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Turley: Well you know, it’s incredible…Truth commissions generally have been used by emerging democracies, often third world countries,…they’re not associated with a goverment that is supposedly the leader of the Rule of Law…
We don’t have any question about the obligation of these treaties. There’s no question that torture occurred here, there’s no question that there was a war crime….
These members of Congress view this as a very inconvenient time to fight this on principle….It is shameful that we would be calling for this kind of commission. We are obligated…a promise not to ourselves but to the world.
Leahy recalls the Church Commission on the abuse of power in the Nixon era: "I think we have to do the same thing here"
17 Comments
Please, please, please.
I don’t care if Reid and Pelosi are implicated and have to stand trial themselves.
Let’s get this done and clean this stain off of our national fabric.
Ugh, title of post seems promising. Turley does not.
Can’t a “truth commision” be used as a launching off point for criminal trials? Must it be one or the other? My hope would be that a commision would bring the facts to light in a indisputable forum… …maybe wake some people up and get something done!
First of all, no, not if it immunizes all who testify. Secondly, it sets a no-fault tone, where even those who fail to fess up, are not taken to account.
The reason for prosecution and punishment is simple: “pour encourager les autres.
Jonathon Turley always seems to go to the guts of the issue in seconds.
“obligation to investigate”
I learn a great deal here @FDL. I immediately thought great a truth commission (thought it was great when Kucinich called for a commission several months ago). I have always thought Leahy was one of our Reps who was serious about accountability especially for such serious crimes
But here is what I don’t get about this. There have been several major investigations into pre-war intelligence (Silberman/Robb, Phase 1 of the SSCI, Phase II of the SSCI) Nothing ever came of those investigations NOTHING. We did not witness one person held accountable for creating, cherry picking and disseminating false pre war WMD intelligence.
Why does an investigation more likely insure prosecutions and a commission does not? If you are looking for the truth and you follow the facts or evidence what does it matter whether it is an investigation or a commission. It would seem logical that our Reps or the DOJ would follow the facts and if crimes have been committed prosecutions would follow.
Just a regular folk trying to understand
I would have expected more out of Leahy
Just listened again. Every word Turley had to say should be spread far and wide. “no question war crimes” Damn that guy does not mince words
Hello moderator if you have not listened to Turley worth your while. Can you consider putting this up on the recommended board. Turley went to the guts of the crimes committed the last 8 years
DIGG is open.
If only Turley were Attorney Genersl….’…there comes a time when they have to decide if they want to be a statesman or just another politician looking for the next election’.
That’s exactly what it boils down to.
I think there was a Senate investigating committee that has already determined that war crimes were committed. I am not a lawyer, but seems to me that sufficient evidence has already been collected to present such evidence to a Grand Jury. If Atty General Holder is truly to uphold the law, he must present our case to a Grand Jury for prosecution, and let that War on War Crimes begin.
” “I applaud Senator Leahy’s leadership in proposing the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission. Getting all the facts out about what happened over the last eight years is a crucial part of restoring the rule of law. As President Obama and Attorney General Holder have said, nobody is above the law. There needs to be accountability for wrongdoing by the Bush Administration, including the illegal warrantless wiretapping and interrogation programs. We cannot simply sweep these assaults on the rule of law under the rug.” “
http://feingold.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=308028
” Senator Russ Feingold is sharply criticizing the Obama administration over its controversial decision to maintain the Bush administration’s position in a closely watched lawsuit involving alleged victims of extraordinary rendition, a decision that generated a storm of criticism yesterday.
Feingold’s office also confirmed that he is seeking a secret briefing on the case from the Obama administration — something that could put the administration on the spot and potentially ratchet up the confrontation.
“I have asked for a classified briefing so that I can understand the reasons for this decision,” Feingold’s statement said. “
http://theplumline.whorunsgov……-decision/
” US authorities have given permission for British officials to visit detainee Binyam Mohamed in Guantanamo Bay to help make preparations for his possible return to the UK, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.
The torture allegations were at the heart of a legal row last week after High Court judges complained that Mr Miliband had blocked them, for national security reasons, from making documents relating to his case public. “
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/8353655
8 – I think that says it all.
Thank you, egregious.
Who wants to bet that ‘principles’ will be ignored and then abandoned, that the individual ‘choices’ will be made in favor of political hackery?
If Leahy believes Bu$h should be investigated, then he should do so; this ‘business’ of testing the political ‘waters’ and sticking his finger up to see which ‘way’ the wind is blowing suggests kabuki and that moral turpitude is the ‘new’ bi-partisanship.
Turley spoke to truth.
It remains to be seen if President Obama is capable of hearing AND understanding.
Complicity awaits.
As does justice.
Which shall it be?
” At the end of the day,” continued Turley, “no one believes that people will be prosecuted for a known war crime — and when we do that then we will become accessories. Those crimes of President Bush will become our crimes. His shame will become our collective shame.”
“The Democrats are going to have to decide whether they want to detach themselves from principle, start their control of this government with an act of the most unprincipled sort,” Turley concluded. “You have to decide whether you are a statesman or just one more politician looking for the next election.” “
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/….._0211.html
” According to the documents, on Dec. 4, 2002 a prisoner died while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. Six days later, another prisoner died.
A separate report issued by Army Maj. Gen. George R. Fay several years ago said Other prisoner abuses resulted from Rumsfeld’s verbal and written authorization in December 2002 allowing interrogators to use “stress positions, isolation for up to 30 days, removal of clothing and the use of detainees’ phobias (such as the use of dogs).”
“From December 2002, interrogators in Afghanistan were removing clothing, isolating people for long periods of time, using stress positions, exploiting fear of dogs and implementing sleep and light deprivation,” the Fay report said.
“Those techniques were implemented under the supervision and guidance of Secretary Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantánamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller. These methods included, but were not limited to, 48 days of severe sleep deprivation and 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, physical force, prolonged stress positions and prolonged sensory over-stimulation, and threats with military dogs.”
According to the Schlesinger report, orders signed by Bush and Rumsfeld in 2002 and 2003 authorizing brutal interrogations “became policy” at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. “
http://www.opednews.com/articl…..1-607.html
Thank you, Mary. I regard your opinion highly. Way back when Mr. Phillipe Sandes was a witness before the House Judiciary Committee, one of the Repub reps was complaining saying there had already been some 60 hearings in the House on the torture question. There have been many hearings in both houses on it since.
All that talk in Congress costs a lot of money and has produced no results; those poor wretches in our ‘detainee facilities’ are suffering every day, and many or most of them guilty of nothing, charged with nothing, and the guilty ones can’t be charged because they were tortured.
I would really like to see our country return to sane governing policies truly based on the rule of law. It is greed for money and political power over principle that has brought us to this shameful situation.
Please excuse the rant, seems nothing more I can do, which is very frustrating – as it is for all here.
Thanks for the link, bluebutterfly. That press release is dated today, so must be really latest news.
Article states Binyam Mohammed will be accompanied back to Britain by a Metropolitan Police doctor. Seems a peculiar choice to me…
I truly hope he lives to someday realize some measure of joy in life.