His Legacy Continues

Former President George W. Bush planned to speak at a big charity event in Switzerland later this week, but apparently his plans have been scrapped due to the threat of "massive protests."

The organizers of the protests are calling for Bush and his administration to be held accountable for war crimes. Good. Somebody has to do it if the U.S. won't.

Bush's recent book is basically a signed confession. And more importantly, two victims of torture in U.S. detention have recently prepared a criminal complaint against Bush.

So it's not just the protests and rioting Bush and his buddies fear -- it's falling into the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Whether anybody in charge would be brave enough to prosecute a former U.S. president, I don't know. But many free people in democratic and civil nations view Bush as a third-world tyrant -- like Pinochet. And just like a cowardly despot, Bush is safest traveling to authoritarian countries like China and Saudi Arabia.

And that grim reality reflects on our nation. I'm not sure how the world can ever take us seriously on the issues of democracy, human rights, or basic decency with Bush still jaunting about.

And finally, a friendly note to European countries: if Bush gets a little forgetful again and plans a visit to your country, don't announce your plans to arrest him ahead of time!

The Deciderer

Oh, so it's out? Decision Points by George W. Bush is not only on the shelves but also a best seller on Amazon.com. Bush's memoir is described as a "candid and gripping account" of the "critical decisions that shaped his presidency and personal life." That's funny because when I first heard the title, I assumed it would explain who the hell decided to make him president.

But whatever. I don't think I'm going to read it -- not even the free Kindle sample. I've had enough of this guy, so I will settle for scathing reviews, video mashups, and exclusive interviews (if they include a handy transcript I can easily skim):

LAUER: Did you ever ask yourself the question, "What more could I have done," to prevent this from happening?

BUSH: Well, we just didn't have any solid intelligence that gave us a warning on this. We didn't have any clear intelligence that said you know, "Get ready. They're gonna fly airplanes into New York buildings."

Wow. He's still spreading that horseshit that there was just no way he could have known? Despite the fact that he had been presented with 36 Presidential Daily Briefs that year that related to Bin Ladin or al Qaeda, and that 36th one was actually titled 'Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.' What more did he want? Bin Ladin to personally pencil in the attack date in his day planner?

But wait, there's more crazy:

LAUER: Here's something else from the book: “I could never forget what happened to America that day. I would pour my heart and soul into protecting this country, whatever it took." It took two wars. It took thousands of lives, American lives. Billions of dollars. You could say it taking Guantanamo and Abu Gharib and government eavesdropping and waterboarding. Did it take too much?

BUSH: We didn't have an attack. 3,000 people died on September the 11th and I vowed that I would do my duty to protect the American people.

We didn't have an attack? WTF? The Republicans are trying to rewrite history again and nobody is objecting?

Finally, here is the heart of the interview, but it's no surprise. In fact, it's Bush's most famous talking point -- you know, the one where he claims he kept us safe:

BUSH: We believe America's going to be attacked again. There's all kinds of intelligence comin' in. And-- and-- one of the high value al Qaeda operatives was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the chief operating officer of al Qaeda… ordered the attack on 9/11. And they say, "He's got information." I said, "Find out what he knows.” And so I said to our team, "Are the techniques legal?" He says, "Yes, they are." And I said, "Use 'em."

LAUER: Why is waterboarding legal, in your opinion?

BUSH: Because the lawyer said it was legal. He said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act. I'm not a lawyer., but you gotta trust the judgment of people around you and I do.

LAUER: You say it's legal. "And the lawyers told me."

BUSH: Yeah.

LAUER: Critics say that you got the Justice Department to give you the legal guidance and the legal memos that you wanted.

BUSH: Well—

LAUER: Tom Kean, who a former Republican co-chair of the 9/11 commission said they got legal opinions they wanted from their own people.

BUSH: He obviously doesn't know. I hope Mr. Kean reads the book. That's why I've written the book. He can, they can draw whatever conclusion they want. But I will tell you this. Using those techniques saved lives. My job is to protect America and I did.

