Truth Commission

Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union by David Swanson

davidswanson — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:03:55 -0400

Book Can Now Be Ordered, Book Tour Being Planned

You can now pre-order my book at Amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook

It's a thick book containing everything I know - and then some - for $10 (pre-order discount price). And you can support a good cause by pre-ordering it now.

You can also call or visit your local bookstore right now and ask them to be sure to stock the book.

If you're in California, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, or Ohio please see below. I'm only coming once to any given state, so please schedule more events for the times I will be in yours! Please don't ask me later why I didn't come to your town!

If you're in another state, please contact me re dates in 2010. -- David Swanson

Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union will be published by Seven Stories Press on September 1, 2009.

"[Daybreak is] a useful guide to restore the balance of powers and reclaim our constitutional system of government."-Majorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild

"Daybreak urgently reminds us that good political intentions are not sufficient to ensure the continuation of our democracy; informed vigilance is vital to that task."-Mark Karlin, editor of Buzzflash.com

Pre-order now: http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook

Bring the Tour to Your Town

I'm planning events around the country. If you'd like me to come to your town or can help with planning an event, please check out this info and let me know.

Here's the schedule so far:

Sept. 1-6 unavailable

Sept. 7 Kent, OH
Sept. 10 Toledo, OH
NEED MORE OHIO DATES Sept 8 and 9 These are the only days I will come to any part of Ohio!!!

Sept. 11-15 unavailable

Three dates with United Progressives:
Sept. 18 Tulsa, OK
Sept. 19 Oklahoma City, OK
Sept. 20 Stillwater, OK
NEED MORE OK or KS or TX DATES SAME WEEK

Sept. 23 to Oct. 8 unavailable

NM Tour with Ann Wright, Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan, Elliott Adams:
Oct. 9, 10, 11
Albuquerque, Santa Fe, & Taos.

NEED MORE EVENTS Oct. 12 to 13

October 14 Miami, FL at 8 p.m. at
http://booksandbooks.com
October 15 Orlando, FL

Oct. 16 to Nov. 1 unavailable

November 4 Kutztown, PA
NEED MORE PA DATES FOR NOV. 5, 6, 7. Pittsburgh? Philly? These are the only dates I will come to any other part of Pennsylvania!!!

November 19 Davis, CA
Need more California dates November 20, 21, 22, 23. This is only time I will come to California. SF? LA? SD? Speak up now!!!

December unavailable.

Pre-order now: http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook

Lee-Wexler Bill Would Study Torture-Wiretap Policies

Bob Fertik — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:54:08 -0400

Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Robert Wexler (D-FL), and John Conyers (D-MI) yesterday introduced H.Res. 383 to establish a House-only Select Committee to review "national security laws, policies, and practices."

The Select Committee would consist of 4 Democrats and 3 Republicans. The obvious danger is that John Boehner would appoint rightwing ideologues to obstruct and sabotage any serious work.

The scope of the investigation would be broad, but it would focus on policy rather than prosecution.

(b) INVESTIGATIVE JURISDICTION.—The select committee shall study and make recommendations about the effectiveness of past and present United States law enforcement, national security and intelligence activities and the extent, if any, to which unlawful, improper or unauthorized activities were engaged in by or on behalf of any Federal, State, or local government official, including—

(1) the effectiveness and efficiency of past and present law enforcement, and national security and intelligence policies, programs, and activities;

(2) the development and implementation of policies or practices regarding the capture, detention, transfer, extra-judicial rendition, and treatment of individuals by United States Armed Forces, law enforcement and the United States intelligence community, including policies intended to conceal the fact that a person has been detained by, or at the direct request of, the United States;

(3) the development and implementation of policies or practices regarding domestic surveillance activities, or the surveillance of United States persons abroad;

(4) the adequacy of past and present congressional oversight mechanisms and impediments to access to information necessary to conduct proper oversight; and

(5) such other related matters as the committee deems necessary to carry out its responsibilities.

The ACLU welcomed the bill. Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office, said

"It is vital that Congress play an active role in uncovering the truth about our government’s failed policies and chart the course for legislative reform to prevent their reoccurrence."

But the ACLU reiterated its support for a Special Prosecutor and urged any Select Committee to "avoid granting any immunity that could thwart the prosecutor’s work."

“Torture is a crime, and no one is above the law,” added Fredrickson. “There is more than enough evidence in the public domain to warrant a criminal investigation.”

We Need a Special Prosecutor, Not a Truth Commission

Bob Fertik — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:59:49 -0400

Today's news is dominated by a conflict among leading Democrats over a Truth Commission. Speaker Pelosi has supported a Truth Commission since John Conyers proposed it earlier this year. But President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Reid oppose it.

