Open Left - War Crimes

Robert Blair: In Defense of Charles Taylor

Rusty5329 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:25:04 GMT

This blog was written by Robert Blair at Huffington Post. We received permission from Mr. Blair to cross-post it here. We ask that, if you have a Huffington Post account, you leave any comments there.

It is beyond my imagination that anyone would believe the president of Liberia would go into Sierra Leone because he wants to terrorize the people and take their wealth.
That was Liberian warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor testifying at The Hague this week for his role in the Sierra Leonean civil war, a conflict that raged for 11 years and claimed nearly 50,000 lives. Taylor has been alternately cogent and bombastic in his own defense. Not surprisingly, the more lurid details from the trial have provided the most popular grist for the media mill both in Liberia and abroad (see, for example, coverage in the New York Times, ABC, and the Liberian Analyst). With every headline, the charges that Taylor ridicules as beyond the imagination seem only more irrefutable, his crimes more outrageous and cruel.
Meanwhile, to many Liberians, Taylor remains a hero. For foreigners like myself, this is not an easy thing to understand. At times, his popularity seems a byproduct of his savagery. During the Liberian civil war, recruits for Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) were often heard chanting a grim refrain: "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, I'll fight for him." A decade later, this mystique has not dissipated in many pockets of the country. While we in the international peanut gallery gape at the spectacle of the trial - a murderer defending indefensible acts - many Liberians continue to endorse Taylor and his charismatic brutality.
Why?
Over lunch the other day, I asked two Liberian colleagues and ardent Taylor fans to explain to me their views on the trial. Johannson Dahn and Zeleh Kolubah (featured in this blog post as well) once fought as rebels in the NPFL. They now work at the National Ex-combatant Peacebuilding Initiative, a local NGO that provides psychosocial counseling for veterans of the war. Taking particularly sharp aim at the U.S. and its inept meddling in Liberia over the past two decades, Dahn and Kolubah offered an eloquent if not always convincing defense of their former commander-in-chief. This is what they told me.
For my Liberian colleagues, the sham of Taylor's trial began with his election as president in 1997 and the almost instantaneous calls for his resignation from around the world. "There was a serious war being fought in Liberia," explains Dahn. "Taylor was elected by the Liberian people. He had a mandate to protect their lives and property." Of the voices demanding Taylor's removal, none was so hypocritical as that of the Americans. When the war erupted in 1989, some 2,000 heavily-armed American Marines were stationed just off the Liberian coast. But then-President George H.W. Bush refused to send a single American soldier to help diffuse the crisis, and when a smaller contingent finally grounded in Monrovia, they were ordered only to protect the enormous embassy compound and the American civilians hiding inside. Throughout the subsequent 14 years of war, the American government sat on its hands as thousands of Liberians were slaughtered. Asks Dahn: "What interest did the Americans have in telling Taylor to leave if they did not have any interest in protecting the Liberians themselves?"
Taylor's indictment was no more lawful or legitimate than his exile in 2003. Now it was Bush the Younger's turn to tinker with Liberian politics. "The indictment was carried to the White House for review and revision," says Dahn. "Why? Is that the advisory board to The Hague?" Taylor is accused of 11 counts of war crimes in Sierra Leone. This is the stuff you'll recognize from Hollywood: cannibalism, child soldiers, sex slaves, hands, ears, and noses hacked off as punishment for minor misdeeds or for no reason at all.
To Kolubah, this is nonsense. "I fought with the NPFL," he explains. "We did not forcefully amputate people." The fact that forced amputation never entered the NPFL's repertoire suggests that someone other than Taylor must have been calling the shots in Sierra Leone. "If Taylor cannot be linked to forced amputation," asks Dahn, "then how can he be linked to massacres and other war crimes?" Who, then, is responsible for the atrocities perpetrated there? Dahn offers a categorical answer: "The Sierra Leoneans themselves."
And what of the crimes committed in Liberia? In the press, much has been made of Taylor's justifications for the grisly NPFL tactic of mounting human heads at road blocks as warnings to passersby. "Yes, it's true," says Dahn. "When enemy soldiers got killed, the bodies were used to instill fear in the advancing enemy." But this, he argues, is no different from the signage we use in the West to warn each other away from hazardous things. "On some of the chemicals you produce, we see signs with human skulls and cross-bones. What do those signs mean? They mean death. They mean danger."
When I suggest that there is a difference between a drawing of a skull and the real thing - and that, in any event, the dead deserve a proper burial - Dahn agrees. "But this was a warzone," he says. "There was no chance to bury the dead because of sustained gunfire and enemy attacks. And which one will be more fearful? A head that is dead and rotting? Or a silly picture?"
These arguments may not persuade you of Taylor's innocence, just as the trial will not convince many Liberians of his guilt. Loyalties die hard. For those of us watching from the comfort of our Western sensibilities, it is tempting to explain away this devotion as the result of ignorance or dogma. How can so many Liberians still adore Taylor after all we've learned about his crimes? Don't these people read the newspaper?
In reality, loyalties survive for reasons steeped in culture and history, story-telling and myth-making. The same lesson that Dahn and Kolubah teach about Liberia applies to the U.S. as well, where our own political allegiances seem sometimes to defy empirical evidence. The experiences of our two countries are hardly comparable, but the point is the same.
Meanwhile, as Taylor takes the stand for crimes that Dahn and Kolubah insist he did not commit, the other architects of the Liberian crisis are free to live, work, and hold office in their home country. Dahn calls them Charlie's Angels: "They're clean. Pure from heaven. No spot on them. But they are imposters." Taylor is their "sacrificial lamb" - a "brave, generous man," a man "who does not lie," a "humanitarian." Says Dahn: "All these white collar guys you see around here in the big vehicles, supported by Americans. They are very good planners of very bad things. And they have met their match: Charles Taylor. Oh yeah."

The Risks of a Partial Prosecution

davidswanson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:29:58 GMT

By David Swanson

If Attorney General Eric Holder creates a special prosecutor for torture but forbids him or her to prosecute the lawyers who facilitated torture or the top officials who ordered it, proposing to go after only torturers who exceeded the limitations outlined in the lawyers' memos, what are the risks?

The risks for Holder could, for all we know, include being fired immediately, being asked to "resign" in three-and-a-half years, not being appointed to the Supreme Court, being called names by TV loudmouths, and not being invited to dinner parties. But these risks would be much greater if Holder obeyed the law and authorized a complete prosecution of all crimes. President Obama has publicly forbidden Holder from fully enforcing the law, but said that partially doing so is a decision for the attorney general. And failure to act carries its own risks, of embarrassing prosecutions by foreign and international courts, and of a shameful legacy and bitter and regret-filled retirement.

The risks to the rest of us are far more serious. If Holder does nothing, then almost everyone involved could walk away unpenalized, thus encouraging the continued use of torture. But if Holder creates a partial prosecution based on the idea that crazy insane OLC memos are law, the outcome could be better or worse.

It could be better because torturers would be prosecuted. After all, we know of torture that preceded the memos, and we know of torture that exceeded the memos. To my knowledge we don't know of any torture that, in fact, complied with the memos. And such prosecutions could easily lead to the publicizing of evidence against higher officials (not that it's currently in short supply), making it difficult not to expand the prosecution in additional stages. Prosecuting some could lead to prosecuting the rest of those responsible.

The potentially worse-than-nothing outcome is due to the following concerns. If you do nothing, the lesson for future governments is that criminal activity requires intimidating the succeeding governments into inaction. If, on the other hand, you treat the crazy insane OLC memos as law, the lesson for future governments is that criminal activity is guaranteed safe if you order your lawyers to write memos "legalizing" it. This would mean that anything at all could be "legalized." And it would mean that any existing memos that have not been retracted are law. And that would mean, among other things, that, as Jay Bybee obligingly declared in a memo, any president has the right to launch a war of aggression on a whim.

So, we're back to the shameful legacy and bitter regret-filled retirement for Holder despite his having risked being mocked, fired, shunned, and not appointed. A partial prosecution, unless later expanded, could be the worst of both worlds for him. This would seem to open up at least the possibility of Holder choosing to obey our laws and treaties in full, thus guaranteeing self respect, public respect, the gratitude of billions of people around the world, and the knowledge later in life of having done the right thing when he had it in his power.

But, even a complete prosecution of torture, even one that put Bush and Cheney away for life, would fall far short of having done the right thing. What Holder has to do, either at once or in stages, if he truly wants to comply with the law, is to prosecute much worse crimes than torture, crimes everyone used to talk about before the possibility of prosecuting torture came to dominate. Many instances of torture have amounted to murder, and in some instances torture has been used to generate war lies. But the Iraq War itself has left 1.3 million human beings dead, millions more wounded, traumatized, displaced, and impoverished. If Holder really wanted to do his job he would prosecute a lot more crimes, including the misspending of funds on war that were not appropriated for it, lying to Congress about the grounds for war (among other things), using false propaganda domestically, invading Iraq in violation of the Constitution and the UN Charter and H.J. Res 114, imprisoning children, employing assassination squads, using the U.S. military domestically, spying without warrant, exposing an undercover agent, and obstructing justice. And an attorney general who would do all of that (or even most attorneys general who wouldn't) would also overturn the prosecutions of political prisoners like Don Siegelman, Paul Minor, and so many others, and hold accountable those who used the Justice Department to target state and local elected officials, 85 percent of those prosecuted being Democrats and the other 15 percent consisting largely of moderate Republicans.

Now, all of this may scare Mr. Holder into doing nothing at all. The most strategic approach for advocates of justice may be to pressure him into beginning at least a partial prosecution of one relatively minor crime, planning to expand from there, while at the same time focusing much of our energy on demanding action from Congress, action that could begin with the impeachment of Jay Bybee, the sitting federal judge who signed his name, not only to torture memos, but to a memo purporting to legalize illegal wars, a memo that will have done that if we do not act. Our energy can also go into local and state prosecutions, foreign prosecutions, structural reforms, and so on. But it is critical that, whatever we attempt to prod Holder into at the moment, we ourselves not forget the larger picture, that we ourselves not begin thinking that exceeding crazy insane memos is the chief offense, or that writing those memos is the chief offense, or that ordering those memos written and used is the chief offense. If we do not deter wars of aggression, millions more will die, and many will be tortured regardless of what else has changed. Wars of aggression inevitably use torture, and worse. Our job is to stay focused, even if it takes decades, never be distracted or deterred, and never lose confidence that we will put an end to war.

investigate / prosecute Bush and Cheney

Christian_Dem_NY — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:40:19 GMT

I am strongly in favor of an investigaton or prosecution of the Bush/Cheney administration. One resource that I would recommend is www.AfterDowningStreet.org.
The best start would be a bi-partisan truth commission, modelled on the 9/11 commission. As we push for that, let us make every effort to suspend judgment. That is, if we say "Bush is a criminal, but we can't convict until we prosecute, so let's prosecute as a formality", then we sound like this is a partisan witch hunt, such as what Kenneth Starr did to Clinton. If we proceed with that approach, and fail to convict, then there will be a big PR backlash in favor of Bush and against the prosecutors. And even if we do convict, the appearance of partisan bias may still make it look like an unjust conviction.
Instead, let us say: "There have been serious allegations against Bush, Cheney, and others. Let us conduct an independent, bi-partisan investigation. If Bush is innocent, his name will be cleared. If he is guilty, he will face the legal consequences." Of course, no matter how far we bend over backwards to be fair, objective, and bi-partisan, the far right (Rush, Hannity, Beck, and so on) will scream and yell about bias. But it should be possible to do an investigation in a way that about 90% of the American people will agree is fair.
I believe that there are several serious charges to consider. The most serious charge is brought by former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, in his book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder". Bugliosi alleges that Bush knowingly lied to get us in to war in Iraq, and should therefore be tried for the murder of over 3,000 American troops who died there. Bugliosi also goes to great lengths to distinguish the actions of Bush from the actions of other presidents who have sent American soldiers to die in foreign wars; the main difference is that the other Presidents believed their actions to be justified, and did not lie to the American people about the reasons for war.
Another of the charges against Bush is war crimes. If the acts of torture carried out in Abu Ghraib were not abberations carried out by "a few bad apples", but were ordered by the Bush administration, then the Bush administration has broken various American and international laws. Likewise, it is known that waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" have been used in Gitmo, and that these were authorized by the Bush administration. If waterboarding is torture, and if torture is a serious violation of U.S. and international laws, then again the Bush administration deserves prosecution.
Another crime connected to Gitmo is the treatment of prisoners of war and terror suspects. Americans can be held by the government as crime suspects, but they must be charged with a crime, and given a lawyer and a trial. Jose Padilla was held without charge or trial for over three years.
Anyway, the above list should be a good starting place. I am not even a lawyer, and I created the list above from my memory of headlines and with the help of a few minutes of internet research. Each of the alleged crimes listed above deserves investigation, and if supported by the facts, several of them may deserve prosecution. And all of that should be supported by a majority of Americans. If done correctly, an investigaton of the Bush administration is both good policy and good politics.

