Jonathan Turley to Obama: Earn the Nobel by appointing a prosecutor for war crimes

By GottaLaff

There's a lengthy op-ed in today's L.A. Times in which several writers and scholars are asked what President Obama should do to earn the Nobel Peace Prize... that he already earned but apparently really didn't.

Here is one of two excerpts that I singled out. The second one will be in a separate post:

The most obvious start would be to fulfill our obligations under treaties and international law to appoint a special prosecutor, without limitations, to investigate and prosecute any war crimes committed by U.S. officials. Obama already has acknowledged that waterboarding is torture and that torture is a war crime, yet his administration is blocking investigations that are the prerequisite to justice. Obama has promised CIA employees as a group that they would not be prosecuted for torture for following orders, despite the long-standing finding from the Nuremburg trials that "just following orders" is no defense for a war crime. Appointing a special prosecutor would show that Obama will not continue to circumvent principle for politics. He could further demonstrate his commitment to international law by dropping his opposition to the release of photographs and other records showing our abuse of detainees.

For more on the torture photo backtrack, see yesterday's post here.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes 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.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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.

Eric Holder's military allies

By GottaLaff

This week, in various private conversations I've had, I've compared the Roman Polanski controversy to that of the potential prosecution of those responsible for torturing Gitmo and Abu Ghraib prisoners. The arguments are similar: Don't look back, look forward, water under the bridge, it's been so long, that was yesterday, enough already, it will open a can of worms, blahblahblah.

Using that logic, if I commit a crime, and I wait long enough, it doesn't count any more? If I'm famous enough, or rich enough, or have the right people on my side, my criminal behavior will be ignored and/or forgiven? Really?

As my pal Lt. Col. Barry Wingard has told me for months, it's the military who has been on the right side of the following, and he knows a thing or two about a thing or two:

On Aug. 24, Holder ordered a federal prosecutor to review the Bush administration Justice Department's decisions not to prosecute CIA personnel who broke the agency's own rules in their zeal to wring information from suspected terrorists.

Holder didn't ask for indictments or a full investigation, only for a "preliminary review." But the response from defenders of the Bush administration was immediate and deafening. [...]

What are the excesses being looked at? In several cases, detainees died as an apparent result of their jailers' acts. One froze to death, chained to the floor of an unheated cell in the Afghan winter. Another died after his interrogator bludgeoned him with a flashlight. (That was the one case that did prompt prosecution; the interrogator was convicted.) [...]

Holder hasn't had a lot of support for his investigation. A few Democrats in Congress and, oddly, former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales applauded the move, but not the White House, where some aides privately made it clear that they wished the attorney general's conscience hadn't bothered him so much.

But help for the beleaguered attorney general arrived last week from an unexpected quarter: a group of retired generals and admirals who want to restore more stringent respect for the rule of law in the culture of our national security agencies. [...]

Some of its members met with Holder last week to offer their support for his efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo as well as for his position on the CIA inquiry, and they said he was grateful. [...]

It was Abu Ghraib that brought the military men together, they said -- their anguish over how far Army soldiers had strayed from the traditional rules for treatment of prisoners of war, even in an ugly battle zone like Iraq.

Their arguments are straightforward: The rule of law should apply even in a war against lawless terrorists, and the CIA should be held to the same standard of accountability as the soldiers who were tried for what they did at Abu Ghraib.

"I'm amazed at my former colleagues in the intelligence community who think [Holder's decision] is a terrible thing," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Harry E. Soyster, former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency. "If accountability is going to discourage CIA officers from doing their jobs, then we have the wrong culture."

"In the military, we're told to follow the rules," Taguba said. "We expect that our civilian leaders will do the same."

Taguba doesn't hide his bitterness that soldiers and officers were tried for what they did at Abu Ghraib, but the CIA personnel who encouraged them to break the rules weren't.

There's an element here of the age-old culture clash between the uniformed military, with its detailed field manuals and bright-line rules, and the clandestine service of the CIA, with its long tradition of pushing the envelope.

