Spain jobless rate surpasses 20 %

Unimaginable. I can't believe the people aren't rioting in the streets.

MADRID — Spain's jobless rate has surpassed 20 percent for the first time since 1997, the government said Friday as it offered more dismal news for a recession-plagued economy that is being dragged into Europe's debt crisis.

The National Statistics Institute said the rate rose 1.22 percentage points in the first quarter to 20.05 percent.

While other major economies in Europe and elsewhere have posted at least tepid growth as they fight to crawl out of recession, the eurozone's fourth-largest economy is still contracting after the collapse of a construction boom that had fueled years of expansion.

The agency said that as of the end of March, there were 4,612,700 people out of work in the country. The jobless rate is the highest since the last quarter of 1997, when it stood at 20.11 percent. Since Spain slipped into recession in 2008, the rate has roughly doubled, a dramatic development for a country that had been one of Europe's top job-creators.

Report: Spain to proceed with torture prosecution of Bush admin. lawyers

By GottaLaff

The unattainable...

Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease:

A Spanish judge has decided to go ahead with the prosecution of six Bush administration lawyers — including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — who were the architects of the legal framework for President George W. Bush “enhanced interrogation” program, according to a report in the Spanish newspaper Publico. (Original article here; Google translation here.)

E.I.P. = TORTURE. Say it with me: TORTURE. Thank you.

The six Bush administration alumni targeted in the prosecution are former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; John Yoo, author of the “torture memos”; Douglas Feith, then a deputy defense secretary; Pentagon lawyer William Haynes II; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; and David Addington, a former chief of staff to then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Wait... no Dickless McHeartStent? Come on, amigos!

According to Andy Worthington at AfterDowningStreet.org, Judge Baltasar Garzon has rejected prosecutors’ request, made last April, to throw the case out. Prosecutors had argued the case was politically motivated.

So were the torture memos. And your point?

But under Spanish law, criminal charges can be brought by anyone, not just prosecutors, and in this case it was private lawyers and civil-rights organizations that pressed the charges. The case is being brought on behalf of three former Guantanamo Bay inmates: Jamil El-Banna and Omar Deghayes, both British residents, and Sami El-Laithi, an Egyptian national.

Press harder.

Because cases like this are rare, it’s unclear what impact the Spanish trial will have on the Bush administration staffers who face prosecution.

Sands told Publico that he believes Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate CIA torture practices shows that the Spanish prosecution is on the right track.

A.G. Holder is only focusing narrowly on those who "overstepped" whatever minimal limits there were on torturing the hell out of human beings, many of them innocent.

By contrast, the Spanish case challenges the legality of the entire program.

If only...

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

How and why a Spanish judge might put BushCo lawyers on trial

By GottaLaff

I'm not giving up on the idea of prosecutions. I'm not giving up, I'm not giving up, I'm not giving up ::eyes shut tightly, clicks heels three times::

Times editorial writer Marjorie MillerMarjorie Miller asked British barrister and law professor Philippe Sands, author of the book "Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values," to explain the legal underpinnings of such a procedure.

The Spanish case targets the government lawyers -- including former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales -- whose legal opinions laid the groundwork for so-called harsh interrogations. Why the lawyers?

When the administration decided to move to aggressive techniques, it seems they turned to lawyers who could be relied upon to sign on. They systematically excluded from the process those lawyers who would have given contrary advice. But for the lawyers, these abuses, this torture, would not have happened.

So the administration got bad advice from lawyers; they didn't have to take it. Why does that make the lawyers guilty?

The lawyers appear to have been part of a plan to subvert the law. First the administration fixed on a policy of cruelty, then they found the lawyers to sign off on it. On my reading, the lawyers acted not in the service of providing fearless, independent legal advice, but provided support to a predetermined policy of abuse. In that way, they became complicit in a policy of torture.

Is there legal precedent in going after the lawyers?

