Here Come The Torture Investigations - 2

When I wrote the first post in this series (Here Come The Torture Investigations, February 25, 2009) I expected that the newly elected President Obama and his Administration would bring some justice to those who soiled the name and reputation of the American people.

Those who committed torture brought ill repute upon us with their torture of both innocent and guilty people during the Bush II years, because it does not matter whether an innocent or a guilty person is tortured in the sense that torture is illegal either before or after guilt is established (The Penalty For Torture Can Be Death, President Reagan Puts Cheney In Jail).

Well, as you know there was no justice brought to those who tortured.

Until now, albeit from afar, and it was only justice against those states in Europe that collaborated with the CIA.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that torture at secret U.S.eh? torture sites violated human rights:

The applicant complained that Poland, by enabling the CIA to transfer him from its territory, had exposed to him to a real and serious risk of being transferred to a jurisdiction where he would be subjected to a flagrantly unfair

trial, in breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
...
At the material time it had been known that the military commissions had allowed for indefinite detention without trial since there had been no time-limits on bringing the accused to trial. There had been no bar on admission of evidence obtained by torture ...

(ECHR, Al Nashiri v Poland). The decision is a couple of hundred pages, so you might want to read the synopsis in a news report instead (Raw Story).

If one considers the U.S.E. (The United States of Europe, 2, 3, 4) along with this ECHR ruling, the U.S.A. is looking more like an old European authoritarian state, while the new Europe is looking more like the old United States of America when there was a real constitutional democracy.

The bottom line is that the U.S. is losing its good reputation in the world, and is even seen as the number one threat to peace in the world (Poll: United States Seen As Greatest Threat To World Peace In 2013) contrary to the wishes of the people (The Wars Are un-American Says Public - 2).

The previous post in this series is here.

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Here Come The Torture Investigations

Several sources are reporting that Senators Leahy and Whitehouse, of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will commence investigations into the Bush II regime's use of torture.

Who knows where that will lead, but some of the talk is that it will be a trickle down investigation. Meaning that the top echelons will be looked at first. That would include professor Yoo and judge Bybee.

Yoo has been embedded in the "liberal" University of California at Berkeley, and Bybee has been embedded in the "liberal" Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for life.

They wrote the infamous "torture is ok" memos, which were thereafter classified, so no one could see them.

Those memos approved of and tried to give legal authority to the president's right to torture detainees. Detainees who are American citizens and those who are not citizens.

We wrote about the "I was following orders" syndrome a while back.

Let the justice begin.

UPDATE: Note that we criticized investigations that only produce more words, and we agree with Speaker Pelosi that immunity from criminal prosecution is less than desirable.

And we point out that both Leahy and Whitehouse were prosecutors, Pelosi was not. They know that some immunity to witnesses will be necessary before anyone goes to jail.

So we give a little bit of deference to Leahy and Whitehouse because they know the difficulty of this type of criminal prosecution. And we defer to Pelosi for demanding jail time in every instance we can get them there.

All that having being said, the truth of the greatest crime spree in the history of American government must become a part of our history text books. At a minimum.

Again, let the justice begin.

Groundhog Day Deja Vu All Over Again

Karl "Moi?" Rove, under the umbrella of bushies, refused to testify before congress.

Two others who also refused have been issued contempt citations, but bushie AG Mukasey refused to prosecute them.

Obama is not in a mood to tolerate more and more blatant insubordination and law breaking nor is Obama Attorney General Eric Holder.

The Honorable John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary committee, has just issued a subpoena to Rove. Rove is to testify in a deposition on Ground Hog Day (Feb 2).

We don't need Al Franken, there is already someone in congress with the senses of a comic.

Rove won't think it is funny, but he will talk either to congress or to cell mates. His choice.

And each morning Rove wakes up the same thing is going to play on the radio.

Stay tuned.