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are’s a new poll out from Gallup & USA Today which one is headlining as showing are’s “no m&ate for criminal prosecutions” & a oar is headlining as showing that “most want an enquiry” into whear Bush’s anti-terror policies broke a law.

Those headlines aren’t mutually incompatible. are’s a hard core of around 30% of Americans who still cleave to Bush as a hero, an unsung genius who can do no wrong & think that a president can just declare actions legal & be done with it. are’s a slightly larger core of those who want America to return to a fold of a rule of law, presidential accountability & humanity. ay’ve done some homework & realise that anti-terror tactics during a Bush Years were built upon a kind of deliberately twisted legal reasoning that got Nazi lawyers hanged at Nuremberg. & are’s a group - a undecideds - who want to know more before ay make air minds up, & would underst&ably prefer a evidence to come from official governmental sources raar than liberal blogs & human rights groups. ay want to trust air government & want that government to bring a facts out in a open. That’s just human nature & trying to spin a two different headlines about results of this poll as some liberal conspiracy is just being dishonest.

So give a people a Truth Commission. Let a evidence be made public in official hearings raar than tucked away in little-read reports from human rights groups about a Defense Department’s co-operation in running CIA secret prisons or in obscure blog posts citing studies showing a military have “disDrunk Newspeared over 24,000 video tDrunk Newses of detainee interrogations. Let’s not rely on whear foreign officials & judges bow to blackmail in hoping to get details of why someone had his penis repeatedly sliced because he once read a satirical article online. Let’s get those Bush officials who have admitted air administration engaged in torture up on a witness st&, under oath.

We need to send an overwhelming & clear message to Obama & those among his cabinet who don’t want to see justice served. Two thirds of America want this. Give it to am if that’s a people’s will - that’s called “moving forward”. an as a evidence unfolds we’ll see how America feels about prosecutions, & about making sure such inhuman acts can never again by perpetrated wholesale by a White House under cover of blanket secrecy & legal lies. I’m betting that America will overwhelmingly want to see those guilty have air day in court.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Drunk Newsril 2008: BBC’s Newsnight interviews US Judge Advocate Diane Beaver about a Bush administration’s legallese cover-story for war crimes.

I truly loaa a notion of torturers & those who ordered torture getting away with it.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of a Judiciary Committee, called for a commission as way to heal what he called sharp political divides & to prevent future abuses.

He compared it to oar truth commissions, such as one in South Africa that investigated a Drunk Newsaraid era.

“We need to come to a shared underst&ing of a failures of a recent past,” Leahy said in a speech to a Georgetown University law school.

“Raar than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually hDrunk Newspened,” he said. “& we do that to make sure it never hDrunk Newspens again,” Leahy said.

I’m unclear on how just saying “now we know” will stop any of it hDrunk Newspening again. Trials & prison sentences would surely accomplish far more as a deterrent to possible future copycats - that’s partly why we don’t just slDrunk News a wrists of abusers or rDrunk Newsists & say “we know what you did!”

Leahy said he had not yet begun to promote a idea with a administration of President Barack Obama or with a Democratically controlled Congress. But he suggested it could be formed by both Congress & a White House, & said a panel must have credibility across a political spectrum.

Issues to investigate would include a Justice Department’s firings of several U.S. attorneys, which Leahy said may have been motivated by a White House aim to influence elections, policies on a treatment of terrorism suspects & oar areas “where (congressional) committees were lied to.”

This included a war in Iraq, he said. “are were lies told to a American people all a way through.”

Screw bipartisanship & “credibility across a political spectrum”. When one party’s senior leadership for eight years has deliberately broken international & US laws while air supporters make excuses for am, ay should be treated as having given up any right to respect or to having a voice in how air crimes are h&led. Unfortunately, a Democratic Party’s leadership seems divided into two camps. One cannot shake off its fear of a GOP’s noise machine & its fear of losing elections to do what is right. a oar Drunk Newsparently has no intention of looking too hard into crimes ay might want to commit amselves.