No, torture didn't keep us safe. Bush and Cheney decided to torture for political gain, torture results in false intelligence, and the fact that we torture was used as a powerful recruiting tool for al Qaeda.

Torture is also abhorrent and illegal, despite what Bush's lawyers thought.

But now we have Bush's memoirs which should have been titled "I Approved Waterboarding," and might as well be used as a signed confession if anybody has the balls to prosecute.

Torture Is Not Treatment

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
— W.H. Auden.

So let me get this straight. A sadist invents a powerful electric shock device to strap on the backs of children, then he opens a school where he's allowed to use the device on autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids, thus creating an environment of constant pain and anxiety.

And no, I'm not talking about some kind of Victorian era insane asylum. I'm not talking about Soviet era brainwashing. I'm talking about public funded education in the USA right now at the Judge Rotenberg Center.

And the torture doesn't end at painful shocks for minor acts of noncooperation. A recent report submitted to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture also revealed the use of restraint boards, isolation, and food deprivation in efforts to control the behaviors of the school's vulnerable students.

The UN Convention against Torture requires each government party to the convention "to ensure that all acts of torture are offenses under its criminal law." Unfortunately, we've been ignoring that quaint little treaty for far too long.

Self-Incrimination

"I was a big supporter of waterboarding." — Dick Cheney on This Week.

So who's keeping score? Dick Cheney has confessed to war crimes on national television at least twice since he left office.

Andrew Sullivan reported on these facts: "There is not a court in the United States or in the world that does not consider waterboarding torture. The Red Cross certainly does, and it's the governing body in international law. It is certainly torture according to the UN Convention on Torture and the Geneva Conventions. The British government, America's closest Western ally, certainly believes it is torture. No legal authority of any type in the US or the world has ever doubted that waterboarding is torture. To have subjected an individual to waterboarding once is torture under US and international law. To subject someone to it 183 times is so categorically torture is it almost absurd to even write this sentence. "

And it's absurd that a former U.S. Vice President would shamelessly boast that he set these war crimes in motion. There must be some kind of good Samaritan law that requires all of us to call the police and report Cheney's confessions to crimes? We are all witnesses, and I suppose that is why I write this while knowing that, for the foreseeable future, nobody will be prosecuted.

Triumph of Our Values

Turns out we don't have to torture and beat terror suspects to get them to cooperate. Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab, aka the failed Underpants Bomber, has been cooperating with authorities and sharing intelligence since last Thursday. The information he is providing has been described as "fresh and actionable."

This news is further evidence that standard law enforcement techniques (even with Miranda Rights!) are much more reliable and productive than torture which can actually impair a person's ability to tell the truth.

Furthermore, when our justice system is respected, we're more likely to get cooperation, like in Abdulmuttalab's case where his family has been answering questions from the FBI:

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Of course, Republicans think this is a sign of weakness -- a dangerous new direction even -- despite the glaring fact that the Bush Administration handled the Shoe Bomber the exact same way. In fact, since September 11, 2001, there have been 593 indictments on terrorism resolved in civilian courts. Of those cases, 88% resulted in convictions.

But when the Obama Adminstration recognizes that the justice system is a security tool, they're a bunch of pussies... according to Republicans who want to put a halt to everything... especially all that "lawyering up." By the way, I'm so sick of the dismissive phrase "lawyering up." It's dumbing us down.

I'm hoping that we're smart enough to realize that victory means defeating terrorists without damaging our fundamental principles. Republicans just want to play politics.

Torture Memo Guy

NYT: A psychiatrist might say you are in denial.
Yoo: I deny that I am in denial.
(New York Times interview with John C. Yoo)

Neither Jon Stewart nor I are constitutional lawyers, but we can't be fooled by John Yoo's doubletalk:

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Yoo became even more frustratingly evasive in part 2 of the interview. Yoo claims that somehow we had not defined what Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions meant, yet the Bush administration could weasel with the definition of "at war" to meet their needs: we are at war when we want to give the president more power, but we are not at war when we want to torture prisoners.