But for these retired officers, the notion that any branch of the U.S. government can invoke the Roman Polanski rule -- that if your work is important enough, you shouldn't be treated like an ordinary criminal -- is dangerous. [...]

A force that doesn't enforce its own rules will quickly turn into undisciplined rabble. And Krulak notes that American parents send their children to the military to make them better people; if they come home both brutalizers and brutalized, the military has broken that promise.

And they say one other thing: Higher-ups should be held accountable too. David M. Brahms, a retired Marine one-star general who now practices law in Carlsbad, can recite from memory a line from the 1950 officers manual commissioned by Gen. George C. Marshall: "When an officer winks at any degradation by his men, it is no different than if he had committed the act." [...]

"I thought we were supposed to be the home of the brave, not the home of the fearful," said retired Gen. David M. Maddox, a former commander of Army forces in Europe, dismissing the hysteria about holding detainees on the mainland.

Lest you think the retired officers have a political motive, they aren't all Democrats; Krulak, for one, is an outspoken Republican. Indeed, they say one of their concerns now is making sure President Obama keeps his word on closing the Guantanamo facility and resolving the detainee cases as soon as possible.

Obama and Holder are lucky to have such friends, none of them gun-shy, to speak on their behalf -- and to hold their feet to the fire.

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Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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.

Prison requested for Americans in CIA rendition case

By GottaLaff

Hey, it doesn't hurt to ask:

Sep 30th, 2009 | MILAN -- An Italian prosecutor on Wednesday urged a court in Milan to give 26 Americans 10 to 13 years in prison each for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in a CIA renditions operation. [...]

Spataro gave his closing arguments in a trial that is the first in any country to scrutinize the CIA's extraordinary renditions. Under that program, the U.S. spy agency transferred terrorism suspects to third countries for interrogation. [...]

The defense must still make its final arguments. A verdict is expected by the end of the year.

The Americans, all but one identified by prosecutors as CIA agents, are being tried in absentia and are considered fugitives by the Italian court. [...]

Prosecutors say Nasr was kidnapped from a Milan street in broad daylight on Feb. 17, 2003. He was then allegedly driven from Milan to the Aviano, flown to the Ramstein air base in southern Germany and then to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.

I guess Italy's not afraid to look backward.

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Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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.

H/t: tosexyformy

Sen. Bond Pulls GOP Staff Off Torture Investigation

By GottaLaff

The justice system just isn't what it used to be. That's what happens when Republicans try to cover up and/or ignore major crimes:

A major Senate probe of the CIA's interrogation and detention practices was seriously derailed Friday when Sen. Kit Bond, the ranking GOP senator of the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed in a statement that he had pulled the entire GOP staff out of the investigation. [...] The move appears to be part of a broader campaign by congressional Republicans and the U.S. intelligence community to pressure Holder to rescind his recent appointment of a special counsel to investigate allegations of torture during the Bush administration.

Bond contends that the Intelligence Committee investigation had effectively become pointless and the panel was "spinning our wheels" because current and former agency officials will now refuse to cooperate with any congressional probe when they face potential prosecution by the Justice Department. [...]

But Sen. Diane Feinstein, the committee's Democratic chairman, insisted the probe will continue regardless. Saying "I very much regret" the GOP's decision, Feinstein said her probe "is being pursued, additional staff are being hired, and the Committee is continuing the work with all due diligence."

I never thought I'd say this, but: Go, Feinstein!

The flare up is significant because, whatever the results of Holder's criminal probe, the Senate panel's investigation offered perhaps the only opportunity for a full public accounting of the U.S. intelligence community's conduct in the aftermath of Sept. 11 attacks. [...]

[...] But the withdrawal of the Republican staff is likely, at a minimum, to set the panel's timetable back and embolden resistance to cooperating with the probe among lawyers representing CIA officers. That resistance was already an obstacle-and is now likely to intensify. [...]

Egged on by former Vice President Dick Cheney, Bond and other congressional Republicans have repeatedly attacked Holder for suggesting that anybody in the Bush administration or the U.S. intelligence community might have engaged in illegal conduct when, as they see it, they had simply been protecting the country.

Obstruction of justice? Look no further than Dickless McHeartStent.

