What Obama owes us.

[Vattel]

Either the waterboarding perpetrated by the CIA during the Bush Administration was a federal crime or it wasn't. Obama has an obligation to the American people to reveal the Department of Justice's opinion on this matter. On the one hand, if the DOJ judges that it was a crime, then we are owed an explanation of why that crime hasn't been prosecuted. Isn't it the responsibility of the DOJ to prosecute serious crimes? Shouldn't we at least know that we live in a nation that rejects the rule of law and permits crimes by our highest officials to go unpunished? On the other hand, if the DOJ does not consider the waterboarding perpetrated by the CIA during the Bush Administration to have been a federal crime, then we are owed an explanation of why the President has not proposed legislation that would make waterboarding a federal crime. Obama has issued an executive order prohibiting waterboarding, but that is not enough. Such an order can be rescinded as soon as a president decides he or she wants to waterboard. We need criminal laws that unambiguously criminalize waterboarding and other forms of torture.

Let me reiterate. If in the opinion of the DOJ, waterboarding is a crime under the War Crimes Act or the Torture Act or some other federal criminal statute, then why isn't it being prosecuted? And if it is not a crime under any existing federal criminal statute, why isn't Obama proposing legislation that would criminalize it (either by amending an existing statute such as the War Crimes Act, or by introducing a new criminal statute)?

Don't we at least deserve an anwer to these questions?

[Imagevision]

1. Obama stated we need to look forward not backward - how bout; "Change We Can Believe In"

[snot]

2. K&R'd!!!

[Vattel]

3. Just wanted to mention

that I hate people who kick their own posts.

[kas125]

4. Me, too! So I'll do it for you! n/t

[leveymg]

5. There's an implicit theory of executive immunity behind this approach. If you or I waterboarded

someone, we'd be indicted in a heartbeat under half a dozen federal criminal statutes, including the ones you correctly cited. However, if a CIA officer does it at the orders of the President, that conveys immunity upon the federal employee carrying out torture. Bush and Cheney might as well have committed torture themselves, with their own hands. Under the Bush Administration's doctrine of Unitary Government, they have executive immunity for any official act, and it is absolute.

There's no real factual or legal question that waterboarding is torture -- no matter what Yoo and Bibey wrote on DoJ stationery in mid-2002 -- the issue really is, will Eric Holder's DoJ indict George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney for these crimes? It's only a question of will, a matter of prosecutorial discretion, which is also hard to challenge in court. The Obama Administration is falling back on the doctrine of prosecutorial discretion, here, which in effect conveys the same protection on torturers acting in the name of the President as Bush-Cheney's Unitary Government doctrine.

An independent observer might judge Obama's refusal to prosecute to also be a crime, Accessory After The Fact to violations of the War Crimes and Torture Acts - but, who's going to enforce that?

[JDPriestly]

6. Torture violates international treaties, and they supersede

other ordinary American laws. I should think therefore that the law that provides immunity to government employees carrying out government policies might not apply to violations of the law established in treaties. Is there another way to analyze this? I'm just theorizing.

[truedelphi]

7. I am loving the last sentence that you wrote.

Very nice bit of critical writing, so thank you. (That's you, and not Yoo.)

[Senator]

8. An independent observer already has.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/18/us-un-usa-interrogations-idUSTRE53H1Y020090418">Obama reprieve for CIA illegal: U.N. rapporteur

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA interrogators who used waterboarding on terrorism suspects amounts to a breach of international law, the U.N. rapporteur on torture said.

"The United States, like all other states that are part of the U.N. convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court," U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak told the Austrian daily Der Standard.

The Driver of the Torture Getaway Car's refusal to simply abide by and enforce the laws and treaty obligations our greater generations fought and died to forge may well have earned him a seat on the bus to The Hague.

Or even prosecution here. That is if we ever return to a functioning constitutional democracy from this avaristocracy imposed by Our Lamest Generation. But it's kinda hard to "preserve, protect, and defend" a constitution when you refuse to "look backwards" to recognize its principles.

--

[Vattel]

9. Obama should tell us

if he buys into the ridiculous view (pushed by Yoo and others) that in matters of national security the President is not constrained by any treaty or federal statute. On the other hand, if the DOJ judges that waterboarding is criminal, and prosecutorial discretion is invoked to explain the failure to prosecute, then we have the classic problem of the executive branch refusing to prosecute its own, and an independent prosecuter ought to be appointed.

[leveymg]

10. In the Nixon case, Congress had to threaten impeachment after Archibald Cox was fired

In practice, only under that sort of countervailing power of the Legislative Branch determined to bring accountability, backed up by a fair-minded Supreme Court majority (and a reasonably balanced media), will the executive department ever prosecute its own top officials.

