Friday, February 20, 2009

Prosecution for Bush War Crimes

By Marjorie Cohn
February 20, 2009

Since taking office, President Barack Obama has instituted many changes that break with the policies of the Bush administration. The new President has ordered that no government agency will be allowed to torture, that the U.S. prison at Guantánamo will be shuttered, and that the CIA’s secret black sites will be closed down.

Read on.
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4 comments:

knowbuddhau said...

I agree, we must investigate and prosecute accordingly. I'd like to clarify a point.

"Some maintain that Bush officials are innocent because they relied in good faith on legal advice from their lawyers. But if the President and Vice President told the lawyers to manipulate the law to allow them to commit torture, then that defense won’t fly."

Even if they hadn't, that dead duck still won't fly.

From Glenn Greenwald 2/18/2009

"One of the principal arguments made even by well-intentioned anti-investigation advocates is that it would be wrong to prosecute Bush officials for torture because (a) DOJ lawyers authorized those tactics as legal and (b) Congress provided retroactive war crimes immunity when it enacted the 2006 Military Commissions Act. This argument -- that prosecution is unfair because the torturers' government authorized and legalized the torture -- is one that has been raised by most war criminals in the past, and emphatically rejected by the Nuremberg Trials (which the U.S. led) and the War Crimes Tribunal against Serbian leaders (which the U.S. praised and supported). To raise that argument in order to justify immunity for Bush officials is, by definition, to believe that the U.S. is exempt from the most basic rules of justice which it has long demanded be applied to other nations." http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/19/exceptionalism/index.html

There's no legal excuse for torture, there's no moral excuse for torture--why are we even debating it? Because it has been the weapon of choice by our patriarchal cult of kinetic power (aka "US Gov't, including key enabling votes and closed-door support from Democratic Party leaders) for the suppression of dissent and the manufacture of consent.

Fri Feb 20, 10:33:00 AM 2009
Anonymous said...

Don't worry we on the right will be holding trials for all of you on the left for treason during a time of war. We are at war with Islam and now with their copatriots on the left in America. You will never escape our justice system and you will soon see the inside of Guantanimo. As for your lacky Obama, he will only remain in office as long as we allow. A coup is in the works as soon as he steps out of line. You will all meet the same end as other traotors to America.

Fri Feb 20, 12:09:00 PM 2009
Anonymous said...

"No man is above the law" - (excpet America's corrupt politicisns that is.")

O-bam-bam doesn't have the 'gonads' to deliver the Bushwacker to justice, we all know this.

Actually, murder and mayhem is 'only' punishable if you are on the losing side of a conflict (Vietnam and maybe Ossettia excepted, (smiling - sorry to say).

Meanwhile, O'bam-mam is well on his way to committing his very own war crimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan (32 massacred civilians so far) - while financing 'murder & mayhem' in Gaza and lebanon, c/o baby Satan Israel.

So, it's maybe up to someone like Iran to 'kick the Great Satan' in the gonads (closing the Straits of Hormuz to achieve a $9.99/gal cost factor for the 'fat & sassy' Americans?) and use its (so far) 'lone' nuke to make Tel Aviv the deepest radioactive deep water harbour in the Middle East with a well place al-Shahab IRBM III (fingers crossed) shot.

Yassar, with the UN Conference of Racism (Darfur II) and the US/Israel 'genociders' talking the 'boycott' talk, it's looking bad for the Great Satan and baby Satan - but then...

C'est Le Vie!

TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ.
DBA: IDidntVote4TheBassTerd@msn.com

'Kill 'em all Hezbollah - Let their G-d sort them out!'

Sat Feb 21, 04:57:00 PM 2009
libhom said...

I love how one of the anonymous posters tries to use intimidation because he or she knows no sane person is persuaded by that nonsense.

Sun Feb 22, 04:11:00 PM 2009

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