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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.

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.

Republican Peter King calls Holder investigation of BushCo/CIA 'bulls**t'

By GottaLaff

See, Rep. Peter King, when crimes are committed, investigations are necessary. People were tortured and murdered. That cannot be ignored. That demands scrutiny. If it's inconvenient, too bad. If they were committed by members of your own party, too freakin' bad.

"It's bullsh*t. It's disgraceful. You wonder which side they're on," the Long Island Republican told Politico Tuesday.

They're on the side of justice, Pete.

On Monday, Attorney Gen. Eric Holder asked federal prosecutor John Durham to examine whether CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists were illegal in the months and years after the September 11 attacks. [...]

The White House said Tuesday that President Obama supported Holder's decision.

"It's a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he's lost control of his administration," King said Tuesday.

No, Petey, it's the Rushpublics who have lost control... all control. Need proof? Attend any town hall meeting. The assault weapons are a dead giveaway.

Then read what I've referenced below the ********* line. Then read Jane Mayer's The Dark Side. Then re-read (if indeed, you've ever read it to begin with) the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.

Then remember-- if you're one of those who feels it necessary to look forward and not back-- that all crimes took place in the past. That's how we know they happened.

And if anyone says otherwise, it's bulls**t.

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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.

CIA Inspector General Report Implicates DOJ Lawyers Again

By GottaLaff

This is why I'm hoping that pulling on that one tiny legal thread will eventually unravel much more:

As the report explains, CIA interrogators had to sign an acknowledgment that they’d read the Department of Central Intelligence guidelines.

Although the DCI Guidelines are an improvement over the absence of such DCI Guidelines in the past, they still leave substantial room for misinterpretation and do not cover all Agency detention and interrogation activities.

If the Justice Department lawyers who approved those guidelines knew they left substantial room for misinterpretation but approved them anyway, they could be implicated in encouraging the interrogators’ transgressions. Whether that’s a criminal offense, an ethics violation or just sloppy lawyering, it directly implicates the Justice Department in the CIA’s actions. [...]

[T]he Justice Department played a key role in the development and approval of policies that led to the torture and abuse of detainees. And one way or another, any real probe into what happened and how to keep it from happening again will have to address that.

BushCo and their legal minions must be held accountable. Whether that will happen or not is debatable, even doubtful. But it would be a sad day for the United States if they weren't.

Why?

Try this for starters:

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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.

US Justice Dept advises pursuing CIA abuses

By GottaLaff

The Big Kahuna Torture Report is due out today, and there's a lot of news breaking. Here's the latest:

The U.S. Justice Department has recommended reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, which could expose CIA employees and contractors to prosecution for their treatment of terrorism suspects, The New York Times said on Monday.

The recommendation, reversing the Bush administration, came from the Justice Department's ethics office and has been presented to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The department is due to disclose later on Monday details of prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the CIA's inspector general but have never been released, according to the Times report, which cited an unnamed person officially briefed on matter. [...]

"With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the CIA," the Times said.

The recommendation to review the cases centres mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hear that, Fayiz? We've got our fingers crossed for a real crack at the truth.

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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.

Former Top Interrogators Back Wide-Ranging Criminal Probe Into Torture

By GottaLaff

(cartoon via, and Jamiol’s World)

My new bff, Jason Leopold, has a terrific post that you can find here. Please read the whole thing. I didn't do it justice (no pun):

Three of the country’s former top counterterrorism interrogators and intelligence experts, are speaking out publicly in support of a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the Bush administration’s use of torture against “war on terror” detainees, and have also urged Congress to launch a separate probe to review how the policies that lead to torture were created.

Jack Cloonan, a former FBI security and counterterrorism expert who was assigned to the agency’s elite Bin Laden Unit, Col. Steve Kleinman, a career military intelligence officer recognized as one of the Defense Department’s most prolific interrogators, and Matthew Alexander, a senior interrogator for a special operations task force in Iraq whose team captured down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, said ignoring clear-cut evidence of interrogation-related crimes would only lead to further law breaking in the future. Alexander uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

In an interview, Cloonan and Kleinman, both of who conducted interrogations of terror suspects after 9/11, also sharply disputed recent claims by former CIA Director Michael Hayden and Republican lawmakers that a criminal investigation would have a grave impact on intelligence gathering and may lead to another 9/11-type attack on the homeland.