#1 Idea on Obama's Website

davidswanson — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:12:00 GMT

The number one policy proposal on the president's website and now ~~third~~ second most popular proposal over all calls for prosecuting Bush and Cheney.

The proposal is called End the Imperial Presidency and you can still vote for it. It's climbing up fast.
Go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/open and go to Brainstorming and log in.

Find the proposal and click the thumbs-up sign.

Also post your suggested changes to the proposal.

THANKS!

200 Orgs Request Special Prosecutor for Cheney, Bush

davidswanson — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:20:26 GMT

200 Organizations Ask Holder to Appoint a Special Prosecutor for Bush, Cheney, et alia

Two hundred organizations, including After Downing Street, Democrats.com, the Robert Jackson Steering Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, the Society of American Law Teachers, Human Rights USA, the American Freedom Campaign, and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, have signed a joint statement urging Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor for former top officials of the Bush Administration.

The complete list of organizations can be found at http://specialprosecutor.us

The complete statement reads as follows:
We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.

Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or "truth" commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.

Three Worst Reasons to Delay Putting Cheney in Prison

davidswanson — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:15:19 GMT

By David Swanson

#1: Cheney says that he and Bush ordered torture but did nothing wrong.

On Sunday, Cheney said: "The fact of the matter is that these [torture] techniques that we're talking about are used on our own people. In the SERE program that in effect trains our people with respect to capture and evasion and so forth, and escape, a lot of them go through these same exact procedures."

If this were true, participants in the SERE program would be kidnapped and tortured by people willing to kill them. They would be waterboarded believing they might be drowned. This would be done upwards of 100 times. They would be hung by their wrists, beaten, electroshocked, deprived of sleep, stripped naked and exposed to cold, attacked by dogs, slammed against walls, kept in isolation, and in many cases killed, in many other cases driven insane.
"Once we [waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times] he produced vast quantities of invaluable information about al Qaeda," Cheney said, while failing in multiple interviews to cite a single example of such information that has not already been debunked. The same people fall for this sort of claim as fell for this one: "Iraq continues to conceal quantities, vast quantities, of highly lethal material and weapons to deliver it." (Colin Powell, January, 2003). In both cases, the supposed evidence is classified. In both cases, the existence of that evidence and truth of the claim would do absolutely nothing to legalize the action being defended, be it aggressive war or torture.

#2: Harry Reid said last week that if we wait six more months for the Senate Intelligence Committee's report to whitewash the torture story, it'll be easier then to avoid legally required prosecutions of people like Cheney.

According to Reid's way of thinking, Democrats will be able to campaign against torture in future elections even while condoning it, and isn't electing more people like Reid more important than actually ending torture by enforcing the laws against it?

Reid: Something everyone has to weigh is this, we're a nation of laws and no one can dispute that, but I think what we have to, the hurdle we have to get over is whether we want to go after people like Cheney. That's a decision that has to be made....
Christiane Brown: ...Isn't it our obligation if he's violated the law ... ?
Reid: There are a lot of decisions that are made that are right that may not be absolutely totally within the framework of law. For example with President Nixon....

Try This at Home: "But, officer, surely you don't want me to stay totally within the framework of law."

#3: Elizabeth de la Vega says that if we delay, even though we have overwhelming evidence now in the public realm, we'll have even more evidence to work with. And Obama secretly wants to prosecute his predecessors despite everything he's said and done for years now.

These three opinions line up in wanting more delay and more information:

Cheney: "If we're going to have this debate it ought to be a complete debate."

Reid: "No matter how I personally feel about torture, I think that we, as you've indicated, that we are a nation of law. And that's why we have to get the facts."

De la Vega: "There is rich disagreement about particulars, but - in broad terms, at least - I think it's fair to say that the goals are: (1) a cohesive and irrefutable public narrative of the criminal activity; (2) an opportunity for victims to be heard in an open forum; (3) and accountability for the perpetrators of these crimes, from Bush and Cheney on down."

I don't think that's fair at all and is at the very least stated in the reverse order. Many Americans want accountability in order to deter repetition. Narratives and victims' statements do not accomplish that. De la Vega is neither a criminal like Cheney, nor a corrupt spineless collaborator like Reid. She's a former federal prosecutor who wants people like Cheney prosecuted. So there is a danger that people will actually take her opinion seriously. They shouldn't.

De la Vega is a prosecutor, not a politician, not a historian, and not an activist. She believes that it is just as likely that people like Cheney will be prosecuted years from now as it is that they will be prosecuted soon. She believes it is just as likely that the whole gang will be prosecuted in one giant conspiracy case as it is that people like Bybee and Yoo will go down before Cheney and Bush are indicted. She believes, or at least considers it possible, that the U.S. Justice Department intends to enforce the law and is in fact delaying in order to acquire more evidence. She believes not only that decisions to prosecute shouldn't be based on political pressure, but that in fact they are not.

Here's de la Vega's fantasy view of Obama and Holder:

"Notwithstanding the public statements that the president and attorney general made in connection with the release of the memos, I find cause for optimism in their actions. No smart lawyer who secretly wanted this entire issue to disappear would have released those torture memos. From a prosecutor's point of view, the release of those memos with their authors' names in full view was pretty much the same as releasing their photographs with bloody knives in hand. The president and the attorney general may not have said much, but what they did was quietly flip the switch on a searing bright light."

We've spent the past four or five years switching on searing bright light after searing bright light, with people always willing to consider the latest one world-changing for a week or so, and people always willing to believe that more evidence is needed. (Since nothing's happened yet, we simply MUST need more evidence.) And yet, the Department of Justice already had those memos and has many more we haven't seen and much other evidence besides. They have the evidence they are supposedly waiting for in de la Vega's account, which confuses public desires for yet more evidence with the same desire by prosecutors. At the same time, de la Vega believes that announcing an investigation would be a public relations stunt, that a serious prosecution should proceed quietly. She misses the Obama-Reid-Leahy-Democratic strategy entirely, which explains the stunt of releasing the latest handful of memos without requiring that we set aside every word that has come out of their mouths.

The president and leading Democrats want to expose the evidence as campaign ads against Republicans. They want criminal activities to become Republican behavior that is remedied not by enforcing laws but by electing Democrats. They want President Obama and all future presidents to maintain the powers of detention, rendition, and torture, and the power to make law by decree, with Americans voting for the party that will abuse those powers less. They want to make Republicans look awful and then be seen as befriending the Republicans nonetheless. In the same interview in which Reid objects to prosecuting "people like Cheney," he attacks John McCain for going along with Cheney's loophole for the CIA in a bill that, had it become law, would have in no way altered the existing total ban on torture that already existed in the anti-torture statute and the war crimes statute. But Reid does not want to talk about Democrats' complicity in the Bush-Cheney crimes or the criminal activities of the Clinton or Obama years, which is why he favors closed-door "investigations."

Well, then, perhaps de la Vega is onto something. Perhaps we should all hush up about enforcing the laws, let the Democrats expose more evidence believing it's just campaign ads, and then spring into action with prosecutions. Here's what's wrong with this: First, we have more than enough evidence to put many members of the Bush-Cheney administration away for many crimes. The more we threaten action, the more Cheney goes on television and confesses. A special prosecutor who actually tried to investigate would acquire a great deal of additional evidence.

Second, while a well-trained lawyer like de la Vega who believes in the rule of law finds it hard to resist delaying in hopes of gaining even more evidence, Reid is exactly right that it will be easier to claim that the crimes are behind us and not worth dredging up, the more time goes by. This shouldn't be the case, and I wish it were not, and I will work with de la Vega in fighting against it if need be. But delaying means taking a tremendous risk. The window through which public pressure can force prosecutions is open now, but too many advocates are counseling delay. In the case of human rights groups calling for panels and commissions, this is mostly a function of top-down organizations taking their direction from the Democratic party. But that party's strategy is to delay until it becomes more difficult to mobilize public demand for action.

Third, there is a real problem with statutes of limitations. While de la Vega helpfully points out that if certain arguments can be won, some crimes can be prosecuted for longer than is often believed, she says nothing about most of the crimes of Bush and Cheney, the spying, the election fraud, the Hatch Act violations, the misspending of funds, the domestic propaganda, etc., etc. Only if a prosecutor can be persuaded to take on a larger conspiracy rather than a single crime, can an argument be made for starting the clock at a later point in time. And while death isn't needed to avoid limitations on prosecuting torture, but merely "a forseeable (sic) risk of, death or serious bodily injury," why would we want to have to prove the existence of that foreseeable risk when we could prosecute right now without having to? Why shouldn't our strategy be intense public pressure through the media, direct nonviolent action, and election challenges all aimed at forcing the appointment of a special prosecutor immediately, followed by further escalated pressure to demand swift prosecutions?

Fourth, the public narrative, although it already exists on the internet, is not going to happen in Congress or through a commission appointed by Congress or the president. De la Vega fears that once a prosecutor is appointed, congress members would clam up and "have a ready excuse." As compared to what? They clearly do not need an excuse and are not taking serious action, because not enough people are demanding it strongly enough; and counseling restraint does not help that situation. Missing from de la Vega's three goals above is the need to restore power to Congress and strip it from the president. Congress will have to be pushed, kicking and screaming, into reclaiming power. It does not want it. The most likely breakthroughs include impeachments, starting with Jay Bybee (an impeachment hearing and trial also being an ideal tool for exposing information to the public), and re-issuing and enforcing subpeonas. We could force passage of the State Secrets Protection Act, of the Lee-Wexler bill to create a select committee, and of the Baldwin resolution on executive branch accountability. But all of these things would become easier with prosecutions underway. Congressman Jerrold Nadler says impeaching Bybee will wait for a decision on prosecutions.

Fifth, Leahy and others have proposed panels and commissions as substitutes for prosecution. They will not conduct such things, if -- against the odds -- they should come into being, in such a way as to make prosecutions more likely. And certainly not if the public has already cooperatively stopped demanding prosecutions in order to allow the panel or commission to do its whitewashing magic. If, on the other hand, public pressure intensifies, we can compel, prosecutions, commissions, panels, public apologies, and a full restoration of both the rule of law and representation of the public through a legislature that makes public and enforceable laws. Justice delayed is likely to be justice denied entirely.

