Is Now The Time To Appoint A Special Prosecutor To Investigate Torture Crimes? »
Posted By jovial 6 months, 3 weeks ago in NewsJonathan Turley a George Washington law professor specializing in constituional law, makes his recommendation to Attorney General Eric Holder.
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jovial
Grew up In Brooklyn. Joined the Navy in 1976 stayed in 10 years. Aircraft Electronics tech. Worked for Major Govt. contractor then settled in California ...
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Endoscopy6 months, 3 weeks ago
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So jovial. What is the crime? torture according to our laws is causing intense pain or causing permanent damage to the persons body. Congress approved of the methods used by these operatives. All but one agreed and my bet is that one was McCain. Then you try to say this is not a political issue. The Democrats have amnesia that they concurred with the methods. And the liberals just ignore the facts. I guess that you would rather that the attack on LA should have not been intercepted and the thousands would have died. Great liberal view. You must love Bloodshed.
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epiphannyy6 months, 3 weeks ago
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I don't see where he has any choice at this point. Frankly, I think it is far past the time it should have been done. Although, I don't believe it needs to be partisan. Appoint a special prosecutor then get out of the way. Let the facts lead the investigation and then, at its conclusion, let the chips fall where they may. Don't try and protect or cover-up for past administration officials OR go out of the way to railroad them either. It should be possible, but whether it will be is a different matter. Both sides need to back off and just let it happen.
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And to all who keep ranting about "our" legal definition of torture, etc, saying no laws were broken because "our" definition allowed these acts............there is no LEGAL definition of torture that defies the international one. Torture was defined and accepted internationally with the Geneva Convention and John Yoo, under the direction of the Bush administration, ILLEGALLY redefined torture to fit their own agenda. They broke international law when they did that. They had no right to do that without international approval. We have no more right to rewrite the internationally agreed upon definition of torture than does North Korea or Iran or China or anyone else. Imagine if they tried to redefine torture to "legally" allow unspeakable acts and how it would be greeted by us and the rest of the international community. Heads would roll..seriously. It would never be accepted if others were to do this, and so the same rules should apply to us. Especially since WE are supposed to be the "shining example of democracy" for the world to follow.
I realize that these "patriotic Americans" don't want to hear that, but that is the fact of what has happened and why there is such an uproar now. We broke international law and now it's time to pay the price. Water boarding was accepted as "torture" prior to John Yoo's redefinition of the term. Throughout the ages, from the Spanish Inquisition to the Killing Fields of Cambodia. When Pol Pot' Khmer Rouge used it, no one argued against it being classified as a crime against humanity. But when WE use it, it's all of the sudden a "useful interrogation technique"? Get real. I can't comprehend how these people, while espousing patriotism and claiming to be proud Americans, will align themselves with the worst of the worst in the history of the world just to quench their own sick thirst for revenge against anyone they have been told to believe is an enemy combatant.
I have to wonder what our founders would think of their country today....embracing torture and vilifying those who oppose it. I dare say we no longer resemble the country they fought and bled and died while trying to create. You know....that whole concept of a country free from tyranny, oppression, and torture they all fled Europe to avoid? -
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Progressive6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Obama said he would not necessarily oppose a U.S. panel to investigate the interrogation program. But he said he would prefer to see such an inquiry take place outside of the "typical hearing process" of Congress, where the issue could become politicized.
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http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/04/22/obama-op... -
Locky12Comment removed: Spammer, Abusive13 Replies
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
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There may be a bit of window dressing for the public with regard to torture, but it is unlikely that Obama will allow the full consequences to be investigated.
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Torture, War and the Imperial Project
With the release of the U.S. Senate's report on the Bush Administration torture program, it is now incontrovertibly clear – and officially established by the highest, most respectable Establishment institutions – that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and a host of other top officials deliberately, willingly, and with malice aforethought, established a system of interrogation using brutal techniques that they knew were against the law. Hence the need for the torture memos that attempted to give retroactive legal cover for atrocities that were already taking place at the orders of the White House and the Pentagon. They were also told repeatedly that these tortures were ineffective at producing useful intelligence.
