Legal Community Condemns Destruction of CIA Tapes
NEW YORK - A former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ethics adviser has joined leading members of the U.S. legal community in calling on Congress to investigate the destruction of tape recordings of interrogations carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Jesselyn Radack — who came to prominence as a whistleblower after she objected to the government’s treatment of John Walker Lindh, the ‘American Taliban’ captured during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan — told a news teleconference last week that the destroyed tapes are “part of a pattern.” She said, “There are some five million missing White House e-mails. No one knows where the hit lists are from the U.S. Attorney massacre. And now the CIA interrogation videotapes have been erased. This is criminal.”
“Remember when the Justice Department prosecuted Enron and Arthur Anderson for destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice? Now the Justice Department is trying to block congressional oversight and legal proceedings involving this latest scandal,” Radack added.
Radack’s comments came during the launch of a new campaign, “American Lawyers Defending the Constitution.” The effort is backed by a statement signed by more than 1,300 lawyers and law students around the country, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein, leaders of legal organisations and more than 100 law professors in the U.S.
Their statement calls on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to hold wide-ranging hearings to investigate “unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity by the Bush Administration.”
The ‘TapeGate’ furor erupted after the New York Times revealed in early December that the CIA in 2005 had destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, “a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention programme, according to current and former government officials.” The CIA subsequently announced the programme.
The videotapes showed agency operatives subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in CIA custody — to severe interrogation techniques in 2002. In a message to his staff, CIA Director General Michael V. Hayden reportedly said the tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that the video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks. He also said the tapes no longer had intelligence value.
The destruction of the tapes has raised questions about whether CIA officials withheld information from Congress, the courts and the Sep. 11 commission about aspects of the programme.
The CIA programme that included the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects began after the capture of Zubaydah in March 2002. The CIA has said that the DOJ and the executive branch reviewed and approved of the use of a set of harsh techniques before they were used on any prisoners, and that the DOJ issued a classified legal opinion in August 2002 that provided explicit authorisation for their use.
Other participants on the telephone press conference included Michael Ratner, president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group, and Marjorie Cohn, president of the 6,000-member National Lawyers Guild.
Ratner, whose organisation has played a major role in providing defence lawyers for detainees in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, underscored the importance of congressional action. “For far too long Congress has been the handmaiden of the Bush administration’s undermining and subversion of basic constitutional rights. The right to be free from torture; warrant-less wiretapping; jailing without habeas corpus; and disappearances into secret sites. Principles going back to the Magna Carta are at stake,” he said.
Ratner called on Congress to “do its job: defend the Constitution from its enemies.” “Its enemies are the Bush administration,” he stressed.
“Just announcing that investigations will be held and subpoenas will be issued is terribly insufficient unless Congress is willing to enforce the subpoenas by issuing contempt citations,” Ratner said, emphasising that, “Congress has a constitutional duty to oversee the activities of the executive branch, and our entire system of government is threatened when Congress simply folds before an obstinate executive.”
Cohn, author of the recently published book, “Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law”, told IPS, “From the illegal war in Iraq, to the illegal torture of prisoners in U.S. custody, to the illegal destruction of evidence by the CIA, the Bush administration has become an institution of lawbreakers. Congress must hold hearings to investigate this lawbreaking, and should authorise the appointment of an independent prosecutor since Michael Mukasey cannot be counted on to conduct an impartial investigation.”
Radack rose to prominence as a major whistleblower in the Lindh case. In the course of Lindh’s criminal prosecution, the court ordered all documents associated with his interrogation to be turned over. After some documents were turned over, Radack was asked about the existence of more documents. At that time, she looked through the files and discovered that the bulk of her work was missing and had not been turned over. Radack was able to reconstruct much of her work, and informed her supervisor that her department had not complied with the court order.
She was forced to resign before the documents were turned over. A criminal investigation into Radack’s actions was eventually closed with no charges, but her case was referred to the state bar of Maryland, which eventually cleared her of all wrongdoing. She has never been called to testify before Congress.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said it had no knowledge that Lindh was represented by a lawyer prior to his interrogation, but this position appears to be contradicted by material in Radack’s files.
