This could be a first step toward real justice.

"Obama not ruling out prosecution of Bush officials for crimes in office."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090111/usa/us_attacks_politics_bush_obama

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday he was not ruling out possible prosecution for abuses committed under the George Bush administration, saying no one "is above the law".

"We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth," Obama said in an interview aired Sunday on ABC's This Week program when asked about alleged abuses under Bush.

"Obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law," Obama said.

But Obama, who takes office on January 20, added that he wanted his administration to focus on tackling problems moving forward, rather than reviewing policies under his predecessor.

"My instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing," he said.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/01/cia_video_destruction.html

The destruction by Central Intelligence Agency officials of videotapes showing the interrogation of suspected terrorists is the subject of “an ongoing criminal investigation” that is expected to conclude in the near future, according to a prosecution official.

“Investigators are now in the process of scheduling interviews with the remaining witnesses to be interviewed in this investigation,” wrote John H. Durham, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in an affidavit (pdf) late last month. “Based on the investigative accomplishments to date, we anticipate that by mid-February 2009, and no later than February 28, 2009, we will have completed the interviews.”

Where was this committee when they were torturing prisoners at Abu Gharib... but it's about time somebody laid some some blame at Bush's feet.

From the AP:
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The physical and mental abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the direct result of Bush administration detention policies and should not be dismissed as the work of bad guards or interrogators, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Thursday.

The Senate Armed Services Committee report concludes that harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA and the U.S. military were directly adapted from the training techniques used to prepare special forces personnel to resist interrogation by enemies that torture and abuse prisoners. The techniques included forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, and until 2003, waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.

By ANDREW O. SELSKY, AP

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Dec. 8) – The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four co-defendants told a military judge Monday they want to immediately confess at their war-crimes tribunal, setting up likely guilty pleas and their possible executions.

The five said they decided on Nov. 4, the day President-elect Barack Obama was elected to the White House, that they were abandoning all efforts to defend themselves against the capital charges. It was as if they wanted to rush toward convictions before Obama — who has vowed to end the war-crimes trials and close Guantanamo — takes office.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and another defendant said at their arraignment in June they would welcome execution as a path to martyrdom. But word that they were giving up their defense came as a shock to some of the victims' families.

Bush Regime Declares Itself Above the Law

http://www.prisonplanet.com/bush-regime-declares-itself-above-the-law.html

Paul Craig Roberts
Lew Rockwell.com
Monday, Dec 08, 2008

The US government does not have a monopoly on hypocrisy, but no other government can match the hypocrisy of the US government.

It is now well documented and known all over the world that the US government tortured detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and that the US government has had people kidnaped and “rendentioned,” that is, transported to third-world countries, such as Egypt, to be tortured.

Also documented and well known is the fact that the US Department of Justice provided written memos justifying the torture of detainees. One torture advocate who wrote the DOJ memos that gave the green light to the Bush regime’s use of torture is John Yoo, a Vietnamese immigrant who somehow secured a US Justice Department appointment and a tenured professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law.

mainstream mention of Cheney's

A Ticket to The Hague for Dick Cheney?

www.harpers.org/#hbc-90003846

By Scott Horton

Gene Burns is one of the nation's most popular talk radio hosts. For years he has dismissed accounts of torture; America, he has said, does not torture. But last night, after watching Torturing Democracy and realizing that he had not understood how important and serious an issue torture had become, Burns abruptly changed his tune.

Here's a transcript of his remarks:

"I now believe that some international human rights organization ought to open an investigation of the Bush Administration, I think focused on Vice President Dick Cheney, and attempt to bring charges against Cheney in the international court of justice at The Hague, for war crimes. Based on the manner in which we have treated prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and the manner in which we have engaged in illegal rendition–that is, surreptitiously kidnapping prisoners and flying them to foreign countries where they could be tortured by foreign agents who do not follow the same civilized standards to which we subscribe.

The Shrinking Case Against Binyam Mohamed
Justice Department Drops "Dirty Bomb Plot" Allegation

By ANDY WORTHINGTON

As the Washington Post reported yesterday, the US Justice Department has dropped the key allegation against British resident and Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed -- that he was involved, with American citizen Jose Padilla, in a plot to detonate a “dirty bomb” in a US city.