And I think Yoo was trying to say -- it's hard to know exactly what he was trying to say -- that we had no idea what constituted torture. However, we had manuals on the topic: JTF GTMO "SERE" Interrogation Standard Operating Procedure. And 40 years ago we court-martialed a US soldier who waterboarded Vietnamese prisoners.

In part 3 of the interview, Yoo continues to defend the idea that the president should have unchecked power when there is war. Whenever the president decides we are not at war, then he can stop being king. Stewart is amazed that a conservative would defend this. Also, the Supreme Court has, on the ruling of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, differed.

At this point, I hardly care about the dubious legal basis for Yoo's infamous torture memos. When Yoo says "remember the time we were in..." I'm not persuaded. I don't understand anybody who says we should abandon laws, treaties, and principles because we're scared. I do, however, understand the lack of morality in torture and the danger of an executive branch with unlimited power.

Mr. Torture Memo is still teaching law in California.

Suffer a Witch to Live?

From BBC News: Five women were paraded naked, beaten and forced to eat human excrement by villagers after being branded as witches in India's Jharkhand state.

That link includes a video which is disturbing and hard to watch. The screaming alone is chilling. The article goes on to explain that "Hundreds of people, mostly women, have been killed in India because their neighbours thought they were witches. Experts say superstitious beliefs are behind some of these attacks, but there are occasions when people - especially widows - are targeted for their land and property. "

I'm not sure there is anything that people outside of India can do about these crimes. We are all aware of the modern India but not the tribal cultures. We should be more aware though because this is about the gratuitous torture of women.

Stories about witch hunts have been making the news for years now, but not until this anachronism -- a cell phone video of a witch hunt -- are we outraged. People can still be barbarians even with shiny new technology in their hands.

By the way, the King Jame's Bible quote "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," has no relationship to the India story, but has often been used to justify religiously-based genocide. The real Bible quote was actually about the crime of poisoning.

Shilling for Dick

Here we go again. Dick Cheney is still defending torture. Dick Cheney still thinks he's above the law. Dick Cheney still thinks he's the one in charge. But now he has a new BFF in Chris Wallace who brings new meaning to the softball interview:

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Oh Chris! Did Dick Cheney let you sit on his lap after the cameras were turned off?

And again, Chris Wallace proved himself an inadequate journalist while leading the discussion following the interview. He cut off Juan Williams from making clear and forceful arguments against torture. He dismisses it all as "purely coincidental" that this country has not been attacked again since 9-11. But John Amato is as sick as I am over the "they kept us safe" line of bullshit:

You see, 9/11 doesn't count. Cheney and his ilk make it sound as if America was being attacked every week and once he started torturing they all magically stopped. Why was the US safe from 1993-2001, without using torture or the Patriot act? And the Trade Center bombers were all caught, but using Cheney's method Bin Laden is still free.

But at the heart of this whole offensive effort by Cheney and friends is the falsehood that somehow the CIA inspector general report shows that torture works. The truth is that the IG report repeatedly makes clear that it does not assess the effectiveness of particular techniques of torture. And even if torture did work, it shouldn't be legalized.

But these guys can't be bogged down with concepts like truth and justice... or journalism. Is there a prize opposite of the Pulitzer? I'll have to look into that, but meanwhile I'm making up my own. The first ever Porkpuller Prize for weakest effort in journalism goes to Chris Wallace. Congrats, Chris.

Higher Ground

From the BBC today: Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi says opposition detainees put on trial have been subjected to "medieval torture".

There once was a time when the U.S. could act shocked at those revelations and condemn such an evil and barbaric government. Now, what can we do? Our country went medieval a long time ago. And yes, waterboarding is medieval.

And it's not just our government. It's not just Republicans or Democrats. Many Americans are willing to tolerate torture. In fact, a recent poll indicates that Americans are more willing to tolerate the use of torture than are Chinese.

What happened? We used to be proud of our Western system of justice. The most critical right is the right of the accused to have a trial by jury. But Congress decided that shouldn't apply to detainees. Apparently gathering evidence is hard. And why have a trial when you can torture and get all the false confessions you need?