Truth, Crimes, Commissions, and Hope

davidswanson — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:26:11 GMT

By David Swanson

Good news is being taken as bad. Vermont constituents of Senator Patrick Leahy report that he's finding very little support for his proposed truth and reconciliation commission from Republicans or Democrats in the Senate. Numerous people have taken this as bad news and cause to despair. I disagree. Here are ten reasons why.
1. The idea was never reconciliation with Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, torture victims, spying victims, victims of political prosecutions, or anyone other than the commission members themselves. Real reconciliation is years away from even being comprehensible to, much less supported by, the U.S. Senate.

2. There are very useful things that Congress or an outside commission could do, but most of them have nothing to do with punishing or deterring crimes, or reconciling victims and abusers. The only thing that can deter future crimes of the sort that have been committed is criminal prosecution. Any commission begun before a special prosecutor is appointed would risk serving as a substitute for what is most needed, and risk having its requests and subpoenas ignored as Congress's have been for the past two years. But once a prosecutorial investigation is begun, Congress will be able to take up related issues without creating a substitute for prosecution and with better public understanding that there are advantages to complying with subpoenas and other legal obligations.

3. A commission dedicated to truth would have a hard time ignoring ongoing criminal investigations in Spain and Britain, and likely indictments there and elsewhere. The reconciliation would almost inevitably develop into opposition to international law, which is of course exactly the offense we most need to correct and deter, not encourage.

4. A nonpartisan commission would be a bipartisan commission, with half of the members named by each of the two parties into which our government is now more fundamentally divided than it is into three institutional branches. Both parties would favor a commission designed to coverup congressional complicity in crimes. And if there is some hope that a congressional committee might be motivated to restore Constitutional powers to Congress, an outside commission would not be as likely to have that interest.

5. A commission unable to compel witnesses could be designed to bribe them with immunity for their crimes. But unless there are prosecutions and the serious threat of prosecutions, that immunity is not a valuable bribe. And the granting of immunity is not justified by the circumstances. Our justice system is not overrun by too many defendants to be processed. It is simply refusing to prosecute a small number of individuals against whom there is extremely powerful evidence and for whom trials could potentially be very, very swift.

6. While we will never have the complete "truth" about anything and should not encourage the false belief that we lack probable cause to prosecute, obtaining more information about crimes and abuses is certainly desirable. But more information is likely to be obtained by a criminal prosecution than anything else. And more information is likely to quickly be made public by demanding the release of memos, Emails, minutes, reports from the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility, from the CIA, from the Senate Armed Services Committee, etc., than from any hearing or panel or commission. If Congress wants the truth about the treatment of prisoners, it should demand their release and listen to them. If it wants whistleblowers to speak, it should legislate protections for them. If it wants new stories to break, it should bust the media monopolies.

7. The sort of discussion most needed from Congress is not a weak substitute for a criminal investigation, but rather a study of how to restore Constitutional powers to Congress that have been usurped by presidents. A committee or panel or commission could most profitably examine the treaty power, appointment power, pardon power, power of the purse, power of war, and power to legislate, signing statements, secret laws, secret agencies, secret budgets, state secrets claims, executive privilege claims, vice presidential powers, the power of impeachment, the power of subpoena, and the practice of inherent contempt. The most effective way to do this, and probably the only possible way to do it, would be with a House-only select committee. Not only is the Senate hopeless, but a proper list of democratizing reforms would include proposing the elimination of the Senate.

8. A public airing of the crimes and abuses, if it did not interfere with criminal proceedings, if it enforced (or persuaded the Justice Department to enforce) its demands, and if it was covered by the media would certainly be useful. It would be less useful, however, if it repeated the endless public airings of the past 2 years in hearings that have been largely ignored by the media, or if it refused to call the crimes crimes, or if it reinforced the loss by Congress of the power of subpoena. Again the best and probably the only possible way to make this happen would be with a House select committee, subsequent to the beginning of a criminal investigation.

9. Existing committees and subcommittees can also hold closed and open hearings without delay, and with the possible advantage of Democrats holding majorities over the Republicans on every committee, and some are planning to do so. Committees can, if they choose, reissue all of their subpoenas that were refused over the past two years. Enforcing those subpoenas, into which much thought and work was poured, would reveal more than any bipartisan commission would be likely to.

10. A movement is rapidly and impressively building to demand a special prosecutor, to prosecute locally and abroad as well, and to legislate reforms through Congress. The State Secrets Protection Act, a resolution challenging an unconstitutional treaty with Iraq, a bill to restrict the abuse of National Security letters, and other good bills expected just after the April recess mark a trend in the necessary direction. The possibility of impeaching torture memo author and now federal judge Jay Bybee is even under discussion, and the California Democratic Party will take the matter up in a resolution later this month. By impeaching Bybee, Congress could restore its primary power, the one that gives teeth to the others, and then nobody would be able to type fast enough to record all the truth and reconciliation that would start spilling forth.

John Yoo Arrested

davidswanson — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:56:21 GMT

Former U.S. Official Arrested in Italy
By P.V. Maro,

ROME ( ) - John C. Yoo, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States, was arrested on Tuesday in Milan, Italy, and is being held for possible extradition to Spain, where he and five other retired officials who served under former President George W. Bush are expected to be indicted by a Spanish court for violations of the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Yoo, 41, is a visiting professor of Law at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, California, on leave from the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He served in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003. Yoo authored memos permitting the use of torture. Torture is banned by both U.S. law and international conventions.

Milan prosecutor Andrea Spolini released a statement indicating that Yoo can be held for up to 90 days awaiting an indictment in Spain under the international standard of "Rompi Testiculo."

(Edited by Antonio Gramsci)

happy financial fools day
check your zipper
and your constitution

News agency this was sort of attributed to objected and I've deleted it.

IACHR Hears Complaints Against US for Torture

davidswanson — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:54:59 GMT

By David Swanson

Leading human rights organizations in the United States on March 20th presented charges of human rights abuse and torture against the U.S. government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which can recommend actions, including prosecutions, to the U.S. government, other nations' governments, or the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Colleen Costello of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Jamil Dakwar of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) spoke at the hearing in Washington, D.C., on "Accountability for Violations of Human Rights in the United States."

The speakers presented evidence of torture and insisted on the need for prosecutions. A representative of the U.S. government defended torture, or rather the refusal to prosecute torture, or rather he avoided the topic while managing to speak at length. The career diplomat taking the stage for this Colin Powell moment was Lewis Amselem, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the Organization of American States (OAS).

The full video of the hearing is available at http://www.cidh.oas.org and is well worth watching. The written complaints filed with the IACHR will be posted at http://afterdowningstreet.org/iachr

Here is Colleen Costello's testimony (video):
http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

And Michael Ratner's (video):
http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

Six Years of Illegal War: Demand Accountability

davidswanson — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:38:01 GMT

Six Years of Illegal War: Demand Accountability

We are fast approaching the end of the sixth year since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and seven and a half in Afghanistan. There has been no accountability for the criminals who launched these wars of aggression. The current congress and president are continuing both and escalating one.

But awareness and public pressure continue to grow, as does the possibility of criminal prosecution for some of the war crimes. Over 150 groups are asking the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor for Bush and Cheney. You can add your name or your organization, and find a dozen other easy steps to take here:
http://prosecutebushcheney.org
Resistance to unconstitutional presidential power is growing even among fans of the current president. Read "One Step Forward, Two Steps Toward Monarchy" at
http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

United for Peace and Justice has produced a flyer to print, copy, and distribute at events around the time of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Please make yourself a hundred of these and hand them out:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

Take the flyers to these events:

Protests everywhere on March 19:
http://worldcantwait.net/dokuw...

Charges being brought against Bush, Cheney in DC on March 20:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

March on the Pentagon on March 21:
http://answer.pephost.org

March for Peace in Florida on March 28:
http://humanistsforpeace.com/f...

March to Wall Street in New York City on April 4:
Look for the Bush Chain Gang and march with the prisoners!
http://unitedforpeace.org/arti...

Protest NATO in Europe on April 4:
http://www.peaceandjustice.it/...

Join Our Spring Break in Washington, March 8 to 22:

http://ourspringbreak.org

Has Everyone in Your Town Signed the Petition to Eric Holder?

Have you signed this petition yet?
http://democrats.com/special-p...

You can use the opportunity of upcoming events to collect signatures in the real world by printing out this PDF. Please enter the data you collect on the petition online and/or mail the completed (or partially completed) forms to JDS, 4407 Garrison Street NW, Washington DC 20016. PDF: http://tinyurl.com/ao5hce

Dress for Success: T-Shirts and Posters

http://www.wavelengthclothing....

I'll See You At...

Hey, this is David Swanson and I'll be speaking at the following events where I hope to see you. Check http://davidswanson.org for updates.

March 18 at 11 a.m. at the Capitol Reflecting Pool, Washington, D.C., with OUR SPRING BREAK:
http://ourspringbreak.org

March 19 at 5:30 p.m. at Kanawha Plaza at 8th and Canal Streets in Richmond, Va., for rally to shift our national priorities:
http://blacktalkradio.ning.com...

April 19 or so, one or more panels at the Left Forum and other events in New York City:
http://www.leftforum.org

April 20 in Great Barrington, Mass.

April 21 in Amherst, Mass., at Bangs Community Center from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m.

My book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" will be published by Seven Stories Press in September 2009. I'm planning events around the country at that time. If you'd like me to come to your town or can help with planning an event, please check out this info and let me know:
david@davidswanson.org

Bush: The World Tour!
Former President, traitor, and war criminal George W. Bush will speak on March 17th in Calgary, and on June 17th to the Manufacturer and Business Association in Erie, Pa., with dates in Europe in between and other dates in the United States to follow. His co-conspirators are often on tour as well, and citizens' arrests make powerful statements:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

Join the Cause of Justice and Peace:
http://afterdowningstreet.org

Please help us inform you of activities in your town by logging in at
http://afterdowningstreet.org
Then click on "My account", on "Edit", and on "Personal Information," and type in your state and zip code.

Please FORWARD this message to everyone you know who doesn't think we should have one set of laws for us and another for those we put in powerful positions.

If you receive this from a friend, you can subscribe by registering at
http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

Guess Who Wants Prosecution of Bush-Cheney

davidswanson — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:59:38 GMT

142 Organizations Agree With Leading Senators and Congress Members: The Crimes of Bush, Cheney, and Other Top Officials Must Be Prosecuted
Statement on Prosecution of Former High Officials

We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.

DRAFTED BY The Robert Jackson Steering Committee, SIGNED BY the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, the Society of American Law Teachers, Human Rights USA, After Downing Street, American Freedom Campaign, and a total of 142 organizations listed at http://prosecutebushcheney.org

NANCY PELOSI agrees:
"Senator Leahy has a proposal, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is a good idea. What I have some concern about though is it has immunity. And I think that some of the issues involved here, like the services part, politicizing of the Justice Department, and the rest, they have criminal ramifications, and I don't think we should be giving them immunity. ... No one is above the law. The president has said that. [ ... you would support a referral for a criminal investigation, potential prosecution?] Absolutely. No one is above the law." -- Feb. 25, 2009.

JERROLD NADLER agrees:
"We have no choice. We must prosecute." -- Feb. 18, 2009.

JACK REED agrees:
"I think we have to seriously investigate allegations of torture. I don't know if we require a formal new Commission to do that. We have the DOJ. We have Federal attorneys. But we cannot simply ignore credible allegations." -- Feb. 12, 2009.

RUSS FEINGOLD agrees:
"As President Obama and Attorney General Holder have said, nobody is above the law. There needs to be accountability for wrongdoing by the Bush Administration, including the illegal warrantless wiretapping and interrogation programs. We cannot simply sweep these assaults on the rule of law under the rug." -- Feb. 10, 2009.