Radack told the news conference, “My e-mails documented my advice against interrogating Lindh without a lawyer, and concluded that the FBI committed an ethics violation when it did so anyway. Both the CIA videotapes and my e-mails were destroyed, in part, because officials were concerned that they documented controversial interrogation methods that could put agency officials in legal jeopardy.”
In a related development, one of America’s leading constitutional scholars said White House involvement in the CIA’s decision to destroy videotapes documenting severe interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists could constitute as many as six crimes.
Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University law school in Washington, appeared on CNN to discuss a report by the New York Times that four White House attorneys — including then-White House counsels Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers — participated in discussions with the CIA about whether or not the tapes should be destroyed.
Turley said, “There are at least six identifiable crimes here, from obstruction of justice to obstruction of Congress, perjury, conspiracy, false statements, and what is often forgotten: the crime of torturing suspects.” “If that crime was committed it was a crime that would conceivably be ordered by the president himself, only the president can order those types of special treatments or interrogation techniques,” he added.
© 2007 Inter Press Service
Asking the corporate whores to investigate the corporate henchmen. That’s rich.
Do you think THIS one will stick?!?!
It’s bizarre. Everyone knows about the cover-ups. Every knows about the torture. Everyone knows all the crimes that have been perpetrated by this government. And yet, somehow, that very KNOWING seems to makes no one want to follow up on holding people to account for these things. Maybe it’s because there is no real mystery to investigate… We KNOW they did it. We don’t feel we have to confirm it legally because we don’t believe the legal system is capable of justice. I mean, how is it posible that everyone isn’t demanding that they be held to account?!
There are clearly some strange forces at work.
I’m saying, because we know so much already, we don’t need the legal system to reveal any secrets to us, so we don’t press them to get involved. We know they won’t be able to entertain us sufficiently with any startling revelations because we already know everything.
desaparecido boy if that isn’t the truth! I’ll bet if Justice was really sought it would incriminate most of our lobbyists, congressmen and representatives, government attorneys and judges then they would blame the MIC and the corporations and contractors that work under them and all the ceos for mismanagement practices, wall street would be implicated as Bush has delved into the securities and exchange commission and our country could fall into a total economic collapse. Whoopie!
Whoopie indeed.
Cause I mean isn’t it obvious? If justice is not served, then the US of A no longer exists. It is an illusion. The documents of its founding shredded, therefore, its basis no more.
If your base is gone, then what are you floating on? Thin air. If you are floating on thin air, get ready to come on down. Seems simple to me.
I think jungleboy has a point here. The rot is spread throughout the branches of government, including our fourth estate and corporate complicity. I was puzzled that Gore refused to allow the theft of Florida to be investigated, but I’m beginning to understand why, although I don’t know the details.
Looks like we need an overhaul, but when the public is kept in the dark and sedated and the foxes are guarding the henhouse, not likely.
I think, many in the older generation cling to the “american myth”; while, many in the younger generation think its all a big show and are content just to watch. I could be wrong, what do I know, but it seems this way to me.
Regardless, the sad part is: Nothing gets done. Not even justice.
So then “other laws” kick in, such as those based upon ecology and perhaps even sociology. Don’t they?
May the next batch of insincere office holders drop dead in their tracks following their swearing to uphold the Constitution, and their later “lapses of attention”.
Maybe we could put Hollywood type floor plackets (/√_lightning strike_/√ vs. usual ☆stars☆) on the spots of their expirations, as reminders to the surviving one’s tendency to lie and cheat the US of A people?
what does Israel + Mossad think about
total rendition programs and enhanced interrogations techniques?
ACLU made its stand but did Israel?
nspire I’m not exactly sure what you are saying but I think I can aspire towards it…..if the idea, is to call for some proclaimed principles from the candidates that they feel they are essentially absolutely compelled to uphold, then that may offer some hope….but, you know (or at least I think you do) that time is running out if there are not some serious changes….
Just my opinion.
Maybe. Who knows.
These are tough questions we’re asking here. Which is more important? Upholding the Constitution and prosecuting the criminals wherever they are found, even if chaos ensues? Or pretending it’s all okay so that things won’t fall apart?
Life teaches us that pretending it isn’t there doesn’t make the wound better. It just gets more infected. Then the whole limb has to go. Or, if we continue to put off action, the infection continues to spread and we die.
So the question really is, shall we sit by and let the infection spread until we die? Or shall we go down fighting? I know my answer. These 1300 lawyers have found theirs. What is yours?