We can rightfully proclaim that "the public humiliation of prisoners is against international law" when one of our own soldiers is captured... but can the rest of the world take us seriously? I lament the loss of our moral high ground.

Ticking Time Bombs

The imminent threat of a terrorist attack was Dick Cheney's justification for torture. Terrorists are poised to set off dirty bombs and biological weapons annihilating entire US cities -- according to Cheney and the popular TV show 24. But real experts, like former Army interrogators in the war in Iraq, tell us how unrealistic a torture fantasy show can be:

“These are very determined people, and they won’t turn just because you pull a fingernail out,” he told me. And Finnegan argued that torturing fanatical Islamist terrorists is particularly pointless. “They almost welcome torture,” he said. “They expect it. They want to be martyred.” A ticking time bomb, he pointed out, would make a suspect only more unwilling to talk. “They know if they can simply hold out several hours, all the more glory—the ticking time bomb will go off!”
...
“In Iraq, I never saw pain produce intelligence,” Lagouranis told me. “I worked with someone who used waterboarding”—an interrogation method involving the repeated near-drowning of a suspect. “I used severe hypothermia, dogs, and sleep deprivation. I saw suspects after soldiers had gone into their homes and broken their bones, or made them sit on a Humvee’s hot exhaust pipes until they got third-degree burns. Nothing happened.” Some people, he said, “gave confessions. But they just told us what we already knew. It never opened up a stream of new information.” If anything, he said, “physical pain can strengthen the resolve to clam up.”

But now, after all these years of FOX propaganda, evidence is gathering that Cheney's authorization of torture wasn't really about the theoretical ticking time bombs anyway. The Bush administration tortured for political gain:

Perhaps the sharpest rebuke to Cheney's assertions has come from Lawrence Wilkerson, the retired Army colonel and former senior State Department aide to Colin Powell, who says bluntly that when the administration first authorized "harsh interrogation" during the spring of 2002, "its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qaida."

I don't know if these revelations will change public opinion, but most certainly we need to rephrase our dialog about these issues: "Pollsters should be asking if Americans support using torture to extract false confessions for political purposes, because that's what happened."

Also, somebody needs to present Cheney with this bit of logic: if torturing people led to false justifications for war, and if thousands of Americans died in that war, then didn't torture cost American lives?

Nothing looks the same in the light.

The Big Partisan Smokescreen

The Republicans don't understand that torture is not a partisan issue. Take that old Newt Gingrich for example. Does he honestly believe that if he can prove that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about torture, then everybody will forget about George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Douglas Feith, David Addington, John Yoo, Jay S. Bybee, and William Haynes?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is engaging in a "despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort" to withhold what she knew about the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques, former Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday.

Gingrich said Pelosi "lied to the House" when she earlier claimed that the CIA had never briefed her about the Bush administration's use of interrogation methods like waterboarding, which is considered torture by the current administration.

"I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal. I don't think the speaker of the House can lie to the country on national security matters," the Republican leader said in an interview with ABC Radio.

Pelosi has been under fire from critics who say she was fully briefed on the techniques in 2002 and 2003. On Thursday, the California Democrat accused CIA officials of misleading her, reiterating a claim that she was briefed on such techniques only once -- in September 2002 -- and that she was told at the time that the techniques were not being used.

I know torture is abhorrent and illegal, and this is not about politics. You can't fool me, persuade me, calm me, or dazzle me with your smokescreens or a million "provocative" editorials. Even if Pelosi did know about torture (and I doubt she did), then we, the torture opponents, do not lose the argument! This is not like Clinton and blow jobs. This is not about getting even with the Republicans. This is about pursuing justice even if it's our highest officials who are guilty.

So yes, Mr. Gingrich. Let's gather up everybody who has lied to the House and the American public about torture and war and weapons of mass destruction. Let's investigate all of them.