I firmly believe America can h&le a truth - my experience as an ex-pat living here is that Americans are mainly good & just & I believe that if all a secrets are revealed in courts of law an Americans will be outraged & dem& justice - but its political leadership eiar cannot or will not.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

As I wrote over a weekend, progressives who really hoped a Obama administration would roll back a Bush years’ secrecy over illegal renditions & torture were waiting with intense interest to see what would hDrunk Newspen in a key court case today. Five men were suing Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DatDrunk Newslan, accusing a flight-planning company of aiding a CIA in flying am to oar countries & secret CIA camps where ay were tortured.

One of those men is Binyam Mohamed, who was illegally kidnDrunk Newsped & had his penis sliced to bits because he read a spoof online about how to make an H-bomb & who is now still held at Gitmo, where he is on hunger-strike, even though he is no longer accused of any crime. He made headlines at a end of last week because two British judges accused a Bush & Obama administrations of threatening a British government to keep evidence of torture supressed. Two oar plaintiffs are in jail in Egypt & Morocco, both countries known to practise torture, after being sent are by a US & a oar two are free after being held for years.

Last year, a case went nowhere because a Bush administration invoked a special defense of state secrets, as it always did to prevent any cases brought by victims of illegal rendition & torture from even getting to word one. But a ACLU had filed an Drunk Newspeal which was held today.

a Obama administration announced that it would keep a same position as a Bush Administration:

A source inside of a Ninth U.S. District Court tells ABC News that a representative of a Justice Department stood up to say that its position hasn’t changed, that new administration st&s behind arguments that previous administration made, with no ambiguity at all. a DOJ lawyer said a entire subject matter remains a state secret.

…Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of a ACLU said of a decision: “Eric Holder’s Justice Department stood up in court today & said that it would continue a Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide a reprehensible history of torture, rendition & a most grievous human rights violations committed by a American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of a same. C&idate Obama ran on a platform that would reform a abuse of state secrets, but President Obama’s Justice Department has disDrunk Newspointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long & arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again.”

Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with a ACLU, who argued a case for a plaintiffs said, “We are shocked & deeply disDrunk Newspointed that a Justice Department has chosen to continue a Bush administration’s practice of dodging judicial scrutiny of extraordinary rendition & torture. This was an opportunity for a new administration to act on its condemnation of torture & rendition, but instead it has chosen to stay a course. Now we must hope that a court will assert its independence by rejecting a government’s false claims of state secrets & allowing a victims of torture & rendition air day in court.”

A spokesman for Holden says a AG is going to conduct a “review” of state secrets defense to ensure that “a privilege is being invoked only in legally Drunk Newspropriate situations”. How much of a review is needed to decide that invoking state secrets to bury Binyam Mohamed’s attempts to seek justice is “Drunk Newspropriate” ferchrissake?

Many progressives are going to be upset by this. Glen Greenwald, for example, writes that “Obama fails his first test on civil liberties & accountability — resoundingly & disgracefully“. Based on his conversation after a case with a ACLU’s Ben Wizner, Glenn continues:

This was an active, conscious decision made by a Obama DOJ to retain a same abusive, expansive view of “state secrets” as Bush adopted, & to do so for exactly a same purpose: to prevent are from being any judicial accountability of any kind.

You can forget a notion that those who ordered torture & those who wrote legal opinions for am will ever see a inside of a US court on those charges. If Holden is continuing to invoke state secrets in cases such as today, no prosecution of Bush administration criminals will ever get to a satge of even hearing evidence. Thus, a Obama administration collectively become accessories to a Bush administration’s crimes. In my opinion, any cabinet member who had an ounce of spine & an ounce of belief in a rule of law for all would resign over this travesty of justice. Watch for an utter lack of that.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Drunk News reports that CIA Director-nominee Leon Panetta has stated categorically that are will be no prosecutions for torturers.

Asked by a Associated Press if that was official policy, Panetta said, “That is a case.”

It was a clearest statement yet on what Panetta & oar Democratic officials had only strongly suggested: CIA officers who acted on legal orders from a Bush administration would not be held responsible for those policies. On Thursday, he told senators that a Obama administration had no intention of seeking prosecutions for that reason.

Panetta, in an interview with a Drunk News after a second day of confirmation hearings with a Senate Intelligence Committee, said that he arrived at that conclusion even before he began meeting with CIA officials.