“The president said that given all that’s on the agenda and the pressing issues facing the country, that a backward-looking investigation would not be productive,” said a White House official who attended the session. “The president was very clear ... that he believes it’s important that there’s not a witch hunt.”

"I think the last few days might well be evidence of why something like this would likely just become a political back-and-forth," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

"I believe what we have to do is wait until the intelligence committee finishes its work," Reid told the Las Vegas Sun.

This whole debate is a sideshow and a distraction. Even Glenn Greenwald got sucked into it:

as they have done for years, Democratic leaders continue to lead the way in shielding Bush crimes from scrutiny and stifling public disclosure of what was done. Obama met yesterday with Congressional leaders and emphatically argued against the establishment of a Truth Commission, insisting that such an inquiry would interfere with his political agenda.

A Truth Commission is a bad idea because it would primarily serve to deflect and delay a criminal investigation, which is what we really need because crimes were committed, just as Greenwald says.

The need for criminal investigations is motivated by one simple, consummately apolitical fact: serious and brutal crimes were committed at the highest levels of the government, ones that left a trail of many victims. A country that purports to live under the rule of law has no choice but to treat its most powerful members who commit serious crimes exactly the same as ordinary citizens who do so.

A Truth Commission would not be a criminal investigation. The last Truth Commission - the 9/11 Commission - was designed specifically not to lay blame or refer charges. Michael Ratner goes further in arguing against a Truth Commission:

The commission process will drag on, statutes of limitation will run and the conclusion of the commission is likely to be: the US should not have tortured, but it was an extraordinary and dangerous moment after 9/11 and the torturers were acting in our best interest to avoid another 9/11. Prosecutions are not recommended.

That's exactly the kind of Washington elite self-protection and non-accountability that Greenwald so eloquently opposes.

So let's forget about a Truth Commission and just focus on prosecution. It could be led by the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, but really should be led by a Special Prosecutor because the DOJ itself was directly involved in the scandal and therefore has a conflict.

That's exactly why we and our allies from the ACLU, FireDogLake, and Moveon delivered over 250,000 petitions to Eric Holder yesterday when he testified before the House Appropriations Committee.

Key Democrats Dodge Torture Prosecutions

Bob Fertik — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:23:41 -0400

Despite the torture memo revelations, Democratic leaders are showing little interest in prosecuting torturers, according to Jason Leopold:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy reiterated his calls for a bipartisan “truth commission.”

“The Bush administration not only ran roughshod over our values and law, they undercut the public trust of the American people and tarnished American’s prestige and authority throughout the world,” Leahy said. “These legal memoranda demonstrate in alarming detail exactly what the Bush administration authorized for “high value detainees” in U.S. custody. The techniques are chilling. This was not an “abstract legal theory,” as some former Bush administration officials have characterized it. These were specific techniques authorized to be used on real people.

“We cannot continue to look the other way; we need to understand how these policies were formed if we are to ensure that this can never happen again. This is why my proposal for a Commission of Inquiry is necessary. We must take a thorough accounting of what happened, not to move a partisan agenda, but to own up to what was done in the name of national security, and to learn from it.”

But Leahy has previously said that such a committee would never get off the ground without the support of Republicans.

Republicans are adamantly opposed to a Truth Commission, and support prosecution instead. So why doesn't Senator Leahy simply adopt their position and call for prosecution?

Sen. Carl Levin, D-MI, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said “If we are to retain our status as a leader in the world, we must acknowledge and confront these abuses. Only then can we credibly object to the use of abusive tactics on our troops when they are captured.”

Levin’s committee is expected to release the full declassified report on the roles senior Bush administration officials played in implementing torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The report, which is 200 pages and contains 2000 footnotes, is in the process of being declassified by the Defense Department.

Levin stresses the simple point that no one else ever mentions - if we don't want our captured soldiers to be tortured, then we'd better not torture prisoners ourselves!

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, who requested a couple of weeks ago that Holder appoint a special prosecutor to begin a criminal investigation into the Bush administration’s use of torture, did not renew those calls following the release of the memos.

“The legal analysis and some of the techniques in these memos are truly shocking and mark a disturbing chapter in our nation's history,” Conyers said. “Hopefully these practices have been ended for all time. Critical questions still remain, including the role and legal culpability of high-ranking officials in the former administration in directing and approving the use of these troubling techniques. I urge the administration to continue to ensure that the rule of law is upheld concerning this matter."

The only way to "ensure that the rule of law is upheld" is through prosecution. Conyers knows it so why won't he come out and say it?

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Hears Complaints Against United States

davidswanson — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:22:21 -0400

By David Swanson

Leading human rights organizations in the United States on March 20th presented charges of human rights abuse and torture against the U.S. government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which can recommend actions, including prosecutions, to the U.S. government, other nations' governments, or the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Colleen Costello of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Jamil Dakwar of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) spoke at the hearing in Washington, D.C., on "Accountability for Violations of Human Rights in the United States."

