Tag: Eric Holder

GOOD NEWS! Accountability: Holder to name Special Prosecutor for torture, and how Dems will use it

      Crossposted at progressiveelectorate.com

(I’d just like to state clearly, this is not a rebuttal to the diary posted by Something the Dog Said, rather, consider it a differing opinion)

From WaPo

Prosecutor to CIA Abuse Allegations

by abuse allegations, they mean torture.

More!

From a Daily Kos diary

Breaking: “profanity-laced screaming match” at the White House

    Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.

“You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year,” a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.    

and this on the heels of news this weekend

From isria.com

9 GOP Senators ask Holder for Mercy for Bus/Cheney

    Now, this is the key part of the news, because I do not think a 1/4 of the GOP Senate would put their necks out to save some no-name underlings.

    I think this is going all the way to the top, and, in my new found attempt to look at things in a glass half full view.

    Therefore, I give you my belief, as of now, that the ball is now rolling, it will build and build, and by the summer of 2010 going into 2012, America WILL lead to Bush and Cheney themselves.

    More below the fold

AG Holder Gives Us Half A Loaf On Accountablity

Well, it looks as though we will be getting half a loaf today in regards to torture accountability. The Washington Post is reporting that Attorney General Eric Holder is going to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate about 12 instances where intelligence agents and contractors appear to have exceeded the guidance of the spurious Bybee and Yoo Torture Memo’s. While this is a good thing in and of itself, it is not really a good thing for long term torture accountability. Come on below the flip and the Dog will lay out why we should not get too excited about this.  

Weekly Torture Action Letter 21 – History and AG Holder.

Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign for accountability to the rule of law for the apparent Bush Administration State Sponsored Torture program. For those playing our home game, the way this works is every Monday the Dog writes a letter to decision makers urging them to take action under our legal obligations, both Federal and International, to investigate and where evidence of criminality exists prosecute those who ordered, those who justified and those who carried out torture in the name of the United States of America. You get involved by either cut and pasting the letter to the links the Dog provides, or writing your own letter based on this weeks ideas.  

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Is Eric Holder Tacitly About To Ratify Bush Administration War Crimes?

The opening of this article in the Los Angeles Times seems promising. Almost exciting!

Reporting from Washington — U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said.

Wow! Could it be the breakthrough for which we’ve been hoping?

A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned an inquiry that would be narrow in scope, focusing on “whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized” in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.

Remind anyone of the Abu Ghraib investigation? Focusing on the lower ranking officials- making them the fall guys and gals- while allowing the people actually responsible to go free? Because this isn’t just a question of what the CIA officers did, this is a question of whether they were authorized by top level government officials to commit war crimes. Like by the president. And the vice president. And the secretary of defense. And the national security advisor. And the White House counsel, who became the attorney general. And the director of the CIA. And others.

Make no mistake: the techniques that were authorized were war crimes. They also were war crimes. And war crimes. And as someone once said:

I believe that waterboarding was torture.

Which would be a war crime. But as the Times article continues:

Obama and Holder have both said that they believe waterboarding constitutes torture. But an investigation would pose thorny political problems for the administration, and probably draw criticism over questions of fairness.

“An investigation that focuses only on low-ranking operators would be, I think, worse than doing nothing at all,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

Worse than doing nothing at all. Think about it.

Sibel Edmonds’ partial testimony via liveblogging

Dandelion Salad’s got the skinny:  http://dandelionsalad.wordpres…

Weekly Torture Action Letter 20 – Leave Lady Justice Her Blindfold!

Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign for accountability for the Bush Era State Sponsored Torture program. The premise of this campaign is to write decision makers every Monday urging them to do the right thing in terms of our international treaty obligations and our Federal statutes. This means to investigate the enormous amount of prima facie evidence and where warranted by the evidence, to prosecute. The Dog writes a letter every week, which you, the activist, can either cut and paste or use as the jumping off point for your own letter.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

UK lawsuit to expose CIA role in “ghost flights”

Crossposted at Daily Kos

   

    We are about to learn exactly what was going on and where under the Bush/Cheney “Extra-ordinary” rendition program.

    Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, who spent some seven years in US custody, five of them at Guantanamo, say that Jeppesen UK, a subsidiary of Boeing, has agreed to the presentation of evidence about the “ghost flights” it allegedly operated for the CIA – off-the-grid private jets that transferred terrorist suspects to sites where they would be tortured.

rawstory.com

   Binyam Mohamed, if you recall, had his genitals mutilated by either the CIA or one of the host countries where he was tortured.

   Mutilating genitals.

    What could possibly justify genital mutilation, or even the torture program itself? It’s not like the Bush/Cheney Administration was above bald faced lying to us. In my opinion they did it because they can.

    The Object of Torture IS Torture.

    The Object of Power IS Power.

“Holder Joins Conyers in Demanding Action”

David Swanson this morning…

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation into the misdeeds of former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard B. Cheney.

Holder, in turn, has now called on Conyers to open impeachment proceedings against former head of the Office of Legal Council Jay Bybee, now a judge in the Ninth Circuit.

Conyers, in response, has demanded that Holder open a complete investigation of 14 different areas of criminal enterprise and appoint an independent counsel, offering a list of eight possible candidates.

Holder, in reply, has insisted that Conyers reissue all of the subpoenas his committee has failed to enforce over the past two and a half years and use the Capitol Police to enforce them at once.

In response, Conyers’ office has issued a new report on the need to weed out corruption and undo politically motivated prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice.

This morning, the attorney general remarked at a televised press conference, “Chairman Conyers proposed five months ago to extend to 10 years the statutes of limitations on crimes allegedly committed under the previous administration. Introducing a bill might be a way to begin making that happen. Just an idea. I’m no expert.”

Surprisingly, John Conyers removed a large Easter bonnet that had been disguising him, stood up in the back of the room and shouted: “Mr. Attorney General, the former vice president of the United States confesses to authorizing torture every time he leaves his house. You are required by law to indict him. Are you waiting for Marc Rich’s permission?”

Colbert on torture trials, John Yoo PUNKD

   

    Watch

    Laugh

    Learn.

    And now this should be an instant classic. Our Aussie brothers now how to pull a practical joke. Here they totally destroy John Yoo!

    Just watch!

    If only we were allowed to talk about politics on television, instead of engaging in the witch hunt for easter eggs on a daily basis.

    I think there is one hidden up Lou Dobbs ass.

Liz Cheney: Birther! Carville calls them “Pathetic”

Simulposted at Daily Kos

   Larry King had James Carville and Liz Cheney on last night and the video of Rep. Mike Castle’s batshit insane constituents at the recent town hall came up. After playing the video where the woman shouts “I want my country white back!”, Larry says “That Lady is ticked” and then asks Carville “What do you think of this?”

    Watch the video, transcript and batshit wingnut potential war criminal interpretation follows below.

    Also, Attorney General Eric Holder’s contact info is posted below. If you REALLY want Liz Cheney to STFU, put her daddy on trial for war crimes.

    Dialogue below the fold

Weekly Torture Action Letter 18 – AG Holder, The Time Is Now!

Happy Monday and welcome the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign in support of accountability for the Bush Administrations apparent State Sponsored Torture program. The basic idea of this campaign is to keep the issue of torture accountability in the minds of the decision makers. To do this the Dog writes a letter every week that you the reader can then either use as the jumping off point for your own letter or can cut and paste and send it to the links provided.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Children tortured before parents, raped, all covered up by Bush/Cheney and our media

Simulposted at Daily Kos

    Perhaps the worst incident at Abu Ghraib involved a girl aged 12 or 13 who screamed for help to her brother in an upper cell while stripped naked and beaten. Iraqi journalist Suhaib Badr-Addin al-Baz, who heard the girl’s screams, also witnessed an ill 15-year-old who was forced to run up and down with two heavy cans of water and beaten whenever he stopped. When he finally collapsed, guards stripped and poured cold water on him. Finally, a hooded man was brought in. When unhooded, the boy realized that the man was his father, who doubtless was being intimidated into confessing something upon sight of his brutalized son.

uswarcrimes.com

   

    Empathy is what keeps men from becoming MONSTERS.

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