Cheney Rats Out Bush

I was counting on this happening eventually, but I thought it would come as the result of a criminal investigation. Vincent Bugliosi explained how and why Bush administration officials would start ratting each other out:

What I'm saying is that even people of character aren't usually loyal to each other when their own life is on the line. But these moral weaklings will all probably sing like canaries against each other, since they all appear to be almost amoral individuals who are devoid of any character. If they are willing to lie to the American public about a matter of war and peace that resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 people, certainly they'd be willing to tell the truth to save their worthless hides from the gas chamber or electric chair. Indeed, I suspect that the prosecutor's biggest problem won't be to get them to talk to save their lives, but to make sure they don't embroider the truth and start telling lies in an effort to get a better deal from the prosecutor.

Well, they're starting to sing even without any prosecutor (if video doesn't show, click here):

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If You Want the Job Done Right...

You have to do it yourself. Isn't that how the saying goes? So why aren't we, as a nation, doing this job ourselves: "In a ruling in Madrid today, Judge Baltasar Garzón has announced that an inquiry into the Bush administration’s torture policymakers now will proceed to a formal criminal investigation."

Further down in the article I found this interesting bit:

Garzón’s ruling today marks a decision to begin a formal criminal inquiry into the allegations of torture and inhumane treatment he has been collecting for several years now.

Spanish lawyers close to the case tell me that under applicable Spanish law, the Obama administration has the power to bring the proceedings in Spain against former Bush administration officials to a standstill. “All it has to do is launch its own criminal investigation through the Justice Department,” said one lawyer working on the case, “that would immediately stop the case in Spain.”

So President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are in quite a bind. For years the US has refused to join the International Criminal Court claiming we could "pursue credible justice at home." Well, now's the time to prove it.

Time to Prosecute for Torture

Last week the Justice Department released detailed memos describing the brutal interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency. The documents are the most comprehensive public accounting to date of the Bush administration's top-secret program.

The precise bureaucratic standards include instructions for forced nudity, the slamming of detainees into walls (walling), prolonged sleep deprivation (up to 11 straight days), the dousing of detainees with water as cold as 41 degrees, being locked in a cramped box with an insect, and waterboarding.

Since the release of these documents, the torture debate has reached a crescendo that is impossible to ignore yet difficult to listen to.

There is, of course, former Vice President Dick Cheney who months ago calmly and shamelessly admitted to authorizing torture because he really thinks it works. He'd like us to believe that waterboarding 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) 183 times was a worthwhile endeavor, but counter-terrorism experts are contradicting his claims saying most of the information KSM coughed up during the waterboarding sessions involved things he thought his interrogators already knew, or were just his ideas for mayhem. Also, there is the inconvenient fact that the Bush timeline shows the LA plot was thwarted long before KSM was caught and waterboarded.

Then there are the cries of Former Attorney Michael Mukasey and former CIA director Michael Hayden. One imaginative claim from the duo is that the no-torture policy is inviting "the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on September 11, 2001." However, history isn't a Gumby toy they can bend into any pose they like. The cumulative failures leading up to the attack on September 11, 2001 are well documented and have nothing to do with timidity and everything to do with incompetence.

Mukasey and Hayden also want us to believe that we shouldn't admit to torture because then the terrorists will know we torture! First of all, terrorists would also know this if they listened to the news or picked up any newspaper in the last 6 years. Secondly, I don't think knowledge of a US government document will ease any man's panic while being drowned. Thirdly, because the US is committed to lawful interrogation techniques now, it won't matter if detainees know about banned procedures.

Listening to this ongoing debate is like sitting through a remedial math class where everybody has to relearn that two plus two is four. Indeed, the Bush administration might have also been wise to sit through a remedial history class. In a shocking article, the New York Times asserts that nobody in the Bush administration investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate:

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

They did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program itself had warned in internal memorandums that, morality aside, the methods were ineffective. Nor were most of the officials aware that the former military psychologist who played a central role in persuading C.I.A. officials to use the harsh methods had never conducted a real interrogation, or that the Justice Department lawyer most responsible for declaring the methods legal had idiosyncratic ideas that even the Bush Justice Department would later renounce.

The process was “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,” a former C.I.A. official said.