The speakers presented evidence of torture and insisted on the need for prosecutions. A representative of the U.S. government defended torture, or rather the refusal to prosecute torture, or rather he avoided the topic while managing to speak at length. The career diplomat taking the stage for this Colin Powell moment was Lewis Amselem, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the Organization of American States (OAS).

The full video of the hearing is available at http://www.cidh.oas.org and is well worth watching. The written complaints filed with the IACHR will be posted at http://afterdowningstreet.org/iachr

Here is Colleen Costello's testimony:

And Michael Ratner's:

Spring Break for Iraq

davidswanson — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:33:28 -0400

By David Swanson

I'm honored to have been included in this event and applaud what Our Spring Break and DC Students for a Democratic Society are doing here in cold, wet Washington, D.C., for spring break.

We're now at 6 years of bloody and horrific occupation of Iraq, and 7.5 years in Afghanistan. That means that most college students in the United States were not yet college students when this began. Opposing something that you grow up with takes more wisdom and more nerve, and yet we see young people in this town and in this country opposing the way old people have always destroyed the environment, the way old people have always borrowed and misspent money, and the way our nation treats other people around the world exactly as we teach little children never to treat each other.

Little children in Iraq and Afghanistan have grown up with these wars and been scarred by them in ways it's hard to think about very long. An Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George W. Bush, and who could - if he chose - be elected president of Iraq in three years when they let him out of prison at age 33, was only 24 when this occupation began. And for a decade before that, he knew our nation through the sanctions we imposed and bombs we dropped on his. We've now built permanent U.S. military bases all over his country, which most people there -- including U.S. generals -- believe we will never abandon.

Meanwhile we don't provide housing, basic shelter to our own people, to the people of this city, much less the people of Iraq, 5 million of whom have been displaced from their homes, over a million killed, many millions injured, virtually everyone's family impacted in a way that's not familiar to most parts of America outside of New Orleans.

And what have we learned in 6 years? Many Americans have learned that the war in Iraq was based on lies and have learned to be suspicious of similar lies about Iran. But some have not yet learned to oppose war as an instrument of policy, because the occupation of Afghanistan is not yet as unpopular as the one in Iraq. And I doubt most Americans know that we pay to maintain a thousand bases in nations around the world, or the harm they do.

What has been learned has in large part been taught by the peace movement. We knew 6 years ago and a year before that, that this war would be fraudulent, illegal, and disastrous. Many of you knew it and could have served better in Congress than the actual Congress members if you hadn't been busy attending high school.

Today there are hearings in Congress on suicides in the US military. The people we recruit to commit our crimes now end up killing themselves at an alarming rate. If that finally wakes up a few of the zombies roaming Capitol Hill, it won't be a moment too soon. But it has to be asked: Where are the hearings for Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Palestinians? A victim of US torture testified last year via satellite to a nearly empty committee room, after which Congressman Rohrabacher explained to him that in a war mistakes must be tolerated. And our senators now talk about truth and reconciliation, oblivious to the fact that involving the people with whom we need reconciliation is literally unthinkable. The idea, instead, is for us to get reconciled with ourselves. Tell me this: will you ever be reconciled with your nation committing war crimes? Will you?

I'm glad students want a democratic society. If we had direct democracy or even reasonable representation -- something that DC doesn't even have the pretense of -- every soldier, mercenary, and contractor would have come home from Iraq years ago. A solid majority of Americans has opposed this occupation for years. And about half and rising now oppose the occupation of Afghanistan as well.

A democratic society cannot coexist with the presidential powers seized by Bush and now being maintained and expanded by Obama. A democratic society does not have secret government agencies, secret laws, laws rewritten by the executive, one man with the power of war, one man with the power of the purse, one man with the power of treaty. Yet President Obama, who to his credit has said he will end torture and close one of the many places where we detain people outside the law, last week wrote a signing statement telling Congress not to interfere in his Constitutional power to make treaties, despite the fact that the Constitution says two-thirds of the senate must approve any treaty.

We are being sold changiness when we asked for transformational change. We're done with extraordinary rendition, but rendition will now be ordinary. We have no more enemy combatants, but we are detaining hundreds of combative nemeses. Yesterday I got an Email from Amnesty International asking me to object to Obama reviving Bush's policies. Well, they never died and they are not policies. They are what we used to call crimes. Also yesterday, the ACLU finally, finally, finally -- FINALLY! -- came to its senses and asked the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor and enforce the law.

