The political noose seems to be tightening on the key members of the remaining miscreants down in the White House bunker -- mainly Bush, Cheney, Rice, Addington and Mukasey. (Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Powell and Tenet were pushed out the door earlier.) But will the Democrats, having been provided with smoking gun-type evidence of these officials' high crimes and misdemeanors, take the next logical step to end this continuing nightmare of law-breaking at the highest levels? Consider:
TORTURE AUTHORIZED FROM ON HIGH
After eight years, the multiple examples of ethical and felonious crimes of the Bush Administration are now abundantly clear and beyond rational dispute. Most compelling among them is the crime of authorizing torture as state policy.
In recent days, we've learned that Geoge W. Bush signed orders authorizing torture, ( click here ) and admitted that he approved of ( www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ content/blog/2008/04/14/BL2008041401428.html ) the deliberations by his National Security Council's Principals Committee on the torture regime being set up for a few high-value prisoners. (Which, of course, filtered down to how thousands of suspected terrorists were maltreated.)
Bush has conceded that his Principals (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, Tenet) kept him apprised of their deliberations on which suspected terrorists would undergo which forms of torture, according to ABC News' recent blockbuster story. ( click here )
The meetings of the Principals, according to ABC, took place in early 2002 at least four months before the Administration's famous Bybee/Yoo memos were issued that retroactively sought to provide legal justification for the torture. (Short version of those memoranda: The President is above all U.S. laws and international treaties.)
During those Principals' meetings, Dick Cheney was a driving force behind the use of "harsh interrogations" of the prisoners in U.S. care. Other members were more worried about what they were doing. In the ABC story, according to a top official, John Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."
Condoleezza Rice, then National Security Advisor, aggressively chaired the Principals' torture meetings. Despite some occasional misgivings voiced by Ashcroft and Colin Powell about the "enhanced interrogation" techniques being employed, Rice told the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it." ( click here )
TRYING TO MAKE TORTURE "LEGAL"
Torture, as commonly understood and defined, is illegal under both U.S. law and international treaties that American governments have ratified over the decades. Bush&Co. had to come up with a way to torture suspects but not to appear to be doing so. Here's how it worked: Officials felt they could honestly assert that the Administration didn't approve of or authorize torture because under the new definition supplied in the Bybee/Yoo memos, it was torture only if the prisoners were near-death or their internal organs were about to fail as a result of their treatment. In other words, the Administration simply made everything else legal: beatings, near-drownings, electroshocks to the genitals, stress positions, sexual abuse, etc. Only if the interrogators killed the prisoners or were thisclose to doing so would they have crossed over the line. See my "Control the Dictionary, Control the World." ( www.crisispapers.org/essays6w/dictionary.htm )
It turns out that David Addington, Cheney's then-Legal Counsel who has since replaced Scooter Libby as Cheney's chief of staff, was at the locus of the cockamamie reasoning behind both the Bybee/Yoo torture memos and the "unitary executive" theory of governance. The latter asserts that the President is in charge of basically everything governmental and can't be touched; further, the Bybee/Yoo memos assert, the President cannot be second-guessed when he claims to be acting as "commander in chief" during "wartime."
Of course, there has been no Congressional Declaration of War, as the Constitution requires; the "war" -- at an estimated cost of several trillions(!) of dollars -- is the "War on Terror," which, since it's being waged against a tactic, can never be completely won and thus is never-ending. In short, the President, under this asserted legal cover, can act more or less as a dictator forever, including declaring martial law whenever he deems an "emergency" situation prevails. (Suppose, for example, the ballot-counting books are cooked in November and the Democratic candidate once again has a victory stolen away. There could be mass protests, perhaps even riots, in the streets. A potential "civic emergency" right there.)
MUKASEY'S FALSE TESTIMONY
Michael Mukasey, who promised he would be an independent Attorney General, has turned out to be just as much of a lackey for the Administration as his predecessor Alberto Gonzales. Mukasey seems to feel, as Gonzales did, that he doesn't work for the public but is there to ensure that his bosses stay out of jail. (Interesting side-note: Barack Obama says that, if elected, he would ask his attorney general to investigate whether Bush and Cheney might have committed indictable crimes while in office. ( www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041508B.shtml )
But what really got Mukasey into hot water in recent days was his assertion that the U.S. knew that a terrorist in Afghanistan was calling someone inside the U.S. prior to the 9/11 attack but the supposedly "outdated" FISA laws wouldn't permit the Administration to tap that phone call and thus prevent the 9/11 events from happening. Mukasey was using that fallacious argument in 2008 as a scare reason for why the Bush Administration needed Congressional re-authorization immediately of the NSA's domestic-spying program, complete with built-in amnesty for the big telecom companies working in cahoots with the Administration.
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org).
Whyspend our time protesting in DC to be ignored? Unless we get in the streets outside our rep.s personal residences- who is going to care?
