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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
If Obama wants to get bogged down in a fight with republicans that he can't win, I say bring it!
How far away from abusing it's own people is a government that abuses others? How hard would it be to appoint a commission and empower a prosecutor so the new president can focus his attention on more pressing matters? Just because the whole country is on the verge of going down the tubes doesn't mean we should let go of our morals. That's akin to removing your life preserver while you're drowning. Besides, the torture issue makes great leverage against the Bush administration which promises to completely rape the environment with a whole host of deregulatory actions before they leave office. Many of these actions may be unchangeable for years, so unless they have something hanging over their heads you can say good bye to saving polar bears and preserving those lovely mountain views from being blown to bits.
Pinochet pardoned himself, too.
Certainly a pardon within the local jurisdiction of the US will have no effect internationally, while the facts developed by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might be useful in an eventual prosecution.
The Torture Convention REQUIRES all signatories to enforce its terms, especially where a local jurisdiction abstains from enforcing it for reasons of political expedience.
basically Obama election is a bit deeper than most comments it is a universal rejection of the bourgeoisie from 1792. therefore any attempts to renew the economy by the old methods will fail. we are in 2008 not in 1936. these schemes to continue with this capitalistic bourgeois enslavement are over.
and hes got no other choice. i believe he should revamp the constitution and include the American natives which are the real Americans, the rest of the lot are just immigrants. therefore to act properly he must act just and be real on a real world. globalization has brought him to were he is now but for a reason. if he fail the consequences will be far worse. forget this financial bourgeois system it is over think in the future a new system a new nation a new ideal.
A reasonable person might ask why we don't take a page from the playbook of Bush and his henchmen and just send him overseas for further questioning and investigation. The weather in The Hague can be very pleasant in the spring. Something for him to do in those lonely months following his banishment to Texas.
He would certainly be treated with more civility than his victims. That may be a kindness he doesn't deserve, but the goal is not to be vindictive, not even necessarily to punish -- simply to illuminate the truth for the sake of an accurate history. What group could possibly be more fair and balanced than all those friends he's made for American around the world during his term in office?
Then pretty much the entire Bush administration, from the top on down, needs to go to trial. It's that simple.
Would a presidential pardon prevent the United States from extraditing someone to face trial in another country?
Just a simple statement, merely this:
If, in the course of governance, one must weight the legality of an action against the harm or benefit to those being governed, the righteous course must lead toward the action that will be toward the greater good. If that action is also illegal or immoral, and yet the object and outcome is truly for the greater good, then the action may need to be taken in spite of its illegality or immorality. Yet, the true patriot, one of deep character and in keeping of the spirit of liberty, justice, and the true American principles, must also be willing to turn himself over to the judicial element and stand before the gaze of the people and accept their judgement. For that is the true nature of patriotism. In times of great crisis, it may come to pass that foul deeds must be done. But there must also come a day of reckoning when those deeds are brought to light and those responsible, patriots all they may be, are held accountable.
"Pardoned torturers? Two words: civil suits." -- Chris Deignan
Nah, that won't work. They're busy giving away all the money. There won't be anything left to sue them for.
I think, hopefully wrongly, that most people really don't care that much about this issue. But, it makes me sick. Americans need to learn that what is done in our name is done by US. We are responsible when innocent people are given no legal rights and brutally treated just because someone wants to show that something is being done, no matter how wrong, no matter how unlawful, no matter how ineffective.
Some people say our legal system may not be perfect but it's the best there is. Our legal system SUCKS !! I personally have seen things happen up close and personal that have educated me more than I ever wanted to know about how many things are wrong with America's legal system.
Lawyers who only care about a quick buck, not in defending the innocent, judges who care more about public opinion that what is right or wrong, prosecutors like vicious bulldogs who most definitely care more about winning than whether someone is innocent and does not deserve to be prosecuted.
This case in Guatanamo is a case in point. I hope more people in the U.S. will care that George Bush is not just an ineffective, not-too-bright guy who got in over his head. What people got away with in his administration would be regarded as tyranny and worse if he was the head of any other country. If America is going to ever have a decent reputation again, we have to care about this kind of issue. Too many people who were absolutely innocent were seriously harmed. We are responsible if we do nothing to bring those responsible to justice, the president included !!
"A common view among those involved with the talks is that any early effort to prosecute Bush administration officials would likely devolve quickly into ugly and fruitless partisan warfare."
Good-golly, we sure wouldn't want to pile "Ugly and fruitless partisan warfare" atop all of the "ugly and fruitless" torture that we seem to insist on engaging in around the globe!
My favorite none sense-myth (along side the one that claims that the media has a"liberal bias") is that our government is overly "partisan", by nature. Anyone who has paid any attention at all to the events of the past eight years can't deny that the Democrats were utterly and completely complicit every step of the way. Joe Biden, for example, was hot for "regime change" in Iraq, an opinion he proudly shared with the first incarnation of Al Gore (the Al Gore who had Lieberman as his running mate, not the new improved edition) long before Bush stole the election of 2000.
We surely could have used some real hard-nosed partisan warfare back when it might have actually done some good!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