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE agrees:
"Whitehouse said the Justice Department should probe the matter. He pointed out that the agency has long regarded waterboarding as torture and, back in the 1980s, prosecuted a Texas sheriff in the 1980s for using waterboarding to extract confessions from suspects. Simply fixing the law around a policy does not make it legal, Whitehouse added. -- February 2009, http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

ANTONIO TAGUBA agrees:
"There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." -- February 2009.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE agree:
criminal investigation 38%
independent panel 24%
neither 34%
USA Today / Gallup Jan 30 - Feb 1, 2009.

THE NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS agrees:
On Feb. 27, 2009, it rejected an attempt by the Obama administration to use the state secrets privilege to block a lawsuit concerning the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program.

TORTURERS' OWN LAWYERS agree:
"Once Holder said that [waterboarding is torture] I got nervous," said one lawyer who represents a CIA official involved in the interrogation program, who asked not to be identified talking about a legally sensitive matter. "If he says it was torture, he has to do something." -- Newsweek, January 2009.

JOHN CONYERS agrees:
"The new administration should conduct an independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities. Just this week, in the pages of this newspaper, a Guantanamo Bay official acknowledged that a suspect there had been "tortured" -- her exact word -- in apparent violation of the law. The law is the law, and, if criminal conduct occurred, those responsible -- particularly those who ordered and approved the violations -- must be held accountable." -- Jan. 23, 2009.

CARL LEVIN agrees:
"I suggested to Eric Holder ... that he select some people or hire an outside person who's got real credibility, perhaps a retired federal judge, to take all the available information, and there's reams of it. Look, the Vice President, the former Vice President of the United States, acknowledged that they engaged in torture. He says that waterboarding's not torture, he's wrong. Waterboarding is torture, period. And this administration and Eric Holder has said so. It's torture and there's other forms that they engaged in, so what needs to be done, I believe, in addition to finishing the investigation, is for the Attorney General, the new Attorney General, to identify some people in his office to take the existing documentation. The acknowledgment, folks, this is not a very difficult - this is almost like a case in court with an agreed upon statement of facts, that the previous administration acknowledges that they engaged in waterboarding, period." -- Jan. 22, 2009.

MANFRED NOWAK agrees:
The incoming American President Barack Obama is legally obligated to prosecute Bush and Rumsfeld because the US has ratified the UN Convention on Torture and has also recognized it as legally binding, said UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak. -- Jan. 20, 2009.

ERIC HOLDER agrees:
At Holder's confirmation hearing, when Senator Patrick Leahy asked if waterboarding is torture and illegal, Holder agreed that it is. When Leahy then asked whether the President of the United States can immunize acts of torture, Holder said that he cannot. When Senator Diane Feinstein said that an Inspector General's report on politicized hiring, firing, and prosecuting at the Department of Justice is evidence that officials have lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and that doing so is illegal, Holder replied that he will review prosecutors' determination not to pursue criminal charges. When Senator Orrin Hatch asked if the president has the authority to engage in warrantless surveillance, Holder said no. When Senator Russ Feingold asked the same thing, Holder stammered and stuttered and called it a "hypothetical" but said no. When Feingold pointed out that lawyers at the Department of Justice, the White House, and the Office of the Vice President had written memos that clearly sought to sanction illegal actions, and asked "What is your view of the President's Constitutional authority to authorize violations of the law?" Holder replied that the president does not have that authority.

56 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS agree:
"Dear Mr. Attorney General:
"We are writing to request that you appoint a special counsel to investigate whether the Bush Administration's policies regarding the interrogation of detainees have violated federal criminal laws. There is mounting evidence that the Bush Administration has sanctioned enhanced interrogation techniques against detainees under the control of the United States that warrant an investigation." -- June 6, 2008, http://afterdowningstreet.org/...

DICK DURBIN agrees:
On February 12, 2008, Senators Durbin and Whitehouse wrote a letter to the Department of Justice requesting an investigation into the role "Justice Department officials [played] in authorizing and/or overseeing the use of waterboarding by the Central Intelligence Agency... and whether those who authorized it violated the law." The two senators wrote: "Waterboarding has a sordid history in the annals of torture by repressive regimes, from the Spanish Inquisition to the Khmer Rouge. The United States has always repudiated waterboarding as a form of torture and prosecuted it as a war crime."

Groups Request Special Prosecutor for Bush, Cheney, et alia

davidswanson — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:55:57 GMT

Statement on Prosecution of Former High Officials

Check out who has signed this!
Drafted by The Robert Jackson Steering Committee
http://www.afterdowningstreet....

Signed By:

Center for Constitutional Rights
http://www.ccrjustice.org

The National Lawyers Guild
http://www.nlg.org

After Downing Street
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org

American Freedom Campaign
http://www.americanfreedomcamp...

Ann Wright, retired US Army Reserve Colonel and US diplomat
http://www.voicesofconscience.com

Backbone Campaign
http://www.backbonecampaign.org

Brad Blog
http://www.bradblog.com

Cities for Peace
http://citiesforprogress.org

CODE PINK: Women for Peace
http://www.codepink4peace.org

Daniel Ellsberg, Truth-Telling Project
http://www.ellsberg.net

Defending Dissent Foundation
http://www.defendingdissent.org

Delaware Valley Veterans for America
http://www.delvalvets4america.org

Democrats.com
http://www.democrats.com

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
http://www.space4peace.org

Gold Star Families for Peace
http://www.cindysheehanssoapbo...

Grandmothers Against the War
http://www.grandmothersforpeac...

Grassroots America
http://www.grassrootsamerica4u...

High Road for Human Rights Advocacy Project
http://www.highroadforhumanrig...

Iraq Veterans Against the War
http://ivaw.org

Justice Through Music
http://www.jtmp.org

Marcus Raskin, co-founder of Institute for Policy Studies, member of editorial board of the Nation, member of the special staff of the National Security Council in the Kennedy Administration

Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored
http://www.projectcensored.org

Naomi Wolf, author of End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, and Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries
http://naomiwolf.org

National Accountability Network

Northeast Impeachment Coalition
http://www.neimpeach.org/wp

Op Ed News
http://www.opednews.com

Peace Action
http://www.peace-action.org

Peace Team
http://www.peaceteam.net

The Progressive
http://www.progressive.org

Progressive Democrats of America
http://www.pdamerica.org

Republicans for Impeachment
http://republicansforimpeachme...

United for Peace and Justice
http://www.unitedforpeace.org

Velvet Revolution
http://www.velvetrevolution.us

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
http://www.afterdowningstreet....

Veterans for Peace
http://www.veteransforpeace.org

Voters for Peace
http://votersforpeace.us/index...

War Crimes Times
http://www.warcrimestimes.org

Wisconsin Impeachment/Bring Our Troops Home Coalition
http://www.impeachwi.com

World Can't Wait
http://www.worldcantwait.net

Organizations and individuals can add their names to this statement at http://prosecutebushcheney.org

Complete Recipe for Accountability: Just Add Sweat

davidswanson — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:02:15 GMT

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Prosecutions:

Federal:

Sign a petition asking Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in war crimes. Sign now.

Collect signatures in the real world by printing out this PDF. Please enter the data you collect on the petition online and/or mail the completed (or partially completed) forms to JDS, 4407 Garrison Street NW, Washington DC 20016.

Phone and Email and fax the Office of the Attorney General at 202-514-2001 AskDOJ@usdoj.gov fax:202-307-6777 to request a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in war crimes.
In June 2008, 56 Democratic Congress members, led by Congressman John Conyers, wrote to Attorney General Mukasey asking for a Special Prosecutor. Conyers and Congressman Jerrold Nadler wrote to Mukasey again in December 2008. Please ask them to re-send these letters to the new Attorney General, Eric Holder. Conyers 202-225-5126, Nadler 202-225-5635.

Congressman John Conyers has proposed extending statutes of limitations on Bush-Cheney crimes. Help make this happen.

Contact the State Department's Office of War Crimes Issues and urge them to ask Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in war crimes.

Here are tips and info. on contacting Congress.

State and Local:

Bush and others can be indicted at the state or district level for murder. Please take these steps.

International:

The International Criminal Court can also indict. Please request it.

Foreign:

Our friends at the Center for Constitutional Rights are coordinating with attorneys pursuing prosecutions in other countries.

Impeachment:

While Bush and Cheney can and should still be impeached, a more likely success would be the impeachment of Jay Bybee. Please ask your Congress member to pursue it: 202-224-3121.

Production of Information:

Overwhelming evidence of probable cause for prosecutions is in the public realm, in some cases including public confessions and other evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. No one should be denied a fair trial, but no trials should be delayed which are already compelled by the evidence. A prosecutorial investigation would be the most effective tool for producing additional evidence. The facts on Bush and Cheney are well known, and those on their chief co-conspirators somewhat less so. Making these facts better known and producing more of them is a worthwhile task, secondary to pursuing prosecutions.

Purchase The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecution.

Ask the Justice Department not to coverup torture With "state secrets" claims, as it is doing. Phone and Email the Office of Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-514-2001 AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

In the House and Senate, Congress members Nadler, Petri, Conyers, Delahunt, and Lofgren, and Senators Leahy, Specter, Feingold, McCaskill, Whitehouse and Kennedy have just reintroduced the State Secrets Protection Act. Ask your Congress member and senators to sign on and to encourage the Attorney General to appoint a Special Prosecutor: 202-224-3121.

Senator Russ Feingold has requested a classified briefing to explain the "state secrets" claim. Encourage him to pursue the matter and to encourage the Attorney General to appoint a Special Prosecutor: Feingold, (202) 224-5323.

President Obama has promised transparency, but has not released even these incriminating memos that we already know about. Ask him to do so: 202-456-1111.

Ask Congress to reissue the subpoenas that were refused during the 110th Congress, and to enforce them through inherent contempt.

Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Russ Feingold, Patrick Leahy, and Jack Reed, as well as Congressmen John Conyers and Jerrold Nadler, have made statements in 2009 in support of some form of accountability, and Conyers has explicitly advocated for a Special Prosecutor as well as introducing a bill to create an investigative commission. Such a commission might be counterproductive, as argued by Jonathan Turley, Peter Dyer, David Swanson, and Bob Fertik. The Justice Department itself has argued for "state secrets" blocks on prosecutions on the grounds that commissions can substitute for enforcing laws. The American public prefers criminal prosecutions to commission investigations.

More on Conyers' proposal for a commission and the lengthy report he released when making the proposal go here. If you think your Congress member should sign on to H.R. 104, give them a call: 202-224-3121.

Indirect Pressure:

States and localities and political parties and organizations can pass resolutions. Here's how.

Make a citizen's arrest of a war criminal.

Taking Them to Court:

Organizations and individuals can file other types of law suits. Please do so.

Mandamus: You can ask a judge to order a prosecution. It's been tried in Minnesota with this writ, yielding this refusal.

Filing Complaints With State Licensing Authorities:

Many of the people described on the citizen's arrest page are lawyers or psychologists, and we should file complaints with licensing agencies.

Restoring the Structure of the Rule of Law:

Congresswoman Barbara Lee has introduced a resolution rejecting as unconstitutional the treaty that President George W. Bush made without consulting Congress to establish three more years of war in Iraq. Ask your Congress member to sign onto H.Res. 72: 202-224-3121.

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin has announced her intention to reintroduce a resolution urging the reversal of a number of Bush-Cheney abuses of power. We should be prepared to support this, and we should ask members to sign on as original cosponsors: 202-224-3121. Likely cosponsors are members of the progressive caucus.

We also need to:

Demand that President Obama reverse all of President Bush's signing statements that altered laws, and demand that Congress ban the use of funds for any activities created in violation of the law by presidential signing statements.

Amend the Constitution to clearly ban the use of presidential pardons to pardon crimes authorized by the president.

