Well the one other solution is a mass lawyer/judges movement in this country effectively shutting down the legal system but that will never happen because lawyers have student loans and mortgages to pay. And the average Joe would love to watch lawyers as protestors getting clubbed in the head on the nightly news so I'm not so sure we'd have much "public" sympathy behind our movement. -- rrheard

Two things:

First, lawyers got us into this mess and/or have stood by and allowed their members to perpetrate it. Why hasn't Yoo been brought up for review (or whatever it is you all do in your club) and disbarred? Lawyers are the last people I would go to for help. That would be like giving the thieves in the financial industry our tax dollars to...er... wait...

And secondly, on a more serious note, we are in this thing together. We all have student loans and/or mortgages or other debts. That is not a valid excuse IMO. In fact, I think that would simply add to our power. We can't pay because we have to take time out to protest their bullshit? Well, tough shit, they don't get their money until they meet our demands.

If the rule of law is dead and we do indeed live under an oppressive two-tiered system of justice then all the lawyering in the world (within that system) isn't going to do much for us. Your law degree isn't worth very much at this point, is it?

The Warren Commission Report

The 9/11 Commission Report

The Interrogation Commission Report

Posting letters on the web is fun and educational, and one can hope that Obama, Holder, et al have aides scouring the web to gauge the response. But do something meaningful- contact the Obama administration directly and let the know what you think. Write your representatives and your Senators and demand investigations.

Here's a website to contact Obama:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Criminal Investigations. Now.

Hey Mr. Solicitor,

Is it possible that on the point of prosecuting the evil ones who tortured and ordered it and funded it, you and I finally agree on a point?

If POTUS & VPOTUS fund or cover up they are morally guilty, have not fulfilled their respective oaths (taken multiple times) to uphold the Constitution of the US and they should be impreached and imprisoned - correct?

Of course we know that will never happen becasue Pelosi would be POTUS if she could prove the CIA lied to her - what are the chances of that happening?

How would you like President Nancy Pelosi to run the economy, solve Social Security, prosecute BO's war on terror in Afganhistan, and reduce the mean global temperature by 3.6 degrees F BY 2021?

That scares me more than Palin!

Careful who you criticize Adnoto - rrheard is a lawyer!

"Put the guilty in jail and there is the potential that everything will be worse. My willingness to do the right thing is controlled by my level of fear of the unknown."

I agree with Greenwald that high-level officials, including Bush and Cheney, should defend their actions in court. But the way to get higher level players to court may be by prosecuting low-level torturers. In fact, the low road may be the strategically wisest way.

The events of the last few weeks are not easy to parse for meaning. It can be hard to discern what is real or not from the media.

But I see some hope when political/cultural elites are arguing and posturing and picking fights with each other. Torture trials will come about because of fissures within the elites that create a dynamic in which one party needs to prove that another party is wrong (Pelosi v. the Republicans for example). That dynamic in turn will support a venue to air splits within the CIA (military etc) between brass and lower level officers. It seems doubtful now that the elites can forever maintain their de-facto agreement to torture Muslims and to set aside political aspirations in the name of torture. Torture was chic, but now passe, and nobody much wants to own it.

The fact that Holder is releasing trial ballons itself shows that this administration senses that it is losing some sort of perception fight. The timing of these balloons coincides with Obama's foreign tour. I would suggest there is pressure arising both from the increasing fractures among American elites, but also from abroad. Obama is less-likely to have a legacy in the Middle East with his current pro-torture immunity policies--let's remember who gets tortured.

It is not necessarily the case that pro-torture policies make dealing with India and China, both doing relatively well in the global economy and critical to many Obama domestic proposals, any easier--despite (or because of) the large (India) or restive (China) Muslim populations in those countries. Obama's consistently anti-Muslim stand in the torture issues is probably starting to have blowback against his son-of-a-Muslim image, particularly after his stumbles with the Iran uprising. He could just as easily be dismissed as a kafir if he comes across as having a double standard.

Domestically, Obama has ample reasons to provide a distraction from his pro-wealthy-at-all-costs mishandling of the recession and healthcare.

Once torture trials benefit the elites, there will be trials, Holder just has to discover new reasons for those trials. THink of how Panetta now seeks to increase his own power by "discovering" for the Democrats the secret CIA program. There is a increasing dynamic for exposure of many of the elite classes' secrets of the past eight years, and is likely that exposures on one issue may lead to exposures on others.

Forget trial balloons. Let the popcorn kernels pop and sit back for the show.

"The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq

OK we illegally practiced torture, which directly inflicted pain and suffering on maybe several hundred individuals. Now compare it to the illegal war on Iraq. Several hundred thousand Iraqis dead (and maybe more seriously mutilated), several million refugees, cities destroyed, societal fabric shredded, blood vengeance institutionalized on a national scale, to name a few outcomes of this illegal act.

By making torture the cause celebre we are essentially relegating the incredibly enormous war crime, the war itself, to the dust bin of public debate. Torture is to the war as jaywalking is to murder.

The torture debate is really a gift to politicians. They can make speeches, propose investigations, conduct some trials, and maybe even throw John Yoo in the slammer for a few months. When all this is finished we are cleansed.

In the two or three years it takes for this to happen, the body politic can continue to wage its wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan; the Special Forces can continue to slit throats and kidnap anywhere in the world; and the Pentagon and CIA can bulk up to huge proportions. But no more torture, not a single waterboarding. We are once again the shining light on the hill.

I'm not against investigating torture and punishing, or at least clearly exposing, those responsible, but if we continue to kill maim and destroy on the massive scale we have become accustomed to, what's gained.