There is legal precedent. The precedent includes U.S. military tribunals in Germany in the 1940s. More recently, you've got actions in Britain, Spain and the United States where lawyers, for example, designed money-laundering schemes intended to subvert rules that criminalize money laundering. There are plenty of cases to show that, where lawyers act in a way to subvert the rules, they can themselves become complicit in crime.

Still, why not the torturers or the top political leaders?

I focused on the lawyers because I wanted to understand the circumstances in which they became complicit, but of course it goes even higher. As of April 29, the case in Spain has taken a broader and more extensive turn. Judge Baltasar Garzon will look at the Bush Six and all those individuals who bear responsibility for the policy of torture and abuse. The case will look not just at the "framers of the legal decision," as President Obama put it. It will look at those higher up and perhaps also those lower down who contributed to the implementation of the decision.

So BushCo fixed the memos around their policy. What does that remind us of, hmm?

More here.

Spanish judge opens BushCo/Gitmo investigation

By GottaLaff

Via BuzzFlash, we get a link to some welcome news:

A Spanish judge opened a probe into the Bush administration over alleged torture of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, pressing ahead Wednesday with a drive that Spain's own attorney general has said should be waged in the United States, if at all.

Judge Baltasar Garzon, Spain's most prominent investigative magistrate, said he is acting under this country's observance of the principle of universal justice, which allows crimes allegedly committed in other countries to be prosecuted in Spain.

He said documents declassified by the new U.S. government suggest the practice was systematic and ordered at high levels of the US government.

Garzon's move is separate from a complaint by human rights lawyers that seeks charges against six specific Bush administration officials they accuse of creating a legal framework to permit torture of suspects at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. detention facilities. [...]

Garzon is opening a separate, broader probe that does not name any specific suspects but targets "possible material authors" of torture, accomplices and those who gave torture orders.

Garzon is acting on his own, rather than in response to a complaint filed with the National Court, which is the usual procedure for universal justice probes in Spain.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking with reporters in Berlin before the investigation was announced, did not rule out cooperating with such an investigation. [...]

"This is an administration that is determined to conduct itself by the rule of law and to the extent that we receive lawful requests from an appropriately-created court, we would obviously respond to it," he said. [...]

Garzon cited media accounts of the documents and said he would ask the U.S. to send the documents to him.

The judge wrote that abuses at Guantanamo and other U.S. prisons for terror suspects, such as the American air base at Bagram, Afghanistan, suggest "the existence of a concerted plan to carry out a multiplicity of crimes of torture."

He said this plan took on "almost an official nature and therefore entails criminal liability in the different structures of execution, command, design and authorization of this systematic plan of torture."

He said he also is acting on the basis of accounts by four former Guantanamo inmates who have alleged in Spanish courts that they were tortured at that U.S. prison in eastern Cuba.

There are so many different avenues opening up on the horrendous torture revelations, one of them eventually has to take. Via these expanding opportunities, we are able to get even more facts out there, which is for the better. Eventually, hopefully, the end result will be a thorough legal investigation leading to appropriate prosecutions and convictions.

Glimmer of hope? Spanish judge wants to keep Gitmo case alive

By GottaLaff

I'm getting whiplash. I'm not too optimistic, but this is still good to hear:

MADRID, Spain (CNN) – A Spanish judge moved Friday to keep alive an investigation into six former Bush administration officials for alleged torture of prisoners at the U.S. detention camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Cuba.

He acted just hours after prosecutors urged the case to be dropped, according to a court document.

The more attention paid to BushCo's war crimes, the better, so I consider this good news, no matter how it plays out.

O'Reilly: I Take FULL Credit For Spain Backing Off Torture Prosecutions

This gave me the biggest laugh I've had in weeks. I was going to say you can't make this shit up, but then again, you can.

Premature jubilation-- Spanish AG: No torture probe of US officials

By GottaLaff

Remember those indictments? Never mind. Premature jubilation:

Spain's attorney general has rejected opening an investigation into whether six Bush administration officials sanctioned torture against terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, saying Thursday a U.S. courtroom would be the proper forum.