Amend the War Powers Act and the Constition to include the requirement that Congressional authorizations of war include time limits of no more than 12 months, after which Congress must vote again to extend the war or end it.

Make war profiteering by any war maker a major felony. This would apply to any employee of the federal government or anyone who had within the past decade been an employee of the federal government.

Legislate a requirement that, in any war, the military aged children and grandchildren of the president, the vice president, all cabinet officials, and all Congress members serve on the front lines in the most dangerous combat positions -- no exceptions, no exemptions.

Prohibit the use of mercenaries or any armed contractors, as well as the use of any military force on American soil except when directly engaged in defensive war against a foreign nation.

Repeal the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the 2008 FISA "modernization" act, the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the PATRIOT Act.

Ban secret budgets, secret laws, and secret agencies.

Change the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster.

Amend the Constitution to eliminate the Senate.

End all rendition.

Amend the Constitution to make the ban on ex-post-facto laws include any laws that would retroactively grant immunity for crimes.

Amend the Constitution to bar the vice president from exercising executive power.

Amend the Constitution to clarify the Congressional power of inherent contempt.

Amend the Constitution to include the right to vote and to have one's vote counted publicly at the polling place.

Give Washington, D.C., voting representation in Congress.

Amend the Constitution to ban private financing of campaigns, create public financing, and provide free air time to candidates.

Sign and ratify the Rome treaty to join the International Criminal Court.

Spreading the Word:

Be a media activist. Be the media and submit your reports, videos, photos here.

Please place this graphic toolkit on your website.

Put this theme song wherever you play music.

Buy a shirt or sign.

Join After Downing Street.

Join the Progressive Democrats of America Issue Organizing Team on Accountability.

Join the National Accountability Network.

Join the United for Peace and Justice Working Group on Accountability and Prosecution.

Join the Peace Team.

Join High Road for Human Rights.

The Robert Jackson Steering Committee was formed at a September 2008 conference in Andover, Mass. Watch video.

Read the news at http://prosecutebushcheney.org

For People Unclear on the Concept:

The crimes and abuses: ignoring and failing to respond to threats of terrorism, misspending funds, misleading Congress, creating false propaganda, invading Iraq in violation of Constitution, UN Charter, and HJRes 114, establishing bases and seeking to control resources, allowing energy companies to secretly make policy, providing immunity to mercenaries, wasting funds on war profiteers, detention without charge, rendition, torture, murder, imprisoning children, creating secret laws, using military domestically, spying without warrant, rewriting laws with signing statements, undermining preparedness for natural disasters and destroying economy through military waste, politicizing the Justice Department, ordering obstruction of justice, blocking prosecutions with bogus claims of "state secrets," et cetera, et cetera.

Obama's CIA Director Makes It Clear This is a Pro-Torture Administration

Bobc — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:40:35 GMT

Today Obama's CIA nominee, Panetta, recanted yesterday's testimony admitting that we, the United States, rendered persons to foreign countries to be tortured. There is ample public testimony from military and CIA officials that the U.S. has rendered persons to be tortured.

The Bush administration perpetuated its torture policy by secretly ordering the use of torture while publicly proclaiming that we do not use torture as a method of interrogation. Panetta's public statement today that he has no evidence that we rendered persons to be tortured makes it clear that the Obama administration will continue the Bush pro-torture policy.

The only way, let me repeat, the only way we as Americans can stop our policy of using torture as a method of interrogation is to shed light on our past actions, admit what we have done, and work to bring to justice those who ordered the use of torture. Panetta's public denial of our past policy of rendering persons to foreign countries to be tortured will work to effectively obstruct attempts to investigate our past practices, and it will greatly impede efforts to bring those who ordered the use of torture to justice.

I take Mr. Panetta's public statements today before a Congressional Committee to be proof positive that the Obama administration is a pro-torture administration.

Please help me to understand this. Can it be that we worked with such determination to help elect a second consecutive pro-torture administration? Before the election, we petitioned our elected representatives calling for investigations of the Bush administration for violations of our statutory law, our treaties, our Constitution, and international law for torture. The most repeated answer to our petitions was that the new administration would be different.

We were led to believe by Barack Obama that his presidency would bring a stop to our policy of torture.

In my view, this is a simple question, one of the few questions in politics that truly can be considered on the basis of good or bad. The contrast is as stark as day and night, as black and white. And recent history, World War II, is an easy reminder of the wrong choice on this question. So what is it?

What is it about the infliction of insufferable suffering on another human being that is so appealing that our elected representatives think we are willing to overlook or even encourage it?

Here is where I draw the line. No question, no quibbling, no doubt. As I worked to help the Obama administration get to power, I will now, and I mean beginning today, work to limit this pro-torture administration to one term.

Alberto Gonzalez: They Won't Prosecute Me (I Hope)

tremayne — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:01:48 GMT

Alberto Gonzalez is disturbed over Eric Holder's unambiguous confirmation hearing statement: "Waterboarding is torture." NPR interviewed Gonzalez and you can find a summary at The Swamp. I've annotated it here with notes from inside Alberto's head:

Gonzales, in an interview airing on National Public Radio's Tell Me More today, voiced his concern about "Making a blanket pronouncement like that.'' He noted "the effect it may have... on the morale and the dedication of intelligence officials and lawyers throughout the administration."

Voice Inside Alberto's Head (VIAH): It's hurting my morale. Plus, I can't get a job as it is.

"My reaction was very similar to General Mukasey's reaction, which was concern about making a pronouncement like that,'' Gonzales said, pointing to the "concern that would arise in the minds of intelligence officials and lawyers at the department, who all acted in good faith, working as hard as they can under very difficult circumstances, to give advice and make decisions to protect our country...

VIAH: It was those intelligence officers and lawyers I worked with who wanted to do all those bad things, not me.

"I don't know whether or not, in making that statement, Mr. Holder had access to all of the opinions, all of the underlying documentation supporting the opinions'' that the Justice Department had issued on the question, he said - noting also "the threat that existed at the time these opinions were offered, and the opinions of the intelligence officials about their belief in a particular detainee having very important, valuable intelligence information that might save American lives.''

VIAH: There was a ticking time bomb you see, and we had "opinions" that torture was okay. W had opinions, Rummy had opinions. John Yoo had some really great opinions.

On the question of prosecuting officers who employed any of the "extreme tactics'' that the Bush administration has acknowledged, without admitting to any "torture'' of detainees: "I don't think that there's going to be a prosecution, quite frankly.'' Gonzales said. "Because again, these activities.... They were authorized, they were supported by legal opinions at the Department of Justice.''

VIAH. Duh! You people are so stupid. We said we could torture people, don't you get that? We gave ourselves the authority so we had the authority. I could poke you in the eyes right now because I still have the authority to do that. John Yoo said so.

Continued inside.

"Nonetheless, the very discussion about it is extremely discouraging,'' the former attorney general said. "And I have talked to officials, senior officials at the CIA for example, who tell me that agents at the CIA no longer have any interest at doing anything remotely controversial, for fear that they are going to be investigated, and they're going to have to go out and hire lawyers in order to do their job.

VIAH: It's sad to watch would-be torturers walking around with their hang dog looks. Work's just not fun for them anymore.

"And so it has a very discouraging effect. And the net result of all of that is that people will not be doing what they need to be doing to gain intelligence that will help us connect the dots and protect our country from another attack."

VIAH: Connecting dots, that's all. Like when we connected those dots from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. Sometimes the dots don't want to be connected and it takes some brute force. Get over it. You think dots like "Nigerian uranium" are just gonna reveal themselves without a little persuasion if you know what I mean.

MS. MARTIN: None of my business, but do you mind telling me who you voted for?
MR. GONZALES: Who did I? I voted for John McCain. I believe that John McCain, I believe in his policies and his visions of America, and that's why I support him and that's why I think people should vote for someone.

VIAH: Plus, I thought my chances of being prosecuted were pretty small in a McCain administration.

MS. MARTIN: I think what Mr. Holder and those who agree with his position are saying, though, is that it wasn't worth it - that these practices did not yield important information and that, in fact, even if they did, that they damaged America's standing abroad to such a degree that it wasn't worth it. What do you say to that?

MR. GONZALES: Well, I think as a lawyer, we need to be careful in saying that it didn't produce valuable intelligence, because my recollection is that the intelligence officials gave a contradictory testimony - or have made contradictory statements. They come to the lawyers - intelligence officials come to lawyers - and say we lack this information. In order to get this information, this is what we believe we need to do. As lawyers, we don't say, at that point, well, no, we disagree with you; you can get that information a different way. That's not our job.

VIAH: Wait, wasn't there something in law school about "balancing tests" or something. And, okay, maybe there was something about it being better to do things legally than to do things illegally. But it's not really the AG's job to tell them "no, that would be illegal" is it? I mean they really really really needed the information. Plus, some of those guys at CIA were going to be sad if they didn't get to slap somebody around.

Our job as lawyers is to say, okay, we will tell you whether or not this can be done lawfully. And so if the intelligence officials are saying that the information gathered helped protect America, I think we need to take - we need to believe them as opposed to believing the lawyers who say, oh, I don't think that's going to be as effective.

VIAH: Let me repeat the first part: "Our job as lawyers is to say okay."

MS. MARTIN: Well, but civilian control of both the military and these questions, as I said, a well-established core value of the United States, and one of our - one of the arguments of the critics - is that this - that civilians such as yourself, officers of the government, have a duty to set a bright line, and this is so violative (sic) of the values of the American people that on that basis, it's not worth it. What do you say to that?
MR. GONZALES: Well, you know, when people talk about values, I don't know whether or not we're talking about my values or your values - whose values are we talking about? The values of the American people are typically incorporated and reflected in the laws passed by Congress and in our Constitution. And that's where our values are easily - can be easily seen and can be easily interpreted and understood and so, so long as the actions are consistent with our laws and consistent with our Constitution, I think you can make a very strong argument that the actions taken are consistent with our values.

VIAH: Damn media elites. She's obviously got San Francisco values if you know what I mean.

MS. MARTIN: Are you at all concerned that you will be prosecuted for your role in defending setting policies around these techniques?
MR. GONZALES: No. I'm not - listen, I think only a fool wouldn't be worried about a prosecution motivated for political reasons, or - I mean, Washington can be a very difficult town and a mean-spirited town. But I think if you look at the evidence, if people tell the truth, I don't see a criminal prosecution for me, nor for anyone that I'm aware of, because again, based on what I have observed, people acted in good faith. They didn't act for political considerations; they didn't act for personal considerations; they acted in the best interests of the United States as they saw it.

VIAH: Fuck yes I'm worried.

MS. MARTIN: Final question on this point, though, that your successors and the Obama administration are saying that they don't believe that these techniques are necessary to keep America safe. Any regrets on your part?
MR. GONZALES: Again, I question whether or not it's their role to make that kind of judgment. I think that the intelligence officials are professionals; it's their judgment to decide whether or not these kinds of - any technique, any technique in the war on terror, whether it be Guantanamo, whether it be interrogation, whether it be in surveillance - it's the role, the responsibility, of the intelligence officials to say this is something we need to protect America and for the lawyers to say, well, that can lawfully be done - that cannot lawfully be done.

VIAH: Regrets? I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do. And saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway. But more, much more than this, I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew. But through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out. I faced it all and I stood tall, and did it my way.

Torture²

Daniel De Groot — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:26:30 GMT

How Atrocity Compounds and Multiplies; The Case of Maher Arar and Omar Khadr

The decision to suspend all ongoing MCA terrorism trials at Guantanamo has one slight unfortunate side-effect; the trial of accused 15 year old Canadian grenade-thrower Omar Khadr was actually starting to reveal some very interesting and important things in testimony (though of course stopping the trials was the right thing to do).