What's more, it is now undeniable that they began this program long before they had captured even one "high-profile al Qaeda detainee," and that they were using these heinous techniques not in a desperate bid to save the nation from further attacks – which has long been their preening, self-serving claim – but instead to produce spurious data about the non-existent link between Iraq and al Qaeda. In other words, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld ordered their minions to beat and torment captives in order to get them to say something a – anything – that could then be used to "justify" a war of aggression that these grand statesmen had been planning long before the September 11 attacks.
You cannot disentangle the torture program from the war of aggression in Iraq – nor from the illegal wiretapping program, the corrupt war profiteering, and all the other degradations of liberty and law that have been so accelerated in the past eight years. They are all of a piece, part and parcel of a plan to expand and entrench America's "unipolar domination" of world affairs with a thoroughly militarized state led by an unaccountable, authoritarian "Unitary Executive." -
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engineer6 months, 3 weeks ago
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At this point, the answer is yes. Torture was and still is illegal. A prosecutor is required to clear obtain the truth and prosecute as required with the proper evidence. I do not believe that torturing was unknown nor ordered by the powers that be General Karpinski of Abu Gharib fame was following orders.
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tadair9196 months, 3 weeks ago
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arlen specter was the person who was put in charge of JFK's assassination. he was the one who invented the magic bullet theory, by the way. that got a lot of play. see picture here:
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http://www.orwelltoday.com/jfkbulletmagic.jpg
henry kissinger was supposed to be be in charge of overseeing the 9/11 commission. when that didn't fly, they still performed a fantastic job covering up 9/11. Some former 9/11 commission members have since joined the truth movement by admitting that they had to lie. Other former commission members have admitted that "the White House has played a cover-up." Look it up yourself.
Just a little FYI for those who think a special prosecutor would bring any real justice. -
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CHAM6 months, 3 weeks ago
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We ( The United States ) championed the execution of many Nazis at Nuremberg for exactly the same torture tactics employed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, and Congress People, Republican and Democrat, and cheered on by people on this thread who make light of the thousands of people who were tortured, and the hundreds who were tortured to death.
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On thing I just don't see in newspaper articles, T V shows, in these articles, or in comments like these is that people were tortured to death. By American soldiers and by Mercenaries.
For lesser crimes ( including waterboarding ) Germans and Japanese were executed after WWII. Why not Bush and friends?-
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Natureboy6 months, 3 weeks ago
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"For lesser crimes ( including waterboarding ) Germans and Japanese were executed after WWII. Why not Bush and friends?"
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Because Bush and friends were not defeated. And those who pulled their strings are still pulling the strings of the current administration.
Really, Obama is sucking up to the liberals verbally, but in the arena of action this is strictly business as usual. Don't expect a purge of the military or intelligence branches, or a meaningful prosecution of those who gave the orders.
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maidofthemist6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Cham: totally agree with you.
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Locky: you're right, bush and chenney should have been prosecuted and charged since they started committing their crimes when they were the current "leaders", surely many lives would've been saved, and the US would have been looked at as a civilized country
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maidofthemist6 months, 3 weeks ago
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dhammer: have you realized that we are talking about prosecuting and charging the ones to blame for ALL those horrible crimes? The cut head and the water boarding and the approximately 1,500,000 deaths , including US, Iraqi and other nationalities, and the who knows how many huge number of wounded persons have been the results of a greedy invasion for OIL? All this while bush an his accomplices walk the planet as free and respected men!
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MisterX6 months, 3 weeks ago
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The torture allegations and the craigslist murderer are both smoke screens for other issues going on. This is all they talked about on the news tonight. Nothing about stolen plans for the F-35 Lightning, nothing about the bills Congress are chewing on now that they're back.
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KlarissaComment removed: Spam
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Klarissa6 months, 3 weeks ago
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This is why nothing wil come of this!!
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"Before members of Congress rail at the CIA’s coercive interrogation of terrorists, they might want to blame those who authorized the measures in the first place: themselves.
