From Think Progress
Responding to a question earlier this month, President Obama didn’t rule out the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor to “independently investigate” the “greatest crimes” committed by the Bush administration. But he said that his “orientation” was “to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” Congressional Democrats, such Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), have said that Congress should continue to investigate Bush’s torture policies regardless of Obama’s plans.
At the Progressive Media Summit on Capitol Hill yesterday, Marcy Wheeler asked Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, about congressional plans to continue investigating torture. “There needs to be, I believe, an accounting of torture in this country,” replied Levin. He then said that he had suggested to Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder that he appoint “an outside person who’s got real credibility” to continue to investigate:
LEVIN: We’re going to try to complete this investigation, at least on the DoD side, Ok. But on the intelligence, the CIA side, that’s going to be up to the Intelligence Committe. I know I suggested to Eric Holder, who will be the next Attorney General despite the delay that took place today, that he select some people or hire an outside person whose got real credibility, perhaps a retired federal judge, to take all the available information, and there’s reams of it.
And in all of the ‘debate’ over whether we should ignore torture and detention by ‘moving forward,’ nobody seems to be talking about one aspect….the victims….of the Bush Administration torture policy. It serves the purpose of the torturers to highlight KSM and other (still not tried and found guilty) ‘bad guys.’ But we need to remember always that MOST of the people swept up in their net SEEM (again, no trials) to be quite innocent. And thus have been released. Such as…
From Reza Sayah
CNN
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) – Muhammad Saad Iqbal is a free man after
serving more than six years at the U.S. military’s detention facility in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – without any charge.Now, Iqbal is suing the U.S. government for unlawful detention.
“I am angry in my heart,” Iqbal said in a recent interview. “It’s easy
for the U.S. government to say, ‘There are no charges found and he’s free.’
“But who will be responsible for seven years of my life?”
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To find that the NSA was spying on every American in a huge illegal dragnet. I am working on a piece tying it all together into a picture of our government gone wild, but I think we should wait for the next big push til after Holder makes it through the Repub obstacle course….what do you guys think?
I think that’s part of the reason Obama and Biden are being somewhat coy about prosecutions. I think that he’s approaching many things from this perspective.
If they come in on day one screaming about how everything has to change and making drastic changes immediately, they will only provoke the right wing in gov’t, media and public.
I think it’s wise to lay back a little and build up some steam before introducing the bigger changes. Hopefully, a slow continuous effort towards the goals will both work and not alarm the public.
and,
from collective amnesia? I remember every moment every crime every sick death worship perpetuated by us all in the last decade. Make that forever from the start. Let’s see, a bunch of guys with box cutters from Egypt and Saudis America kill 3,000 people and we use this as a reason to kill torture and bomb thousands of humans, untold deaths untold misery for humans like us because we say ‘bring it on! How dare you threaten our precious life style. The one that kills both humans and nature, the one that lets people roam homeless dependent on faith which advocates inhumanism.
The piles of bodies the hooded victims,where do they go? They were not real? They were ‘bad’. Lordy let us at least acknowledge human rights those that do no meet our criterion of interest. We all share the same interest. Use our Laws, Obama, they are the only thing that will bring us out of the dark into the family of man. We cannot justify nor pave this over. Politics are not law, this cannot be moved beyond. Do the right thing, bring on the light.
We’re passing through a black-hole vortex of global crises. He needs to be taking care of Now and What’s Coming Next. Conyers and Congress and the Senate should be cleaning up the mess that was made on their watch.
The Repugs will spin this as partisan politics as usual. If Obama lets the legislators take the lead on this then he can stay above the fray and get his job done. And doing his job will require some Republican support.
This president is brilliant.
Then again, without us pushing from behind every day and in every way, this whole shit pile we’re trying to hump up and over the mountaintop may roll back down on us.
Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb.
They all fall there so perfectly,
It all seems so well timed.
An’ here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.
B. Dylan