This is a small step in the right direction, but unfortunately, beyond the capability of the now-damaged US “Justice” system. Just as the judiciary of the former Yugoslavia was incapable of meting out justice to Slobodan Milosevic & cronies, so the judiciary of the USA is likewise compromised (thanks to Miers, Gonzalez, et al). In order to bring Dubya, Cheney, & creepy corporate crew to account, it will be necessary to hand them over to the International Tribunal in The Hague.
I don’t know NateW shouldn’t the US at first have an opportunity to “dish out” our own justice internally? I think there is still time.
Or has it gone on for far too long….??
Only if the people elect Dennis Kucinich will the MIC, big oil and the neo-cons get nervous. I’m not really sure if even DK can gain the upper hand in such a well entrenched, criminal conspiracy. He may go the way of Mrs. Bhutto!
In the meantime it’s ‘business as usual’. When we have a government that kidnaps suspects abroad, supports terrorism (the U.S. initially armed the Taliban, not mention Nicaragua, Iran and dozens of others), assassinates diplomatic leaders, backs the most ruthless dictatorships on the planet, ignores human rights abuses everywhere, imprisons more people than China, projects US Imperialism with over 1,000 bases worldwide and rapes the American taxpayers to the tune of a trillion dollars a year to increase our alleged ’security’, does anyone think that this administration gives a second thought about a few missing tapes?
For years the neo-cons have said that Nixon’s biggest mistake was that he didn’t throw those damn tapes (that implicated him) into one of the numerous, White House fireplaces. They won’t make that mistake again!
CIA= Criminals In America
The “torture tape” flap is a diversion. The real story is that the Iran NIE exposed Bush’s attempt to once again mislead the American people into war. That’s the investigation I want to see.
Our founding fathers thought that every two hundred years we should have some sort of revolution to replace the “new system” with the working old one, and to get it modernized in the right way. That is why we had the minutemen. This current slide from the constitution started with nixon and then reagan, who got rid of the millitias organizational power, and has fallen to our current level with what we have for a system today. These new powers Bush has put into place have just concreted the idea american citizens have no power, the DHS, patriot act, tribunals, torture, ect. Our “two hundred years” are up! I don’t know where to go now but I think you get what I’m after. Justice! Our bought and paid for congress won’t do it, obviously!
Somebody should send this to Pelosi and get a comment from her perhaps it’s time for a wake up call
With our newly selected duel Israeli-US attorney general Mukasey at the helm, nothing, absolutely nothing will come from this, particularly if Israel is involved. Does one need to wonder why this administration consistently uses “for reasons of national security” to cover their miserable crimes? I mean what are they afraid of and what is it they wish to conceal?
plus pelosi has shown her colors….expect nothing from her..duh
A lot of negative comments here for those who desire to see the collapse of the Bush Administration. I understand why, as to date Congress has not shown much of any gumption. Or none for the most part.
However, while Bush has been lining up his ducks for a complete takeover, ala Hitler and the Nazi form of government, that takes time and he hasn’t managed to get them all lined up yet. Congress may have been quietly lining up their ducks also and it takes time to garner evidence and have credible witnesses prepared to testify and tell the truth.
In preliminary hearings of the destroyed torture tapes, the Congressional Judicial Committee looked very good and the testimony and expert advice from highly qualified lawyers, made Bush and Company look very bad. Conyers expressions and body language were similar to the cat who just ate the canary. He seemed to be overly pleased.
When Jose Rodriguez, an ex CIA big shot, testifies before the Congressional Judicial Committee next month, Bush’s ducks may very well begin to fall over like dead ducks. This may be the beginning of the end of the Bush Cartel. __ We’ll see. __ Cheney and Rove are not the only ones who know how to dance in DC and Rove has already flown the coop and has now has his book published, in an attempt to justify his deeds and cover his ass. Sometimes hope is appropriate, when action is being taken for hope to become a reality.
Of course these are dangerous times now, trapped rats can be deadly.
Indeed. There is hope and there is truth.
Lets hope the truth comes out.
