They say a picture speaks a thousand words.
Well we got rid of all those Saddam pictures around the country, now didn’t we!!
Tag: war crimes
Jan 22 2009
The Suddenly Pertinent Case of Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher, Publisher and Propagandist
Why is this long-deceased German journalist relevant today? Let’s find out below the break.
Jan 22 2009
The Pertinent Case of Julius Streicher
Jan 20 2009
Obama’s Best Move So Far? Marty Lederman Joins OLC
From Armando at Talkleft Monday evening:
 Martin “Marty” S. Lederman Photo: Georgetown Law |
Lederman Joining Obama Administration:
From Ben Smith [at Politico]:
A Georgetown source forwards over an email from that school’s administration, reporting that Professor Marty Lederman’s class will be canceled — because he’s joining the Obama administration.
Lederman, another former Clinton Office of Legal Counsel lawyer, is perhaps the most prominent of several high-profile opponents of the Bush Administration’s executive power claims joining Obama, a mark that he intends not just to change but to aggressively reverse Bush’s moves on subjects like torture. . . . Lederman has been . . . an early and vocal critic of torture, and has suggested Bush Administration officials have committed specific crimes in that regard.
For those unfamiliar with him…
Martin “Marty” S. Lederman [until today was] an Associate Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches various courses in constitutional law, and seminars on separation of powers and executive branch lawyering. He regularly contributes to the weblogs SCOTUSblog and Balkinization, including on matters relating to Executive power, detention, interrogation, civil liberties, and torture. Lederman was an Attorney Advisor in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel from 1994 to 2002
Marty Lederman blogs with Jack Balkin, at Balkinization.
In a Balkanization post July 08, 2007, Lederman grouped all of his, Mark Graber’s, Stephen Griffin’s, Scott Horton’s, Sandy Levinson’s, David Luban’s, Brian Tamanaha’s, Jack Balkin’s and a few others posts “on the complex of issues raised by torture, interrogation, detention, war powers, Executive authority, the Department of Justice, and the Office of Legal Counsel” together under the heading The Anti-Torture Memos: Balkinization Posts on Torture, Interrogation, Detention, War Powers, Executive Authority, DOJ and OLC
There are many, almost six hundred, posts in that Balkinization category, but a quick scan of the titles will give you a good indication of Marty’s feelings and leanings on the subjects of torture and applicable “rule of law”, and his very strong and vocal criticisms of torture by the Bush administration.
Jan 20 2009
The First Official Act
When Barack Obama becomes president, tomorrow, his first official act should be to ban torture. Nothing else would more clearly delineate the full and final break this nation is making from the legal and moral turpitude that was the Bush Administration. For logistical and practical reasons, Obama cannot immediately end the war or shut down Gitmo- although both must be done as quickly as is possible. He cannot immediately stop our economic free-fall. He cannot immediately begin to repair the possibly irreversible damage done by Bush to the environment. But he can ban torture. He can order all government entities that are in any way involved with torture to stop immediately. He can make clear that any government officials still involved with torture will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and possibly turned over to international officials for possible war crimes violations.
Corporate media and other Beltway types want Obama neither to end torture nor to prosecute the Bush officials who signed off on it. The law necessitates that he do both. And in this ostensible nation of laws, no one should be above the law. If we are, indeed, a nation of laws.
Last Friday, Big Tent Democrat wrote the following:
…the Beltway wants the torture policy of the Bush Administration swept under the rug and forgotten…
With all due respect to one of my favorite bloggers, I don’t think he goes far enough. The Beltway doesn’t just want Bush’s torture regime swept away and forgotten, it wants Obama to be complicit in it. Because the enabling of the Beltway and the corporate media made them complicit in it.
The best thing our newly inaugurated president can do, tomorrow, is to attempt to begin to establish a fundamental sense of moral and legal integrity in this nation. And to stop hurting people for no reason. As of tomorrow, solving and resolving all of Bush’s countless messes, crimes, and disasters becomes Barack Obama’s responsibility. Barack Obama’s first act as president should be to ban torture.
Jan 18 2009
Torturing His Supporters
Hat tip to Armando this morning, for: AP: Obama Team Debating Violating UN Convention On Torture
The other day, the AP reported:
President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow military rules for questioning prisoners, according to two U.S. officials familiar with drafts of the plans. Still under debate is whether to allow exceptions in extraordinary cases.
. . . Obama’s changes may not be absolute. His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole to the rules that could allow the CIA to use some interrogation methods not specifically authorized by the Pentagon, the officials said. They said the intent is not to use that as an opening for possible use of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.
As Glenn Greenwald points out, such a “loophole” would constitute a violation of the UN Convention on Torture, codified as a crime under US law:
We all know by now, or we should know by now, that Obama has no problem endlessly torturing people who put him where he is with talk of torture loopholes.
The question is are the loopholes he’s talking about big enough to allow even more bush era torture fanatics like Brennan in, to enable Obama to co-opt far right GOP senators and reps?
This is all about gaining “bipartisan” support, and power. Nothing else.
There is virtually no sunlight between the two when it comes to amassing and retaining power, and when it comes right down to it any suggestion that presidential power be limited appears to justify “exceptions in extraordinary cases”, in Obama’s world.
