The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison
Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points
George W. Bush, War Criminal?: The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes
Nonviolence: Twenty-Five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea
A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict
Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential
A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush
The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld
The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder
Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law
United States v. George W. Bush et al.
The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism
Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush
The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens
The Case for Impeachment
Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney
George W. Bush versus the U.S. Constitution: The Downing Street Memos and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War and Illegal Domestic Spying
Verdict and Findings of Fact
Impeach Bush: A Funny Li'l Graphical Novel About the Worstest Pres'dent in the History of Forevar
Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration
The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America
Obama advisers: No charges likely vs interrogators
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama's incoming administration is unlikely to bring criminal charges against government officials who authorized or engaged in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists during the George W. Bush presidency. Obama, who has criticized the use of torture, is being urged by some constitutional scholars and human rights groups to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush administration.
Two Obama advisers said there's little — if any — chance that the incoming president's Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage.
The advisers spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans are still tentative. A spokesman for Obama's transition team did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
Additionally, the question of whether to prosecute may never become an issue if Bush issues pre-emptive pardons to protect those involved.
Obama has committed to reviewing interrogations on al-Qaida and other terror suspects. After he takes office in January, Obama is expected to create a panel modeled after the 9/11 Commission to study interrogations, including those using waterboarding and other tactics that critics call torture. The panel's findings would be used to ensure that future interrogations are undisputedly legal.
"I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture, and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture," Obama said Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes." "Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world."
Obama's most ardent supporters are split on whether he should prosecute Bush officials.
Asked this weekend during a Vermont Public Radio interview if Bush administration officials would face war crimes, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy flatly said, "In the United States, no."
"These things are not going to happen," said Leahy, D-Vt.
Robert Litt, a former top Clinton administration Justice Department prosecutor, said Obama should focus on moving forward with anti-torture policy instead of looking back.
"Both for policy and political reasons, it would not be beneficial to spend a lot of time hauling people up before Congress or before grand juries and going over what went on," Litt said at a Brookings Institution discussion about Obama's legal policy. "To as great of an extent we can say, the last eight years are over, now we can move forward — that would be beneficial both to the country and the president, politically."
But Michael Ratner, a professor at Columbia Law School and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said prosecuting Bush officials is necessary to set future anti-torture policy.
"The only way to prevent this from happening again is to make sure that those who were responsible for the torture program pay the price for it," Ratner said. "I don't see how we regain our moral stature by allowing those who were intimately involved in the torture programs to simply walk off the stage and lead lives where they are not held accountable."
In the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the White House authorized U.S. interrogators to use harsh tactics on captured al-Qaida and Taliban suspects. Bush officials relied on a 2002 Justice Department legal memo to assert that its interrogations did not amount to torture — and therefore did not violate U.S. or international laws. That memo has since been rescinded.
At least three top al-Qaida operatives — including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed — were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003 because of intelligence officials' belief that more attacks were imminent. Waterboarding creates the sensation of drowning, and has been traced back hundreds of years and is condemned by nations worldwide.
Bush could take the issue of criminal charges off the table with one stroke of his pardons pen.
Whether Bush will protect his top aides and interrogators with a pre-emptive pardon — before they are ever charged — has become a hot topic of discussion in legal and political circles in the administration's waning days. White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto declined to comment on the issue.
Under the Constitution, the president's power to issue pardons is absolute and cannot be overruled.
Pre-emptive pardons would be highly controversial, but former White House counsel Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. said it would protect those who were following orders or otherwise trying to protect the nation.
"I know of no one who acted in reckless disregard of U.S. law or international law," said Culvahouse, who served under President Ronald Reagan. "It's just not good for the intelligence community and the defense community to have people in the field, under exigent circumstances, being told these are the rules, to be exposed months and years after the fact to criminal prosecution."
The Federalist Papers discourage presidents from pardoning themselves. It took former President Gerald Ford to clear former President Richard Nixon of wrongdoing in the 1972 Watergate break-in.
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www.VelvetRevolution.us
Undemocratic and Criminal
"I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture, and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture," Obama said Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes."
Obama is a smart lawyer. At Harvard Law he was arguably the top law student in the country. How can he make a statement that is obviously not true? Does he mean that we won't torture when he is president? Why doesn't he say that? He is smart and knows what he is saying. Is he trying to justify not going after the Bush Administration for torturing?
"Waterboarding creates the sensation of drowning, and has been traced back hundreds of years and is condemned by nations worldwide."
Waterboarding creates the sensation of drowning because it is drowning and only if it stops is it aborted drowning.
Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson testified before Congress this year that 108 detainees had died in U.S. custody and 25-27 of them were homicides.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/ex-state-dept-official-hundreds-of-d...
How many of these homicides were waterboarded and not aborted in time?
I remember Michelle Obama talking about Barack inspiring unemployed steel workers to not accept the world as it is, but should rather strive for the world as it should be. To bad he won't be taking his own advice.
We don't have a democracy, but we do have a criminal government. It will be marginally better under Obama, but it won't be democratic and it seems that it may continue with at least some of the criminality.
Nick Egnatz
NW Indiana Veterans For Peace
GUTLESS CRIMINAL ADVISORS HIDE THEIR IDENTITY
Eric Schwing
We already know who these corrupt gutless, criminal, NEOCON, ZIONIST, LIBERAL WARHAWKS are, THE CORPORATE, IMPERIAL "INSIDERS", that pollute, and protect the WAR CRIMINALS IN THE WHITE HOUSE and have made themselves COMPLICIT IN THESE IMPERIAL CRIMINAL POLICIES...RIGHT RHAM EMANUEL???????.....OBAMA IS A DISGRACE TO ALLOW CORPORATE CORRUPT ELITES LIKE THESE TO JUSTIFY CRIMES.
