February 19, 2009 archive

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Coalition of human rights groups call for panel to probe alleged torture under Bush by John Byrne

The pressure on President Barack Obama to investigate alleged abuses under the presidency of George W. Bush is growing.

On Thursday, a coalition of human rights groups, including an organization at the New York University School of Law, called for Obama to establish a non-partisan independent commission to probe allegations of torture in the wake of wholesale roundup of terror suspects following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

……..

“Independently of the collective statement, CHRGJ supports efforts to immediately begin investigations into criminal conduct alongside other accountability mechanisms, which should include reparations for victims and other measures to restore justice,” the Center said in a release. “As the new administration deals with the legacy of the Bush administration, the Center believes a commission is necessary — but not a substitute — for criminal investigations and prosecution of secret detention, extraordinary rendition, and coercive interrogation practices.”

Via Think Progress

   RS: Do you foresee a scenario in which senior members of the Bush administration are actually prosecuted?

   PELOSI: I think so. The American people deserve answers. Where we are now, in terms of prosecution of White House staff, is that we have charged them with contempt of Congress. We’re talking about Harriet Miers, Josh Bolten and Karl Rove. The natural course of events from here is that the speaker will determine what charge we’re going to pursue, because there are more than one. Under Bush, the Justice Department told the U.S. attorney not to prosecute the case. So the beat goes on – it just gets worse. We don’t know what will happen, because they’ve delayed it a long time.

Pelosi later said that “we should have a full examination” of the Bush administration’s alleged crimes, adding that what Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) “is putting forward, in terms of a truth-and-reconciliation committee, has always been helpful. It was helpful in South Africa, [and] it was helpful in Rwanda.”

Why is Pelosi stating that the US Justice System is as ineffective as Rwanda’s? Our situation is quite different than South Africa or Rwanda.We are not dealing with the same situations…are we? As far as I can tell, there were a small group of criminals at the top of our government for a relatively short eight years. Has our Justice system been so corrupted by them during that time that it is no longer capable of actually….prosecuting criminals?

Or is it possible that since the new administration is apparently continuing some of the Bush Policies from the Global Whine on Terror, that a Truth Commission is easier to control?

Via The Termite

  In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently, Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.’s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.

   The administration has also embraced the Bush legal team’s arguments that a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees should be shut down based on the “state secrets” doctrine. It has also left the door open to resuming military commission trials.

   And earlier this month, after a British court cited pressure by the United States in declining to release information about the alleged torture of a detainee in American custody, the Obama administration issued a statement thanking the British government “for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information.”

If the unconstitutional and WRONG Bushco policies are embraced by the new administration, real investigations by a First World (unlike Rwanda) Department of Justice might prove….inconvenient.

Or perhaps it is just the obvious. She and the ohter Congressional Democrats are just plain disconnected….and stupid.

Though I can’t find a clip or link…or access the Rolling Stone Interview, on the teevee last night I heard her quoted as saying some thing like…..if there is evidence of crimes found, we will prosecute. If I recall correctly she has made some statement before that she needed to see evidence.

Hey Nancy, you might want to talk to that guy Conyers, who has been collecting evidence for eight years and has reams of it. If someone can find a quote of her saying that, it could be the basis for a nice little e-mail campaign….Send Nancy The Evidence. Anybody got a Rolling Stone subscription?

Beware Nancy! As more and more …evidence….emerges in the Great Unravelling, such as this article by yet another Bush torture victim, the de facto coverup you have been running for the last couple of years will become untenable. Despite your weak efforts to get out front of the wave by pushing a Banana Republic Truth Commission, you might find YOURSELF in the spotlight for your inaction, your previous (unacted upon) knowledge of the Bushco crimes. I believe that is called being an accessory after the fact.  

Top ranked Democratic lawmakers knew what was happening….and didn’t stop it. I guess they think a Truth Commission, rather than an actual criminal investigation, will be kinder to them.

Please excuse me while I get a little sentimental and mushy today. I know there are important stories to talk about – there are every day. But I just read about one that moved me on several levels.

As you know, February is Black History Month. We’ll leave the discussion about why we need a special month to learn about Black History (could it be that otherwise we don’t hear about it?) for another day. Because yesterday Michelle Obama found a wonderful way to celebrate it at the White House.

A Stars Hollow Gazette

So you remember Dana Milbank, Village Idiot?

Ben Bernanke, Fed Chairman and Newly Minted Radical

By Dana Milbank

Thursday, February 19, 2009; Page A03

“Since Ben Bernanke became chairman of the Federal Reserve two years ago,” USA Today’s Donna Leinwand told the crowd at the National Press Club, “the S&P index has declined 35 percent, unemployment rose to 7.6 percent, the highest rate since 1992, and the economy has sunk into a deep recession.”

Ha.  Ha.  Ha.

How droll.

History will no doubt judge Bernanke as the man left holding the bag when maestro Alan Greenspan left the Fed. But the economic collapse seems to have had a salutary effect on Bernanke: The academic known for his bland answers and brown socks has been liberated in both word and deed. This student of the Great Depression has taken extreme and unprecedented actions to avert a modern-day sequel, and he’s taken the Fed chairman’s lexicon well beyond basis points and LIBOR and M1 and M2.

Ouch.  That’s gonna leave a mark.

But Dana goes on to mumble about nationalization–

President Obama over the weekend said a “good argument” could be made for Sweden’s temporary nationalization of banks. And no less a free-market authority than Greenspan, in an interview with the Financial Times this week, said “it may be necessary to temporarily nationalize some banks,” calling this the “least bad solution” to the financial crisis.

When Bernanke was asked at lunch about his predecessor’s sentiments, he voiced no opposition to the idea. While discouraging government ownership of banks “for a protracted period,” he offered no such objection to short-term nationalization. “Whatever actions may need to be taken, at one point or another, I think there’s a very strong commitment, on the part of the administration, to try to return banks or keep banks private or return them to private hands as quickly as possible,” he said.

Well isn’t that interesting.