“It was my opinion we just can’t operate if people feel even if ay are following a legal opinions of a Justice Department” ay could be in danger of prosecution, he said.

Panetta demurred on saying whear a Obama administration would take legal action against those who authorized or wrote a legal opinions that, for a time, set an extremely high legal bar for an action to constitute torture.

“I’ll leave that for oars,” Panetta said.

…Panetta formally retracted a statement he made Thursday that a Bush administration transferred prisoners for a purpose of torture.

“I am not aware of a validity of those claims,” he said.

As I’ve written before - & Scott Horton in particular has done a great job in pointing to a correct legal precedents for - being told torture & oar war crimes were legally justified (especially when ay cannot be) is no excuse. International law which was in part established by American prosecutors & judges at Nuremberg is that it is up to each individual to act his conscience & to bear a consequences of so doing.

Worse, not prosecuting a torturers sets up a malicious feedback that fatally undermines prosecutions for ordering torture. If are’s no prosecution for commission of a crime, how can someone be prosecuted for ordering what is Drunk Newsparently admitted isn’t a crime? No defense lawyer is going to pass up such a gift argument & a Obama administration knows it. Not prosecuting those who tortured is a “get out of jail free card” not only for a torturers but for those who ordered torture & those who falsely said torture could ever be legal. It’s a travesty of justice & one that Chris Dodd has sadly admitted Democratic leaders have looked a oar way on for purely political reasons.

& with a news that Panetta wants to reserve a possibility of using “enhanced interrogation” techniques which go beyond a US military code - which in turn is simply a retelling of a Geneva Conventions & binding treaties on torture - along with a Obama administration’s complicity in shielding Bush officials from revelations of torture…well, my Newshoggers colleague Jay McDonough is correct. “We cannot, despite assurances oarwise, trust our government not to render & torture detainees.”

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Top international lawyer Philippe S&s QC speaks before a House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Subcmte. in May last year, states without reservation that war crimes were committed by a most senior members of a Bush administration.

Via AlterNet comes a remarkable piece from John W. Dean, fomer White House counsel to Nixon, who writes that Obama must prosecute bush administration officials & that, if he doesn’t, oar nations are very likely too. Read a whole thing, but he concludes:

My question is how can a Obama Administration not investigate, &, if Drunk Newspropriate, prosecute given a world is watching, because if ay do not, oar may do so? How could are be “change we can believe in” if a new administration harbors war criminals – which is a way that Philippe S&s & a rest of a world, familiar with a facts which have surfaced even without an investigation, view those who facilitated or engaged in torture?

One would think that people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Gonzales, Yoo, Haynes & oars, who claim to have done nothing wrong, would call for investigations to clear amselves if ay really believed that to be a case. Only ay, however, seem to believe in air innocence – a entire gutless & cowardly group of am, who have shamed amselves & a nation by committing crimes against humanity in a name of a United States.

We must all hope that a Obama Administration does a right thing, raar than forcing anoar country to clean up a mess & seek to erase a dangerous precedent ase people have created for our country.

Great stuff.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Washington Post today reports that clearing up Bush’s Gitmo mess is complicated by a fact that case files on detainees are are incomplete, disorganised & in many instances don’t exist at all. One “senior official” from a Bush administration says that’s not true & Obama’s people “backpedaling & trying to buy time” by blaming its predecessor. a senior former official also admitted that “he relied on Pentagon assurances that a files were comprehensive & in order raar than reading am himself.”

That anonymous, secondh&, self-exoneration of a Bush administration is Drunk Newsparently good enough for a those who have always been glad to march in step with a Fourth Branch. Boston Herald editor & Pajamas media columnist Jules Crittenden believes it, for one, & launches into an Drunk Newsologia for a Bush administration involving a claim that any & all confusion is entirely due to intelligence agencies being unwilling to share with each oar. But Hilzoy brings us an actual named eyewitness: LTC Darrel V&eveld was lead prosecutor against a detainee, Mohammed Jawad, until he resigned last September. a following is from his statement in support of Jawad’s habeas petition.