For over three years, Binyam’s lawyers at Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity, have been arguing that the allegations against Binyam were extracted through the use of torture -- in Morocco, where Binyam was tortured for 18 months, after being rendered by the CIA, and at the CIA’s own “Dark Prison,” near Kabul, where he was held for four or five months from January 2004, before his transfer to the US military prison at Bagram airbase, and his eventual arrival at Guantánamo in September 2004.

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Saturday & Sunday, Sept 13-14th at 6am Pacific - 9am Eastern - 13:00 GMT
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LIVE 2 DAY CONFERENCE direct from Andover, Mass.

A two-day conference on obtaining prosecutions of high level American war criminals will open September 13th, in Andover, Mass. The conference will explore the legal grounds for, and plan for, obtaining prosecutions of President Bush and top officials of his Administration for war crimes.

this one suffers from overkill and i still didn't say everything that needed to be said; let me know what i left out, how to improve, if you have ideas

9/11 Truth, Part 8 of 11: 9/11 Aftermath and Anthrax; Subverted Rights, Endless War, People's Victories
http://911reports.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/911-truth-part-8-of-11-911-af...

This article is an overview of some of the ways in which 9/11 and the Anthrax attacks have been used; manipulating public fears and understanding, increasing military budgets and private contracts, reducing oversight and accountability, launching imperialist wars, and implementing repressive police state measures- as well as victories for the People and the Constitution.

Post 9/11 Attacks on Freedom, People, Human Rights & Nations

Jane Mayer, Author of The Dark Side joins Dave Letterman

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Impeachment Could Be Our Last Chance for 9/11 Truth, Stopping the Iran War and Martial Law!!
Listen to the Hearing! Then Act!

http://rawstory.com//news/2008/Author_Officials_feared_wiretaps_over_opp...

Author: Officials against torture memo feared wiretaps, physical danger
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Monday July 21, 2008

According to Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, two top lawyers in the Justice Department who attempted to push back against the authorization of torture by Vice President Cheney's staff became so paranoid that they worried they were being wiretapped and even feared they might be in physical danger.

Mayer told the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe that Cheney's staff took advantage of 9/11 to enhance presidential power and that -- in the words of Republican lawyer and former 9/11 Commission director Philip Zelikow -- "fear and anxiety were exploited by fools and zealots."

Mayer added, however, that there were also opponents of torture and other extreme powers within the administration. "Almost from the start after 9/11," she stated, "lawyers in the administration have said, 'That's not the American way, we can't do that, it's criminal, it may be a war crime.'"

'Justifying' Torture: Two Big Lies

By Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern
July 19, 2008

One can assume that former Attorney General John Ashcroft didn’t mean it to be funny, but his testimony on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee might strike one as hilarious, were it not for the issue at hand — torture.

Ashcroft is the Attorney General who approved torture before he disapproved it, but committee members spared him accusations of flip-flopping.

He explained that he initially blessed the infamous torture memoranda drafted by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo and others in mid-2002 because he (Ashcroft) believed it imperative to afford the President “the benefit of genuine doubt” regarding how to protect American lives in the “war on terror.”

But Ashcroft added that, despite this, when concerns about that earlier guidance for interrogations were brought to his attention, changing his mind “was not a hard decision for me.” A very flexible Attorney General.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/07/torture-doesnt-work.html

A recent poll showed that 44% of Americans support torture on "terrorist suspects".

Why so many?

A key architect of America's torture program, Doug Feith, testified under oath to Congress today that torture is necessary because - otherwise - we couldn't get any information out of the "bad guys". Several Congress people agreed.

Why do any Congress people support this argument?

Because many people mistakenly assume that torture works, and is thus a necessary evil.

Let's put aside questions of morality, humanity, and legality . . . Let's just focus on one question: does torture work?

In fact, the professional FBI, CIA and army interrogators all say no.

Our local radio station KPFA just covered the torture+hearings with Feith that took place in Congress today and investigative journalist Jane Mayer's new book exposing torture info is now out at the same time. I was looking up what she's said about 9/11 and what the book might say and came across the descriptions below.

She mentioned how members of the Administration who spoke to her were so intimidated by Cheney that they had to speak in code to each other because they assumed that Cheney was tapping their phones. I expect she probably rejects "inside job" -- afterall, she was formerly a Wall Street Journal writer, is a Yale grad, etc -- but it could be an opportunity to provide her with more info, if possible.