At a panel discussion held at the National Press Club Thursday on outsourcing intelligence, Hayden said an investigation, “no matter how narrowly defined” will “start pulling threads." [...]

“What this is really about is cover your ass,” Cloonan said about the senators’ letter. “To suggest [intelligence gathering] will come to a screeching halt if there were an investigation is not accurate.”

Kleinman, who most recently served as a senior adviser on a Director of National Intelligence-commissioned study on strategic interrogation, agreed.

“I respectfully disagree profoundly with the assessment that any effort to look back would make us more vulnerable, Kleinman said. “In fact, we have to look back to show our utmost vulnerabilities.

“I’ve had the honor of testifying before four committees of Congress and I am always astounded at the profound political partisan politics that surround this issue. I’m a professional interrogator I have 25 years of experience in this and I don’t have any concern whatsoever that an investigation into how we conducted ourselves since 9/11 would in any way undermine our ability to continue gathering intelligence.”

Furthermore, Kleinman and Cloonan believe their colleagues in the intelligence community share their views. But many are unable to speak out publicly. [...]

Kleinman and Cloonan added that the outside contractors and the interrogators who lacked the training and experience are the ones who saw the use of torture as a means to gain valuable information. Moreover, they are likely the ones who fear an investigation.

“The people who are true professionals don’t see anything wrong with an investigation,” Kleinman said. “I conducted interrogations in three separate military campaigns. I can look back if they called me in tomorrow and I would not even be thinking about getting liability insurance.

I simply can't wrap my mind around ignoring crimes like ordering/committing torture and convoluting our legal system in order to justify it, especially after reading Jason's post.

Setting a terrible precedent is just one of the consequences of inaction. The many, many posts I've written (see below) help to explain why I feel so strongly.

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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.

Sarah the Quitter pressured prosecutors in Johnston case

By GottaLaff

Via The Mudflats, we discover that, while another Palin scandal may interest us on a slow news day, the real story is this one (original post on this here):

And what, in the long run, may be the most important story revealed today is this from The Immoral Minority:

As some of you may know Sherry [Johnston's} court date was moved from yesterday to August 19. The reason for this is that until just now the prosecutors REFUSED to make any kind of a deal, because of pressure they were receiving from the Governor. For some reason Palin was pushing for Sherry to receive the maximum sentence. [snip]

I cannot talk about what kind of deal Sherry may get, but the prosecution has become much more reasonable now that Sean Parnell is our Governor.

Okay, so maybe I should have ignored rumors of a Sarah/Todd split (it was irresistible, widely reported, and I'm only human), but we cannot ignore S the Q pressuring the courts for what appears to be personal reasons.

She just can't stay out of the news, now can she? Maybe she'll Tweet about it.

Torture Watch: Yoo too

By GottaLaff

Sully makes this so easy to understand:

Holder should start with Yoo and work his way up. My worry is that if he doesn't, his investigation of the extremes legitimizes the non-extreme torture and abuse; and integrates the precedent into American government and way of life. Torture, following Bush and Cheney's embraceof it as a moral necessity, has gained great new life around the world; and I'm sure, in the netherworld of America's prison system, Cheney methods are now quite popular.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes 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.

H/t: Cody

VIDEO: President Carter wants torture photos released

By GottaLaff

In an interview set to air Monday night, Carter told CNN's Campbell Brown some of President Obama's supporters are disappointed in him. "Most of his supporters were hoping that he would be much more open in the revelation of what we've done in the past," said the former president, although he added that he still respects Obama's judgment on the issue: "I don't agree with him, but I certainly don't criticize him for making that decision." [...]

Carter also seemed to disagree with Obama on what should happen to Bush Justice Department officials who signed off on waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. Carter stopped short of calling for immediate prosecutions, but did suggest they might be appropriate in the future.