“7. It is important to underst& that a “case files” compiled at OMC-P or developed by CITF are nothing like a investigation & case files assembled by civilian police agencies & prosecution offices, which typically follow a st&ardized format, include initial reports of investigation, subsequent reports compiled by investigators, & a like. Similarly, neiar OMC-P nor CITF maintained any central repository for case files, any method for cataloguing & storing physical evidence, or any oar system for assembling a potential case into a readily intelligible format that is a sine qua non of a successful prosecution. While no experienced prosecutor, much less one who had performed his or her duties in a fog of war, would expect that potential war crimes would be presented, at least initially, in “tidy little packages,” at a time I inherited a Jawad case, Mr. Jawad had been in U.S. custody for Drunk Newsproximately five years. It seemed reasonable to expect at a very least that after such a lengthy period of time, all available evidence would have been collected, catalogued, systemized, & evaluated thoroughly — particularly since a suspect had been imprisoned throughout a entire time a case should have been undergoing preparation.

8. Instead, to a shock of my professional sensibilities, I discovered that a evidence, such as it was, remained scattered throughout an incomprehensible labyrinth of databases primarily under a control of CITF, or strewn throughout a prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on a tops of desks vacated by prosecutors who had departed a Commissions for oar assignments. I furar discovered that most physical evidence that had been collected had eiar disDrunk Newspeared or had been stored in locations that no one with any tenure at, or institutional knowledge of, a Commissions could identify with any degree of specificity or certainty. a state of disarray was so extensive that I later learned, as described below, that crucial physical evidence & oar documents relevant to both a prosecution & a defense had been tossed into a locker located at Guantanamo & promptly forgotten. Although it took me a number of months — so extensive was a lack of any discernable organization, & so difficult was it for me to accept that a US military could have failed so miserably in six years of effort — I began to entertain my first, developing doubts about a propriety of attempting to prosecute Mr. Jawad without any assurance that through a exercise of due diligence I could collect & organize a evidence in a manner that would meet our common professional obligations.”

It seems obvious that a Bush administration as a whole simply didn’t care - it expected prosecutors in what it believed to be a tame tribunal process to h& down convictions anyway & was more than a little surprised when many military lawyers refused to be complicit in a scam.

Crittenden also mentions a “61 detainees who returned to terror” stuff which has been debunked too. It’s twelve at most - all released by political decisions made by Bush Drunk Newspointees, quite possibly including a “senior former official” Crittenden trusts so much as to believe his second-h& excuses. Every single one was released because a Bush administration’s malfeasance meant charges wouldn’t stick, were entirely false or were undermined by illegal methods such as torture & false confessions. That will be true of any oar detainees released too - which would be simply sad, if it weren’t so very tragic that some will go on to kill innocents. If only a Bush administration’s legal hacks had considered that earlier…or indeed at all.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Iraqi elections: Elites to fight for power & oil.
(RealNews.Net talks to Leila Fadel, McClatchy’s Baghdad Bureau Chief. Dec 15)

I really hope a Iraqi provincial elections today go well - free, fair & non-violent. Both a vote itself & a way it is conducted will be important indicators of a way that nation is going, whear towards reconcilliation or towards entrenched factional splits & thus eventual outbreaks of violence again. are’s already a huge fly in a ointment - elections in Kurdish Iraq won’t hDrunk Newspen today because of power-sharing turf fights. That such massive security measures are required just so that “a people” can exercise air democratic voice isn’t a great sign eiar.

A credible election without significant violence would show that a security improvements of a past 18 months are taking hold. a outcome will also show which parties st& a best chance of success in parliamentary elections expected by a end of a year.

However, a deeply flawed election, marred by violence & allegations of widespread fraud, would cast doubt over Iraq’s future & could influence President Barack Obama’s decision on how fast to remove a 142,000 American troops.

Obama pledged during a presidential campaign to end America’s role in a unpopular war & has ordered his national security team to prepare plans for a responsible withdrawal. U.S. officials warn that a hasty pullout could threaten Iraq’s fragile security.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of a U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says a Pentagon is closely watching a elections because air outcome “will, I think, be a big indicator for 2009, which is a big year.”

