this country in a direction that we have all been hoping for; If his administration gets bogged down in this torture controversy it could stall all the other important things that he and we, want accomplished. So how can he have it both ways? What he has done is allowed the congress to take this and run with it; he has allowed the net roots to take up the cause, and the end result may be that he will be forced to take action by the congress and the American people and yet not have to take the heat from the right that he is going after patriots on his own. By not immunizing the higher ups he has left the door open. In the future the higher ups will know that they are in jeopardy from prosecution if they do stuff like this and the lower tier operatives will know that anything they do will be on their own and a crime. It is Machiavellian, my speculation, but it could work. Maybe we aren’t giving our President enough credit.