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TechnoratiDemocrats Pushing Bybee Impeachment, Special Prosecutors
In the next day or so, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and Rep. Jerold Nadler, D-NY, chair of the subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, are expected to formally request that Attorney General Eric Holder appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era detainee policy.
Nadler has had some comments about 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee, a former official of the Bush Justice Department who wrote one of the controversial memos outlining legal justifications for harsh interrogation methods that officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross call torture.
"He ought to be impeached," Nadler told the Huffington Post "It was not an honest legal memo. It was an instruction manual on how to break the law."
The Conyers and Nadler request will come just a few days after one of the co-chairs of President Obama's transition team, John Podesta, wrote to Conyers requesting that he "consider" holding impeachment hearings against Bybee, "should he decide not to voluntarily resign. As you are well aware, Judge Bybee is the only architect of the Bush administration’s torture program to currently hold public office."
Podesta spoke about the matter on Sunday on CNN:
"He’s acting and listening to cases, making judgments of others, and we know he authorized things that were illegal under U.S. law and violated the U.S. obligations under international treaties," Podesta said. "If he would do the right thing, he should just simply resign. If he doesn’t, I think this is one matter where he continues to sit — he doesn’t have the moral or legal authority to continue to do that. And I think a simple matter would be to remove him from office."
7 Comments so far
Show AllIf the Obama administration wants to make a truthfully firm stand against U.S. use of torture, then the administration [must], absolutely must go after much more than the laywers and judges who purportedly legitimised the use of torture for the Bush administration. After all, the administration knew damn well what international laws or conventions and US law say about torture, so the so-called legitimisation of torture by Bush administration lawyers, etc., is all bs. The truly guilty people are the Bush administration itself, and this, I read a little yesterday, apparently includes even Condoleezza Rice, so not only Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and (I suppose) others besides Rice.
Bypassing prosecutions of those people and only going after their administration's so-called lawyers and judges will be BS! It would even be treasonous, for it would contribute to unconstitutionally giving the Obama and future presidential administrations of the U.S.A. a carte blanche.
"THE BUCK STOPS AT THE ... WHITE HOUSE ADMINISTRATION ITSELF"!
I read a couple or few good articles that made this point strongly and clearly over the past several days and I forget which articles these were, but one or more of them specified dates for when Rumsfeld and Cheney demanded that the CIA obtain or provide the kind of information tying Saddam Hussein and Al Qa'ida or Usama Bin Ladin together as is well known of Cheney and Rumsfeld wanting, the Iraqi WMD myth or lie, etcetera; and they authorised or else ordered use of torture for this, while doing so [before] Bybee et alia were used to falsely, bogusly, ... legitimise use of torture by the U.S. One of the articles probably was the earlier one by the author of the following piece, which provides a link for the earlier one; and based on what I've now read of the following piece, plus recall of the earlier one, these should be considered a must to read them. The Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld administration basically or literally authorised use of torture during fall or late fall 2001!
"CIA Torture Began In Afghanistan Eight Months before Justice Department Approval",
by Andy Worthington, fff.org, Future of Freedom Foundation, Apr 27 2009
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m53769
I won't quote from that article, for it's too long for one post here and all of it is important, should be read.
Well, thank God for small favors.
But, while Bybee is certainly not a scapegoat, it seems likely that he's a useful TOKEN for Democrats.
By piling on Bybee, who obviously deserves it, the Dems can throw around the term "impeachment" in hopes that We the People will be satisfied by at least ONE relatively minor war criminal being "punished".
And if they actually proceed against Bybee, count on the eternally-hopeful base of deluded progressive Democrats to characterize this as a clear sign of Obama's "willingness" to finally face up to doing the right thing. I predict the appearance of a meme that "Bybee is only the beginning."
I've mentioned before that when Patrick Fitzgerald first announced his intention to proceed against Libby, a progressive blog I used to visit regularly exploded with delight. For months, these tragically hope-besotted commenters praised "Fitz" and the coming of "Fitzmas", when the Bush Rogue's Gallery would be "frog-marched" from their offices to face justice.
When it finally became painfully obvious that Fitz was in no way prosecuting Libby as a stepping-stone to the "real" criminal misfeasors, the Fitzmania simply faded away.
Given the status quo, Bybee will only be the latest Libby, if that, sorry to say.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Yr Obd't Servant: Every word you say is absolutely true. Still, I hope Bybee is made to walk the plank over shark infested waters even if, as you say, he is the only one. He's no better than a nazi or communist appartchik working in the death camps or the gulag or taking people down into a dungeon and putting a bullet in the back of their heads. Like most of these blowhard T-Bangers he's probably a coward and will step down to spend more time with his family so his face won't be all over the MSM.
YOS: "When it finally became painfully obvious that Fitz was in no way prosecuting Libby as a stepping-stone to the "real" criminal misfeasors, the Fitzmania simply faded away."
YOS--you're being unfair to Fitzgerald. Libby lied and stonewalled so that in the end all Fitz could charge him with was perjury/obstruction of justice. He was convicted of that but there was no going forward against the real targets of the investigation (Cheney and Addington, Rove and Bush) precisely because of Libby's obstruction.
Rainborowe
That special prosecutor is a long time coming.
These people that say we should not prosecute Bush et.al. are missing the big picture.
Bush et. al. are purposely responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 USAans and 100,000's of Iraqis and Afghans.
You refuse to prosecute some people for knowingly creating mass murder for their own greedy purposes.
And now we learn the primary motive for the torture may have been to elicit false information to use as rationale for invading Iraq.
What are you thinking when you find it inconvenient to prosecute Mass Murderers?
3,000 USAans deaths created mass hysteria but 4,000 easily preventable USAan's deaths elicits whimpiness.
Are you so programable that no rational thought process's are left never mind being empathetically challenged?
I am sure the Germans felt it was inconvenient to challenge Hitler !!!
Democrats should be Pushing Bybee Impalement