CIA = Gestapo in their conduct?

Since we know that Bush and Cheney approved of water-boarding and other harsh interrogation techniques it seems fairly likely that nearly anything might be defended as being appropriate. The Department of Justice says it is not interested in individuals who had permission to act illegally so long as the believed they were given permission and we know the kinds of action that John Yoo defended. Neither the Obama Administration nor Holder have repudiated Yoo so we can assume that punishing harsh techniques is not on the table. Given that Yoo effectively defended any act that didn’t destroy a major organ quickly as appropriate, the Holder Preliminary Review does not sound much like an investigation in to misdeeds.

We can assume that those who are looked at by Holder will get a clean bill of health which would effectively make further investigations into currently questionable acts unacceptable. Rather than being interested in Nuremberg as a standard, Holder appears to be actively cleaning up after the Bush administration. Or perhaps, since so little has changed in terms of policy over the last 8 months, they are effectively cleaning up after themselves as well.

By way of reference for those that want to believe this circumstance is an anomaly, Calley spent three years under house arrest for his part in My Lai. The three soldiers that tried to halt the massacre were denounced by US Congressmen as well as getting death threats and hate mail for years afterwards.

Anything done with the intent to follow orders is the new good faith.

Too bad WWII was so long ago. Wouldn’t it be interesting if some real Nazis (as opposed to right-wing whining) spoke up and said, “I am in prison, 50 years later, and I, too, was just following orders?

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I wish! Not that I wish for another holocaust, but that those responsible would be punished.

And what’s more, those who did the right thing get nothing. See how fast they don’t do the right thing next time, if there are no consequences for it.

And, of course, don’t stop at the lower-level CIA criminals — go all the way up — to Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush.

You have to deal with the politicization of the Justice Department first. That’s where the slide down the slippery slope began. When the Bush White House was able to go to the Justice Department and ask for a memo that enabled them to get around the Convention Against Torture (among other things), and they actually got such a memo, that’s where things went wrong.

Even John Ashcroft, as maligned as he is, had a line he would not cross and suffered pangs of conscience about what was happening (though apparently not strong enough to act to prevent it). Alberto Gonzales had no such scruples, apparently.

I fully expect, in the fullness of time, that Bush Administration officials will be brought to account for their actions. Maybe it’s too soon, and the full enormity hasn’t sunk in. But it will. The truth will out, and whether it’s us or Spain or someone else, the Bush Administration will have to answer for what happened.

Holder briefly served as Acting Attorney General under President George W. Bush until the Senate confirmed Bush’s nominee John Ashcroft.[14]

Private practice
From 2001 until he became Attorney General, Holder worked as an attorney at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.,[8]

Holder favors closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp,[28] although he has said that the detainees are not technically entitled to Geneva Convention protections.[29]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Wiki

NOTE: Michael Chertoff joined Covington and Burlington in March,2009,after departing DHS.

Google Covington and Burling /CIA sometime.

“The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed [torture] is found, shall […], if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.”

In other words, if we don’t prosecute those who (1) acted in good faith and (3) stay within the bounds of their (illegal) orders, then we must extradite them.

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Article. VI.

Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Clause 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment

Part I
Article 1
1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Article 2
1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3
1. No State Party shall expel, return (”refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

Article 4
1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.
2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

if one of the attackers’ goals was to knock the US off its moral pedestal (which was cracking of internal stresses), it is fully accomplished.

Bin Laden said that his goal was to “bankrupt America,” but I thought he meant “fiscally.”

This whitewash will forever be associated with Obama’s and Holder’s names, which shall deservedly and forever be synonymous with disgrace, cowardice, and shame.