Video: Debate on War Crimes and Torture: Should High Government Officials Be Investigated and Prosecuted?

Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights and Author, "The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book"

Stuart Taylor, Columnist, National Journal and Contributing Editor, Newsweek

MODERATOR: David Vladeck, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center

Ratner's new book, "The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld," lays out the evidence that high-level officials of the Bush administration ordered, authorized, implemented and permitted war crimes, in particular the crimes of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Ratner and Taylor will make their respective cases for and against Rumsfeld and other officials in the Bush administration.

This event is sponsored by the Georgetown Law Supreme Court Institute.

WATCH VIDEO.

Co-sponsors Ask your Rep to co-sponsor! (To be added)

This is the first resolution urging President Bush not to pardon senior administration officials for crimes the President authorized. It urges Congress to investigate those crimes and any pardons relating to those crimes, and urges the Attorney General (current or future) to appoint an Independent Counsel to prosecute those crimes. Please ask your Rep to co-sponsor!

H.Res. 1531
Introduced on 11/20/08 by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) (Press Release)
Referred to the Judiciary Committee

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the President of the United States should not issue pardons to senior members of his administration during the final 90 days of his term of office.

To be honest, Obama, you lost me when you voted for the PATRIOT Act reauthorization in 2006. You lost me again when you voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) amendment in 2008. And you lost me every single time you voted for yet more war funding.

Don't even get me started on your vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

I cast a ballot for you in November, but I just can't share in this moment of collective euphoria over your election.

So, if your transition team really wants feedback on "where President-Elect Obama should lead this country," here's a Top Five list:

Apparently very few journalists and bloggers have clicked the links to the English original and Arabic-to-English re-translation, because they keep calling the agreement a "Status of Forces Agreement" or (even less accurately) a "security agreement."

If they clicked the links they would discover the original English title is:

Agreement
Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq
On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq

Judge Patricia Wald, former chief judge for the D.C. Court of Appeals and jurist on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, writing in the new report "Guantánamo and Its Aftermath" (pdf):

Natalie Sherman caught an interesting fact about Eric Holder, who is rumored to be Obama's choice for Attorney General:

As The American Lawyer wrote in a profile this year, Holder was independent enough that he advised then-AG Janet Reno to allow the widening of Ken Starr's investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair -- which ultimately led to Clinton's impeachment.

If Holder supported an independent counsel investigation of consensual adult sex, how could oppose one for the crimes of the Bush Administration - including torture and warrantless wiretapping?

Especially since Holder said this in June:

Chris Matthews promises to name a potential pardon recipient every day until Bush leaves offices. Pardonee #1? Jack Abramoff.

The Corporate Media has barely noticed the biggest foreign policy story of the year: Bush's surrender to Iraqi demands for a date certain for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. (Sorry John McCain, this agreement is not "conditions-based." Sorry Dana Perino, there is no "time horizon.")

In the binary world of conservative ideology, there can only be one winner and one loser. In this case, Iraq won and the U.S. lost.

With a new day dawning in Washington, D.C., due to the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in American history who looks determined to govern like Lincoln and make changes in that corrupt town, is it possible that Bush administration officials will totally escape the long arm of justice for their roles in high crimes and misdemeanors more damaging than any corruption in our history?

Yesterday the Bush-Maliki agreement went before the House Foreign Affairs Committee's subcommittee on international organizations, human rights, and oversight, chaired by Jim McGovern.

There was only one small problem: did the committee actually have a copy of the agreement?

Delahunt also berated the Bush administration for refusing to release an official copy of the agreement to the public.

Perhaps they had a classified version. We got our copy from the Iraq Oil Report.

McGovern seems to be the only Member of Congress familiar with the Constitution, which requires Senate approval of all treaties. He wants to know: is the Bush-Maliki agreement a treaty or not? The Boston Globe reports,

By Dave Lindorff

The ongoing and deepening global economic crisis, to which Barack
Obama owes his presidential election victory, is no small thing, to be
sure. It also presents us on the left with a lot of openings to press
for progressive change.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) wrote a good article for Salon about Bush's expected pardons:

An unpardonable use of power

If President Bush cares about his place in history, he should think twice before issuing pardons that call his judgment, and the integrity of the rule of law, into question.

Feingold acknowledges the problem - Bush's pardon power is broad:

The power of the pardon is close to absolute.  Short of interfering with their own impeachment, presidents can pardon whomever they choose. 

Then please read the indictment of Dick Cheney posted here:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/37794

He is charged with influencing ICE to contract with for-profit prison corporations in which he himself has millions invested, and with assaults on inmates and detainees. Alberto Gonzales is charged with blocking investigations of those assaults.

Arraignment is Friday.

An unpardonable use of power
If President Bush cares about his place in history, he should think twice before issuing pardons that call his judgment, and the integrity of the rule of law, into question.
By Sen. Russ Feingold
READ AT SALON.

Unlike other progressive bloggers, I wasn't the least bit surprised when Senate Democrats let Joe Lieberman keep his Homeland Security chair. Why? Because the last eight years of blogging have painfully taught me that all Senate Democrats are worthless. (My only real surprise was that 13 Democratic "mavericks" voted against Joltin' Joe.)

I first learned this lesson on January 6, 2001, when the Senate and House met in joint session to count the Electoral College votes from the 2000 election. Democrats.com worked closely with the Congressional Black Caucus, led by Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, to challenge Florida's 25 electors as illegitimate because 175,000 votes were never counted due to the Felonious Five on the Supreme Court.

The event was made famous by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 911. Hastings filed his legal challenge as planned. But under the law, he had to be joined by one - just one - Senator. And despite our heroic efforts, not a single Democratic Senator was willing to join the Congressional Black Caucus in their challenge. CBC Members rose in turn to second Hastings' motion, but they were all ruled out of order by outgoing Vice President Al Gore because no Democratic Senator would co-sponsor.