What was the outcome with Naomi Klein? I'd be interested to hear any ideas of what did or didn't work for interacting with her and getting info across.

Jane Mayer discusses
"The Dark Side: How The War on Terror Became a War on American Ideals"
excerpt:

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Frank Rich is getting closer to the truth . . . I look forward to the day when he discovers and writes about the "war on terror" being a lie, a fraud, a hoax . . . and then REALLY connects the dots . . . And, Frank, the (9/11) crime is WORSE than the cover-up. --Betsy

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/opinion/13rich.html?th=&emc=th&pagewan...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 13, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Real-Life ‘24’ of Summer 2008
By FRANK RICH

WE know what a criminal White House looks like from “The Final Days,” Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s classic account of Richard Nixon’s unraveling. The cauldron of lies, paranoia and illegal surveillance boiled over, until it was finally every man for himself as desperate courtiers scrambled to save their reputations and, in a few patriotic instances, their country.

Interesting title and great article . . . He just needs to take it one step further, of course, to include 9/11 itself and not just the aftermath . . . But we're getting there, little by little. It's also not a bad thing that this title plants the "truth commission" idea in many readers' heads . . . --Betsy

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/opinion/06kristof.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&...

July 6, 2008

The Truth Commission
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

When a distinguished American military commander accuses the United States of committing war crimes in its handling of detainees, you know that we need a new way forward.

“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq, declares in a powerful new report on American torture from Physicians for Human Rights. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing.

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Impeachment Could Be Our Last Chance for 9/11 Truth, Stopping the Iran War and Martial Law!!
Listen to the gripping testimony of these 3 released Gitmo detainees carefully! Then Act!

Read Rep. Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment. Call the Judiciary Committee and your Representative and Demand Impeachment Hearings Now. Be sure to mention Article 17 (illegal detention), Article 18 (Torture), Article 19 (Rendition) and Articles 33-35 regarding 9/11 Truth. Call 6 friends to do this also and ask them to call 6 friends...and this will go viral!!!

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http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1633344220080616?pageNumber=...

Supreme Court to decide 9-11 abuse case
Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:56am EDT
By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide whether a lawsuit can proceed against the former U.S. attorney general and the FBI director in a case brought by a Pakistani man who said he was abused in detention after the September 11 attacks.

The high court agreed to hear an appeal by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, arguing they cannot be held personally liable in the lawsuit by Javaid Iqbal, who was held more than a year at a Brooklyn detention center after the September 11 attacks.

The decision followed last week's landmark Supreme Court ruling that held the Guantanamo Bay prisoners can go before U.S. federal judges to seek their release, a setback for President George W. Bush.

Iqbal, a Muslim, said in the lawsuit he was subjected to unlawful ethnic and religious discrimination and subjected to verbal and physical abuse, including unnecessary strip searches and brutal beatings by guards on two occasions.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/05/they-torture-children-dont...

Over the last 24 hours, news about U.S. torture has been leaking out:

Report: Military used harsh methods on 9-11 terror suspect
Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 12:29 PM PT

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

A new report by the Justice Department Inspector General details many of the harsh and intentionally humiliating techniques that the U.S. military used against Mohammed Al-Qahtani, a Saudi detainee at the Guantanamo Bay military prison who many US officials believe was meant to be the 20th hijacker on September 11, 2001.

The 438-page IG report focuses on the FBI's involvement in detainee interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it also provides a window into the methods used by the Defense Department and the CIA on uncooperative detainees such as Al-Qahtani.

Quoting military records and reports, the Justice Department Inspector General said that a "special projects team" of the U.S. military interrogated Al-Qahtani between November 2002 and January 2003.

Their methods included:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19946.htm

The Conservative Movement: From Failure to Threat

By Paul Craig Roberts

18/05/08 "ICH" -- - U.C. Berkeley tenured law professor John Yoo epitomizes the failure of the conservative movement in America. Known as "the torture professor," Yoo penned the Department of Justice (sic) memos that gave a blank check to sadistic Americans to torture detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The human rights violations that John Yoo sanctioned destroyed America's reputation and exposed the Bush regime as more inhumane than the Muslim terrorists. The acts that Yoo justified are felonies under U.S. law and war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.

