The New York Times pushes for the prosecution of those in the Bush Administration responsible for torture. That's all of them, right?
The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch are to give Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. a letter Monday calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate what appears increasingly to be “a vast criminal conspiracy, under color of law, to commit torture and other serious crimes.”
The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, and as hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions of a former president.
But any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered, including Jose Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered the destruction of the videotapes; the psychologists who devised the torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regimen.
Starting a criminal investigation is not about payback; it is about ensuring that this never happens again and regaining the moral credibility to rebuke torture by other governments. Because of the Senate’s report, we now know the distance officials in the executive branch went to rationalize, and conceal, the crimes they wanted to commit. The question is whether the nation will stand by and allow the perpetrators of torture to have perpetual immunity for their actions.
I still have my doubts that the President will sign off on this, after all we know too well how this will be framed by the Right Wing.
But if there is enough public outcry he ultimately may have little choice.
Yesterday I complained that the German human rights groups were doing what we should have been the first to do. And now it looks like we might have been shamed into doing so.
Could this be a Christmas miracle in the making?
Unhappy with continued defense of CIA torture techniques Senator Mark Udall discloses findings of classified "smoking gun" report on Senate floor.
The debate in Washington over Bush-era torture at the Central Intelligence Agency took a large leap forward Wednesday morning when Senator Mark Udall took the Senate floor and disclosed portions of an internal CIA review, while renewing his demand for a change in the intelligence agency’s leadership and criticizing the Obama administration for not doing enough to ensure torture doesn’t happen again.
The so-called “Panetta Review” has dominated much of the drama leading up to the torture report’s release. The document is an internal CIA examination that reportedly validated many of the worst claims about the torture program, including much of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings. (The CIA was after this document when it breached Senate computers in January.)
On Wednesday, Udall described the Panetta Review as a “smoking gun”—proof from the CIA itself that there were serious problems with the torture program. It undercuts almost every contemporary statement made by CIA Director John Brennan and other top intelligence officials, he said, who have vocally been defending what occurred.
Here is what Udall disclosed on the Senate floor today:
"The Panetta Review found that the CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Congress, the president, and the public on the efficacy of its coercive techniques. The Brennan Response, in contrast, continues to insist that the CIA’s interrogations produced unique intelligence that saved lives. Yet the Panetta Review identifies dozens of documents that include inaccurate information used to justify the use of torture—and indicates that the inaccuracies it identifies do not represent an exhaustive list.
The Panetta Review further describes how detainees provided intelligence prior to the use of torture against them. It describes how the CIA—contrary to its own representations—often tortured detainees before trying any other approach. It describes how the CIA tortured detainees even when less coercive methods were yielding intelligence. The Panetta Review further identifies cases in which the CIA used coercive techniques when it had no basis for determining whether a detainee had critical intelligence at all. In other words, CIA personnel tortured detainees to confirm they didn’t have intelligence—not because they thought they did.
To date, there has been no accountability for the CIA’s actions or for Director Brennan’s failure of leadership. Despite the facts presented, the president has expressed his “full confidence” in Director Brennan, and demonstrated that trust by making no effort at all to rein him in. The president stated that it wasn’t “appropriate” for him to wade into the issues between the Committee and the CIA. […]
The White House has not led on this issue in the manner we expected when we heard the president’s campaign speeches in 2008 and read the executive order he issued in January 2009. To CIA employees in April 2009, President Obama said, “What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and ideals even when it’s hard—not just when it’s easy; even when we are afraid and under threat—not just when it’s expedient to do so. That’s what makes us different.”
This tough, principled talk set an important tone for the beginning of his presidency. However, fast forward to this year, after so much has come to light about the CIA’s barbaric programs, and President Obama’s response was that we “crossed a line” as a nation, and that, quote, “hopefully, we don’t do it again in the future.”
That’s not good enough. We need to be better than that. There can be no cover-up. There can be no excuses. If there is no moral leadership from the White House helping the public understand that the CIA’s torture program wasn’t necessary and didn’t save lives or disrupt terrorist plots, then what’s to stop the next White House and CIA Director from supporting torture?"
