“When the vice president of the United States says that he believes … waterboarding is appropriate, there is no other conclusion than (he approved) a form of torture,” Sen. Levin told Maddow. “I was astounded to hear (Cheney) blithely say it’s OK.”
Debunking the idiocy of Cheney’s argument in his ABC interview that torture didn’t violate the law because John Yoo’s legal opinion letter twisted language and rational thinking, Sen. Levin proclaimed, “You can’t just change something that’s illegal into something that’s legal by a lawyer writing a letter saying it’s OK.”
In an editorial this morning, the New York Times issues a strong call for the Obama administration to take fast, firm action in investigating people in the Bush administration involved in approving torture.
“At the least, Mr. Obama should, as the organization Human Rights First suggested, order his attorney general to review more than two dozen prisoner-abuse cases that reportedly were referred to the Justice Department by the Pentagon and the C.I.A. — and declined by Mr. Bush’s lawyers.
“Mr. Obama should consider proposals from groups like Human Rights Watch and the Brennan Center for Justice to appoint an independent panel to look into these and other egregious violations of the law. Like the 9/11 commission, it would examine in depth the decisions on prisoner treatment, as well as warrantless wiretapping, that eroded the rule of law and violated Americans’ most basic rights. Unless the nation and its leaders know precisely what went wrong in the last seven years, it will be impossible to fix it and make sure those terrible mistakes are not repeated.
“We expect Mr. Obama to keep the promise he made over and over in the campaign (that) one of his first acts as president would be to order a review of all of Mr. Bush’s executive orders and reverse those that eroded civil liberties and the rule of law.”
Hopefully, Obama understands that change means more than new policies: It also means returning America to the high ground of moral leadership in the world. This can’t happen unless and until the nation investigates and prosecutes those responsible for destroying its long-held, core principles.
4 comments:
WARM criminal?
He's pretty cold-hearted and I know many of us think he's death warmed over but I think you mean "war criminal".
Good catch. Thanks., I fixed the headline. Want a job as a proofreader?
Richard Cheney should face the death penalty following international trials. If the trial is done in absentation then an international peacekeeping force needs to come inside the united states and arrest him for his public hanging to follow.
He is filthy scum that has not only laughed all Americans but this brave sonofbitch ditched vietnam with 5 deferments. Meanwhile his own Department of Veterans Affairs continue the Vietnam War crimes by the total lies by which they adjudicate those “who served America” in combat with constant claim denials.
Donald Rumsfield, John Yoo, Condi Rice and idiot Bush should be extradited also.
The Republican Party should be banned from operation as it has mixed church with government for murder. Church santioned government murder was also done in Vietnam over the Gulf Of Tonkin Lies.
I agree. Unfortunately, it will not begin until people are ready to pull back the mask these psychopaths in power wear and reveal them for what they really are; predators of humanity. Plain and simple.
The issue for people comes in when they realize intuitively and/or instinctively that by pulling down the masks of people in power, they must also pull down their own. For one cannot view Truth in another, without the ability to view Truth in themselves. It works both ways. The problem is that people have placed their entire lives in these masks, catering to the social rules of conduct set forth by these very same psychopaths; greed, avarice, selfishness, vanity, etc. They fear the loss of everything they have ever known.
Little do they realize that only by giving up everything, can one hope to attain anything.
Please let us begin to understand the nature of being of these entities called “Bush” and “Cheney” and many others. Our survival as beings who can truthfully refer to themselves as human is at stake, for these psychopaths have a much different view of reality they would like us to live by.
I would suggest that a book titled "Political Ponerology” as a good starting place.
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