One surprising revelation was a purported link between Khadr and another Canadian who got mangled in the Bush Administration war on terrorism, the Syrian born Maher Arar. Arar, on his way back to Canada in September 2002 was detained by US authorities at JFK airport while changing flights. He was subsequently sent, not to Canada, his country of residence and citizenship, but to Syria, which was known to employ torture. The Syrians, eager to cooperate with America, tortured and interrogated Arar for a year before returning him to Canada, having found no evidence he was a terrorist. A subsequent Canadian inquiry would also clear Arar of any connection to terrorism and the Canadian government paid him $10M in compensation for Canada's role in Arar's illegal rendition to Syria. The US government did not cooperate in this Inquiry and has refused to clear Arar to the end of the Bush Administration.

In prosecution testimony on Monday, FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller claimed that during interrogations of Khadr in Afghanistan back in October 2002, Khadr claimed to know Arar, identified him by name from a photograph and claimed he had seen him in Al Qaeda safe houses in Afghanistan during September-October of 2001. This appeared to re-implicate Arar and vindicate at least his detention by US authorities. Then came Tuesday, and the cross-examination of Fuller.
Fuller's story changed:

Khadr couldn't pick out Arar immediately, FBI agent admits
An FBI agent who previously testified Omar Khadr identified fellow Canadian Maher Arar as someone he saw at al-Qaeda safe houses and possibly training camps in Afghanistan acknowledged on Tuesday the teen's identification of the Ottawa software engineer did not happen as immediately as he first stated.
[...]
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations agent testified on Tuesday that during an interrogation session in Afghanistan in 2002, Khadr came around to saying that on several occasions he had seen Arar, who was cleared of any links to terrorism by a Canadian public inquiry in 2006.
[...]
Defence lawyer Walter Ruiz showed the commission a report written by Fuller right after his interrogation session with Khadr in Afghanistan, in which the agent wrote it took Khadr several minutes to identify the man in a photograph shown to him as Arar, the CBC's Bill Gillespie reported from Guantanamo Bay.

I believe this could be what Law Enforcement Officers privately call "testilying." I don't know what else to call it when your testimony from the previous day is clearly contradicted by your own notes on the subject. Did Fuller not reread his own notes before testifying? I suppose that might keep him clear of perjury but certainly not gross incompetence. It turns out Khadr did not know Arar's name either. Fuller by the way has some disturbing history:

A Falls Church man who worked as a federal informant on terrorism set himself on fire in front of the White House yesterday, hours after announcing his suicide attempt and citing his growing despondency over how the FBI managed his case.
[...]
In the recent interviews, Alanssi expressed anguish over not being able to visit his family in Yemen. He said that he suffers from diabetes and heart problems and that his wife is seriously ill with stomach cancer. Alanssi said he could not travel to his native country because he has no money and because the FBI, which is expecting him to testify at a terrorism trial in New York, was keeping his Yemeni passport.
"I must travel to Yemen to see my sick wife (stomac cancer) and my family before I testify at the court or any other places," Alanssi wrote FBI agent Robert Fuller in New York, according to the copy he provided The Post yesterday. "Why you don't care about my life and my family's life? Once I testify my family will be killed in Yemen, me too I will be dead man."

As the article explains, Fuller was the FBI handler for this unfortunate guy, whose identity was leaked to the media in 2003 and his family in Yemen suffered for it. Nice. Guess we have to break some eggs to make a...well, just to make a mess.

The incident also highlights the vital importance of how trials are conducted and what materials the Defence has a right to examine. If you read Khadr's wiki, he has narrowly avoided being hung by Bush's kangaroo court system a few times already. At one point, they weren't even going to let him face his accusers (like Fuller) and presumably not get to cross-examine them either.

Much more, it turns out, the story cannot possibly be true, since for the period Khadr supposedly claimed to have seen Arar in Afghanistan palling around with terrorists, fall 2001, Arar himself was actively under surveillance by the RCMP for suspicion over an associate of Arar's, a fellow Ottawa area Syrian born engineer named Abdullah Almalki. Almalki himself has never been charged with anything relating to terrorism, but himself was suspected of knowing people involved in Al Qaeda. Arar had once listed Almalki as his "emergency contact" on a form, and so fell into the RCMP's net of suspicion. Unless Arar is some kind of mastermind with a double convincing enough to fool the RCMP, he was most definitely in Canada for that period.

In any case, Khadr was evidently prompted to finger Arar, who had just been nabbed by INS and was being held sans Miranda rights in the US. Canada had clearly shared its terrorism suspect files with the US, since Arar reports that the US interrogators had a copy of that emergency contact form. However's Canada's files only named him a "person of interest" which was not enough to even arrest him in Canada, so the US authorities probably decided they needed a little more to go on.

I really hope the reasoning doesn't turn out to be a variant of the classic "they're both Canadian, they must know each other" thing Americans often do to Canucks, but I have a hard time seeing why else they would even ask Khadr about Arar. Khadr's family lived in Toronto while in Canada, and Arar was in Ottawa. The two cities are a 4-hour drive apart. There's no reason to even guess they would know each other, never mind to coach a 15-year old boy into claiming so.

Khadr's claims about Arar become so much less credible and the whole Arar affair even more lamentable, when you take into account the abuse and torture Khadr endured while held at that base in Afghanistan, under the guard of US soldiers who believed he had killed a Special Forces soldier in the incident leading to his capture. Wiki describes it:

The unconscious Khadr was airlifted to receive medical attention at Bagram, where interrogations began immediately after he gained consciousness approximately a week after his arrival, although he remained stretcher-bound for several weeks.[44] Col. Marjorie Mosier operated on his eyes after his arrival,[50] though fellow detainee Rhuhel Ahmed later stated that Khadr had been denied other forms of surgery to save his eyesight as punishment for not giving interrogators the answers they sought.[51] Later attempts to acquire darkened sunglasses to protect his failing eyesight were denied for "state security" reasons.[52]
[...]
Khadr states that he was refused pain medication for his wounds, that he had his hands tied above a door frame for hours, had cold water thrown on him, had a bag placed over his head and was threatened with military dogs, was flatulated upon, forced to carry 5-gallon pails of water to aggravate his shoulder wound. Unallowed to use washrooms, he was forced to urinate on himself.[44][54] His chief interrogator was Joshua Claus, who later pleaded guilty to abusing detainees to extract confessions following the in-custody death of wrongly accused Dilawar that same year.[57]

I know this boy was most definitely working with, and as part of the Taliban in fighting US forces, but he was still a 15 year old kid, and not exactly your "hardened" KSM type whom can somehow magically resist even Waterboarding using his powers of Evil.

Khadr was tortured, and became eager to cooperate. So eager he obviously became rather suggestible. We don't know if Fuller knew anything about the abuse Khadr had endured when interrogating him, and I don't want to lay all this mess at the feet of one FBI agent, but it seems increasingly clear the decision to illegally send Maher Arar to Syria was made on the basis of a terrified and traumatized child being prompted to "know" someone in a photograph.

This is the kind of "useful information" people like Cheney talk about when extolling the virtues of torture. It's why Salem never seemed to run out of Witches no matter how many women they killed, and even a little bit like how Joe McCarthy could keep finding Communists everywhere. People put under varying forms of coercion to name others involved in order to prevent some bad thing happening to them, will name just about anyone. Another example of the right never ever learning from their mistakes. No doubt Cheney's memoirs will reflect on his regret in not reopening the McCarthy files to finish Joe's work purging Communists from State. He had to settle with purging all the liberals from Justice.

You simply can't trust the veracity of information gleaned from torture, particularly for the purpose of trying and convicting someone of a crime. Luckily for Arar, he is free and clear of Guantanamo, because if he was there, being tried under Bush's original Executive-authority extra-constitutional tribunal system, no doubt Khadr's testimony would have been given great weight in holding him there. How many current detainees are being held on paper-thin "evidence" like this? Who else was Arar coached into claiming he saw in Afghanistan?

One final coda here, during the Congressional investigations into what happened to Arar, the question of why the US chose to send Arar to Syria rather than to Canada, AG Mukasey admitted in testimony that:

sending [Mr. Arar] to Canada could have posed a danger to [the United States] and sending him to Syria was safer [...]

It turns out Canada would not arrest Arar (not having any actual evidence of a crime of any sort being a barrier to that sort of thing up here) so the Bush Administration couldn't tolerate the risk that Arar would...do something while free in Canada. If Arar is so dangerous, why not hold him, or even send him to Guantanamo? After all they had an "eyewitness" that Arar was a member of Al Qaeda. I really would be interested to see how this decision was made. Looking at it now, I partially wonder if they just felt like it would be an embarrassment to seize a guy changing flights to go back to Canada, hold him for weeks without due process, and then deport him where he was originally going voluntarily. It would be an admission of failure.

There are so many dangling threads to grab at in investigating the torture regime of the Bush Administration, but this is as good a place to start as any. It says a lot about why the Administration has been so adamant about treating Arar as a suspect, and pursuing a conviction for war crimes on a minor, who, by rights of the US ratified UN Optional Protocol on the Rights of the Child cannot be held to account for his actions as a child-soldier. Khadr's trial and incarceration is a violation of International Law. I was hoping Khadr would take the stand in his own defence, as I'm sure his story will fill in many of the gaps here. Naturally his trial was a blemish on the face of Justice, but for the moment it was shedding some light on a dark period.

Let's hope Obama is willing to open the books to Congress here about what happened in this case. It's a textbook example of torture's futility.

Moving Forward? Here Are The Rules.

Edger — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:49:53 GMT

Crossposted from Docudharma. If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.
Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor for background

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

Here are the rules.

This past Monday George Will, of all people, was comparing Obama refusing to prosecute Bush and Cheney to Ford pardoning Nixon.

If a far right crazed wingnut can get it right, why can't the rest of us?

This comparison is one that we can use to good effect, but only if we do it continuously and loudly.

A friend of mine Tuesday morning, a nearly unquestioning Obama supporter, said to me, and I quote:

No argument from me. Ford should have been stood against the wall and shot for that pardon. Nixon cooling his heels in the clink for a few years would have prevented this mess, no doubt.

Ford's pardon of Nixon was the beginning of the end of any hope Ford had of being politically effective, and absolutely killed his future chances for reelection.
So let's see... if Obama doesn't want a political blood bath that might define his first term as him being a bush enabler and a torture excuser and might drown him, then he'll tell Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor, and answer Fertik's question directly himself, instead of hiding behind excuses and Joe Biden, since according to Biden it is not the job of the president or the vice president, but of the Justice department.

Ford's pardon of Nixon killed Ford politically, and not prosecuting Bush and Cheney has to kill Obama politically.

There has to be a political price to pay for not doing it, or he will not do it. Why would he, if there is no price to pay for not doing it and the price for doing it is high?

With things like the petition, Fertik's insistent embarrassing questioning, people like Ari Melber doing their best to force the issue into the media, people need to force the price for not doing it so high that Obama and Holder cannot ignore it.

People did it to Ford. If people are willing to let Obama slide on this, then there is no reason Obama will not let Bush and Cheney slide on torture and war crimes.

It's not up to Obama. It's up to us. It's up to me. It's up to you.

Maybe, Going Forward, We Should Just Let Bernie Madoff Off?
Jane Hamsher at Huffington Post, January 12, 2008

If Obama were to announce right now that he was going to prosecute those who engaged in torture and war crimes, I understand it could trigger a rash of unwanted pardons before Bush left office and therefore it's smart for him to hold his cards close.

But the reason that's being given for not pursuing prosecutions makes little sense:

"My orientation's going to be to move forward," Obama said. The attorney general has to stay above politics and "uphold the Constitution," Obama added, but his administration will focus on "getting things right in the future as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past."