After the Tet offensive, Walter Cronkite famously intoned that “the war in Vietnam cannot be won.” Lyndon Johnson famously said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” Well, that wasn’t quite it. The thing was, if Johnson had lost Cronkite, the corporate bosses had lost control of their mass media hirelings, and that meant a brief flowering of free speech, at least for those with access, which lasted until sometime in the mid-1970s. We probably lost it because we were too stoned to notice they were taking it from us, but by the mid-1980s the lid was firmly on again, and they were welding it shut.
So, here’s all these stories about how the CIA tapes, the Attorneys scandal, torture itself, the NSA wiretaps, the Plame leak, WMD and al Qaeda lies, 9/11 coverups, etc. ad nauseam, demand investigation and make a solid case for impeachment.
This one is Inter Press Service, and top headline here on CD.
Where is it on the mass media? Look at google or yahoo for an objective survey.
George W. Bush hasn’t lost “Cronkite” yet.
Any investigation in Washington is likely to branch out into other areas of investigation and to get the ball rolling. I have often wondered why the legal voices in America have been so compliantly quiet. This is important because it represents the beginnings of organized legal involvement in the debate. It is late but very welcome.
Yes, there has been George Tennet writing an ass-covering book also, and a BushCo legal counsel (name excapes me) so this is a sign that the rats are abandoning a burning ship. I wager Captain Karma doesn’t sleep, though sometimes it seems to take a while for the “wheels to grind slowly - but exceedingly fine.” Its a question of how much will ‘hit the fan’ (and thereby force Conyers and Peloisi to do their Constitutional duties) before Bush etal bail out of office in ‘09. I agree that this is a vital Constitutional issue that should require immediate impeachment proceedings (and imprisonment). The problem with the Haque, enforcing international law, is that Bush recinded Clinton’s signature on the ICC (Hague). Hence why they think they can get away with all this. If the next Pres. signs back onto the ICC, I guess then the question will be how likely is it the ICC can still prosecute BushCo, Rumsfeld, etal. Rummie is being pursued for the rest of his life already. I wouldn’t want to be in these guys’ karmic shoes. (8-p
I notice a very good spokesperson for impeachment is 27-year CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who has been putting Conyers on the spot (if you follow DemocracyNow!). I’d like to see more news spots with his commentaries
.
There is no statute of limitations for murder.
An articele by Ray McGovern posted here on common Dreams today.
I hope Ray McGovern is in a secure safe-house.
I hope we all are.
If its a house, then it is secure. Ain’t it?
it must be, at least in my opinion.
OK, later…..later…..later….goood by,
by, by, by…hey the Moken, they don’t even say good-by…
they must know something…..
Okay, Nancy and Harry let year #1 be a full throttle shot at genuine Congressional bipartisanship, kicking off the doomed effort by declaring impeachment was off the table. Bush responded to this approach (and to the Baker Hamilton overture and to the worries of the traditional GOP base) by escalating the US military presence in the Middle East with the surge, with more fear mongering - this time towards Iran - and with more saber rattling demagoguery.
In your face. So much for bipartisanship.
Perhaps therefore the time is indeed ripe in 2008 to start the hearings like the lawyers’ group is calling for. The threat of impeachment - even if it means Bush and Cheney skip out of Washington in January 2009 just before a Senate trial would start - is the one and only legitimate threat of negative political repercussion that the Bush inner circle may possibly respect.
So by all means call Ray McGovern. And Richard Clarke. And Paul O’Neil.
Call each of the participants on the American side of the Iraq war strategy meeting with the Brits in the summer of 2002 memorialized in the Downing Street memos.
Call Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, David Addington, and the other Justice Department functionaries who conjured up the legalistic mumbo jumbo to justify using torture and trashing the Geneva Conventions.
Bring on the whistle blowers from ATT and Verizon and Qwest who have first hand knowledge of how NSA approached the telecoms in early 2001 to facilitate the wholesale, warrantless seizure of the electronic communications of American citizens, so our spooks can behave on US soil the same way they run rampant overseas.
Call them all - let the subpoenas fall down like rain, with the hearings serving as a perpetual public forum for honest federal officials and private citizens who know where the bodies are buried to step forward and speak up truthfully, in order to affix political accountability for the last eight years’ transgressions.
Why has the beltway Democratic leadership wasted a full year to hold hearings into these high crimes in high places, with so much evidence already in the public domain?
Some believe it’s because too many Democrats were coopted into the “Congressional oversight” of crimes that were declared to be too deeply classified to ever discuss.