Yes, members of Congress approved the interrogation methods many of them now decry as torture.
That revelation comes from an article posted Wednesday on WeeklyStandard.com by senior writer Stephen F. Hayes, who reveals that Adm. Dennis Blair, President Obama’s national intelligence director, circulated a letter within the intelligence community last week that could prove embarrassing to both Democrats and the Obama administration.
Blair’s letter reportedly states that members of Congress repeatedly signed off on enhanced interrogation methods such as waterboarding.
“From 2002 through 2006 when the use of these techniques ended,” Blair wrote, “the leadership of the CIA repeatedly reported their activities both to Executive Branch policymakers and to members of Congress, and received permission to continue to use the techniques."
Blair’s letter was distributed April 16, the same day the president released portions of newly declassified internal memos describing in detail how the interrogations were to be performed.
Obama has been widely criticized by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others for holding back information that shows how successful the enhanced interrogations were in disrupting al-Qaida operations, including attacks against U.S. citizens.
Blair’s letter also stated that coercive interrogation provided “high-value information” and contributed to a better understanding of al-Qaida. An abridged version of Blair’s statement was released to the public, but it did not refer to the program’s success or the authorization from Congress. "
Can you see Pelosi on the stand explaining why she approved the actions?-
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Well Klarissa, if Pelosi was presented with the real facts and approved torture, she should also go.
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However, we know that the Bush administration lied repeatedly to Congress regarding Iraq in the run-up to the war. Even Dick Armey, House Majority Leader of the time, has told us he was lied to and that he regrets having supported the war powers resolution a instead of coming out against the Iraq war.
Why do you suppose they have been any more honest with Congress in the case of torture? Certainly we know that the Bush administration also lied (for Rumsfled's benefit) in the case of the Abu Ghraib perversions.
Lets see ALL the evidence rather than rumors that try to "spread the blame" to keep the chief criminals out of jail. -
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willottica6 months, 3 weeks ago
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When did the Democrats get control of congress? In 2006 "when the use of these techniques ended".
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Who do you think the head of the CIA would report to in congress? Just any old joe-shmoe congressman? Why would they report to and seek permission from congress, anyway? Perhaps there is oversight from congress, but it would be from a single person or a special committee - the entire congress would not be in the know, for national security reasons.
So who, in congress, was reported to and authorized this? That is the missing information that you should be seeking out before trying to smear the entirety of congress, Klarissa.
That is the missing information that a special prosecutor should unearth, so that those "members of congress" who granted such permission, can also be prosecuted.
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gooangel6 months, 3 weeks ago
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IF THEY DO THIS, then anyone up to and including Obama will have to admit guilt for endorsing it from the get go. This will be a sure way to try to fire congress and the current administration because if they also start to look at the corruption involved with the new bill going up, Murtha will be one of the first ones they have to go after for the money deals that were made.
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FrankHummel6 months, 3 weeks ago
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No, it REALLY should have been done about four or five YEARS AGO now already, when it might have had some value by way of SQUELCHING some of the crap that has long gone on. Maybe there could be some value in erecting barriers (for a while) for the FUTURE. But ideological idiots seem to have a way of incrementally redefining such “obstacles” clean out of existence. (Anybody remenber the post-Vietnam “War Powers Act??)
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As for Cheney and Bush --- and indeed their whole Crackpot Cabal of NeoConMen --- I say the following:
I wonder what extent it may have been the case that some of the more egregious outrages by fighters on the "other side" may have actually been ENGENDERED by the kinds of treatment being meted out to THEM in cases when THEY were held as "our" prisoners!
By the time they (for example) beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, "al-Qaeda" MUST SURELY HAVE BEEN WELL AWARE (given escapes, exonerations and releases, and some forcible "extractions" of prisoners that had occurred long before then) of much of what was being done to THEIR OWN brethren in captivity. (only "We the People" over here were "kept in the dark" on THAT point.)
So then THAT, of course, raises the question of to what extent it has to be considered, as a matter of logic, that a factor MOTIVATING such atrocities as the Pearl murder may well have been what had been and was being done by "our OWN" people!