And yet too many in the peace movement don’t want to talk about the law, even the laws against aggressive war. Many don't even want to talk about wars, preferring to talk about military spending. And we must talk about military spending, but doing that alone will not end wars. And the wars are just as bloody no matter who is sleeping in the White House. It's easier to talk about money now that everything that needs it lacks it, but it's also harder because we now have toy money, borrowed from China or invented by the Fed at the drop of a hat and in military quantities.

We may even end up halting some weapons programs, especially weapons that don't work or are designed to fight the Soviet Union or the Japanese fleet. But this Congress and president want to increase the overall budget for killing. This will be a victory against corruption on behalf of the greatest moral corruption known to our species.

For what we're giving to bankers we could give tens of thousands of dollars to every American, but for what we're spending -- including indirect economic costs -- on the occupation of Iraq, we could give $100,000 to every Iraqi.

Let's get our priorities straight -- including ending wars not just because they are badly fought or corruptly managed, but because they kill human beings.

End the occupations.

End the missile strikes.

Close the bases.

Bring our brothers and sisters home.

Prosecute the war criminals.

And create a truth and reconciliation commission that reconciles the United States with the other 95 percent of humanity.

Torture Revealed Yet Again

davidswanson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:08:05 -0400

By David Swanson

As with the evidence that Bush, Cheney, and gang intentionally lied us into a war, or the evidence of illegal and unconstitutional spying, each time a major new piece of evidence of torture emerges, it is impossible not to hope that this is the one that will compel the Justice Department or Congress or the courts or the American people to act decisively. Certainly I hope that, right now, the day after Mark Danner reported on a report from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

But let's not kid ourselves. Everyone has known that the United States was torturing for years. Congress has known it so well that it has both attempted to legislate immunity for the torturers (through the McCain Amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act and through the Military Commissions Act) and put on a show of attempting to "ban" torture, despite its having already been illegal under U.S. law and treaties to which the United States is a party. We've witnessed high profile lobbying competitions over whether or not Congress should "ban" torture again. We've seen President Bush declare his right to torture in signing statements. And we've seen Congress respond to those with renewed proposals to yet again "ban" torture. President Obama was elected promising to stop the torturing, and has announced that he is doing so, as well as that he will someday close one of the many places we illegally detain people without charge. But torture in that place (Guantanamo) has reportedly worsened, and Obama is not letting independent groups in to observe.

There are publicly available videotapes of Bush (April 11, 2008; Jan. 11, 2009) and Cheney (Dec. 15, 2008) confessing to authorizing torture. There are reports and photographs and videotapes from Abu Ghraib, some of which certain members of Congress have seen but the public has not. There are reports from dozens and dozens of victims, and from torturers and jailers. There are dozens of dead bodies, victims of torture, identified, and the torture techniques used to kill them identified. (This is separate from Cheney's assassination squad recently reported on by Seymour Hersh, which may not have used torture as its murder technique.) There are full-blown public scandals in nearby and allied nations like Canada, Britain, and Germany, over our torture of their citizens. Italy is trying members of our secret government in absentia for kidnapping a man in their country and having him tortured. Victims from around the world are suing former members of our government and corporations involved in the crimes, and Eric Holder's Justice Department is opposing those efforts, seeking to keep information secret and prevent accountability for crimes. Obama's administration is threatening the British government in order to do the same.

"Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo," by Murat Kurnaz resulted in this one victim of torture speaking to a largely empty U.S. Congressional committee hearing via satellite. After he'd told part of his story, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher told him that the United States was at war and needed to protect itself even at the price of making some errors.

Publicly available are numerous memos, orders, and directives through which President Bush authorized torture and obtained "legal" views that illegality was now legal. Here are two collections: One, Two. Many more such documents are already known and identified, but not yet released by Bush or Obama. We have reports from torturers and participants on the US side. We have reports that draw on the testimony of both participants and victims. We have books that draw on the testimony of participants and the findings of secret government reports, books like Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side", Philippe Sands' "The Torture Team", Jack Goldsmith's "The Terror Presidency", Steven Wax's "Kafka Comes To America", and Andy Worthington's "The Guantanamo Files". We have reports that organize and summarize the information in these books. We have a report from the Senate Armed Services Committee detailing the authorization of torture by Bush and his subordinates, and rumors that a stronger report has been kept secret. We have reports that a Department of Justice report that is being kept secret contains Emails in which the White House asked the Department of Justice for its illegal "legal" opinions. (Activists are demanding a special prosecutor investigation, while just releasing that report would hammer home the fact that no investigation is needed prior to indictments.) We know that the CIA destroyed 92 "interrogation" tapes, and we have a good idea from Danner's report on the Red Cross report what's on most of the tapes.