Candido Conde-Pumpido's remarks severely dampen the chance of a case moving forward against the Americans, including former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Conde-Pumpido said such a trial would have turned Spain's National Court "into a plaything" to be used for political ends.

"If there is a reason to file a complaint against these people, it should be done before local courts with jurisdiction, in other words in the United States," he said in a breakfast meeting with journalists. [...]

Gonzalo Boye, one of the human rights lawyers who brought the case in Spain, said the decision by Conde-Pumpido was politically motivated and set a terrible course for Spanish justice.

"The attorney general speaks of the court being turned into a plaything. Well, I don't think the attorney general's office should be turned into a plaything for politicians," Boye told AP. "It is a terrible precedent if those intellectually responsible for crimes can no longer be held accountable."

In addition, it turns out that the U.S. talked to them... and then this happened. But wait:

The Spanish prosecutors advised the Americans that they would suspend their investigation if at any point the United States were to undertake an investigation of its own into these matters.

Could this mean a U.S. investigation is in the works? I'm looking for a silver lining here.

The Bush Six to Be Indicted

By GottaLaff

David G. emailed me an article from The Daily Beast. Wasn't that sweet? Especially considering the content, which goes back to my original post here.

Presenting... "Indict BushCo: The Sequel:

Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantánamo.

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.” The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. [...]

But prosecutors will also ask that Judge Garzón, an internationally known figure due to his management of the case against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and other high-profile cases, step aside. [...] Spanish prosecutors consider it “awkward” for the same judge to have both the case against former U.S. officials based on the possible torture of the five Spaniards at Guantánamo and the case against those very same Spaniards. A source close to the prosecution also noted that there was concern about the reaction to the case in some parts of the U.S. media, where it had been viewed, incorrectly, as a sort of personal frolic of Judge Garzón. Instead, the prosecutors will ask Garzón to transfer the case to Judge Ismail Moreno, who is currently handling an investigation into kidnapping charges surrounding the CIA’s use of facilities as a safe harbor in connection with the seizure of Khalid el-Masri, a German greengrocer who was seized and held at various CIA blacksites for about half a year as a result of mistaken identity. [...]

Announcement of the prosecutor’s decision was delayed until after the Easter holiday in order not to interfere with a series of meetings between President Barack Obama and Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero. However, contrary to a claim contained in an editorial on April 8 in the Wall Street Journal, the Obama State Department has been in steady contact with the Spanish government about the case. [...] The Spanish prosecutors advised the Americans that they would suspend their investigation if at any point the United States were to undertake an investigation of its own into these matters. [...]

The reaction on American editorial pages is divided—some questioning sharply why the Obama administration is not conducting an investigation, which is implicitly the question raised by the Spanish prosecutors. Publications loyal to the Bush team argue that the Spanish investigation is an “intrusion” into American affairs, even when those affairs involve the torture of five Spaniards on Cuba. [...]

[T]he law of unintended consequences has kicked in. If U.S. courts and prosecutors will not address the matter because of a lack of jurisdiction, foreign courts appear only too happy to step in.

Pop quiz: Which two names are missing from the list? Hint: yenehC kciD, hsuB egroeG.

I can't wait for Part III.

Please go here to read the details I left out.

VIDEO-- Feith Responds: ‘I Never Advocated’ For Torture, I Was Just ‘Giving Advice’

By GottaLaff


Here is my earlier post about Spain's taking steps to investigate BushCo 's illegal torture practices. Now Doug Feith is saying he merely gave advice about, you know, committing war crimes:

Yesterday, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, one of the officials implicated in the complaint, went on Fox News to defend himself in front of torture advocate Bill O’Reilly.

Feith argued that the charges that he helped approve torture are completely bogus. “I’m being criticized for a position that I never advocated. And so the facts are just wrong,” he said. Feith said he was simply giving “advice” to President Bush and had no role in “directing” torture policy. [...]