"What I would like to see is a complete examination of what did happen, the identification of any perpetrators of crimes against our own laws or against international law," he told Brown. "And then after all that's done, decide whether or not there should be any prosecutions."

Cheney can now say with some degree of personal pride, "Mission Accomplished: I Dicked the Country Again!"

By GottaLaff

My BuzzFlash buddy Mark Karlin wrote himself a bloggy post:

The Cheney Enigma Solved. Power is Virtue; Weakness is Evil. Lies on Behalf of Empire are Necessary Truths. [...]

Cheney and Rumsfeld -- and their "eager to prove his manhood" boy king, George W. Bush -- have a simple belief: if you have power, use it and use it without regard to its impact on the losers in life (the weaker ones). It's a simple view of the world that goes back to cave men. If you got a bigger cudgel, beat your competition for food and territory with it -- and make sure they don't get back up. [...]

Cheney [...] attack a newly elected President, scare Americans again about terror, and call in one of his daughters to back him up on TV. It was, however, not to assert power, but to try to put a halt to a perfect storm that was brewing that would put him and his loyalists still in the CIA and military -- and those that have left -- in jeopardy of prosecution on a variety of legal issues: including torture, murder, illegal actions, etc.

That was how we ended up with a bizarre television spectacle of a former alleged Vice-President (functioning as President on foreign policy) acting as if he were running against the man who had just a few months ago been elected President by an electoral landslide. [...]

From the days when Rumsfeld and Cheney ran the White House under Gerald Ford's brief presidency and presided over America's chaotic departure from Vietnam, Cheney apparently vowed to adopt the doctrine -- if given the chance: "If it's ours to seize, take it. The weak deserve what they get; that's why they are weak."

Ethics, Morality, Decency, Legality: these are all pusillanimous concepts fostered by weak-kneed "liberals" who don't understand the realities of the world. [...]

As for the past week, Cheney can now say with some degree of personal pride, "Mission Accomplished: I Dicked the Country Again!"

Please go read the whole thing. I cut it way down to its barest bones.

Sheldon Whitehouse: Bush lied, criminal prosecutions more likely, more

By GottaLaff

Rick Sanchez:

Lawrence Wilkerson says BushCo was using torture to make a case for the Iraq War.

Sheldon Whitehouse just called Bush a liar, in an interview just now with Rick Sanchez on CNN.

Whitehouse:

If what Wilkerson said is true, it takes the techniques off the scope of the legal memos. And that raises the prospect of a criminal prosecution.

Fine with me.

VIDEO: Bybee could face impeachment as a result of DoJ report

By GottaLaff

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Light at the end of the proverbial tunnel:

After a four-year probe, the Department of Justice has finally come out with its report on the torture memos–and it seems like they won’t be recommending prosecuting the lawyers who helped write them. But Michael Isikoff, the veteran investigative correspondent for Newsweek — says the report will be a bombshell and could recommend the impeachment of Bush White House counsel Jay Bybee.

Good, good, and good. But here's the part that stood out to me last night, as I watched the Tee Vee Machine:

Additionally, Isikoff emphasized that the ethics division’s recommendation of no criminal charges isn’t decisive.

The “no criminal prosecutions headline that is getting a lot of attention tonight — I’m not sure that’s quite as significant as people think,” he said. “The office of professional responsibility is the ethics unit. It’s not the criminal division of the Justice Department. They don’t make decisions on criminal prosecutions and there’s an entire separate track of potential criminal investigations flowing from this as we reported this week in Newsweek an ongoing criminal investigation into the CIA destruction of tapes and e-mails in this report could well shed light for the criminal division so I don’t think this is by any means over yet.”

I haven't heard one peep from any of the punditiots about this. Even Rachel followed right up by going back to her frustration over the "slaps on the wrist" issue. That puzzled me. My ears perked right up after hearing Isikoff's comments as stated above. That glimmer of hope was what all I needed... for now.

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.

Charges Seen as Unlikely for Lawyers Over Interrogations

By GottaLaff

I don't understand our legal system sometimes. And by "understand" I mean "agree with":

An internal Justice Department inquiry into the conduct of Bush administration lawyers who wrote secret memorandums authorizing brutal interrogations has concluded that the authors committed serious lapses of judgment but should not be criminally prosecuted, according to government officials briefed on a draft of the findings.