Danner reports in the New York Times and the New York Review of Books on the accounts given to the Red Cross by 14 victims of US torture in secret foreign sites who were later transferred to Guantanamo. Each use of torture was approved from Washington by such people as Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and John Ashcroft, who were briefed almost daily by George Tenet. Danner draws some obvious conclusions, none of which are new:

"1. Beginning in the spring of 2002 the United States government began to torture prisoners. This torture, approved by the President of the United States and monitored in its daily unfolding by senior officials, including the nation's highest law enforcement officer, clearly violated major treaty obligations of the United States, including the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, as well as US law.

"2. The most senior officers of the US government, President George W. Bush first among them, repeatedly and explicitly lied about this, both in reports to international institutions and directly to the public. The President lied about it in news conferences, interviews, and, most explicitly, in speeches expressly intended to set out the administration's policy on interrogation before the people who had elected him.

"3. The US Congress, already in possession of a great deal of information about the torture conducted by the administration—which had been covered widely in the press, and had been briefed, at least in part, from the outset to a select few of its members—passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and in so doing attempted to protect those responsible from criminal penalty under the War Crimes Act.

"4. Democrats, who could have filibustered the bill, declined to do so—a decision that had much to do with the proximity of the midterm elections, in the run-up to which, they feared, the President and his Republican allies might gain advantage by accusing them of 'coddling terrorists.' One senator summarized the politics of the Military Commissions Act with admirable forthrightness:

"' Soon, we will adjourn for the fall, and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be criticized as caring more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans. And I know that the vote before us was specifically designed and timed to add more fuel to that fire.'

"Senator Barack Obama was only saying aloud what every other legislator knew: that for all the horrified and gruesome exposés, for all the leaked photographs and documents and horrific testimony, when it came to torture in the September 11 era, the raw politics cut in the other direction. Most politicians remain convinced that still fearful Americans—given the choice between the image of 24 's Jack Bauer, a latter-day Dirty Harry, fantasy symbol of untrammeled power doing "everything it takes" to protect them from that ticking bomb, and the image of weak liberals "reading Miranda rights to terrorists"—will choose Bauer every time. As Senator Obama said, after the bill he voted against had passed, "politics won today."

"5. The political damage to the United States' reputation, and to the 'soft power' of its constitutional and democratic ideals, has been, though difficult to quantify, vast and enduring. In a war that is essentially an insurgency fought on a worldwide scale—which is to say, a political war, in which the attitudes and allegiances of young Muslims are the critical target of opportunity—the United States' decision to use torture has resulted in an enormous self-administered defeat, undermining liberal sympathizers of the United States and convincing others that the country is exactly as its enemies paint it: a ruthless imperial power determined to suppress and abuse Muslims. By choosing to torture, we freely chose to become the caricature they made of us."

Point #4 above has a certain weakness as framed by Danner. He does not note the role of the news media in shaping public opinion. Nor does he note the stunning resistance of the public to that shaping, as found in a recent USA Today / Gallup poll showing that Americans favor holding accountable those who authorized torture. Nor does he sufficiently point out that Obama is evidence against his own claim: he voted No on the Military Commissions Act and was elected president. Nor does Danner mention that Democrats in the House could have voted No as well as filibustering in the Senate. It would be interesting to know how long the New York Times has sat on this story, as well as how long it took the Red Cross to leak the report (over two years?).

Another important point that this misses is that many of those who have been tortured were not terrorists, at least prior to being tortured. Andy Worthington has documented that "[A]t least 93 percent of the 779 men and boys in [Guantanamo]-- were either completely innocent people, seized as a result of dubious intelligence or sold for bounty payments, or Taliban foot soldiers, recruited to fight an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or international terrorism.”

Danner points out that there is no evidence that useful information has been obtained by torture. He leaves open the possibility that some has, but I find this highly dubious. If such evidence of the utility of torture existed, it would have been trumpeted from the rooftops by now. The important point is #5 above. Whether or not any torturer has learned anything accurate and useful, huge damage has been done that certainly outweighs whatever it was -- even as calculated from a moral standpoint in which only American lives have value. But Danner fails to fully expand on his point. Not only has U.S. torture been the single biggest recruiting tool for anti-U.S. terrorist groups, but U.S. abuse of human rights has encouraged other nations to follow suit. And this blatant disregard for the law has encouraged other leaders at home and abroad to feel more comfortable disregarding other laws as well.