TO HELL WITH THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM AND OBAMA THE ENABLER OF CORPORATE FASCISM.
The Music Man has arrived!
The young, black Music Man is finally center stage!
Watch how the activists of River City, fully well realizing the supreme abrogations of law committed by resident government officials, intently march to hold the criminals accountable.
But wait. What's this? It's the Music Man himself! Hear him speak in his smooth voice. Look at the concern in those eyes. There's no need to be alarmed. Those despicable actions you thought were a threat to all posterity were merely, at best, bad judgments by those whose only concern was for the people of River City itself!
What fools we were to seek the wisdom of history. The Music Man can't be deceiving us. For everyone swoons when he opens his mouth. He's another MLK! He's another John Kennedy!
Oh, forgive us Music Man! Do what you will with those we judged so harshly. Let them go free. Nay, put them in your Cabinet if you wish.
Let us hope for change, and change for hope, in a grand spirit of River City unity. Lead us in song, oh, grand Music Man. How does it go? ... "Lida Rose, I'm home again Rose ..."
Forward Into An Abyss
EVEN Harry Reid said as much with Mitch McConnell at his side earlier today, hinting that he is looking forward and not looking back. Everyone in Congress, and the new president and new vice president are anxious to move on quickly, a change is at hand, the problems are monumental and must be faced, no time to hold anyone accountable for any high crimes or misdeeds in the past eight years, not even crimes against the Constitution, war crimes, not even for the murders of our soldiers and the Iraqis on false pretenses. Forget those serious 39 Articles of Impeachment pending in Congress, forget all those efforts by Rep Dennis Kucinich to bring out the truth, let bygones be bygones. In their rush to press forward with so many new faces and shuffling around the same old chairs without pausing to restore the rule of law and the Constitution for the American people to their full glory these hard charging democrats of the 110th and 111th Congress will be working against their own best interests and that of the nation as well because all their best efforts and good intentions will all be beside the point.
"Forward Into An Abyss"
I could not agree with the author of this reply to Obama's apparent decision to not hold those who tortured accountable for the horror, and even murders, they perpetrated on those who had never been even charged with crimes, only suspicion. Moving "forward," if it does not include keeping faith with the US Constitutioin, is in fact, taking us backward into those earlier times when Americans tortured people of color here in our own land.
Obama, if he decides not to hold truly "accountable before the law," those who not only carried out torture, but, and here may be the real reason why there may be no trials after Grand Jury hearings and indictments, those in high positions, including members of Congress and the Bush administration, who allowed it to happen, THEN Obama becomes part of the torture problem.
Denial: America's shit don't stink ?
The world is quickly tiring of being used as America's toilet. "Moving on" will never set things right. Obama needs some intensive early intervention by these constitutional scholars and human rights groups. Denial never makes a problem go away.
IMPEACH BUSHCO & RICO PNAC/FARA AIPAC...PNAC is Bush/Cheney's "Helter Skelter" !
UNITE IN SOLIDARITY!!!
You got it
Yank,
You and most everybody else demanded the lesser if the two evils. Ralph Nader would have gone after these people big-time, but oh no, we "must defeat McCain!". You make me SICK!
Al K.
We are SOOOooo screwed!
So what is Ralph Nader doing right now?
Counting his leftover donations from yet ANOTHER "lost" campaign? The only change Ralph has made is the jingle in his pocket.
IMPEACH BUSHCO & RICO PNAC/FARA AIPAC...PNAC is Bush/Cheney's "Helter Skelter" !
UNITE IN SOLIDARITY !!!
A vote for Nader is a vote for the GOP
We are SOOOooo screwed!
Obama is the president elect ... get used to it. Government is a lot bigger than the people in office. That is why it is corrupt.
Obama is a step in the right direction but we have to wait two months to see what direction he is going.
Our last true blue president was Jimmy Carter and look what his honesty did for him.
EW
Prosecuting the Bushies
I am already wondering if our vote for Obama will amount to anything. He has already made it clear he approves of SOFA. This means keeping our troops in Iraq to "protect American diplomates, civillian personnel AND conduct target counter terrorist missions", you can't tell me that if this is taking place there will not be conflict within Iraq, so it will still mean war in Iraq!
We are Soooo screwed!
If we wanted to march on Washington in protest we would be confronted by NORCOM..even with Obama in office!
teaINharbor
"Just following orders" didn't protect the Nazis at Nuremberg...
Why should it protect Bush's brownshirts?
Barack Obama can talk all he wants about restoring America's moral stature in the world. It will not be possible unless he seeks full justice for the crimes of the Bush administration.
If he refuses, his own legacy will be nothing more than that of just another special interest White House tool.
Unfiltered Video Commentary:
Crashing Paulson's Ponzi Party
If Obama Says "We Will Not Torture."
Dear Mr. President-elect:
This is the first time I have ever thought to criticize a president- elect BEFORE he takes office. I'm in my early 60's, so I've lived through a few more presidencies than you have.
If you say you will not torture, but allow those who tortured so many for so long to not be held to account for their actions, that is like saying "We will not torture, but if for some reason we decide we have to, for whatever reason we might think we have, then there will be no CASE LAW ON THE BOOKS to force some future court to hold us accountable for our unConstitutional actions.
Sir: May I tender here that if you are not part of the solution (holding those who tortured---and their highly placed masters whose flim-flam words allowed it to go on, with Gonzales having written the book about it), then you, Sir, have already become part of the ongoing problem.
Bush always said, "We are a nation of laws." There are laws against torture, and the punishments are outlined. If you, as the chief law enforcement officer, do not enforce the laws, then you are no better than those who allowed it to go on.
I suggest you begin your new administration by strictly enforcing ALL of our laws.