There’s probably a lot of truth to the charge that evidence of Democratic complicity would be awkward and embarassing, but so what? Just because some of the cops, who should have known better, turned their heads is no excuse for the perps to just waltz away scot free.
A competing, more ominous school of thought contends the Democrats are fearful of confronting Bush/Cheney about their lies and crimes because the regime in its last days may panic, and do something outrageously rash like bombing Iran, and/or declaring a state of emergency and martial law so as to temporarily delay their transition out of power.
But again, so what? The alternative is to let Little George ride off into the Texas sunset to kick back at the neo cons’ new Freedom Center, where the jihadist clash of civilizations and doctrine of preventive war can preached incessantly, so that their brand of soft fascism can become institutionalized features of the US partisan landscape for years to come. No thanks. Not on my tax dollar.
By all means, I say, let the hearings begin!How fitting for the gloves to come off exactly forty years after the tragic, tumultuous events of 1968.
It’s well past time to take the toys away from the boys.
Bill from Saginaw
We really, really, really need John Edwards right now. He is the only one who can and will truly fight the Establishment in Washington and the corporations. The Establishment, Big Business, Corporations, Wall Street, and the Pharmacuticals are scared to death of him. He has a proven record of fighting and WINNING against all of them. Hillary and Obama want to sit down with the corporations and talk. Well, Middle America has had enough talking. Talking has been going on for years and look what it has gotten us. We need a radical change and John Edwards is exactly the man to bring us that change. If you are not familiar with John Edwards and where he stands on all of the issues, please read the following article on Common Dreams, Dec. 27, 2007, by John Nichols. It’s titled “Behind the Edwards Surge: Right Message at the Right Time”.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/27/6016/
And I am Really, really, really, really, really friggin’ glad I am in Europe somewhere since BB was assassinated. Love you WillyBill, they so love to ignore the CD /(nose in air)hubris…
be talkin’ at ya soon from somewhere……
“The mills of the gods grind slowly but exceeding fine.”
Back atcha, O Roe……really…lol
Love your post GINGER. He would do the right things.
Just saw Atonement. Graphic scenes of war filled me with anguish, I wanted to scream out “there’s no difference between the wounded and killed then as in Iraq today, except Iraq is a war unneeded”. bush is too stupid to understand atonement, we must be sure he eventually does.
How about this …. all lawyers go on strike for a day and march in protest instead …ala Pakistan.
BILL FROM SAGINAW — When you mentioned ”
It’s well past time to take the toys away from the boys,” that reminded of those temporarily missing Air Force nukes.
I would be so much more confident in our gov’t and national security, if I just knew how all those people involved so suddenly died, that were likely involved.
My suspicion is that ‘National Command Authority’ (e.g. Geo the lessor shrub_in_chief) was wrangling his own personal supply of “toys” for his own boys in black(water) to go off to Iran (against CENCOM leadership).
I believe that it is clear that the US military is no longer 100% at the behest of the commander_in_chimp, and those courageous soldiers of moral integrity (to their Constitutional Oaths) at the Pentagon may be our last best hope (for a little while).
Thank you CENCOM (et al.) for standing up for our Constitution!
There is no personal accountability in the congress other then to the corp sponsors who give them the money to get elected. They won’t do anything until the corp. bosses tell them to. We must find ways to bring down these pimps.
You know that the tapes of these two interrogations over many months were hundreds of hours long. I saw on the net a brief story of a c.i.a. agent who was involved in the process. He said that after 35 seconds of water boarding the suspect started talking. Anybody who believes that bologna probably watches faux news. You KNOW they were doing a lot more than just water boarding and the tapes were so horrifically cruel that ANYTHING would be better than to let the world see how barbaric the c.i.a. is, and has been for a long time. Oh, that’s the U.S. government, I must be mistaken.
The barbaric history of the United States has come to an all new low. Unfortunately, I believe it is the way of the Homo Sapien species. Yes folks, the neo cons are humans too. Wealth and power always corrupt any society, and religion steers it in a direction just asking for destruction. I mean really, is george bush acting in any way at all like JESUS? What flaw in our collective judgment could allow 50 million Christians to RE, yes RE-elect george bush, like he was following the word of a higher father and his actions could definitely prove it? I think the flaw is called insanity, and it certainly has a large place to live among the major religions of the world , or should I say the way it’s people interpret their religions. And corporate America equals the insanity of religious extremists with it’s obscene ceo compensation packages and incessant need for more profit, at any cost, more profit. That’s sick.