Yoo's torture memos are so devoid of legal basis that his close friend and fellow conservative member of the Federalist Society, Jack Goldsmith, rescinded the memos when he was appointed head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

Yoo's extremely shoddy legal work and the fervor with which he served the evil intentions of the Bush regime have led to calls from distinguished legal scholars for Yoo's dismissal from Berkeley's Boalt Hall.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/04/scalia-tries-to-apologize-...

Supreme Court Justice Scalia says that torture doesn't constitute “cruel and unusual punishment”, because torture is not meant to punish, but only to illicit information.

Mr. Scalia's argument fails for several reasons.

Torture Does not Generate Useful Information

Initially, torture is a notoriously inaccurate way to obtain information. Indeed, it is well-known by professional interrogators that torture doesn't work. Experts on interrogation say that torture actually interferes with the ability to gather useful information.

So if torture is not an information-gathering technique, its only purpose must be punishment and/or intimidation.

Torturing People Who Can't Give Useful Information is Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Lawyer fears 9/11 mastermind trial will be 'insanity'
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Prescott Prince is a small-town lawyer who has never taken a death penalty case to trial. Yet he finds himself involved in one of the biggest capital punishment cases this century: He's defending the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

He readily acknowledges how his client is perceived as "one of the most reviled people" in the world. But he says it's imperative America give Mohammed a fair trial, just like anyone else accused of a crime.

No civilian court, he says, would accept confessions obtained after a defendant was mistreated. But the CIA admits Mohammed was waterboarded, a controversial interrogation technique that involves simulated drowning.

"I take the position that this is mock execution. ... Colloquially speaking, at least it's torture," Prince says.

The fact whatever Mohammed said during such duress could be used at trial is alarming to Prince.

continue reading

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/042108a.html

What About the War, Benedict?

By Ray McGovern
April 21, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in the United States last week against a macabre backdrop featuring reports of torture, execution and war. He chose not to notice.

Torture: Fresh reporting by ABC from inside sources depicted George W. Bush’s most senior aides (Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice and Tenet) meeting dozens of times in the White House during 2002/03 to sort out the most efficient mix of torture techniques for captured “terrorists.”

When initially ABC attempted to insulate the president from this sordid activity, Bush abruptly bragged that he knew all about it and approved. That comment and the action memorandum Bush signed on Feb. 7, 2002, dispelled any lingering doubt regarding his personal responsibility for authorizing torture.

Execution: Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court, with a majority of judges calling themselves Catholic, was openly deliberating on whether one gram, or two, or perhaps three of this or that chemical would be the preferred way to execute people.

Source: http://condimustgo.com/

Ask Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama to join us in calling on Secretary of State Rice to resign.

America will not stand for a Secretary of State who approved torture and then misled Congress. We call on the Presidential candidates to ask Secretary of State Rice to resign

We have crossed an awful threshold. The leaders of the "free world" have admitted--after years of denials and scapegoating of "bad apples"--to authorizing torture. They have admitted they are war criminals. And still impeachment hearings have not begun.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4631535
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/comments?type=story&id=4635175

Now they have said it to our faces. What are we going to do about it?

Gary Webb refused to be complicit. For his courage, the Mockingbird character assassins remembered him with this hit-piece of an obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/obituaries/13webb.html

After the 2004 election, five weeks before his "suicide", he called out the American people for their apathy and moral cowardice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3977503.stm

"What this election tells me, unfortunately, is that it doesn't matter to most Americans if their government lies to them repeatedly.

They no longer care if their leaders erode their civil liberties, push this country further towards a police state, or shroud their actions in additional layers of official secrecy.

Anyone who had half a brain and cared to look knew this was going on . . . a similar pattern of deceit, obfuscation and willful negligence as with the WMD issue . . . the Emperor Wears No Clothes . . . and no one near Bush or Cheney had the kajones to stand up to them . . . Well, those that did, lost their jobs, or worse . . . .

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080428/gillers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Torture Memo
by STEPHEN GILLERS

[from the April 28, 2008 issue]

The Justice Department is investigating the lawyers whose memos gave the Bush Administration the legal support it needed for waterboarding and other brutal interrogation techniques. We are "examining whether the legal advice in these memoranda was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys," H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel for the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, wrote to two Democratic senators in February.