That is, maybe at least a part of the more-or-less universal outrage at THAT horror REALLY should be directed at "our OWN" murderers and torturers --- who now come along and muster the Chutzpah to argue that "we" have got some kind of bounden obligation to "support" them on the things they have done because THEY were supposedly "protecting" "us"! But did not what they did ACTUALLY ADD to "our" risk?? TALK ABOUT CIRCULAR REASONING!!
Anyway, HERE is the only such circular reasoning that is actually valid:
What GOES ‘round --- COMES ‘round.-
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albr19686 months, 3 weeks ago
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youre a complete idiot that has never been anywhere is his life, it is there way of doing things period that is the only way they know how to get points across is to do such things as cut your head off or hand or foot, go get an education somewhere before you start with crap like that, If it keeps our country safe from a terrorist attack torture the crap out of them I dont care whatever it takes to save lives!
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OhioMom6 months, 3 weeks ago
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LET IT GO. I'm so tired of this partisan bickering. So does this mean the next new president can prosecute Obama for treason when he took a book from Venezuelan leader? Our country's economy is tanking, the housing market is not improving, and Americans are worried about keeping up with their financial obligations NOT with a decision made long ago. That decision in the eyes of many, kept our country safe whatever your other opinions of Pres. Bush might have been. It also was acceptable at that time, to the Democrats who now cry out for investigations. Like 2 kids bickering, start solving REAL problems and stop wasting our time AND our money paying Congress for things over and done with.
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DashRiprock6 months, 3 weeks ago
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OhioMom summed things up so succinctly, that I almost just posted a reply saying "ditto". LOL But my typing (Keyboard?) fingers were itching.
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A special "torture prosecutor"). Just what we need during these very hard economic times -- dragging up dirty laundry from the past with no real purpose other than to vilify that war monger/liberal hating/etc... George W. BUSH! Some people hate him so bad, that they can't move on. OhioMom made a great point about a lot of Democrats agreeing with him at the time.
We can't have our most secret agency, and it's officers brought into the limelight just so some liberal fanatics can "GET BUSH"!
We need to LET IT GO, it's over and done with, there are new policies in place, and we have serious problems in the present that we should be focusing on. Let's MOVE ON!-
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jovial6 months, 3 weeks ago
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We can't let it go. If laws have been broken we must enforce them. The America I know is a country of laws. I won't stand by and watch our laws be broken by anyone. That includes the President. The only reason I could see that any Americans would want our laws circumvented is for political reasons. That, in my opinion, is not a good enough reason.
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DashRiprock6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Torture is a horrible thing. I think almost everyone can agree on that. But is it EVER justified?
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How about this scenario: Say that we KNOW that a nuclear device has been planted in one of our major cities, and is set to go off in 24 hours. And say we KNOW that a captured terrorist (Note how I didn't say "suspect". LOL) knows where it is. Estimates of the casualties if the device went off is well over a million people. If the individual won't voluntarily tell us where it is, should we resort to torture? And how about if "water-boarding" doesn't work; can we really take of the old gloves? Would these decision have to go before Congress?! LOL
Sure this is an extreme scenario, but how do we know that something similar hasn't already happened? If a small nuclear device in downtown NYC were to be de-fused in the nick of time, would the details be released to the public after the fact?-
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willottica6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Okay, so you torture this prisoner until he tells you a location and time.
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You go to investigate, but it turns out he was lying. He was buying time. The device goes off. Was your torture worth it?
If you torture the guy (thus making him hate you more) why should he be more likely to give you accurate information?
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albr19686 months, 3 weeks ago
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Let me get this straight, an American prisoner is watched on camera having his neck sawed into untill his head comes off and that is not torture? But we pour some water on a guy and rough him up a bit and it is torture? Why is it we have got to go by rules that no other country abides by? Liberal Americans I wish the next terror attack is in your back yard. Democrats suck they would rather watch Americans die in a horrible way then to get information from som low life coward terrorist America Wake the Hell up
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jovial6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Why are you making this political. There are Republicans that want justice on this as well. I haven't heard one Democrat or Republican that said they "would rather watch Americans die in a horrible way" That's a tactic being used by you to demonize Americans seeking justice on a matter that they hold dear. You're thinking revenge, not justice. Revenge blinds people. Justice allows one to see more clearly. Choose justice not revenge.
