Kudos to the Beacon for today's McClatchy Newspaper piece written by Tom Lasseter. Mr. Lasseter explains how the lawlessness, savagery and unaccountability witnessed during the Bush/Cheney administration germinated and grew into the detainee torture and abuse disgrace the nation is finally finding out the details about today.
What was done….
The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of U.S. military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers.
It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.
Why it was done…
The quintet of lawyers, who called themselves the "War Council," drafted legal opinions that circumvented the military's code of justice, the federal court system and America's international treaties in order to prevent anyone — from soldiers on the ground to the president — from being held accountable for activities that at other times have been considered war crimes.
Who made up this "War Council"….
David Addington, the brilliant but abrasive longtime legal adviser and now chief of staff to Cheney.
Alberto Gonzales, first the White House counsel and then the attorney general,…
William J. Haynes II, the former Pentagon general counsel,….
…former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo…
Timothy E. Flanigan, a former deputy to Gonzales…
Bush's reason….
The administration…… set out to circumvent any law that might have restricted Bush's detainee and interrogation programs. Link
The Bush administration has been a lawless regime. Not simply a presidential leader who has casual sex with someone other than his wife in his work office….and then lies about it. Not simply that. Instead, an ongoing, systematic, premeditated and wilful strategy to circumvent and violate international, national, and Constitutional law.
All of the Bush/Cheney co-conspirators, as I've said for many years, deserve to be locked away in federal prisons.
The McClatchy story is yet more evidence to place onto the vast heap of already incriminating material against the worst executive branch in American history.
Extra Bonus Feature:
My-oh-my….
Florida
Obama (D) 47%, McCain (R) 43%
Margin of error: ±2.6%
Ohio
Obama (D) 48%, McCain (R) 42%
Margin of error: ±2.6%
Pennsylvania
Obama (D) 52%, McCain (R) 40%
Margin of error: ±2.5%
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Polls that show Obama up by 4% in Florida make me a tad skeptical. to my knowledge that is the first poll anywhere that has shown McCain trailing Obama in Florida.
You would be the first to blamestorm had we been attacked in the years post 9-11. Have you ever acknowledged that we are in a war and not empire building? I'd love to have a time machine that could send you back to the 60's where you belong. Better yet, you might want to visit the 40's to see how long you would last before the greatest generation deported you to Russia.
BTW – polling data in June is meaningless, manufactured news. Nothing more.
Mr. or Mrs. Locke says we're at war. Perhaps a declaration of war could be produced. Perhaps not. I'm betting no.
Ah, yes…the sixties. When young men and women weren't so gullible and saw and understood the establishment powers for what they were.
Today, instead of challenging the establishment powers….the young work for the establishment powers and yearn to BE the establishment powers. That's very special.
I detect bitterness……hey, I didn't order the torture and the crimes….Dear Leader did.
Little known fact of GOP life: If polls show Democrats ahead….they're meaningless. If polls show GOP'ers ahead…..they're substantive. Hard to figure….just how it is.
Ben: It will still take a few weeks for the poll distillation to give us a product close to reality.
The Rev says we are not at war. Interesting viewpoint. I guess those 4,000 american troops died from Middle Eastern sun poisoning.
In related news, Ahmadinejad says, "Holocaust A Myth" !!!
Hey Rev, does this mean the ABJ is no longer the "Brokeback Beacon" ??? I bet they'll also be happy to be out of your "Knee Pad Media" category. Oh happy day.
But I must point out a few things that Mclatchey neglected to mention in it's hit piece on our soldiers and Gitmo.
The prisoners Mclatchey interviewed had all been released by the Bush administration. By definition, that means some kind of case review has been taking place at Gitmo all along. The number of Gitmo prisoners went from 770 in 2002 to 270 now. I don't think all those died of old age. They were released. An additional 80 were scheduled for trial by our military tribunals. At least 30 of those "innocent" released Gitmo POW's returned to the battlefield to fight our soldiers again. Rather than dropping those POW's down a dark hole as Mclatchey suggested, it sounds to me like the U.S. was trying to accomodate them much more than other countries would while the war was still going on.
Oh, I forgot. The Gitmo detainees are all innocent bystanders, guys who just happened to be holding the IED's for the terrorists while the terrorists were taking a leak. Sorry.
And, could it EVER be possible that any Taliban or Al Qaeda members would LIE about what took place during their detainment at Gitmo when they are being interviewed by the american liberal media ???? No, I'm sure they are too honest and righteous to even think of such a thing. Everyone knows what great guys they are.
With the Supreme Court's Boumediene ruling granting terrorists the right of american citizens, I know I'm sure looking forward to the next Johnny Cochran-type lawyer using the "If the bomb don't fit, you must acquit" defense for some Al Qaeda scumbag. What a great day for america. Can't you just smell the justice ?
Do you think the ACLU will represent Bin Laden if he's caught ? Pro Bono, of course.
The Beacon, I'm still wagering, won't be able to quit the establishment candidate…..in the current post-Hillary situation, that would be Johnny Mac.
Detaining people in the American gulag, refusing them the basic habeas right, then releasing some of them, is what?….supposed to make America righteous? Ridiculous.
No one….repeat, no one, wants to let any genuine terrorist loose. However, most Americans are not willing to let the rule of law be tossed into the trash by a gang of known White House and affiliated criminals.
The Supremes restored the 900 year old settled human right of habeas. As you know, but have yet to admit, this in no way grants Guantanomo detainees full American citizen rights.
Distort much?
I'll bet you $1,000 right now that the Beacon Journal endorses Obama.
I'd probably believe your statement that "no one wants to let any genuine terrorist loose" if you weren't referring to Gitmo as an "american gulag" at the same time. Btw, have you ever considered the logistics of trying enemy combatants who were pulled off a battlefield in american civilian courts ? It would result in the release of many "genuine terrorists", as we just saw in Great Brittain. We'd have to expose our intelligence and bring our soldiers into courtrooms to testify about things that happened in the heat of battle. It's just an idiotic and unprecedented scenario.
And I hate to break it to you, but a prisoner being released is better than one being granted habeas corpus. Go to any prison and ask any prisoner if he'd rather be released, or if he'd rather be allowed to go in front of a judge and challenge his incarceration. The answer is pretty obvious.
The rule of law has not been tossed into the trash, as I explained previously. That is just something you are saying. It is not the truth. No foreign POW's have EVER been granted habeas corpus in american courts previous to Boumediene. NEVER. Stop lying.
And as I continue to insist. There can't really be any POW's if there is no war. There can be no "battlefield" if there is no war.
International police operation. That's all it is.
Not Iraq, of course, that's a colonial takeover.
Rev,
Seems to me that the right doesn't get that if a war is not legally declared then it doesn't legally qualify as a war. To say that we are in a state of war is correct but it does not follow that the broader presidential powers claimed by Bush can be permitted in a situation not deemed sufficiently threatening for a formal declaration.
It's time to dispense with the euphemisms. The people we hold are prisoners. They are either prisoners held for committing a crime or they are being held as combatants, aka POWs. Ergo, they are either to be afforded civil protections, or Geneva protections, whether they have anyone's sympathy or not.
The neos "create reality". Confusion was intended all along the way, like you say, euphemisms. Muddy the issue purposely.
But it still stands that we have not declared war. All I see are military resolutions for specific purposes. The neos have abused these resolutions and continue to do so. Continually being in a state of war allows for much mischief. That was intended as well.
Distilled down….our federal government has been overthrown the last eight years.