Breaking: AG to Appoint Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture
About bleeping time! From the Washington Post:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened terrorism suspects, according to two sources familiar with the move.
Holder is poised to name John Durham, a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to lead the inquiry, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.
Durham’s mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees.
At least someone is determined to actually get to the bottom of all this. And, guess what? The argument that doing this would somehow damage bipartisanship has proven to be total BS since the Rethugs have already destroyed that particular meme.
Tags: CIA, Obama Administration, torture
Oh yea, they’ll examine it and conclude no wrong doing. Mark my words.
I don’t think that the argument was that it would destroy bipartisanship — the argument was that these prosecutions would suck all of the air out of the room, pretty much rebooting the BushCo-era arguments over the Iraq war. It won’t take long for them to start trying to brand those not in favor of that war as “not Patriotic” — again.
I also think this is a test on whether the GOP can sustain two huge hissy fits at once. Can they have a hissy fit about the public option and Bush-era torture at the same time? Will the teabaggers support torture investigations, since they claim to be very concerned about civil liberties?
Obama votes “present”, leaves it to Holder to decide on weather to investigate, while he jets off to Martha’s Vineyard.
yawn, food for the liberals. Sort of like all the times we thought libby, rove, delay, rummy, and all the rest of them were going to be “frogmarched” for this or that or fired.
not a god damned thing is going to happen from this.
A bunch of Lyndie Englands is all we will find…if anything.
I guess the CIA destroying hundreds of hours of video might be useful right about now.
http://imagepros.us/?display&c=473b19b1ba1c&i=ObamaCIA_01.jpg
Yeah, why can’t Obama be more like Bush and spend a month on vacation clearing brush like Bush did in the early days of his presidency. Does he think the brush will clear itself?
BTW, Bush ignored the “Bin Laden determined to strike within the U.S.” on August 6, 2001.
wow anoni has convinced me to be a talking point troll . . . what an anonidiot.
Nemski, I can’t take credit for that, you were a talking point troll long before I showed up.
But only you, anoni, get to be the anonidiot.
So how much of BushCo’s 487 days running away from managing his wars did you ever object to?
Cassy, it’s not the vacation I object to, the president is the president where ever he is. I am sure that Obama will get his morning briefing and telleconference with the cabinet, just like Bush did.
What I was pointing out was that Obama left it to an underling to decide to reverse Obama Policy and scheduled the announcement to coincide with his isolation from the press.
Cassy, I’m sure you’ll keep a running total of Obama’s vacation days and cost durring this time of economic crisis and double didget unemployment.
Whatever the number is, it won’t be more than a year away on vacation.
And the decision to appoint a Special Prosecutor was always Holder’s. This would be the AGs job. We may need to make you take a citizenship test.
“Whatever the number is, it won’t be more than a year away on vacation. ”
meaning, no one will be providing you with the number as a talking point and the generic “he will be better than Bush”
Well, when Bush broke all records for taking vacation in office you are still working with a pretty high bar to get beyond.
But holla at us when Obama gets past that, because I’m sure you’ve broken out your beans to keep count.
OFF TOPIC BUT OH WELL. “Don’t get rolled” from Public Citizen.
Once upon a time our corporate titans bankrolled our elections with no limits, no safety net, no labor law, no voting rights for most americans” They were the haves and have nots. This fall a century of modest limits on corporate influence could be rolled back, crushing progress on health care, energy, economic recovery, everything.
The Supreme Court on Sept. 9th, hears a case: “Citzens United vs. Federal Elections”. It will reopen the question of unlimited corporate dollars in our elections. In a stunning move, the court will reach back and reconsider two pivotal campaign finance cases settled long ago. The potential result, a century old pillar of campaign finance doctrine could be swept away. Don’t let our election and progress get rolled over by corporate power. I urge you to go to: public citizen and read. You can email: action@citizens.org as well.
Isn’t it already horrific that corporations are controlling and over ruling every good government citizen sponsored progressive action. They have filled the campaign coffers of our electeds to vote against us on almost every issue. Time to speak up, or GET ROLLED.
