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Dear President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Congressman Ellison:
I wish to apologize for all the emails I have been sending you on the issue of accountability for U.S.-committed torture. I did not realize that as government officials who took oaths to uphold the Constitution, you were protecting many more rights than those few I was concerned with. I was taking a very narrow perspective of human rights.
I now appreciate that one of our most important rights is the right to travel. As the Supreme Court noted in U.S. v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), “It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized.” And I now appreciate that you have an obligation to protect this fundamental right for U.S. citizens to travel where we want to.
When I read Saturday’s New York Times article about the Center for Constitutional Rights, the International Federation of Human Rights, and Human Rights Watch infringing on President Bush’s God-given right to travel to Switzerland, I was ashamed of my arrogant attitude about torture. With all the legal rights you have to juggle, it’s perfectly understandable that some have to be dropped. Not to mention with the economy, access to health care, the financial system, progress on global warming, and the Democratic Party all in the ditch, things like accountability for torture have to be left behind.
Regarding the Center for Constitutional Rights folks, they wouldn’t know a Constitutional right if their lives depended on it. Out of one side of their mouths, they argue for the right not to be tortured; and out of the other side of their mouths, they try to destroy our right to travel. As for Human Rights Watch and the International Federation of Human Rights, their names say it all. Human rights? What about American rights?
I have some contacts, and if you would like assistance in ferreting out these sniveling, sanctimonious subversives, please don’t hesitate to call on me.
As you no doubt know, on today’s date, February 7, 2002, President Bush decided that the Geneva Conventions were not legally applicable to al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq at the time of the Abu Ghraib ”scandal,” has said that decision “unleashed the hounds of Hell.” Well, hounds of Hell have some travel rights too, don’t they? God bless President Bush for unleashing them.
And God bless the United States of America.
Sincerely,
Chuck Turchick
P.S. I have thrown away my Swiss Army knife, and there will be no Swiss chocolates coming from this fellow on Valentine’s day.
15 Comments
You might want to add “snark” to your tags. ;-)
Thank you, Chuck. Richly deserved sarcasm, very well delivered.
Here’s the link to that February 7, 2002 Presidential Decree, which nakedly asserted authority not vested by the Constitution in the American presidency (the written evidence of a gross abuse and willful violation of authorized limits of presidential power that wasn’t pried out of its classified secrecy until more than two years later).
There that breathtakingly-brazen Decree remains today, without repudiation by the other branches of government, nine years later – apparently unrescinded in any formal way by the succeeding President – its continued existence a damning indictment of all those who continue to pretend that our Constitutional Republic remains intact and functioning as intended, with the “unleashed hounds of Hell” – and the 2001 AUMF’s “dogs of war” – still free to roam at will.
I included more context for that clear evidence of rule by presidential fiat, and reprinted the Decree in full, in this comment to my recent diary “Just Imagine”…Unchallenged, Government Tells Supreme Court While Torturing: “The United States Is Gonna Honor Its Treaty Obligations.”
Thank you, in particular, for doing what few will – remembering and marking this shameful ninth anniversary:
Thank you, powwow, for keeping the light shined on these crimes that the Obama administration is trying to hide and most Americans are trying to hide from. We feel a special responsibility in Minneapolis because one of the authors of the Jan. 9, 2002, memo you refer to in a comment to your Jan. 11, 2011, post, Robert Delahunty, is now a law professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School here. That, of course, was the Yoo-Delahunty memo, which said the Geneva Conventions did not apply, and which may well have given the green light to torture and paved the way for the Yoo-Bybee memos of Aug. 1, 2002.
Torture/ Murder/ Treason
Great read and I feel you, like I, find this ” blue dress stain” on our flag quite upsetting.
Between a blowjob and beating a suspect to death in a sleeping bag, well is there any comparison ?
Freedom cheese.
Thanks both for your excellent post and for the update on Delahunty. It is discouraging how many of the Torture Team have found safe havens in academia. It is especially discouraging that they are welcomed in law schools.
The most powerful vindication is validation. Focus on the truth, refuse to keep the secrets and make sure we do what we can so it’s not happening with our collusion.
Ha Ha! Brilliant! And Al Franken – there’s a progressive little doggie for you! Ha. ROFL…ROFL…
Our eyes and ears have been dimmed – we need all the flood lights and megaphones that we can find. The insidious language of the past administration has embedded itself into our psyches, such as: torture is not “Torture,” it is just “enhanced interrogation.” Meanwhile, prisoners who are innocent and have been tortured, languish in our prisons and tainted with our insidious language that they are the “worst of the worst,” have only tellers of truth to give them hope.
Keep on telling!
Recommend you get a job writing for right-wing impressionist Stephen Colbert as this outrage at Bush’s lost “right to travel” liberties is right up his alley!
Great diary, thank you!
Great to see your name here, Coleen. A warm welcome to you.
Thank you chuck. I wish you had thanked Amy for her bill putting the rapascans in all the airports so those of us wanting to have our rights to fly honored could feel safe being scanned with radiation.
What will our DLC dem do now that the office was closed?