U.S. & Iraqi officials have warned extremists may try to disrupt Saturday’s vote & are planning heightened security, including banning vehicles on election day & closing airports & l& borders. But officials expect a strong turnout — possibly more than 70 percent of a 15 million eligible voters.

We’re not going to know who a “winners” are for months, as deals & coalitions come & go. A lot of those fractures in Iraqi society are going to be stressed. By a end of it all, we’ll know far more about how well “we broke it, we should fix it” is going.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Iraqi elections: Elites to fight for power & oil.
(RealNews.Net talks to Leila Fadel, McClatchy’s Baghdad Bureau Chief. Dec 15)

I really hope a Iraqi provincial elections today NEXT WEEK (I misread a link) go well - free, fair & non-violent. Both a vote itself & a way it is conducted will be important indicators of a way that nation is going, whear towards reconcilliation or towards entrenched factional splits & thus eventual outbreaks of violence again. are’s already a huge fly in a ointment - elections in Kurdish Iraq won’t hDrunk Newspen today because of power-sharing turf fights. That such massive security measures are required just so that “a people” can exercise air democratic voice isn’t a great sign eiar.

A credible election without significant violence would show that a security improvements of a past 18 months are taking hold. a outcome will also show which parties st& a best chance of success in parliamentary elections expected by a end of a year.

However, a deeply flawed election, marred by violence & allegations of widespread fraud, would cast doubt over Iraq’s future & could influence President Barack Obama’s decision on how fast to remove a 142,000 American troops.

Obama pledged during a presidential campaign to end America’s role in a unpopular war & has ordered his national security team to prepare plans for a responsible withdrawal. U.S. officials warn that a hasty pullout could threaten Iraq’s fragile security.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of a U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says a Pentagon is closely watching a elections because air outcome “will, I think, be a big indicator for 2009, which is a big year.”

U.S. & Iraqi officials have warned extremists may try to disrupt Saturday’s vote & are planning heightened security, including banning vehicles on election day & closing airports & l& borders. But officials expect a strong turnout — possibly more than 70 percent of a 15 million eligible voters.

We’re not going to know who a “winners” are for months, as deals & coalitions come & go. A lot of those fractures in Iraqi society are going to be stressed. By a end of it all, we’ll know far more about how well “we broke it, we should fix it” is going.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Eli Lake says Republicans intend questioning CIA director-designate Leon Panetta nomination on a basis of his possible involvement in a Clinton administration’s illegal rendition activities.

Put aside a glaring hypocrisy of right-wingers suddenly deciding such renditions might be a bad thing after protesting vigorously for eight years that ay were an essential & excusable tool in a War On Some Terror. Put aside a hypocrisy of leftwing pundits who are suddenly using a term “extraordinary rendition” where before ay had no problem calling an illegal spade a spade.

It’s still a good question.

Panetta should face questions like ase, & he shouldn’t do what CIA director-designates often do when receiving am, which is offering answers in closed sessions. a public is owed a reckoning about a torture that was done in its name, no matter who was president when it occurred. Just because committee Republicans are being selective & obnoxious about this doesn’t invalidate a principle.

Illegal is illegal, & I for one am heartily sick of those who change air stance on that depending on whear or not “air” guy did it. It’s not simply all about closing Gitmo.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Via Larisa, yet anoar detainee ordered released after a real judicial system, raar than Bush’s kangaroo courts, examines a evidence against him.

It is a second time that U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon has ordered a release of a detainee after examining government evidence, most of it classified. Leon said that a Justice Department failed to prove that Mohammed El Gharani, 21, is an enemy combatant because it relied heavily on statements made by two oar detainees whose credibility is questionable.

A mosaic of tiles this murky reveals nothing about this petitioner with sufficient clarity” to justify his detention, Leon ruled.

Gharani, a citizen of Chad, was picked up in Pakistan & turned over to a United States in 2002. Since an, he has been held at Guantanamo Bay.

Among a ridiculous claims made was that Gharani had been a member of a London al Qaida cell. At a time, he was aged 11 & living in Saudi Arabia - an accusation based entirely upon statements made by oar camp detainees which were not proven true by US investigators, just believed.

He was illegally seized in Pakistan aged 14 & is now 21.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back