O.k. , I’m done for now.
COLDWARBABY. If I sign that petition you are offering, will I have to use my real name, and do I have to give an address also? Or can we use any code name, or just make one up?
Now, I surmise I must give my real name for a valid petition. Who all gets those real names?
Just wish to know, before I sign your petition.
George Washington started something on that Christmas Eve when he surprised the Hessians in Trenton. Even with his almost non-existent resources, he ensured they were fed and housed for the balance of the war. In Europe they probably would have all been killed.
As WWII closed, German soldiers and politicians fled to the American lines where they expected to be treated with dignity. We were co-writers of the Geneva conventions. When US forces picked up and detained (in Guatanamo eventually?)an al Jazeera camera man at the Iraqi border, his colleagues assumed he must have done something wrong, because Americans just don’t arrest people without due cause.
This administration and its collection of corporate yes men and fringe neonazis has undone 230 years of American tradition and image. They should be prosecuted. Otherwise it will be too easy for them to cover this up and write their own version of history. Sounds like Rove already has the first draft.
It has always been an illusion. One that was held dear in the hearts of good people and passed on to their children.
When good people are stifled by the representatives they chose it is time to change out the representatives and start anew.
The illusion is a good one and has been kept alive at great cost. So do not give in to anomie and apathy: fight in any way you can.
The American public is as compliant in the crimes this Administration committed. For 7 long years American’s have known what was going on but have yet to demand anything be done about it. There has been a pattern of corruption and malfeasance there from day one. It all started when Bush wouldn’t allow the Florida votes to be counted and called upon the Supreme Court to help him. It was the death knell of democracy in this country when they stepped in and would not allow the votes in Florida to be counted. The Supreme Court handed this cowboy the country on a silver platter and said do what you want. It’s been a downhill slide into total corruption ever since. The list of his crimes is to long to go into but we all know they are endless. The point of it is, for a lot of years the public was sucked in by this snake oil salesman. He sold them a war that they should have known was wrong before it ever started. The truth was there if anyone would have cared to look. I knew it and I am not the most observant person. In fact, I usually avoid the news. But, it was in our local Conservative rag that the UN inspector’s could not find any evidence of WMD’s in Iraq and evidence all the rest was lies being told by Bush. But, people didn’t want to see just how corrupt this man really was. They bought into the ‘War on Terror’ nonsense hook line and sinker. I have often wondered just how far the public is going to let this lunatic go before they get worked up into a snit and do something about this fascist President we have????
What a circus - it’s like three stooges x 10,000 - in a horror story - far too ugly and unreal to be believed.
The CIA tapes are important, but WTF!!?? There are plenty of video/audio recordings of countless lie infested speeches that Bush and Cheney gave- where they convinced the ignorant masses that we must invade Iraq.
Besides the tapes, there are hundreds of thousands of destroyed homes in Iraq, over 800,000 cadaevers, and over a million crippled Iraqi men, women, & childen there now. Approx. 900 Iraqi doors get busted down every night by young US military brats who’ve been brainwashed - into believing that they are fighting terrorism.
Those things prove that the entire nation of Iraq has been and is being tortured by the world’s ugliest bully, the USA.
How much more evidence could any decent judge and jury need to convict those most responsible and to demand that steps be taken to stop it right now, and to prevent anything similar from ever happening again?!!
Those who attempt to attack the government on the basis of illegal torture using evidentiary that is the destroyed CIA tapes are ignorant of the power of the USA Patriot Act.
The tapes are DESTROYED ! Don’t waste our time trying to pin a torture rap on somebody with destroyed evidence.
The crime is the DESTRUCTION of the TAPES.
The destruction of these CIA tapes is a clear and egregious FELONY VIOLATION of the USA Patriot Act.
Attack with the Patriot Act and you will have more power against your government than you ever dreamed.
But first, you must actually READ the Patriot Act.
“American Lawyers Defending the Constitution.”
Finally! I’ve been putting out this thought for years.
We need thousands more to sign up and pressure Congress.
E-mail petitions are as worthless as used toilet paper, they are not accepted as legal petitions. So why does anyone want our names and addresses? ___ Just wondered.