So there you have it. Our ineffectual and barbaric program of torture was created out of ignorance and enthusiasm. It's also illegal. Why are we still debating this shit? There's nothing left to debate. It's time to prosecute.

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Evil

This is pure evil:

All challengers to Schaefer’s authority—real or imagined—were rooted out and destroyed. No one inspired greater love and admiration among the children of the Colonia than Santa Claus. It is said that in the days shortly before Christmas one year in the mid-1970s, Schaefer gathered the Colonia’s children, loaded them onto a bus, and drove them out to a nearby river, where, he told them, Santa was coming to visit. The boys and girls stood excitedly along the riverbank, while an older colono in a fake beard and a red and white suit floated towards them on a raft. Schaefer pulled a pistol from his belt and fired, seeming to wound Santa, who tumbled into the water, where he thrashed about before disappearing below the surface. It was a charade, but Schaefer turned to the children assembled before him and said that Santa was dead. From that day forward, Schaefer’s birthday was the only holiday celebrated inside Colonia Dignidad.

Inquisitions

Keith Olbermann reports on the failings of torture:

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I'm afraid that one night in the near future I'm going to turn on the TV at 3am and see Dick Cheney with his own infomercial selling torture. It's kind of like his own Snuggie... but at least the Snuggie works. Torture doesn't.

Why are we doomed to learn these lessons over and over? Six decades ago, the US military understood how to get information from prisoners of war:

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

So why should we be surprised today when we read that "not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions"? Well, I'm not surprised, but I think I now understand why the CIA destroyed the videotapes showing these interrogations. Certainly Cheney is not embarrassed that the CIA tortured with his authorization. That fact is well established and advertised, but I believe those tapes would have shown just how crappy the extracted information was. That's why they got rid of them.

So the coming Spanish Inquisition can continue without the tapes. At least they have these infamous memos that President Obama recently declassified. However, I'm not certain how the Spanish courts will round up Alberto Gonzales, Douglas Feith, David Addington, John Yoo, Jay S. Bybee, and William Haynes. If our government chooses not to pursue trials in American courts, I doubt they're going to just hand these guys over to Spanish courts. Any Spanish arrest warrants would be simply symbolic...

So ask Attorney General Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor. Nobody is above the law. I only wish we didn't have to beg Obama and his administration to do their damn jobs.

In lighter news, that other snake-oil salesman -- the ShamWow guy -- was arrested for his own harsh interrogation techniques.

Pursuing the Truth

Maybe I'm not the forgiving type especially when it comes to things like wiretapping, torture, wars based on flawed intelligence, and the politicization of the Justice Department. So why am I finding myself against this thing Senator Leahy calls a Truth Commission? For the same reason four 9/11 widows are against it:

Dear Senator Leahy,

We felt compelled to write to you regarding your recent call for the formation of a "Truth Commission." According to your press comments, this Commission is supposed to look at the following:

* the politicization of prosecution in the Justice Department
* the wiretapping of U.S. citizens
* the flawed intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq
* the use of torture at Guantanamo and so-called black sites abroad

These are serious allegations of criminal activity by certain members of the Bush Administration. While we applaud your initiative in looking into these matters, we feel this approach is wrong.

As the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, you already have the responsibility and legal authority to investigate matters relating to federal criminal law without having to form a special commission. You are also bound by your oath of office to support and uphold the Constitution by ensuring that those who govern also abide by the rule of law.

Furthermore, a "Truth Commission" will not fix the real problems that our country faces, nor will it guarantee that we will get to the truth. The 9/11 Commission, which you want to model your commission after, is a perfect example of that flawed process.

The 9/11 Commission was mandated to follow the facts surrounding the events of September 11, 2001 to wherever they might lead and make national security recommendations based upon those facts. Sadly, prior to even beginning their investigation, like you, the 9/11 Commissioners agreed amongst themselves that their role was to fact find, not fault find.

This decision resulted in individuals not being held accountable for their specific failures. These people were shown to be incompetent in the 9/11 Commission's Final Report but were left in their positions, or worse, promoted. No one should be allowed to make this compromise on behalf of the American people. How can any agency be deemed fixed or reformed if the people working there are inept? How can anyone feel safer?

