LA Times: Holder "poised" to appoint special prosecutor in waterboarding investigation

[garybeck]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cia-interrogate9-2009aug09,0,34626.story

By Greg Miller and Josh Meyer
August 9, 2009

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

[rwheeler31]

1. Good it is time.

[jbnow]

2. I wondered if it already had. Cheney became so silent

after he was so loud and showing up everywhere

Maybe I just haven't noticed and he has been speaking? Or maybe he was doing some health thing that kept him down awhile. But hoped it was being contacted/interviewed regarding investigation starting.

[Solly Mack]

3. k/r

[malaise]

4. Great news

K & R

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Thank Heavens. Maybe there is a God." - Torture Victims

[garybeck]

6. looking for a fall guy?

the article says the investigation will focus on whether or not the people who waterboarded were going beyond the administrations instructions and doing it more or worse than instructed. this smells like they're just looking for a low level scape goat, rather than who commanded our people to waterboard in the first place. I hope that's not the case..

[noise]

8. High ranking officials ALWAYS act in good faith

Torture was safe, effective and legal. A few bad apples went past Yoo's reasonable guidelines and in doing so disgraced the country.

:sarcasm:

[noise]

7. If torture was patriotic

then wouldn't excessive torture be ultra patriotic?

If Tenet truly had the back of "his people" at the CIA then he wouldn't have gone along with the torture program in the first place. Yet Tenet will never admit he betrayed CIA personnel. Instead he will talk about how unfair it is to prosecute dedicated CIA officials who were trying to protect the country from follow up attacks.

[BlooInBloo]

9. Good.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

10. You left out the second paragraph... it's going to be a narrow investigation

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.

[noise]

11. This approach by Holder is cowardly.

The OLC lawyer did not act in good faith. He wrote a BS memo that fit the wishes of the White House.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

13. Exactly. What it does is investigate anyone who went above and beyond Shrub's

illegal torture directives and not at the directives themselves.

[Bluenorthwest]

12. A narrow scape goat hunt. A Holder specialty

Looking to make himself look good without actually doing anything. As long as Holder is there, Bushco is safe. Period.

[neverforget]

14. Great. The people who carried out the illegal orders are investigated but

those who issued them? Not so much.

[johnhkennedy]

15. AG Holder's torture prosecution trial balloon is a diversion from the real evil

We have heard it said that the proposed probe and special prosecutor being suggested by AG Holder Would be big break from Bush Torture Policy. Oh Please, IT IS NOT !

This trial balloon is designed to try to get away with a very narrowly focused, very limited
investigation of only a few criminals who tortured using methods worse than the
ALREADY ILLEGAL Torture Methods Approved In The Torture Memos.

Unless we voters get a complete investigation of all the abuses of power and violations of Federal Laws, Holder's tightly focused, limited investigation of torture that violated the "Bush Cheney Torture Memos" means little or nothing.

The problem here is that Attorney General Holder seems to be leaning toward a very narrow investigation about the "wrong" Torture violations.

SEE our Federal Anti-Torture Law http://tinyurl.com/besdd3

Holder appears to be saying that the Bush "Torture Memos" have the force of law, that the memos became new torture law and that he only has to prosecute violations which were outside of the Torture allowed by the memos. That is false.

The "Torture Memos" themselves are a criminal conspiracy to evade our Federal Anti-Torture Laws and to render our Federal Torture Law moot.

The Torture Memos were "used to con normally law abiding, patriotic CIA agents and
US Soldiers" into violating our existing Federal Torture Laws.

A presidentially appointed lawyer can't make or change Federal Laws no matter who appoints them. Bush and Cheney attempted to ignore the law and put all who tortured or conspired to torture, even if they meant well (chuckle), at serious risk of prosecution.

We the people have to bring these creeps to justice or this will happen again even when the Democrats are in power (perhaps especially, remember President Johnson and Vietnam and Operation Phoenix, thousands assassinated? The CIA again).


Prosecute all those that tortured in our name, then go after all the other Federal Crimes and violations of our Constitution committed by Bush and Cheney. "Only Prosecution deters crime".



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