@ Adnoto

Careful who you criticize Adnoto - rrheard is a lawyer!

-- Old Joe

Yeah, he's a lawyer but he's coming around and he is (relatively speaking) unafraid. I'll take him on my side any day.

I wasn't criticizing him.

So now that you have the whole system figured out as a great global conspiracy - what now?

Give the how (to turn the dummy back up on its feet).

Don't leave us in suspense!

Don't desert us!

Teach us!

He's good in a debate and knowledgable - and at times he gets it right.

Are you actually telling me that Kofi A is your accepted authority to declare a war or anything else illegal?

You must be one of those 'CITIZENS OF THE WORLD' types.

I suppose your favorite politician is John Kerry too.

I wouldn't trust Kofi to tell me if my car was illegally parked.

The stars are in recognition of rrheard's concise and accurate take on bernbart. [link@sig]

Murder speaks for itself as a violation of law...res ipsa...I think.

That murder resulted from so-called "rogue" interrogations is hard for Holder (and President Obama) to ignore. It will likely be the results, i.e., murders, that define the scope of the investigations. Politically and militarily, this would be not just palatable but necessary for U.S. fulfillment as a Geneva signatory.

The rest will unfold in the testimony. This will be evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary...much in line with President Obama's needs for an ethical administration unharmed by internal partisan wrangling.

I suspect that Panetta may have been in on the planning since CIA had nothing to do with the murders. His would be a certain and wiser view than Rahm's. Rahm needs to be replaced. He has no subtlety for this negotiation. In particular, this line of work will likely follow to Yoo, Addington and Cheney at the top.

At least, this is what I surmise has been going through their heads - how to get around murder.

Pursuing them and bringing them to justice will entail the same destruction and mayhem that brought all the other fascists of history to heal and it will take a focussed effort by those who they are currently killing in the name of the war on terror, namkely the poor and marginalised and disempowered. Those are the facts.

Could be but I think people like King and Gandhi might disagree that it would take great destruction and mayhem. Bottom line is, we will never know until we give a direct action and civil disobedience campaign a real effort. If they want to take it to "destruction and mayhem" that is up to them but we don't have to start from there.

The whole thing is turned on its head and until the dummy is sat back on its feet nil will change. To them, bloodhounds like the esteemable Mr Greenwald are just a passing nuisance, sorry to say and this internet thing is a great way for them to keep tabs on you all.

-- Eucalyptus

Passing nuisance? Yes, probably. Without some accompanying action, in the long run/grand scheme, that is probably true. Also, I am not so sure it is about keeping tabs on us as much as it is them feeling relieved that this is how we choose to "oppose" them. They may be keeping tabs but all that has told them is that they have no reason to be afraid. But perhaps that is what you meant.

Yes, the increasing war in central Asia makes investigation of past torture more likely.

The President likes to say that we need to look forward not back, but he's already shown himself to be rather selective with that bromide. He reminds us to remember the Holocaust and, most recently, the slave trade, but tells us to forget all about US torture of Muslims.

But it's rather obvious that Obama does not want us to look forward to the war in Afghanistan and its aftermath, so a distracting trip down memory lane, even perhaps to Abu Gharaib, may yet prove useful for him.

I expect that he'll have people like Holder and Panetta do the work, though, while he remains "opposed" to revisiting the past.

I feel compelled to point out that the supreme war crime to which you refer has always been in the "dust bin of public debate", as you've put it. I believe this would be the case whether or not torture crept into the limelight. But I appreciate the point you are making.

After a half-year of extending patient feelers to Iran, President Barack Obama has set a timeline — warning Tehran it must show willingness to negotiate an end to its nuclear program by September or face consequences.

(SOURCE: Since this is an AP report, just Google the sentence above and pick your favorite news website to read more. Instantly part of the zeitgeist!)

Iran and/or supreme war crimes watchers will know the playbook from which this is derived.

Speaking of supreme war crimes...

After a half-year of extending patient feelers to Iran, President Barack Obama has set a timeline — warning Tehran it must show willingness to negotiate an end to its nuclear program by September or face consequences.

(SOURCE: Since this is an AP report, just Google the sentence above and pick your favorite news website to read more. Instantly part of the zeitgeist!)

Iran and/or supreme war crimes watchers will know the playbook from which this is derived.

-- The Reality Kid

Full speed ahead for the warmongers. Sort of unbelievable. The audacity. Shermy is correct of course... or close to correct. Ultimately you have to take the profit out of war but we will gain absolutely nothing if politicians at the highest levels of government aren't tried and imprisoned for the worst of their crimes. It will just continue.

Adnoto, are we more broken than Iran?

OK, maybe that is an unfair question.

Are we more broken than India?

India, broken?

Yes, in many profound ways. Compared to the US, too.

In my lifetime, Indira Gandhi seized dictatorial powers, during the period of the Emergency, 1975-77. Yet, parliamentary democracy was restored.

Public interest litigation is a recent phenomenon in India; as is the freedom of information. It was one of these public interest litigations that finally removed the illegality of gay sex in India, just a week or so ago.

There has been nothing of the scale of the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster in the US. India hardly has the framework to deal with it.

My cousin brother-in-law was murdered; shot in front of witnesses for exposing corruption on a railway contract. The killer was not even charged, let alone prosecuted, and sits pretty in political circles. Can this happen in the US?

An Indian court ruled recently that it is not illegal to refuse to rent to Muslims.

And so the fight goes on. And yet India is profoundly optimistic. Through my lifetime, it has been a dance of one step forward, one step back, mostly, and yet there is an overall forward motion.

If you were in India, I think, adnoto, you would have died of frustration, given the profound defeatism that you display here in this US of A, which in every level of governance, of law and of law enforcement, is more functional than India.

India can and does become better; the path for the US is not downwards either. Except in your mind.

So go bury yourself somewhere. You add no value to anything. The more I read of you, the more contemptible you seem.