The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask that state bar associations consider possible disciplinary action, including reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials said.

Yeah, that'll show 'em. Future officials will be all shivery and cowery just thinking about issuing torture memos and then getting-- dun dun dunnn-- a reprimand. What next, standing in the corner?

The conclusions of the 220-page draft report are not final and have not yet been approved by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The officials said it is possible the final report might be subject to revision, but they did not expect major alterations in its main findings or recommendations.

The draft report is described as very detailed, tracing e-mail messages between Justice Department lawyers and officials at the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency. Among the questions it is expected to consider is whether the memos reflected the lawyers’ independent judgments of the limits of the federal anti-torture statute or were skewed deliberately to justify what the C.I.A. proposed. [...]

In a letter made public on Monday, the Justice Department advised two Democratic senators on the Judiciary committee, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, that the former department lawyers who wrote the opinions had until Sunday to submit written appeals to the findings.

How excruciatingly evenhanded of them to allow input by the very people who authorized brutal and repeated torture and set a precedent worthy of ... well, Cheney. There may be legal justification for not prosecuting these cretins, but that doesn't stop me from needing a talking down.

Ari Fleischer: "I’ll be proud to testify if I get a subpoena. I’m proud of what we did...”

By GottaLaff

Go ahead, Ari, make our day:

He argued that neither Congress nor anyone else is up to the task, and that any investigation would “lead to acrimony and blame-gaming” and “devolve into the worst type of partisanship.” While noting that “no one likes to get a subpoena,” Fleischer said, “I’ll be proud to testify if I get a subpoena. I’m proud of what we did to protect this country.” Those wanting to see Fleischer—or at least some of his former colleagues—on the witness stand include his fellow panelists Noonan, who called for a 9/11 Commission-style investigation, and Tina Brown, who quoted Senator Patrick Leahy’s contention that “before you can turn a page, you want to read it.” When moderator (and Media Project host) Gideon Yago brought up the idea of a special prosecutor, Fleischer sternly pointed out that “that assumes a crime has been committed.”

Ari just admitted he's proud of being part of the gang of thugs that committed war crimes. That was big of him. Remind me to thank him with a smile as he's carted off to prison.

Today, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) also demanded an investigation into Bush's torture program. "To continue to ignore the mounting evidence of clear wrongdoing is a national humiliation," writes Byrd.

Yes, let's try that. Let's investigate, just to give Ari a chance to show us how proud he is when he's convicted of war crimes. And as he's being cuffed and chained, can someone please read him the definition of "protect"?

VIDEO: Debbie Wasserman Schultz won't rule out prosecuting Bush/Cheney

By GottaLaff

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is just fine with getting rid of Jay Bybee:

Wasserman Schultz also said she would not rule out prosecuting former President Bush or Vice President Cheney.

'No one is above the law,' Holder says of torture inquiry

By GottaLaff

"No one is above the law." We're hearing that a lot, are we not?

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that he would "follow the law" as he weighed potential prosecutions of Bush administration officials who authorized controversial harsh interrogation techniques.

In Holder's first public comments on the issue since President Obama's statements on the matter Tuesday, the attorney general responded to questions briefly and cautiously.

"We are going to follow the evidence, follow the law and take that where it leads. No one is above the law," Holder said at an Earth Day event. [...]

Holder also repeated assurances the Obama administration had given CIA interrogators who employed the controversial techniques that they would not be charged.

"The president's comments were consistent with what we've said all along. Those who, in good faith, followed legal guidance they were given will not be prosecuted or investigated," Holder said.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller agreed, adding:

"But I am not prepared to say the same for the senior Bush administration officials who authorized or directed these policies in the first place," the West Virginia Democrat said. "The focus for right now should be on finding the facts."

And find they shall! I just know they will.

Several investigations, both internal and external, are under way into the interrogation or related matters, and others are almost certain to be launched, particularly by Congress

This will take months. Patience.