Cassy, please share you Presidental research on time spent away from the Capital. I am fascinated to learn how Carter compared to Kennedy, to Bush 41, to Reagan, to the Roosevelts…
please share
Another thread hijacked by nonsense…..
I know it’s tiresome, PM, but that’s all the R’s have – nonsense.
Once again, doing research for anonidiot:
Bush spent 879 days on vacation! That’s 2.5 years!
You want to know who took the least? Carter, with just 79 days.
This makes perfect sense… O’Bama is sliding badly in the polls.
What’s the one thing that insures the hard left doesn’t leave him too????
Bush hatred!
The rallying cry to get the dems behind him. They are pissy because they have no one to hate now.
They control everything in Congress and the White House and what do they do???? They blame the GOP for health care not passing! It’s jerk off style of hatred. It feels good when they do it, but it really doesn’t accomplish much. They just look like losers when they do this.
Bush hatred… Now that’s wholesome! Like a real f*ck!
Wasn’t O’Bama/Biden ’08 all about not looking at the past and fixing the future? Just another failed promise of the poorest administration in the history of the USA.
Hey El Som — take a good hard look at Mark O’s talking point delivery here.
This is why the Administration was reluctant to take this on.
I support the investigation and REALLY hope that they get to decision-makers here. But consider Mark O’s nuttery to be the beginning of the flood.
To which ‘bulo would respond: Who cares?
It is not as if the absence of such an investigation has stopped the wingnuts from floating all sorts of lunacy, often abetted by what has been called the mainstream media.
By that logic, one should argue that Obama shouldn’t do healthcare b/c the wingnuts will come out in force, Obama shouldn’t address climate changes b/c the wingnuts will be out in force, Obama shouldn’t take a vacation b/c the wingnuts will be out in force.
The fact is that many D’s and what once was an independent press have been Stockholm Syndromed by the relentless telling of ‘the Big Lie’ and hundreds of smaller ones by the Rethug propagandists and their enablers.
It is time to stop giving in to their constant braying and act like grownups. If they don’t, it’s time to find D’s who will.
It is hard to believe the Obama team will want to
destroy the CIA for political desires.
The interrogators will all be cleared as having
been within the law and the entire charade
will attempt to bring former President Bush and VP
Cheney to the court room.
I guess when you have wrecked the economy,
widened the debt and taken any chance of health
care reform off the shelf you do stupid things.
Mike Protack
Bush & McConnell were doing stupid things long before they accomplished all that.
I’ll be satisfied with Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Goodling, Miers, and Gonzalez. Let Bush keep his plausible deniabilty – we missed that bus when we failed to impeach him.
The magic words summon X Stryker, debunker of polling myths!
Gallup: 52% Approve, 40% Disapprove
ARG: 52% Approve, 42% Disapprove
NBC: 51% Approve, 40% Disapprove
ABC: 57% Approve, 40% Disapprove
Rasmussen: 49% Approve, 50% Disapprove
One of these polls is not like the others – during the entire Bush Administration, Rasmussen consistently showed Bush’s approval to be 10 points higher than any other pollster, so it’s no surprise that they find Obama’s 10 points lower. It’s sample bias, pure and simple – Rasmussen states: “Currently, the baseline targets for the adult population are 38.4% Democrats, 32.7% Republicans, and 28.9% unaffiliated.” Meanwhile, the pollster composite finds national Party ID to be 34.3% Democrats, 22.9% Republicans, and 35% Independents.
Any pollster that is polling less than 30% Republicans is insane. Just look at registration rolls and you understand that Rasmussen is right. The truth is that the first 3 polls and Rasmussen are essentially the same poll. They are all within 3 points on the approval. The difference in the disapproval is how you group the leaners. If you look at the strongly disapprove it comes to about 40%. I don’t know how you so misread the polls. It must be wishful thinking.
The ABC poll is the one not like the others. It also didn’t poll voters which is the only poll that counts. If you are not a registered voter, Rasmussen won’t even talk with you. That is why Rasmussen predicts elections to the point and ABC can sometimes pick an American Idol contest.