Excellent question!
Senator Udall is damn right. If nobody is punished for this, and some are even allowed to keep their jobs, then there is NOTHING to prevent this same thing from happening again the next time the terrorists successfully attack us here at home.
Which I think we all know id bound to happen at some point.
Seattle refuses to prosecute cop who punched handcuffed woman in the face breaking her eye socket. Federal prosecutors to review the incident.
Federal prosecutors say they will review an incident in which a Seattle police officer punched and seriously injured a handcuffed, intoxicated woman, after King County prosecutors said Friday they won’t charge the officer.
Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for acting U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes, said her office will look at the June 22 incident involving Officer Adley Shepherd for a possible federal criminal civil-rights violation.
The decision comes after King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced that his office would not seek a state felony charge against Shepherd, 38, a nine-year department veteran, for punching Miyekko Durden-Bosley in the back of his police cruiser.
This case is a little different than what we have all seen lately on the news.
For one the woman lived, and two the cop that injured her is black not white.
However even though race may not the issue this time around the unnecessary use of force most certainly is an issue.
Just take a look at the video of the arrest. (Punch is at the 2:50 mark.)
It is clear from the tape that the woman, was intoxicated and being quite disruptive.
However it is also clear that the police officer struck her in anger and NOT because he was trying to subdue her or in fear of personal injury. She had her hands locked behind her back for fuck's sake.
And once again there is video to prove that something terribly wrong happened, and STILL the Seattle prosecutor did not do his job.
That has to make ALL of us wonder just how many miscarriages of justice are happening every day where there is no video and nobody ever even knows they happen?
Yes cops need to be outfitted with cameras. That is step one.
But then when prosecutors see on those tapes that the police did something like this, they need to respond appropriately. THAT is step two.
American pastor who helped craft Uganda's "Kill the Gays" legislation to be tried for crimes against humanity.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals has denied Pastor Scott Lively’s petition to have a crimes against humanity lawsuit against him dropped.
The anti-gay pastor will stand trial in a federal court in Massachusetts for his part in crafting Uganda’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act, popularly known as the “Kill the Gays” bill. The bill was largely the product of a workshop held in Uganda by Lively and two other american anti-gay activists, focused on “how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how ‘the gay movement is an evil institution’ whose goal is ‘to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”
Look, apparently you can still get justice in America. Assuming of course that he is eventually convicted.
This bill in Uganda has spread fear throughout the gay community, and among those who have friends and family who are gay. And resulted in a dramatic spike in the number of attacks on homosexuals.
Of course these charges have done little or nothing to change Lively's homophobia:
Lively said that homosexuality is a Satanic attack “on the very essence of who we are” that God has deemed a more offensive abomination than mass killings: “When you look in the Bible, there are sins that you would think of as worse, you know, murder or mass murder, but what does it come down to? Leviticus 18 tells the Hebrews exactly what it is that God identifies as the most rebellious behavior, the behavior that causes the land to actually vomit out its inhabitants and every item on that list, except for child sacrifice, is sexual perversion, and child sacrifice is often a form of sexual perversion. So that’s where we are.”
“Homosexuality is not just another sin,” he added, “it is the sin that defines rebellion against God, the outer edge of rebellion against God and it is the harbinger of God’s wrath, that’s why the Scripture gives the warning, ‘as in the days of Noah.’”
Oh yeah this guy needs to spend some real quality time in prison.
South Carolina bucks national trend, indicts three cops in last four months.
As communities around the nation protest decisions not to charge officers who have injured or killed suspects, South Carolina prosecutors have obtained indictments against three white officers for on-duty shootings of unarmed black men in the past four months.
It might seem unusual that officers would face charges in a law-and-order state like South Carolina. But a former prosecutor with some high-profile cases under his belt said officials are acutely aware that people think there is a good ol' boy network in the state and are extra careful to give cases involving police officers the highest level of scrutiny.
"As prosecutors, you are well aware of that stereotype and so you go that extra mile to make sure justice is done," said state Rep. Tommy Pope, who served 13 years as a chief prosecutor and perhaps is best known for his prosecution of Susan Smith, who was convicted of drowning her two sons in a lake.