Any decision to not pursue those who broke the law is in no way "above politics" -- and if we were going to apply this principle across the board, it would have as Ari Melber notes rather strange implications:

No one argues against prosecuting Bernie Madoff so that the Justice Department can focus on fixing the economy, going forward. In fact, faithfully and uniformly enforcing the law is crucial to "getting things right in the future." Any deterrence produced via criminal sanction is undermined when future, potential offenders see that a law is not actually enforced. People are more likely to follow the law when they see that breaking it carries consequences. This is such a basic foundation of our criminal system, justified by the elemental rationales of deterrence and retribution, it is quite hard to imagine that so many seasoned attorneys and Washington journalists honestly believe that the best way "forward" is to undermine deterrence and the rule of law.

Obama decision to appoint Eric Holder and Leon Panetta, who have made strong statements against torture, does indeed imply that he intends to "get it right" going forward.

But it is disconcerting that, as Glenn Greenwald observes, Obama indicated yesterday he is looking for a way to set up a system outside the courts where evidence obtained by torture can be used against Guantanamo detainees.

Glenn discusses Obama's interview with George Stephanopolous:

What he's saying is quite clear. There are detainees who the U.S. may not be able to convict in a court of law. Why not? Because the evidence that we believe establishes their guilt was obtained by torture, and it is therefore likely inadmissible in our courts (torture-obtained evidence is inadmissible in all courts in the civilized world; one might say it's a defining attribute of being civilized). But Obama wants to detain them anyway -- even though we can't convict them of anything in our courts of law. So before he can close Guantanamo, he wants a new, special court to be created -- presumably by an act of Congress -- where evidence obtained by torture (confessions and the like) can be used to justify someone's detention and where, presumably, other safeguards are abolished. That's what he means when he refers to "creating a process."

The synergy between right-wing fans of 24 who think torture is cool, members of the Bush administration who carried it out and the DC chattering class who mainstreamed it has created a climate where the political threat of directly dealing with the legacy of torture looms large.
But 70,000 people demanding a Special Prosecutor on change.gov argues that the political price to be paid for sweeping everything under the carpet might be even bigger.

Jane Hamsher blogs at firedoglake.com

Don't expect me to or even ask me to tell you why you should sign the petition.

You already know why you should sign the petition. You don't need me or anyone else to tell you why you should sign the petition.

There is no more debate on these matters. The only people who want to continue debating these matters are war criminals who want to be let off the hook and supporters of letting war criminals off the hook.

Obama's Duty To Prosecute Bush For War Crimes,
Patriot Daily, December 29, 2008

Signing the petition drafted by budhydharma and Docudharma is not in defiance of our President-Elect Obama, but rather a sign of support for the difficult times that he and Holder will face when performing their clear constitutional duties.

As President, Obama will have the constitutional duty to faithfully execute our laws.
The constitutional oath of office will require President Obama to faithfully execute the office of President and preserve, protect and defend our Constitution. Our constitution also requires that our presidents "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The principle of the rule of law is partially based on this Faithfully Execute clause which requires our President to comply with laws, our Constitution and treaties because our Constitution established a government of laws, not of men and women.
The Geneva Convention is one of the laws which must be faithfully executed.
Our constitution mandates that treaties are one of the laws that the President must faithfully execute. Moreover, treaties are recognized as one of our supreme laws of the land alongside our Constitution and federal laws. For over 200 years, the federal courts have reaffirmed that our President is bound by the laws of war, which include conventions. In fact, both Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)addressed issues of whether the US government was violating the terms of the 1949 Geneva Convention. Yet, some will whine that it is partisan to not exempt Bush from 200 years of precedent that governed presidents from both parties.
The Geneva Convention imposes a duty to prosecute former presidents who committed war crimes.

You already have your own reasons why you should sign the petition.

All the reasons that built up, piled one on top of the other for that past eight years as these criminals hijacked the country, dismantled the constitution and the rule of law, made their criminal friends fabulously wealthy, were directly responsible for the deaths of more than a million Iraqis in an illegal and immoral invasion and occupation, destroyed the global economy, wrecked America's reputation around the world, and called you a traitor when you cried foul and set up schemes to spy on you and intimidate you into silence.

And tortured people in your name. Tortured people. In your name. Tortured people with the blackest, most heinous and most evil torture methods known to humanity. Tortured people with methods that America has pressed war criminal charges against other countries citizens for using. Tortured people with the most sadistic and evil methods the Spanish Inquisition and more recently the Khmer Rouge made a regular habit of using as an oppression tool. Tortured people with methods that have been universally condemned and outlawed by virtually every country and society on earth.

You already know. You already know all of your own reasons why you should sign the petition.

Sign The Goddamn War Crimes Petition Already!

Thanks for your help.

Politics vs. Justice: Spotlighting The Holder Confirmation Hearings

Edger — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:51:05 GMT

Politics vs. Justice: Spotlighting The Holder Confirmation Hearings
by buhdydharma at Docudharma, Wed Jan 14, 2009
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.
Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor for background

First let me say that we want Eric Holder confirmed as Attorney General. We want him confirmed because of statements like this...

Washington, D.C. -- Eric H. Holder Jr., Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton administration, asserted in a speech to the American Constitution Society (ACS) that the United States must reverse "the disastrous course" set by the Bush administration in the struggle against terrorism by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, declaring without qualification that the U.S. does not torture people, ending the practice of transferring individuals involuntarily to countries that engage in torture and ceasing warrantless domestic surveillance.
"Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the 'War on Terror' have diminished our standing in the world community and made us less, rather than more, safe," Holder told a packed room at the ACS 2008 Convention on Friday evening. "For the sake of our safety and security, and because it is the right thing to do, the next president must move immediately to reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights."

We want the man who said those words to be our next Attorney General. Because in truth and in a logical world the best way, perhaps the only way, to "reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights".....is to investigate and then prosecute those who have criminally destroyed that standing. They destroyed it by using torture.

For those of you still on the fence as to whether the Bush Administration engaged in actual torture as opposed to merely "Enhanced Interrogation," I offer this statement released today by a Bush appointee.

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."
"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture."

One of the arguments made in defense of the Bush Administrations official policy of torture that first surfaced at Abu Ghraib is that it was "a few bad apples."

Indeed:

Bush: I Personally Authorized Torture Of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
In an interview with Brit Hume that aired today on Fox News Sunday, President Bush admitted that he personally authorized the torture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He said he personally asked "what tools" were available to use on him, and sought legal approval for waterboarding him:
BUSH: One such person who gave us information was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. ... And I'm in the Oval Office and I am told that we have captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the professionals believe he has information necessary to secure the country. So I ask what tools are available for us to find information from him and they gave me a list of tools, and I said are these tools deemed to be legal? And so we got legal opinions before any decision was made.

KARL: Did you authorize the tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
CHENEY: I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.

All of their false claims of legality come from one source, their own pet lawyers. Much of whose legal "work" has already been destroyed by the Supreme Court. Their only claim to legality comes from complicit lawyers in the White House and in the now famously corrupt and politicized Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice that Eric Holder has now been nominated to lead.

A Department of Justice that should, unlike the DOJ under Bush, be independent of political concerns. As Obama himself acknowledges..

OBAMA: What I -- I think my general view when it comes to my attorney general is he is the people's lawyer. Eric Holder's been nominated. ...His job is to uphold the Constitution and look after the interests of the American people, not to be swayed by my day-to-day politics. So, ultimately, he's going to be making some calls....

The Attorney General does NOT, unlike the DOJ under Bush, work for the President. He works for The People of the United States. And he works for justice. Non-partisan, non-politicized justice, with no other agenda other than serving justice and representing the legal interests of the American people.

In a logical sane and rational world....a non-politicized world....AG Holder's task would be clear cut. A "slam dunk" if you will.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has just released a 487 page report (NOTE: pdf file) whose table of contents clearly spells out what must be on AG Holders agenda in both reforming the DOJ and to effectively "reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights.":

Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys and other Department Personnel
Selective Prosecution
Politicization of the Prosecution Function
Politicization of the Civil Rights Division and Voting Rights Enforcement
Detention
Enhanced Interrogation
Ghosting and Black Sites
Extraordinary Rendition
Warrantless Domestic Surveillance
National Security Letters (NSLs) and Exigent Letters
Use of Signing Statements
Midnight Rulemaking
The Leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's Covert CIA Identity
Improper Use of State Secrets and Other Authorities
Manipulation and Misuse of Intelligence

All of these charges have been well documented and backed up with evidence. In addition to the admissions by Bush and Cheney of authorizing an entire network of torture and torture facilities. There is no question that crimes have been committed. The only questions left are what to do about it....and if we can overcome the politics that surround and protect the Bush Administration's crimes.

We The People want Eric Holder confirmed as the next Attorney General of the United States.

IF Attorney General Holder will uphold his statements of principle. Especially as to his objections to "Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the 'War on Terror'"

However, thanks to the efforts of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo and Bybee....we do NOT live in a logical sane and rational world, a non-politicized world. They have succeeded, so far, in muddying what should be crystal clear water. The evidence is there. Will we as a people and a country under the Rule of Law ignore it?

Due to politics and separate from any question of law, AG Designate Holder may not be able to directly come out at the confirmation hearings and state that he will even investigate these crimes, but he must be asked the question. In the muddied waters of our current political environment it would be political suicide to directly state that he will pursue justice. How low we as a nation have sunk into those muddy waters when the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America must not, for purely political reasons, openly state that he will pursue criminals.

He cannot state his intentions openly, yet he has to be asked the question posed by Bob Fertik of Democrats.com on Obama's website, over seventy thousand people have voted for it to be asked:

"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor -- ideally Patrick Fitzgerald -- to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping,"

There is an internet campaign by The Center for Constitutional Rights and by The Pen urging us to call (800-828-0498 or 800-473-6711 ) the following Senators and urge them to ask that question:

1) Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)

2) Senator Dick Durbin (IL)

3) Senator Patrick Leahy (VT)

4) Senator Russ Feingold (WI)

Over 15,000 people have signed The Citizens Petition: Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes. Obama was asked the question by George Stephanopoulos. It has been covered by the New York Times. As the inauguration approaches and the muddy waters start to clear, momentum is building for accountability.

We have in Eric Holders confirmation hearing a chance to make our voices heard even more in this quest for accountability. Please take this opportunity to add your voice.

We do NOT want to torpedo Eric Holders chances of becoming Attorney General. But we DO want to make sure he lives up to his statements and principles. Please take this opportunity to let the Senators on the Judiciary Committee and AG designate Holder know that you support the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration.

Sign the petition, call the above Senators and your own representatives, and make your voice, and the voices of your fellow citizens, heard.

.................................................................
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.
Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor for background

Iraq veteran Marine 'outraged & insulted' at US politicians who claim US would respond like Israel

johnalive — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:36:46 GMT

A letter to the editor of the New York Times:

' I am dismayed by the rhetoric from US politicians and pundits to the effect that "if the US were under rocket attack from Mexico or Canada, we would respond like the Israelis". This a gross insult to US servicemen; I can assure you that we would NOT respond like the Israelis... Israel has indeed taken a small number of casualties from Hamas rocket fire (about 20 killed since 2001), but we have taken thousands of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, including many civilian personnel. Hundreds of American casualties have occurred due to indirect fire, often from mortars. This is particularly true in or near the Green Zone in Baghdad. This fire often originates from densely populated urban areas.

Americans do not, I repeat DO NOT, respond to that fire indiscriminately. When I say "indiscriminately", I mean that even if we can precisely identify the source of the fire (which can be very difficult), we do not respond if we know we will cause civilian casualties. We always evaluate the threat to civilians before responding, and in an urban area the threat to civilians is extremely high. If US servicemen violate those rules of engagement and harm civilians, I assure you we do our best to investigate -- and mete out punishment if warranted. There are differing opinions on the conflict in Iraq, but I am proud of the conduct of our servicemen there.