You are correct about Gallup, but you left off most of the important details. “A new low” and “Approval among seniors, upper-income Americans has fallen below 50%”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122468/Obama-Weekly-Approval-Average-New-Low.aspx
Just face it, he’s crashing and burning!
This Is Absolutely Shameful. This administration rather persecute patriots who kept us safe than the terrorists who kill us.
And that manufactured outrage didn’t take long, now did it?
Actually it took the administration 7 months to manufacture enough outrage to be this outrageous. My position hasn’t changed it 8 years. Their position changes every month. Panetta threatened to resign according to published reports. Is that manufactured as well?
There are clearly people in the BushCo torture regime who went beyond even the Yoo memos. And the Yoo memos were despicable. It is usual for people who have broken the law to be investigated and prosecuted. We are now in the investigation stage.
And we note that none of your manufactured outrage is over either breaking the law or actually torturing people.
But we’ll make you as NOT a member of the Rule of Law Caucus.
Yeah. Let the investigations proceed and the chips fall where they may. In the course of destroying this country, George W. Bush (the First Fool as I loved to call him) undid DECADES of diplomatic protocol.
Were these morons able to get information via torture? Sure they did. Most of that info was false. You see, under those circumstances, the person being tortured will say just about anything. It is quite interesting: no one in this administration (Excuse me, I meant to say, “THAT administration) was smart enough to figure this out.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
You see, under those circumstances, the person being tortured will say just about anything.
Tom hit exactly the important point here (um, besides the fact that torture is illegal and immoral, but we know the Bushies didn’t worry about that, nor are they arguing that) — Torture doesn’t work! . At least not in the way they say it does. Torture is an excellent tool for one thing, and one thing only — getting someone to say what you want them to say. And that’s how Cheney and Rumsfeld used it. They “knew” Al Qaeda and Saddam were working together, and they “knew” Saddam had WMDs. That’s what they wanted their victims to say. Torture almost never gets you any information you didn’t already know.
In releasing these memos, the men and women of the CIA have assurances from both myself, and from Attorney General Holder, that we will protect all who acted reasonably and relied upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that their actions were lawful. The Attorney General has assured me that these individuals will not be prosecuted and that the Government will stand by them.
Pres. Obama 16 April 2009
Well, anoni, I haven’t seen anything that contradicts that. They’re looking at people who acted unreasonably and went beyond “legal advice”. However, I would like to see the investigation start out looking at the lower levels, then by just “folowing the investigation where it goes”, end up where the blame really lies. Then they can say, “We didn’t intend to indict Yoo/Gonzales/Cheney/Rumsfeld/insert evil name here, the logical course of the investigation led us here.”
If all the dungeon patriots here had the courage of their convictions, they’d march on Washington to protect the torturers, wouldn’t they?
And Scott P is quite right — if you read the scope of the investigation authorized it is into those acts and persons who went beyond what was authorized in those despicable memos. And if you have been paying attention to the latest data dump thee were definitely some whose actions went beyond what was authorized.
Two years ago, I would have thought the idea of a big Pro-Torture Rally in the US was just ridiculous. Now, I think we may be just one O’Reilly/Beck on-air crusade away from seeing it.
Scott: In other words — Glenn Greenwald’s words, I believe — the defense will be, “I was only giving orders.”
Mike Protack: Disbanding the CIA would be one of the smartest things this country could do. No, I don’t mean getting rid of our intelligence capabilities — I mean get rid of that agency, which has been out of control for decades. It missed hard-to-miss developments like India and Pakistan getting nuclear weapon capability, but it has plenty of resources for black ops.
Sorry, but that’s not the way a democratic government should behave, and anyone who thinks otherwise demostrates that he’s not only OK with torture, he’s OK with the whole Stalinist menu of options for maintaining power.
Cheney’s rationale for torture had nothing to do with the Yoo memos.
It was that it worked so well on the “24” episodes!