But last year, Feith himself bragged in an interview with British law professor Phillippe Sands that he played a pivotal role in ensuring that Geneva protections against “outrages upon personal dignity” did not apply to detainees:

I asked Feith, just to be clear: Didn’t the administration’s approach mean that Geneva’s constraints on interrogation couldn’t be invoked by anyone at Guantánamo? “Oh yes, sure,” he shot back. Was that the intended result?, I asked. “Absolutely,” he replied. I asked again: Under the Geneva Conventions, no one at Guantánamo was entitled to any protection? “That’s the point,” Feith reiterated. … “This year I was really a player,” Feith said, thinking back on 2002 and relishing the memory.

Indeed, Feith’s arguments became official U.S. policy with the signing of a presidential memorandum on February 7, 2002.

Isn't he just precious? How could we ever have thought the worst?

Spanish Court Weighs Inquiry on Torture for 6 Bush-Era Officials

By GottaLaff

Hey delusional, apparently well-off, oddly defensive, spare-time-endowed former Bush aides, check this out:

A high-level Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation against six former Bush administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic framework to justify the use of torture of American prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.

The case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who ordered the arrest of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The official said that it was “highly probable” that the case would go forward and could lead to arrest warrants.

While the move represents a step toward ascertaining the legal accountability of top Bush administration officials for allegations of torture and mistreatment of prisoners in its so-called war on terror, some American experts said that even if warrants are issued their significance could be more symbolic than practical, and that it was likely that they would not lead to arrests if the officials did not leave the United States.

Party poopers.

The complaint under review also names John C. Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who wrote secret legal opinions saying the president had the authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions, and Douglas J. Feith, the former under secretary of defense for policy. [...]

Judge Garzón, however, has built an international reputation by bringing high-profile cases against human rights violators as well as international terrorist networks like Al Qaeda. His arrest warrant for General Pinochet led to his detention in Britain, although he never faced a trial. He has also been outspoken about the treatment of American detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

Spain claims jurisdiction in the case because five citizens or residents of Spain who were prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have said they were tortured there. [...]

The other Americans named in the complaint were William J. Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay S. Bybee, Mr. Yoo’s former boss at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel; and David S. Addington, who was the chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Okay, we get it, it's going nowhere. But we can dream, can't we?

Obama Zings McCain Over Spain Fumble, Compares Him To Cheney

Via TPM-

The key moment comes around two-thirds of the way in. Asked if he'd meet with Zapatero, Obama said:

"Of course. Spain is a NATO ally, and the fact that Senator McCain indicated that he might not meet with Zapatero I think indicates that he wants to continue the Cheney policies of trying to dictate American foreign policy instead of trying to build cooperation. I think that's a mistake."

Senor Gramm-pa McCain thinks Spain is our enemy? Si? No?

By GottaLaff

Via TPM:

Did John McCain really just suggest that the Prime Minister of Spain might be one of America's enemies? One of those international leaders he'd refuse to meet with?

Does he want to liberate Spain too?

¡Dios mío! El Sid = El Stupido y El Viejo. Ayayay!

And the way it's being interpreted in the Spanish press is that McCain got confused about the fact that Spain is a country in Europe, rather than a rogue state in Latin America. [...]

In the interview, McCain is asked about Hugo Chavez, the situation in Bolivia and then about Raul Castro. He responds to each of these with expected answers about standing up to America's enemies, etc. Then the interviewer switches gears and asks about Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. And McCain replies -- very loose translation -- that he'll establish close relations with our friends and stand out to those who want to do us harm. The interviewer has a double take and seems to think McCain might be confused. So she asks it again. But McCain sticks to the same evasive answer.

¡vaya!

UPDATE:

Well, it doesn't appear to have registered in the American press yet. But the story keeps bubbling in the Spanish press about McCain's bizarre gaffe about the Spanish Prime Minister. Here's the front page cut out from the Spanish news channel that did the interview. They've talked to the interviewer now. Her take? McCain didn't know who Zapatero was ...