It took nearly four years for a grand jury to hand down a murder indictment in the latest South Carolina shooting. A white former police chief and at the time the only officer in the small town of Eutawville (YOO'-tah-vihl) was charged Wednesday in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed black man after an argument, a case that instantly drew comparisons to the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting and the chokehold death in New York.
Wow who thought that South Carolina would break from the pack?
Or rather not so much breaking from the pack, but seeing the writing on the walls.
It is always hard to see the silver lining when such incredible miscarriages of justice occur, but if we start to see an increase cops being indicted for using excess force or deadly force, especially when dealing with black people, then perhaps the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown will not have been in vain.
The Marine held captive in Mexico after crossing the border with loaded guns has been freed. Just one less thing for the Right Wing to bitch at Obama about. Update!
A retired U.S. Marine who fought in Afghanistan returned home to Florida on Saturday after spending eight months in a Mexican jail for crossing the border with loaded guns, a case that led U.S. politicians to bring intense pressure on Mexico to release him.
Family spokesman Jon Franks said the private plane carrying Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, his mother and supporters — including former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — landed at a South Florida airport about 6 a.m. Tahmooressi was freed Friday night and was reunited with his mother, Jill, and then boarded the flight to Florida in San Diego.
Tahmooressi, 26, has said he took a wrong turn on a California freeway that funneled him into a Tijuana port of entry with no way to turn back, and that he had no intention of illegally bringing guns into Mexico. His detention brought calls for his freedom from U.S. politicians, veterans groups and social media campaigns. A U.S. congressional committee held a hearing on the case.
In Mexico, possession of weapons restricted for use by the Army is a federal crime, and the country has been tightening up its border checks to stop the flow of U.S. weapons that have been used by drug cartels.
In his order Friday, the Mexican judge did not make a determination on the illegal arms charges against Tahmooressi but freed him because of his mental state, according to a Mexican official who had knowledge of the ruling but was not authorized to give his name. Tahmooressi suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, treatment for which Franks said would be the first order of business now that he is back in the U.S.
As I am sure everybody is aware the Right Wing had been making this a cause celebre for months and even Sarah Palin and Brancy had posted about it several times.
Personally I have been more than a little skeptical at this guy's story, especially since on the day of his arrest he had already crossed into Mexico on foot, checked into a hotel, checked out hours later, walked back across the border to his truck, and then tried to drive it across the border into Mexico where the guns were found under a mattress. (Source.)
Look maybe the guy has all kinds of problems and is not responsible for his actions, however I am also noticing that this PTSD diagnosis is starting to crop up a lot in order to explain all kinds of erratic behaviors. ("Track stop cussing.")
However there is also the strong possibility that this guy really did deserve to face a little Mexican justice, and that he was saved solely for political reasons, and so that certain powerful people could save face.
Update: Well you knew it was coming.
From Queen of Attention Seeking's Facebook page:
What wonderful news that Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi will be free on U.S. soil—finally!—after being imprisoned in Mexico for the past eight months. It's been such a bizarre situation and so disappointing as we hear reports that the White House never did fight for our Marine's freedom. If true, then President Obama once again broke that sacred commitment to never leave an American behind. If I'm wrong on this, I'll be more than happy to acknowledge the President's efforts to see an honored vet set free. Prayers and well wishes go out to Sgt. Tahmooressi and all who have been so dedicated to his plight, especially Andrew's joy-filled mother today. I had the honor of speaking with her a few months ago and have admired her commitment in seeking justice for her son. She’s fought doggedly for Andrew's release; her efforts paid off. Great volunteer organizations worked so hard for this outcome, and FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren kept this important story of seemingly obvious injustice in the news even when few others reported on it. I hope the press will keep pursuing truth in the matter, in the name of justice for all. The best of everything, Andrew! Find peace and fulfillment in this new chapter of life!
- Sarah Palin
"I'm so glad he's free (Look at me! Look at me!). Too bad the President left him in that Mexican jail to rot. (Look at me! Look at me!) But hey if I'm wrong about that I will totally (Never) apologize. (Well are you looking at me yet or what?)