At the 9/11 Commission hearings, little actual evidence was ever produced. Many individuals were not sworn in, critical witnesses were either not called to testify or were permitted to dictate the parameters of their own questioning, pertinent questions were omitted and there was little follow-up. Whistleblower testimony was suppressed or avoided all together. The National Security Agency, an intelligence agency that is responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign intelligence, was barely investigated at all.

With the narrative of the 9/11 Commission's final report predetermined and with the preexisting intention to never hold anyone accountable in place, the 9/11 Commission was doomed to fail as a real investigation. The end result of the 9/11 Commission's work was that some of the recommendations that they produced were in fact, based on distortions and omissions. Since their mandate of a complete accounting was ignored, the recommendations were incomplete at best.

There was clearly no desire on the part of Congress to force the Commission to meet its legislative mandate. Accordingly, there were no repercussions for the fact that the investigation and its recommendations were incomplete. It could be surmised that holding no one accountable was more important than uncovering and disclosing the truth. This could compromise the future safety of American citizens. Why then would you want to model another Commission after it? Why would you want another Commission at all?

Senator Leahy, in light of the fact that the 9/11 Commission's worst offense was not fully investigating the September 11th attacks, completing that investigation should also be included on your list of matters to be examined.

America's founding fathers, prescient in their fears of unrestrained power, created three separate but equal branches of government. They had hoped to maintain and enforce the limits of the Executive Branch.

The Bush Administration was allowed to circumvent too many Constitutional restrictions effectively undermining America's system of justice, our nation's integrity and commitment to the rule of law. The Bush Administration's seizing of power proves the adage that "absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The days of no fault government must end; and where there is clear criminal activity, people must be prosecuted. The law must be upheld without exception before we can be assured of the safety of the nation. These duties cannot be ignored for the sake of expediency.

Senator Leahy, our nation needs you to investigate and, if warranted, refer the cases for criminal prosecution in transparent trials. We do not need another meaningless commission resulting in no accountability at the taxpayers' expense. Show all Americans that you have the courage to uphold the law, bring accountability to those who abuse their positions of power and prevent such abuses from happening again.

The November 2008 elections proved that Americans want the rule of law restored for those in Washington who are elected to represent us. You, Senator Leahy, are in the position to lead the way and work toward the change we were promised.

Sincerely,

September 11th Advocates
Patty Casazza
Monica Gabrielle
Mindy Kleinberg
Lorie Van Auken

They make a strong case that a commission is simply the wrong approach. And although Senator Leahy claims any truth commission grant of immunity would be very limited and in consultation with the Justice Department, some lawyers still see the commission as a profoundly bad idea and an inappropriate substitute for criminal prosecution.

Take a look at these recently released Bush era memos from the Office of Legal Counsel. Their flawed conclusion is that the president's powers over military and captured combatants -- including U.S. citizens -- is absolute. Yep, according to John Yoo, if the president decided that a U.S. citizen was an “enemy combatant,” he or she could be imprisoned indefinitely.

More secret memos are likely to surface. The New York Times spoke with officials who believe there exists one memo from the fall of 2001 justifying the National Security Agency’s program of domestic surveillance without warrants and one from the summer of 2002 that listed specific harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.

How is it that a president and the Justice Department can go around making these secret rulings with no input from the other branches of government? Does this mean any president can create his own legal bubble, and then withdraw the flawed opinions 5 days before leaving office? Is it a game?

And how can this Justice Department handle a prosecution of Bush officials when 50 prosecutors who served under Bush still remain?

Despite all of President Obama's talk about looking forward, I just want to reiterate that I, for one, am still looking forward to seeing Cheney behind bars.

Rightwing Humor

Right-wing humor makes me sad (if video doesn't show, click here):



When did it become funny to support and encourage torture? When did it become funny to drown a person? When?

President Theodore Roosevelt in his 1906 State of the Union address declared, "No man can take part in the torture of a human being without having his own moral nature permanently lowered." I don't think he was joking.