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epiphannyy6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Who said that beheadings weren't torture?
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You know, I saw a great interview tonight on this issue that explained the difference of opinions here very well. It explained the difference between those who realize that torture is not useful for gleaning any good intel and traditional techniques always work best vs those like you who justify the unspeakable with the "eye for an eye" argument while truly believing that torture works. The explanation was really quite simple and I'm ashamed to say I hadn't thought of it myself because I understand it's the same reason people judge almost anything in this life and I have always recognized it. I just never put the same reasoning to the torture issue.
The excuse is this..............we judge the world based on our own barometer - meaning we believe others are basically like us with our own thresholds for weakness, strength, honesty, morality, world view, etc. Even though we realize there are many differences in the world, when we judge a situation, we judge it based on those standards we have for ourselves. So if we a prone to lie, we tend to believe those around us are lying. Conversely, if we are prone to brutal honesty, we tend to trust others to be so too and are shocked out of our socks when we're deceived. This whole issue of torture is no different. The reason you, and others who agree with you that torture is justified and useful despite evidence to the contrary, is because you know that for you it would work. If someone tortured you, you know that you'd break because you know you haven't the strength or commitment to any cause worth dying a torturous death defending. What you don't seem to get, however, is that these people who are being tortured, have trained for years to die for their cause. They aren't only willing to endure torture, they've trained for it and committed to it more solidly than anything else in this life. That is why when the torture starts, they stop talking. That is why torture is NOT useful, except to satisfy peoples' need for revenge. But if winning this war is your goal, then torture is certainly not the way to go. It gets us nowhere and elevates the "bad guys" to victims while our status as the good guys goes right down the toilet.
I realize this is likely not something you want to hear, but its true. Torture is a waste of time and completely against what this country was founded on. You can vilify liberal Americans all you want, but when you do, you vilify every fallen soldier who died to defend the country you're trying so very hard to destroy.
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sal03326 months, 3 weeks ago
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All is fair in love and war. When fighting an enemy as we have defended ourselves against, no respect for human life the powerful will to kill destroy behead and go on killing when let free. I find it most insane, degrading wasteful spending,on any thought of who in the USA should be braught to justice for the crimes we invent. I believe the disease we spread from the mouth will one day become our worst enemy.
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jovial6 months, 3 weeks ago
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This crime was indeed invented. It was invented by Ronald Reagan and his administration in 1984. We drew up the bulk of the international treaty that outlawed torture. So it became our law. It's not some other country or countries trying to force this law upon us. We made the law so why shouldn't we live by it? If we really wanted to become torturers like the countries we despise, we could have repealed the law and then just did whatever we felt like.
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Tcaros6 months, 3 weeks ago
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You are suckered into the argument that the end justifies the means.
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This is how elitists who don't care about you win your support.
Be careful you don't fall for the old one "We need your rights or the terrorists will win."
Or how about "Your civil liberties are the tools the intelligence agencies need to protect you." -
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willottica6 months, 3 weeks ago
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"All is fair in love in war"
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Then Saddam did nothing wrong. Everything he did was fair. He was just defending himself. It was insane, degrading wasteful spending for the USA to try to bring him to justice for the crimes we invented.
"All is fair in love in war" is selfish BS.
It justifies the murder of innocents to "scare" your enemy". It justifies cheating on a spouse because you've fallen in love with someone else. It justifies stabbing your friend in the back when you fall for the same person.
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DaneL6 months, 3 weeks ago
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I can't wait til the democrat members of the intelligence committee are brought before the justice department. They were all briefed on interrogation techniques and signed off on them. Get the can opener out and open this "price club" size of worms open.
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