We don't really have all those elements acting to counterbalance Executive power, anymore. Since Reagan-Bush, the Presidency has been unaccountable (the Clinton Impeachment was pure partisan politics and farce that badly strained the checks-and-balances); since Iran-Contra and the flagrant violation of the Boland Amendment, the U.S. been operating as a post-Constitutional state.

Obama would have to acknowledge that state of affairs to proceed against Bush-Cheney, and the concern is that declaration would cast his own legitimacy into doubt.

Once Humpty-Dumpty has fallen, all the King's horses and all the King's men can't put him back together again.

As much as anyone else, I blame Lee Hamilton for refusing to pursue Reagan-Bush and leaving the government in this broken condition. He's also to blame for his cover-up of the Bush-Cheney malfeasances that resulted in 9/11. One of American history's worst villains.

[Vattel]

12. I agree that Congress would have to get tough

to force an independent prosecutor to be appointed to investigate these things and, sadly, there is little chance of that happening right now. If the President were not opposed to it, though, no force would be necessary.

As for the U.S. being in a post-Constitutional state, I agree and I hate it!

[BeFree]

15. Indeed: Post Constitutional

We now have an unwritten constitution. I mean, it looks as if they are making this up as they go.

Waterboarding ok if the Pres, says so.

Making war without congress ever declaring war.

Not applying laws equally.

SCOTUS members who have sold themselves to a political faction.

These politicians have trashed our constitution.
It is to them just what the last president claimed:
"Just a piece of paper."

[leveymg]

20. From Republic to Empire to Occupied Territory.

They all do it when congenital wealth is allowed to take control.

It's not impossible to pull ourselves back together again. Just not under the current failed elites and system.

[BeFree]

22. How is it possible?

I have just about lost hope for a peaceful change since the elites play by their own rules.

Our votes are counted by private companies.

Questionable elections in 2000 and 2004.

Citizens jailed without a hearing.

There is zero-tolerance for the little man on main street, and 99% tolerance for the big man on wall street.

They rule us and they have us cornered.

[leveymg]

23. "To thine own self be true"

In Act I, Scene III of Hamlet, the character of Polonius prepares his son Laertes for travel abroad with a speech (ll.55-81) in which he directs the youth to commit a "few precepts to memory."

Among these percepts is the now-familiar adage:

"neither a borrower nor a lender be" (l.75); and the dictum,

"This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou cans't not be false to any man "(ll.78-80).

[BeFree]

26. Sure, ok, I can do that

And that brings me right back to politics vs my life.

So.... either I accept the course of action that I know to be true and become a martyr
Or..... I withdraw, leaving the rest of the world behind and focus solely on myself.

To politic I must become a martyr, it seems. There is little other choice.
Is not a soldier in our armed forces want to become a martyr?
Didn't I decide long ago to not take that path?

[leveymg]

29. A good soldier avoids martyrdom

But, a most excellent warrior wins the war without spilling blood, and should never be afraid of his own death.

Here are some other opinions on the subject:

"Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery."

— Che Guevara


All warfare is based on deception.
Sun Tzu
The Art of War

An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi

As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure.
Jacques Chirac

As soon as war is looked upon as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Oscar Wilde


Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know I can see through your masks.
Bob Dylan

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Either war is obsolete or men are.
R. Buckminster Fuller

England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame and will get war.
Winston Churchill

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I ain't got no quarrel with no Vietcong.
Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay)

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Thomas Jefferson

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
Edmund Burke

I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
George McGovern

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.
Orson Welles

In war there is no prize for the runner-up.
General Omar Bradley

In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity.
Winston Churchill

It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee

Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object.
Abraham Lincoln

"Let someone else get killed!"
"Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?"
"Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"
"Englishmen are dying for England, American's are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can all be worth dying for?"
"Anything worth living for," said Nately, "is worth dying for."
"And anything worth dying for," answered the old man, "is certainly worth living for."
Joseph Heller
Catch 22

[BeFree]

30. But

Martyrdom is considered to be 'Glorious'.

Not nearly so glorious, evidently, as that glory bestowed upon the bush who oversaw so many martyrs do that thing.

So, the question is: Without any progress to be made, why would martyrdom be so glorious?
IOW, why are there so many willing to die?

I'm not, that's the crossroad at which I stand.

To be, or not to be.

[leveymg]

35. You can choose to live or die; or, if you have no choice, you can choose how to die.

Most martyrs have no choice about whether they will live or die. They believe themselves to be doomed. That may have been true for pilots in the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1945.

Fortunately, for most people -- even in the most difficult circumstances -- the choices are wider. There is almost always a choice, many more choices than how one will die. Martyrdom is a choice that can't be changed, and should be avoided. Chances are, better choices will come, if you let them.

[Vattel]

27. that sums it up very nicely

[BeFree]

28. Truth, is it not?

It's as if the constitution is there to control the people.