After World War II, we convicted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war... and I don't think we were kidding.

And I don't think we were laughing at Ronald Reagan in 1988 when he referred to torture as "an abhorrent practice."

Wait... I think I have the answer to my own question. It never became funny. It has always been abhorrent. Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller are two desperate and unfunny pinheads.

But this leads me to another question. Why do TV conservatives only host lame bullying shows? I'm not aware of any neocons involved in the art, culture or lifestyle shows. Could it be that they fail to understand culture? City Desk has some ideas on Why Conservatives Suck at Culture Criticism. One possibility is that they always define their work as Conservative, and then discuss art only in terms of their own politics.

Ahh... yes. Nobody needed to tell me that actually. I've been observing my own father long enough. You can't even mention Barbara Streisand without him launching into a gasping rant. Our family can't even agree on a movie to watch on Christmas eve because every star has offended his ideologies...

But then O'Reilly and Miller offend my morals. Hey, if the two of them can put together a jolly Christmas special by next year, I'll watch it, but only if they promise not to yell and be stupid.

The Imperial Family

This painting by Edward Sorel is titled The Imperial Family and was featured in Vanity Fair's farewell slide show. It's not a very flattering portrait, is it?

But it is accurate nonetheless. Dick Cheney is the patriarch and George W. Bush is the little drooling spawn.

A lot has been said about Cheney in the last eight years, but his own words are the most incriminating. Last month, while the world was asleep or something, Dick Cheney took credit for torture. Torture is a war crime. The Vice President of the United States confessed to a war crime in prime time. Americans yawned and changed the channel.

Anybody who has been paying attention already knew about torture memos and other documents linking high level officials to the torture decision. Of course Dick Cheney was the planner of these crimes. I was not surprised.

But I was angered. At this point, the anger is just anger heaped on top of more anger. Will anybody anywhere ever have the balls to prosecute this man?

Surprisingly, in the rush to pardon nearly everybody, Bush has not issued a pre-emptive pardon for Cheney. Cheney is so arrogant that he recently told the Associated Press that "he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone who authorized or was involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists."

Clearly, he is counting on the American people and the Obama administration letting him get away with these crimes.

Cheney's hubris is appalling. Let's stop calling him a "mastermind" or even "imperial." He is a scheming criminal bureaucrat with blood on his hands. To let him walk free is a crime in itself.

Heckuva Job, Rummy

It seems that Bush is on a "Save My Legacy" tour. As he worked the crowd at West Point on Tuesday, he gave a shout out to his old pal and former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld:

Finally, we are transforming our military for a new kind of war that we're fighting now, and for wars of tomorrow. This transformation was a top priority for the enterprising leader who served as my first Secretary of Defense -- Donald Rumsfeld. Today, because of his leadership and the leadership of Secretary Bob Gates, we have made our military better trained, better equipped, and better prepared to meet the threats facing America today, and tomorrow, and long in the future.

Wars of tomorrow, Mr. President? Exactly how many did you and your criminal friends plan? And although I won't question the skills and training of our military, I will question any statement that they are somehow better off because of these wars. By many accounts, our military is stretched, strained, and suffering. They deserve better!

But Bush's speech leaves me with a sense of deja vu. While Bush praises Rummy, a government report blames Rummy for detainee abuses:

A report released Thursday by leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee said top Bush administration officials, including Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, bore major responsibility for the abuses committed by American troops in interrogations at Abu Ghraib in Iraq; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and other military detention centers.

The report was issued jointly by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the panel, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican. It represents the most thorough review by Congress to date of the origins of the abuse of prisoners in American military custody, and it explicitly rejects the Bush administration’s contention that tough interrogation methods have helped keep the country and its troops safe.

The report also rejected previous claims by Mr. Rumsfeld and others that Defense Department policies played no role in the harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and in other episodes of abuse.

Heckuva job, Rummy.

And because Christmas is coming, I'd like to offer you this fine stocking stuffer. Imagine the fun you and your children can have with this Donald Rumsfeld talking action figure!