The New York Review of Books yesterday admitted the obvious in point #1 above: our president was a criminal. But Danner and others suggest that perhaps that's not enough, that we must first persuade a majority of Americans to oppose torture before action can be taken to seriously deter its future use. As I've already noted, this misses the fact that a majority of Americans want action now. But it is also a strangely selective transformation of our Constitutional republic into a direct democracy. A majority of Americans disapprove of our punitive system for drug use, but the prosecutions continue. A majority of Americans want an end to corporate tax loopholes, but the holes go right on looping. A majority of Americans think taxes are too high on working people, yet the tax bills keep coming. A majority of Americans want a higher minimum wage, but they can't get employers to pay it. A majority of Americans want habeas corpus maintained for everyone, but it isn't. Almost all Americans want higher auto fuel efficiency standards, but gas guzzlers keep coughing out black smoke. And so on. Why is it that when very important people's crimes are involved, we suddenly throw out laws and institute direct democracy (and then ignore the will of the people to boot)?

Enforcement of the law is not legally an option, and is required by treaty obligations. Attorney General Eric Holder effectively admitted awareness of the crimes at his confirmation hearing. Not to do so would have brought into question whether he'd been conscious the last several years. And yet his loyalty is clearly to Obama, not the law.

The Detainee Treatment Act and Military Commissions Act do not provide an excuse. Article VI of our Constitution makes treaties we ratify the supreme law of the land. Torture cannot be legalized and torturers cannot be immunized. Even assuming such things to be possible, these legislative attempts at immunity left holes, as Larry Velvel has pointed out, including for cases in which the victims were citizens, and cases in which the victims are not "enemy combatants." Many victims were never determined to be "enemy combatants," a court could easily throw out the term as legally meaningless, and Obama's administration has ceased using it (even while continuing the policies of detention and rendition).

Keeping secret agencies secret is not an excuse. Holder could create a prosecutor for torture by the military if he wanted to let the CIA off. Or he could target Bush, Cheney, and other top officials, leaving the underlings alone. But the secrecy of government operations is what facilitates criminal behavior, and therefore makes a lousy excuse for not punishing it.

In June 2008, 56 Democratic Congress members, led by Congressman John Conyers, wrote to Attorney General Mukasey asking for a Special Prosecutor. Conyers and Congressman Jerrold Nadler wrote to Mukasey again in December 2008. Nadler said weeks ago that he was drafting a new letter. Just as with Holder, Congress members tend to obey people, not laws or moral requirements. Nadler is unlikely to act without Conyers. Conyers is unlikely to act without Nancy Pelosi. And Pelosi shares blame because she and a handful of other top Congress members were privately told to some extent about the torture early on and kept silent. Pelosi's comments in the media suggest that she would prefer prosecutions to public hearings, but there is no doubt that her first choice would be neither, and as long as Democrats join Republicans in opposing calls by Conyers and Senator Patrick Leahy to create "truth commissions," and as long as powerful members of government all refrain from asking Holder to enforce the law, the option of doing nothing will remain available.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is holding secret hearings, or claiming to. But the value of that may be nil, and the point may be to weaken the push for a commission by the Senate Judiciary Committee or to assert jurisdiction over CIA materials that the Judiciary Committee could conceivably make public. Meanwhile, the proposals by the two Judiciary Committee chairs (Leahy and Conyers) appear counterproductive unless usable as tools for scaring up support for prosecutions instead. Investigations substituted for impeachment for two full years. Actually holding a "truth and reconciliation" commission as a substitute for prosecution would be counterproductive, as argued by Jonathan Turley, Peter Dyer, David Swanson, Bob Fertik, and Martin Garbus. The Justice Department itself has argued for "state secrets" blocks on prosecutions on the grounds that commissions can substitute for enforcing laws. They cannot. And they are unlikely to reveal as much information as are whistleblowers and the occasional journalists who do their jobs.

The truth that I think we should all insist upon is that Bush and Cheney committed serious crimes and have yet to be held accountable, and that we risk a slide into presidential dictatorship if we allow our nation to become reconciled to that.

There are several easy steps anyone can take to correct this situation.

Dianne Feinstein Plans Torture Coverup

Bob Fertik — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:53:48 -0500

In January, Dianne Feinstein replaced Jay Rockefeller as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. And her first act as chair will be to coverup the Bush System of Torture. Joby Warrick of the Pentagon Post is the CIA's embedded spokesliar:

The officials described the planned inquiry as a "study" and stressed that it would not yield recommendations for possible legal proceedings.

Why not? Because the new CIA Director, Leon Panetta, wants to protect the torturers:

"I would not support, obviously, an investigation or a prosecution of those individuals" involved in the interrogation program, he said. "They did their job, they did it pursuant to the guidance that was provided them, whether you agreed or disagreed with it.

We can debate whether lower-level CIA torturers who "just followed orders" should be prosecuted. The United States emphatically rejected that defense for Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. The fact that Dick Cheney's neo-Nazi lawyer, David Addington, instructed John Yoo to write flagrantly lawless (and hence criminal) memos "legalizing" torture does not change the moral and legal responsibility of CIA officials to refuse to follow orders to torture.

