How about impeaching for torture?-By Jim Hightower

[kpete]

How about impeaching for torture?
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2007-11-23 22:17. Impeachment
By Jim Hightower, www.Minutemanmedia.org

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Yet, we now have a president who is engaged in a far more damning constitutional encounter that he is trying to dismiss by quibbling over what the meaning of "torture" is. Why isn't he facing an impeachment inquiry?

From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to extraordinary renditions, Mr. Bush and Co. have violated our own laws and international treaties that flatly prohibit torture of war prisoners. Yet, they keep trying to excuse their abhorrent behavior by writing secret memos to themselves redefining torture, as well as not torture.

Two more of these self-excusing memos have recently surfaced from the misnamed Justice Department. Responding in 2005 to a new law passed by Congress, and to Supreme Court decisions prohibiting "Cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" of prisoners, Bush-appointed lawyers wrote a clandestine memo merrily defining CIA torture techniques as not being cruel, inhumane, and degrading. The revelation of this crude attempt to circumvent the laws of our land were so explosive that Mr. Bush himself had to be trotted out in a hastily arranged press appearance to declare with a straight face: "This government does not torture people."

Why should anyone believe him? Because I say so, says the prevaricator-in-chief. Of course, the president refused to show us the memos, and his staff has even attacked the media for revealing that they exist. No one believes him, because... well, he's unbelievable.

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more at:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/28914