With that in mind, I find the conduct of the Israeli army in Gaza to be brutal and dishonorable, and it is insulting that they and others claim that the US military would behave in the same way. follow similar rules of engagement rings hollow; I see little evidence for this claim I know the Israelis are operating under difficult circumstances, but their claim that theygiven the huge number of civilian casualties they have caused from indirect fire. '

h.t Juan Cole

Sign The War Crimes Petition Already!

Edger — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:13:10 GMT

by Edger at Docudharma, Saturday, January 03, 2009
Also at Daily Kos, They gave us a republic..., and OOIBC
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.

Don't expect me to or even ask me to tell you why you should sign the petition.

You already know why you should sign the petition. You don't need me or anyone else to tell you why you should sign the petition.

Click the Badge to read and sign the Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
Click "Get Badge" to get the html code and post the badge on your blog or website so other people can find and sign the petition too.

There is no more debate on these matters. The only people who want to continue debating these matters are war criminals who want to be let off the hook and supporters of letting war criminals off the hook.

Obama's Duty To Prosecute Bush For War Crimes, Patriot Daily, December 29, 2008

Signing the petition drafted by budhydharma and Docudharma is not in defiance of our President-Elect Obama, but rather a sign of support for the difficult times that he and Holder will face when performing their clear constitutional duties.
As President, Obama will have the constitutional duty to faithfully execute our laws.
The constitutional oath of office will require President Obama to faithfully execute the office of President and preserve, protect and defend our Constitution. Our constitution also requires that our presidents "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The principle of the rule of law is partially based on this Faithfully Execute clause which requires our President to comply with laws, our Constitution and treaties because our Constitution established a government of laws, not of men and women.
The Geneva Convention is one of the laws which must be faithfully executed.
Our constitution mandates that treaties are one of the laws that the President must faithfully execute. Moreover, treaties are recognized as one of our supreme laws of the land alongside our Constitution and federal laws. For over 200 years, the federal courts have reaffirmed that our President is bound by the laws of war, which include conventions. In fact, both Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)addressed issues of whether the US government was violating the terms of the 1949 Geneva Convention. Yet, some will whine that it is partisan to not exempt Bush from 200 years of precedent that governed presidents from both parties.
The Geneva Convention imposes a duty to prosecute former presidents who committed war crimes.

You already have your own reasons why you should sign the petition.

All the reasons that built up, piled one on top of the other for that past eight years as these criminals hijacked the country, dismantled the constitution and the rule of law, made their criminal friends fabulously wealthy, were directly responsible for the deaths of more than a million Iraqis in an illegal and immoral invasion and occupation, destroyed the global economy, wrecked America's reputation around the world, and called you a traitor when you cried foul and set up schemes to spy on you and intimidate you into silence.

You already know. You already know all of your own reasons why you should sign the petition.
Enhanced Interrogation Methods? No, The Word Is "Torture", Bob Higgins, October 4, 2007

I am sick to death of all the pussyfooting around the subject that has occupied the media for the duration of this premeditated, illegal war of terror that we the people of the United States have allowed to be waged against the people of Iraq, in our name, for the last several years.
No matter how much lipstick and rouge we smear on the face of this war no matter how we attempt to dress up the evil and bestial acts that have been performed in its unholy name, it still has the hideous countenance of an evil swine from hell.

It is an illegal war, begun and conducted under false pretenses, by a group of criminal liars and thieves in the United States Government, abetted by a cowardly congress who abrogated their constitutional duties in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds and furthered by a complaisant press that ignored their obligation to remain independent from government, from their sponsors and report the facts.
The members of the completely rogue executive department acted in their own self interest in a quest for personal power and wealth, in concert with the usual domestic and international corporate pirates who, in the depths of their insatiable greed, continually amplify human conflict to their own ends and bring poverty, war, suffering and death down upon the world.
There is no such animal as extraordinary rendition, nor do I know of the existence of any beasts called enhanced interrogation methods.
The first is kidnapping, it is illegal, a felony and the second word is torture, its meaning is clear:
NOUN:
1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
2. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.
Torture is illegal in this country, a felonious act, it is illegal in the world at large, according to several conventions that we are legally bound by. Anyone committing torture, causing it to be committed, directing its commission, or training others in its techniques is guilty, guilty of war crimes, of crimes against humanity and crimes against "Nature's God.

Tens of thousands of people have signed the Petition for a Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes so far since we launched it on December 18, 2008, and Bob Fertiks "question" to Obama and the transition team at change.gov under "Additional Issues" is now is the lead question it its category.

"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor [...] to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"

Why aren't there 14 million signatures on the petition instead of just 14 thousand? Mainstream media is avoiding this issue like it's leprosy. I would hope left blogs wouldn't.

We need to force this issue into the media. We need to beat this issue into the heads of leaders, both current and incoming, in Washington.

U.S. Code: CHAPTER 113C--TORTURE
§ 2340. Definitions
§ 2340A. Torture
§ 2340B. Exclusive remedies

Summary of International and U.S. Law Prohibiting Torture and Other Ill-treatment of Persons in Custody
International and U.S. law prohibits torture and other ill-treatment of any person in custody in all circumstances. The prohibition applies to the United States during times of peace, armed conflict, or a state of emergency. Any person, whether a U.S. national or a non-citizen, is protected. It is irrelevant whether the detainee is determined to be a prisoner-of-war, a protected person, or a so-called "security detainee" or "unlawful combatant." And the prohibition is in effect within the territory of the United States or any place anywhere U.S. authorities have control over a person. In short, the prohibition against torture and ill-treatment is absolute.
...
A federal anti-torture statute (18 U.S.C. § 2340A), enacted in 1994, provides for the prosecution of a U.S. national or anyone present in the United States who, while outside the U.S., commits or attempts to commit torture.
Torture is defined as an "act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control." A person found guilty under the act can be incarcerated for up to 20 years or receive the death penalty if the torture results in the victim's death.

After January 20, 2009 there will be a new Attorney General of the United States, and Eric Holder Jr. will most likely be confirmed as that new Attorney general.

Mr. Holder has said that:

"Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the 'War on Terror' have diminished our standing in the world community and made us less, rather than more, safe," Holder told a packed room at the ACS 2008 Convention on Friday evening. "For the sake of our safety and security, and because it is the right thing to do, the next president must move immediately to reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights."

If Mr. Holder, when he becomes Attorney General, is to live up to his own statements and retain the personal and professional integrity he has displayed in his law career thus far, and not by acts of omission become an accessory along with Mr. Mukasey and Ms. Pelosi to the crimes of Bush, Cheney and others in the Bush administration, he will have no choice but to accept the demands of the thousands of US citizens who have signed the Docudharma/Democrats.com Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Bush administration war crimes.

If he will not, Mr. Holder runs the risk of throwing away a lifetime of work in a so far illustrious career and all of his personal and professional integrity and becoming a fugitive with Mr. Mukasey and an accessory to these crimes along with and no better than the perpetrators and other conspirators.

Given his professional record, I have every confidence that Mr. Holder, as soon to be Attorney General of the United States, realizes that he can make no other choice than to do the right thing.

Mr. Holder knows. As Attorney General he will wear the badge as the highest ranking officer of justice in the United States.

He will have his own integrity on the line.

Mr. Holder knows that like any other accused criminals, Bush and Cheney deserve fair trials.

And Mr. Holder knows that failing to give them those fair trials would be convicting himself.

There must be war crimes investigations, prosecutions and trials. And sentencing.

It is the only way to "move forward".

Or else...

There was a fever over the land, a fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all there was fear, fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that can you understand what Hitler meant to us, because he said to us:
"Lift your heads. Be proud to be German. There are devils among us, communists, liberals, Jews, gypsies. Once these devils will be destroyed your misery will be destroyed."

It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb.
What about those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country. What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded -- sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows! We will go forward. FORWARD is the great password.
And history tells how well we succeeded, Your Honor. We succeeded beyond out wildest dreams. The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany, mesmerized the world. We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies. Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now. The world said, "Go ahead. Take it. Take it! Take Sudetenland! Take the Rhineland! Re-militarize it! Take all of Austria! Take it!"
And then, one day we looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The ritual begun in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease. What was going to be a "passing phase" had become the way of life.

Decision of the Court:

The trial conducted before this Tribunal began over eight months ago. The record of evidence is more than ten thousand pages long, and final arguments of counsel have been concluded.
Simple murders and atrocities do not constitute the gravamen of the charges in this indictment. Rather, the charge is that of conscious participation in a nationwide, government organized system of cruelty and injustice in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations. The Tribunal has carefully studied the record and found therein abundant evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against these defendants.

The Power of One
by Nightprowlkitty at Docudharma, December 26, 2008
Also at Docudharma, Daily Kos, My Left Wing, Open Left, The Sanctuary, and OOIBC
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.

Give Bush and Cheney a fair trial -- something they have not bothered with since they stole office.

It's funny how the powers that be in the media and government are running around with their big fat excuses as to why we can't hold these criminals accountable for their crimes. It all boils down to "It's too hard!!!"

It's too hard. It would affect too many people. It would interfere with the crucial work of restoring our economy. Blah blah blah. Not one of these folks say, however, that no crime has been committed, no law has been broken. No one says that.

I find that stunning. We all know, at least those of us who have been paying attention, that Bush and his crew of crooks have broken the law over and over again.

And Cheney says "What you gonna do about it?" And Cheney says "oh, the Dems knew about this and approved it, hell they wanted us to be even tougher than we were!"

And we should believe Cheney ... why?

I don't want speculation any more. I want the truth, the facts, what really happened. Only a special prosecutor can get that information, someone who is inured to the politics of Washington D.C. by being given the independent power to investigate.

What I like about this petition is that it shows the power of the individual citizen. This is not a grassroots effort decided by committee. A couple of folks got together and came up with the text and others jumped in to work further on it and spread it around.

The power of the individual citizen.

I am extremely annoyed at the argument that we citizens are somehow childlike creatures who don't know all the real problems of our country and so we shouldn't cry and whine about our "pet issues" when the government knows so much more about what is important and should be made a priority.

Bleh.

We ARE the government. The only people who will take back power as citizens, are citizens! That's us.

To me, Obama's election is a signal that we can now start taking back that individual power, our individual rights. It's not for Obama or any elected representative to tell me what I should make a priority. I get to decide that for myself. They'll do their jobs, and I'll do mine.

The measure of our success with this petititon will be the resistance from the powers that be, the Dems, the Repubs, Obama, the media. The more we read about how this is not a good idea, getting a special prosecutor, the more we'll know we have them on the run.

Many of us have sent this petition to friends and family, whether they be politically agreeable to us or not. One by one people will sign. This isn't "organized" grassroots and it's netroots only insofar as the structure.

To me, this is about the power of each indviidual citizen, not resting happy with the decisions of our elected representatives but standing up for what we feel is right and making our voices heard.

We need to know the truth about the crimes committed in our names. We need to have every American citizen aware of what has been done so there can be no denials or excuses.

At this time, the only line between tyranny and freedom is an informed citizenry. By signing this petition and working to make it known we will not accept anything less than full accountability for torture being done in our name, we are exercising our power, not the power one step removed of the three branches of government.

We have power collectively and we also have power individually. I think the citizenry of this country are going to be tested enormously as we have to let our representatives know we are not asking for favors on our "pet causes" but taking our government back, of, by and for the people.

..........

Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor for background diaries.
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.

	Click the Badge to read and sign the Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
	Click "Get Badge" to get the html code and post the badge on your blog or website so other people can find and sign the petition too.