But there is no debate whether those who gave the orders to torture should be prosecuted. And that starts at the very top with George Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, Donald Rumsfeld, and top officials at the CIA and the Pentagon who implemented and managed the torture regime.

That's what a plurality of Americans want. That's what the Convention Against Torture requires. And that's why Attorney General Eric Holder must appoint a Special Prosecutor now.

Update 1: The key to the coverup will be to acknowledge the limited use of waterboarding and other "harsh interrogation tactics" while blacking out the 34-45 documented cases of detainee murder. It's a familiar spy trick called the "limited hangout."

Victor Marchetti wrote: "A 'limited hangout' is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting - sometimes even volunteering - some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.

Joby Warrick's article is a textbook example of a "limited hangout," which is exactly what we expect from the torture-loving Pentagon Post.

In early January, Warrick (along with Michael Abramowitz and Walter Pincus, a good guy who should know better) warned President-elect Obama not to mess with the CIA:

Obama actions will also be watched closely by the career officials at the CIA, who want to see how supportive the new president and his team will be. Former CIA officials note that all the agency's actions were authorized by Bush with legal opinions and concurrence by senior White House officials and Congress. "The Obama people can run against the Bush guys all they want, but they shouldn't run down the CIA," said one retired agency official.

I wonder if they pinned Warwick's article to a Godfather-style horse's head in Obama's bed.

Update 2: Once upon a time, the newspaper formerly known as the Washington Post exposed Richard Nixon's "modified limited hangout," as all Watergate fans remember. But then-publisher Katherine Graham killed that newspaper and went to CIA headquarters to read its epitaph.

We live in a dirty and dangerous world...There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.

Don't you love the "democracy flourishes" part? It's like Barbara Bush says - the American people shouldn't worry our beautiful minds on ugly things like brutal acts of torture committed in our name.

Update 3: The Pentagon Post doesn't just love torture and disastrous imperial conquests. It also loves global warming, as the dynamic duo of Eric Boehlert and Jamison Foser brilliantly document. If the Post had to rely on newspaper income it would follow the Rocky Mountain News into oblivion. Sadly, it stays in business by exploiting teenagers who are trying to get into college.

Update 4: Marcy Wheeler explains how Feinstein is sabotaging fellow Democrat Pat Leahy's "Truth Commission":

understand the turf battle going on. Pat Leahy will have an investigation regardless of what DiFi says--and he's going to start it now. So DiFi issues a vaguely formulated leak saying that she's going to cover the CIA's role in torture. And, voila! Now the CIA and DiFi can try to circumscribe Leahy's investigation. And of course, by doing an investigation that starts with the premise that it is "not designed to determine whether CIA officials broke laws," even while admitting that CIA officers may have gone beyond the "instructions issued in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks," it ensures no accountability even for those who went beyond Cheney's torture regime. And, finally, absolutely no current plans to make public the results, either through public hearings or by releaing a report.

Marcy wants Feinstein to publish her report, but that will only complete the "limited hangout" coverup; we need Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor.

Update 5: Meteor Blades made a similar point two days ago about Sen. Leahy's proposed "Truth Commission" before Feinstein's coverup was leaked:

A more narrowly focused Torture Commission will have to do. Of course, it could be the perfect venue for a whitewash, something ultimately amounting to what Nixon counsel John Ehrlichman called a "modified limited hang-out". But when the last major government commission undertook its work, the blogosphere was in its infancy. Now it is hard to imagine that any investigation would not be monitored by torturecommission.com, .org, .net, and all other manner of highly motivated and qualified watchers shadowing the investigation’s every move. Public oversight of the overseers, imperfect no doubt, but more attentive than ever before.

Truth Commission Battle Begins March 4

Bob Fertik — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:41:37 -0500

Senate Judiciary chair Pat Leahy just scheduled a March 4 hearing entitled "Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry" (h/t Ari Melber). But it won't actually be a hearing to "get the truth" - just a debate over whether or not to get the truth.

Prediction #1: Republican Senators will not want hearings to "get the truth" for these reasons:

those who engaged in torture were heroes because we haven't been attacked since 9/11
investigating torture will cause terrorists to attack the US and Democrats will be responsible
investigating torture will cause everyone at the CIA to quit immediately
torture was "legal" because John Yoo has a law degree
Democrats approved torture in top-secret briefings but won't admit it so they are more evil than the torturers

Prediction #2: All of the points made above will be screamed by rightwing liars for the next two weeks: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Pat Buchanan, Joe Scarborough, the Wall Street Journal, George Will, Frank Gaffney, Ari Fleischer, the Rent-a-Generals, etc. Yes, everyone who was certain we had to invade Iraq will be back on our TV's equally certain that America must torture.