When the truth is the constitution is meant to control only the government.

Well, our government has stepped outside the box and now do as they damn well please.
Constitution be damned!!

[Vattel]

11. One last point:

Although I agree that Yoo is a class one idiot (no, not a gifted scholar gone bad: an ungifted scholar who can't argue his way out of a paper bag, and who puts his stupidity to work defending the indefensible), nevertheless the fact that he and others in the Bush DOJ could reach the conclusion that that the waterboarding perpetrated by the CIA was not criminal under the War Crimes Act or the Torture Act suggests that we need to amend those acts to make them clearly and unmistakably and unambigously prohibit waterboarding and other forms of torture judged to be perfectly acceptable by Yoo. Yoo did not simply invoke the doctrine that the President's national security power is unlimited to reach his conclusions. He argued that, as defined in these acts, torture and cruel treatment do not include waterboarding! Ted Kennedy proposed an amendment to the Military Commissions Act that would have specifically identified waterboarding as a crime under the War Crimes Act, but the proposed amendment was rejected by his more foolish colleagues in the Senate. Kennedy was right: we need criminal statutes that are less ambiguous.

[leveymg]

13. The problem of refusal to prosecute would remain. What's needed is an Inspector General's office

that has power to indict, restrain, and enforce its own subpoenas and judgments that is truly independent of the other branches. That would require a constitutional amendment. I'm also leery of giving any office that kind of unchecked power.

It really comes down to this in America: If the political process breaks down, the system of justice can not and does not operate. America politics is broken, so there's no Rule of Law.

[BeFree]

18. What is interesting

If the right really wanted to impeach Obama, they could make a case that Obama's failure to enforce the law against torture is grounds.

So.... Obama has them wrapped up and stuffed, because they damn sure wouldn't sacrifice bush for Obama. Or would they?

Just a thought,

[leveymg]

21. The Right won't make that deal. It's a lose-lose, as they see it.

They would be much happier just to create chaos so that they can install a dictatorship of their choosing.

[BeFree]

34. Constitutional Amendment needed

Article 69: It shall be the right of the president to torture anyone he desires.

We are living under that rule today. We should make it part of the constitution and end the argument. It would allow bush to remain free forever from that little problem, eh?

[leveymg]

36. I don't even want to imagine what Article 70 might be. eom

[Vattel]

24. true, that problem would remain, but

at least it would be more difficult to give legal cover to torture in the way Yoo and Bybee did.

[upi402]

17. The elites running this show don't want it

They own the whole thing and the media too. They don't want the country, let alone the government, to function. If they could grab the military right now - they would.

A suggestion - you have good things to say and I think you'd reach more people if you broke up your sentences a bit. It's easier on the eyes and easier to digest, for many.

[Vattel]

25. thx for the advice. I think you're right.

[Senator]

37. The felonies begin at "degrading."

Part of the big lie is that there is some magical line at which torture begins and that everything up to that point is somehow ok. Also, once you start a list there will always be some method not included that will seem to be "legalized" by omission.

Such determinations are best made case by case, at trial and/or sentencing.

This is a failure of people, not process.

---

[Vattel]

38. I strongly disagree

First of all, degrading treatment is no longer a felony under the War Crimes Act. The Military Commissions Act amended the War Crimes Act partly by removing degrading treatment from the list of article three violations that are criminal under that act. Second, the idea would not be to try to list every specific interrogation technique that is criminal under the act. Rather the idea would be to first define as clearly as possible, e.g., torture, then to list a wide range of examples, and finally to explicitly state that the list of examples merely illustrate and hence does not exhaust the scope of "torture" as defined in the act.

[Senator]

40. It's not a matter of agreement.

You can't define a law well enough to prevent a criminal from breaking it.

And any ex post facto laws would be useless if our constitution and treaty obligations were being enforced and followed by the people who have taken oaths to do so.

It's people failure, so any "disagreement" on law is simply beside the point.

----

[Oceansaway]

14. K&R...n/t

[Safetykitten]

16. He owes us nothing. We did not pay attention in the job interviews when hiring him.

[BeFree]

19. He does owe us

He needs to follow the constitution and the law.

If he can't do that, then he needs to say so.

[Xenotime]

31. He owes us...

...to get out of Iraq
...to get out of Afghanistan
...to close Gitmo
...tax increases on the wealthy

and much, much more.

[Rex]

32. He doesn't owe us anything, his primary challenger can make promises

and we will see if he/she keeps them. Unlike Obama.

[Hubert Flottz]

33. "DON'T LOOK BACK"

At all that shit Obama PROMISED. The day he won, all that was moot.

[defendandprotect]

39. K/R --- Torture isn't only a threat to our alleged enemies, it's a threat to citizens/democracy-!!

[glinda]

41. He owes a private conference with Progressives to answer questions.