A special prosecutor must be allowed to investigate violations of the law wherever they occurred. By whoever. Period.

Otherwise it's just another scapegoating of the grunts while the real perpetrators of torture & war crimes continue to enjoy living high on the hog.

Mr. Holder needs to be made fully aware of his obligations under the Convention Against Torture, now that he is the top law enforcement official of the US.

o-cow opines:

Adnoto vs. Adnoto

Adnoto: Could be but I think people like King and GHANDI might disagree that it would take great destruction and mayhem.

Vs.

Adnoto: I am not in India. I am an American in America.

-- omooex

Odd that post. Adnoto mentions an American leader and an Indian leader. Both of these great men worked on changing their own respective countries for the better and did, in fact, change their own countries for the better.

Adnoto tells mac-whatever that he is an American and worries about the actions of the American government which is following the lead of both men he mentioned.

Then o-cow has a cow and calls him, in effect, a hypocrite. Does anyone really think he can pass logic class with that sort of thinking?

There's a recent news story about a guy in Louisiana who died after resisting arrest after a traffic stop. The dashcam video is available at the link.

But here's what is interesting to me, and relates to the 100 or so deaths of US-held detainees.

The video shows pretty clearly what happened to this man, and yet look at this quote:

Initial autopsy results show he died from severe coronary artery disease, an enlarged heart and a fracture of a bone in his neck.

Now remember how many of the autopsy reports on detainee deaths were listed as "natural causes" or "heart disease" etc.

http://www.ktbs.com/news/suspect-dies-following-controversial-traffic-stop

it seems to be a consensus (i.e., most everyone reporting it other than Scott Horton) that Holder's plan, at least at the moment, is -- from the start -- to confine the prosecutors' authority to investigate to CIA agents

Absent sourcing and ahead of any actual announcement of intent by Holder, it looks like the press is trying to "lead the witness" (i.e., Holder) via preemptive Beltway media spin.

Great point you made there. I would never trust the "natural causes" autopsies out of a torture hole like Gitmo.

heru-ur, the extent of what you do not know is frightening. Maybe one day, ondelette and myself can lay out a history of India after independence and the myriads of bad things that have happened. And the myriad and a half good things too.

ad-noto, I'd also like to point out that among many negatives that you see, from the point of view of most brown and black skinned people and of women, the 2008 elections broke many glass ceilings. You see bad going to worse, for the rest of us, it is a mixed result. Would I rather be a brown-skinned adult in the USA of 1960 or the USA of today? The answer is obvious - today!

Your's and heru-ur's inability to see that is one reason why I suspect that you suffer from a form of racism. Or some pathological lack of empathy. Despite the seeming horror you display at war or torture or whatever, it is all a intellectual game to you, when you cannot understand even in the tiniest bit why it is not all gloom and doom for a great number of people.

Starting Monday, if all goes well with Sonia Sotomayor, there will be a whole lot more people who will feel that this can work for them too. But you — you will piss all over them. What remains to be seen is whether that is in your nature or whether you can unlearn it.

Don't get me wrong, I fully believe that the top levels of government are accountable, but if Holder's quasi-investigation starts out by hauling in little fish, it could escalate to hauling in the prizes. I served as a Marine and swore to uphold the constitution - if my superiors had held up a John Yoo memo to me and cited it as authority to waterboard, I would have had no choice but to refuse to carry out an unlawful order. Accordingly, I don't see what shielding the lower echelons from the full brunt of the law advances. Let the prosecutions at all levels begin.

Oh I suspect that he's fully aware of his obligations - at least he better be - he's chosen so far,it seems, not to fulfill them

if George Stephanopolous, Cokie Roberts, Sam Donaldson, Bob Woodward, George Will, Donna Brazille, Ed Henry and all the other Beltway corporate Heathers were laid end-to-end, it would be a good thing.

I am utterly gobsmacked: the NYT's piece on Cheney was the lead story on NBC's Nightly News tonight. They usually reserve that slot for far more important news like Sarah Palin's excellent adventures.

At least they ran it, which means "Real America" probably got their first report (if you could call it that) on Cheney's atrocious criminal behavior. Although they did report it "on balance" -- this is what the Democrats say and this is what the Republicans say and the truth must reside in the middle.

we aren't all of one mind like Borg and many of us would like nothing better than to see the likes of Yoo, Bybee, Bradbury et al afforded proper process and then disbarred and criminally prosecuted if warranted--they are an embarrassment to many in the profession (others are indifferent and some are supportive of Yoo).

But the reality is that "law/politics/economics/morality" are so intertwined as to be inseparable. Sometimes I wish it were otherwise particularly when it comes to things like human/civil/consumer rights and the environment, but the law is what it is--a very blunt imperfect tool made by elites to serve elite interests. Sadly the law is almost always a "lagging indicator" of trends/movements/culture (and maybe for good reason but that's highly debatable).

Equally obvious is that an individual or group's efficacy using the law as a tool for accountability or change is a function of money. The law has always served the interests of political/economic elites better than other groups and will continue to do so unless average citizens are willing to fund endeavors like the ACLU, EFF, and NLG . . . to counterbalance the public's interests. But that's a tough sell to most folks. But more importantly people have to become better informed more involved "citizens" if they want change. And that's an even tougher sell.

And as far as holding our own accountable it ain't over 'til it's over.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-yoo2-2009jul02,0,1619065.story

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/01/much-ado-about-padilla-v-yoo.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19detain.html?_r=1&em

http://www.dailycal.org/article/105468/professor_yoo_may_face_criminal_investigation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/05/AR2009050502219_2.html?sid=ST2009050502426

http://www.pubrecord.org/law/726-doj-investigation-into-yoos-legal-work-reaches-damning-conclusions.html

**By the way I wasn't offering "student loans and mortgages" as a "legitimate" excuse why lawyers and judges will never "rise up" and demand change--I think lawyers in this country still believe in using the legal processes available, (no matter how excrutiatingly slow they may be) and that those processes haven't yet been exhausted.