Prediction #3: The Corporate Media will ignore the fact that everyone who defends torture was 1000% wrong about Iraq. The Corporate Media will ignore the fact that everyone who opposes torture was 1000% right about Iraq. Torture supporters will outnumber torture opponents on TV by 3-1.

Prediction #4: The Corporate Media will never point out that 34-45 prisioners were murdered, and they will never show photos of those who were brutally beaten or murdered. Instead they will pretend torture was just uncomfortable.

Prediction #5: The Corporate Media will never point out that George Bush and Dick Cheney both admitted on TV that they authorized torture. They will never mention the meetings of the "Principals" where torture sessions were carefully choreographed.

Prediction #6: The Corporate Media will produce polls showing Americans do not want hearings on torture. Those polls will not ask Americans if they want prosecutions for torture.

Update 1: Sam Stein reports on Sen. Leahy's floor speech today:

Stating that he is in discussion with members of Congress, outside groups, and even the White House, Leahy boiled down his argument to one very rudimentary question: "How can we restore our moral leadership and ensure transparent government if we ignore what has happened?"

"I share that desire to move forward, and to reestablish ourselves as a Nation dedicated to the rule of law, respected and trusted throughout the world," he said, according to prepared remarks. "We also know that the past can be prologue unless we set things right."

Unfortunately the only way to "set things right" is to prosecute the torturers, but Sen. Leahy thinks that would take 15 years - even though Bush and Cheney confessed to their crimes on national TV.

Update 2: Glenn Greenwald thinks there's a 50/50 chance a Truth Commission would lead to prosecutions.

It's true that those who create the Commission might -- as Whitehouse suggests -- intend it to be a substitute for prosecutions rather than a precursor to them. It's also possible that the Commission can be designed merely to placate those who are demanding that something be done, and -- if immunity is doled out to high-level Bush officials -- it could simply whitewash these crimes and even make prosecutions impossible. But it's just as possible that once an independent body is created with real subpoena power and an authentic mandate to dig and disclose, it could turn into a Frankenstein: capable of doing damage far beyond what its creators intended.

As the saying goes, "hope is not a strategy." If we want prosecutions instead of a coverup, we need to demand them.

Update 3: Brad Friedman says Sen. Whitehouse is particularly interested in proving torture doesn't work:

the tenacious Sen. Whitehouse seems keen on using this investigation to help disprove the often asserted notion that the Bush, um, "enhanced interrogation" policies saved lives, despite the lack of evidence supporting that wishful thinking, and the growing body of evidence and testimony --- from those who actually know --- which plainly disputes it.

Retired Maj. Gen. Tony Taguba, who led the investigation of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, is quoted from a recent interview as disputing those who have claimed --- from the comfort of their keyboards --- that torture saved lives: "Some of those activities were actually not effective and those who thought so were in the academic or pristine settings of their offices," Taguba told Salon. "What would they know?"

Whitehouse adds: "It is important to prove the point, because they keep saying, 'We saved lives. We interrupted plans. We did this, that and the other.'...Well, when you drill down, there is never a fact there. It turns into fog and evasion."

Again, with Whitehouse on both the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, with access to much more information than has been made public to date, he oughta know. At least slightly more so than the Wingnuts who rule the public airwaves and, with it, the public "debate" on these issues to date.

Nancy Pelosi Is 'Very Serious' About Torture, Wiretaps, and Contempt

Bob Fertik — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:39:22 -0500

On Thursday, Newsweek's Howard Fineman broke huge news about Nancy Pelosi on Countdown:

the news based on talking to people around her and advisers to her just this afternoon after that story broke is that she is very serious about this.

The one part of it that Nancy Pelosi doesn‘t really want to mess with, I‘m told, is the evidence about the war in Iraq. Now, the whole question of the buildup for the war and whether lies were told about that and the reason for that is—she believes that she and other Democrats on the Hill knew that it was a phony deal, said so at the time, and she doesn‘t think there is any percentage of going over that particularly.

But yes on torture, yes on possibly the eavesdropping things, yes on Guantanamo, and certainly, especially yes on the question of coming before the Congress to testify. She is really determined on that point and seems very eager to try to haul Karl Rove and others into court for contempt.

Of course we all want to prosecute everyone in the Bush Administration who lied about Iraq, so we will not stop pushing for it. But it's huge news that Pelosi is "very serious" about investigating torture, wiretaps, Gitmo, and contempt of Congress.

Update 1: In the Countdown segment that followed, Jonathan Turley rightly warned against a whitewash instead of an investigation that would lead to criminal prosecution:

I would love to see this type of aggressive role of Congress in dealing with this. But I am very concerned about this idea of compromises and negotiations. Many of these things become sort of Capitol Hill kabuki of approved questions and answers. That‘s not what we want. And we certainly do not need another commission like the 9/11 Commission.