Barack Obama appears to have the same problem (or fantasy, depending on your POV) that George Bush had, a problem described by Phillip Carter and Dahlia Lithwick at Slate back in October 2007 in
All Wet: Why can’t we renounce waterboarding once and for all?…
Jan 17 2009
International Criminal Court – second of an unending series
Since Bob Fertik’s question got totally ignored then we can try another approach with the same potential result. Ask Obama to join the ICC. Let the world do what our fearful leaders won’t.
I just found this after hunting around change.gov a little bit. Added my $0.02 comment there.
United States joining the International Criminal Court
With all due respect President Obama,If you are unwilling to prosecute the Bush Administration for war crimes in order to hold accountability and restore our moral standing in the world, then will you please have the United States join the International Criminal Court ? This will ensure that you are sincere in being held accountable, ensure future administrations will not be able to repeat war crimes without being held accountable, and will restore our moral standing in the world.
1 Comment » Posted by Barbara D. on 1/16/2009 7:14 PM
Comments
Add Your CommentRUKind
1/16/2009 7:18 PM
I fully and enthusiastically support this proposition. Please join the ICC. If you don’t have the simple decency to pursue the war crimes of the previous administration then let the American people have the freedom to ask the International Court for intervention.
Maybe Buhdy and Bob can get something going again along this path. We can’t stop. We can’t allow our voices to be silenced and ignored. Keep posting. Keep pushing. They may ignore ripples and small waves. They cannot ignore a tsunami. We need to be the tsunami.
Satya.
Jan 16 2009
Failed Nation -The United States Of America
In the immortal words of Pogo “We have met the enemy… and he is us” That prophetic little possum utter those words in 1952, back when we were still mostly the good guys. Before the South American Death Squads and regime change and invading a sovereign nation for oil and murdering 1.3 million innocent people in the process.
Now that Bush and Cheney have admitted to torture and our new AG has reaffirmed what we already knew, torture is a war crime, illgal, forbidden and a useless occupation, will they be prosecuted. Before we get all silly about the change Obama brings, the new America, the return of the rule of law, understand we really have no choice but prosecute them for their crimes. Follow me below the fold for why it isn’t an option and there is no moving forward, no future and no hope, no redemption until we do.
Jan 16 2009
Where is the Special Prosecutor?
(cross-posted at Daily Kos)
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.
RealNews commentator, Pepe Escobar asks the question, “Where is the Special Prosecutor?”
Note an important point Pepe makes about how this will reflect on Obama if other countries must tackle the war crimes’ issue.
In their TV appearances, both Bush and Cheney attempt to make it appear that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was an isolated incidence of waterboarding. CIA Chief Hayden admitted to three incidences of waterboarding:
“Waterboarding has been used on only three detainees,” he told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was used on Abu Zubaydah. And it was used on [Abd al-Rahim al-]Nashiri.”
I think it would be safe to say, there were more than three who were waterboarded (Hayden also admitted to thirteen others being subjected to “enhanced interrogation methods,” but not waterboarding). And what about the deaths that occurred at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? And those who were renditioned to other countries?
The point is that both Bush and Cheney tried to “legitimize” the use of waterboarding by 1) making it appear an isolated case and, 2) invaluable information was obtained. They, of course, try to make it seem to the American public that torture’s O.K. in “certain circumstances” — that there are exceptions to the laws. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS!
Here are some thoughts on the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” by a Human Rights Watch representative and other CIA operators:
“The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.
The techniques are controversial among experienced intelligence agency and military interrogators. Many feel that a confession obtained this way is an unreliable tool. Two experienced officers have told ABC that there is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation. According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon and issued in 2004, the techniques “appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 9, 2005.
It is “bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture’s bad enough,” said former CIA officer Bob Baer.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and a deputy director of the State Department’s office of counterterrorism, recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust … than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets.” . . . .
A bit more follows!
Jan 13 2009
Moving Forward? Here Are The Rules.
| And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening, People writing songs that voices never share And no one dared Disturb the sound of silence. Fools said I, you do not know Silence like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you, Take my arms that I might reach you. But my words like silent raindrops fell, And echoed In the wells of silence |
Here are the rules.
The other day George Will, of all people, was comparing Obama refusing to prosecute Bush and Cheney to Ford pardoning Nixon.
If a far right crazed wingnut can get it right, why can’t the rest of us?
This comparison is one that we can use to good effect, but only if we do it continuously and loudly.
A friend of mine a couple of days ago, a nearly unquestioning Obama supporter, said to me, and I quote:
No argument from me. Ford should have been stood against the wall and shot for that pardon. Nixon cooling his heels in the clink for a few years would have prevented this mess, no doubt.
Ford’s pardon of Nixon was the beginning of the end of any hope Ford had of being politically effective, and absolutely killed his future chances for reelection.
So let’s see… if Obama doesn’t want a political blood bath that might define his first term as him being a bush enabler and a torture excuser and might drown him, then he’ll tell Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor, and answer Fertik’s question directly himself, instead of hiding behind excuses and Joe Biden, since according to Biden it is not the job of the president or the vice president, but of the Justice department.
Jan 09 2009
Hmm, American Citizen, 147yrs., Torture, Human Rights Abuses Committed Oversea’s, Hmmmm!
Looks like we have the conclusion, coming sometime today, of a bush administration justice? department trial for ‘Torture’ and ‘Human Rights Violations’ committed by an American Citizen, Overseas, as laid out in Our Laws, under Our Constitution!
Son of Liberian despot to be sentenced in US after torture trial
American citizen “Chucky Taylor” facing 147years on Human Rights Violations Committed Abroad, today, 1-09-09!!