We need to mobilize locally- & demand national action. Few of us could go to Washington- but many of us- can go to our city halls or state legislatures- or local Congressional offices.
Tell the government that we're fed up with war, torture, corruption, & special interest funding our elections & our media.
Strikes have brought civil rights in the U.S. & around the world. Help make our voices louder than the mainstream media & corporate dollars.
9/11/08 to ? HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES!!
Otherwise Bush & Co will get away with it.
In our system of check & balances- the judiciary has failed & the newly elected congress has failed, & so it has fallen to the American people to set things right!
The Congress saw fit to hold impeachment hearings for Clinton's sexual behavior and lies. Now following a false-flag attack on 911 and the following invasions in the middle east, built on total lies; the almost destruction of our Constitution, and civil liberities. The forthcoming collapse of our economy; with fuel prices skyrocketing, along with food; not to mention massive job losses and home foreclosures etc etc. It's just one lie on top of another, and our bought off Congress and corporate MSM are silent. The day of a General Strike and revoult may be our only hope.
by
ronheri (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 214 comments)
on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 8:03:38 PM
The charges are well known, the evidence sits in a "cold case" file stamped "DO NOT DISTURB" on the top shelf all the way in the corner of "should have..." John Conyers (think "Why I Should Have Impeached Nixon") back offices somewhere "out of sight and out of mind" (pure conjecture of course).
Conyers carefully continues to document everything for the consideration of the next democratic president and he has hinted to some that he will NOT schedule an impeachment hearing until President elect Obama is sworn safely into office.
In the meantime, while waiting for his sick fantasy to come true, he will deliberately let the clock run out on the 110th Democratic Congress. It's "no sweat off his back". He'll show up for work, have a few meetings, make a few impeachment and contempt threats, put in his time to get his pay, but don't anyone ever dare say that he's not doing his official duty.
After all, he raised his right hand over 40 times to honor and defend the Constitution, and he should know, better than anyone, how to get the job done.
Apparently, Conyers has now alleviated his personal political yearnings and thoughtful donkey deliberations to number one on his priority list. For him it's more than just simply doing his constitutional duties. Now everything has to be picutre perfect for him to stand up for his nation and be counted as a real bona fide true patriot.
By the time he gets ready to stand up he won't be asked to bother.
by
Gene Cappa (38 articles, 0 quicklinks, 76 diaries, 285 comments)
on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 4:10:26 PM
I excorciated Pelosi for playing Footsies with GW under the lunch table, which lead to her promising to take impeachment OFF the table, others said, don't worry, she's just lulling him into a false sense of security until they get their act together.
WEll, we see where this BS toe-twiddling has gotten us now!
Remove Pelosi/ Impeach Bush/Cheney NOW!
(I like the sticker I saw: Impeach Bush, Torture Cheney!)
by
Bia Winter (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 456 comments)
on Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 6:57:34 AM
I have written to every member of the House Judiciary Committee (Democratic and Republican) who has not gone on record supporting impeachment hearings asking some of the exact questions you raise. Their answer "dead silence". In my view, the only real answer is to remove every last one of them from office and keep replacing Representatives until people are found (regardless of party) who understand their top job is to ensure ACCOUNTABILITY IN GOVERNMENT.
We are talking Impeachment HEARINGS. Hearings are to investigate potential wrong doing. If US Representatives don't have any questions in their minds about POTENTIAL WRONG DOING of this administration by now, they have no business being in Washington DC representing anyone. They have to be brain dead not to know any of the issues or reasons the public has called for Impeachment hearings. The lack of action, the excuses for doing nothing are in fact inexcusable. No US Representative who supports that inaction has any business representing the people of this country, period. I think we can find better individuals than that to Represent us. I think there are lots of people who would actually work to earn the $165,200/yr + fringes the members of the House of Representatives are paid.
The concern about our political parties is probably correct. We have a dichotomy of thinking in this country -- Republicans want less government, Democrats want more government. Seems few just wants BETTER government. Shouldn't that be the universal aim of every Congressional Member? Size has to do with need and function, not desire or want. We need sufficient numbers in the public to stand up and say enough is enough. Vote the bums out who don't get it. Support people who believe in "good government" of the people, by the people and for the people instead of -- of, by and for special interests. If we would hammer and hammer away at that, send donations to those individuals deserving of our support (regardless of party affiliation) we will have better Government in Washington and things would work lots better. LET'S DO THAT! I don't feel the Representatives in Congress are interested in listening anymore. I don't honestly feel they think they owe most of us any explanations or answers for anything they do. Their attitude is "what the heck do I care what you think?" Only if many band together can we replace that kind of attitude and thinking with a new vision of how Government should work.
by
Peter Wedlund (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 189 comments)
on Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 9:38:23 AM
5 comments
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