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A Shining City on a Hill Can't Have Dungeons in Its Basements
It turns out that even the most paranoid among us were right to be afraid of what George W. Bush's White House and Justice Department were up to in the days and months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
This week the Justice Department declassified and released two memos and seven so-called legal opinions that, taken together, informed President Bush that, as a wartime chief executive, he had unfettered dictatorial powers.
We already knew that Bush dispensed with the Fourth Amendment, suspended the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures and ordered warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of untold billions of e-mails and telephone calls to and from American citizens.
But who knew that his political appointees in the White House counsel's office and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel were telling him that he could also suspend the First Amendment in a nation that was founded on guarantees of freedom of freedom of speech and of the press?
The Republican legal vultures - John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury - told the panicked cowboy president that he could do anything he chose, anyway he saw fit, and not only was it legal, it also wasn't subject to any congressional or judicial oversight.
In other words, the United States of America - the home of the free - was for a time on the brink of falling into the hands of a dictatorship.
The Bush administration authorized the detention without charges or trial of American citizens _ a de facto suspension of the right of habeas corpus.
It authorized a massive program of intercepting and sifting through phone calls and e-mails and financial transactions and other records in search of terrorists and their agents.
It authorized the detention, torture, other extreme methods of interrogation and extraordinary rendition - the practice of shipping detainees off to their home countries where we knew they'd be tortured by the local authorities - of "suspected enemy combatants." Many of them, my colleague Tom Lasseter revealed last year, were low-level Taliban grunts or were innocents turned in by tribal rivals or for cash bounties.
In short, former President Bush and his agents violated any number of federal and international laws and trampled the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights with only the fig leaves of bogus legal opinions to cover themselves.
They also had at their fingertips legal clearance to go another half-step and gut democracy, censor the media and fill detention camps with as many Americans as they deemed necessary in the name of national security.
Some of the worst of these legal opinions were withdrawn in a few years, and in a blatant effort to cover some asses the Justice Department in October 2008 and again on January 19, 2009, withdrew the rest of them.
The courts had slapped down the Bush administration in several key cases, and it had become clear as their days dwindled down to a happy few that their house of cards was collapsing.
I don't for one minute believe that the release of these documents by the new Justice Department represents anything more than the tip of a massive iceberg of illegality in the name of national security during the Bush years.
But they do add up to a compelling argument in favor of a thorough investigation of George Bush's closet full of horrors by prosecutors and by a congressional Truth Commission.
In spite of what the former president's lawyerly handmaidens told him, in the United States no one is above the law. Not even a wartime president.
Legal scholars of every political persuasion were shocked by the shoddy work of a Justice Department that first was neutered, and then turned into an arm of the White House political operatives.
President Barack Obama has signaled that he wants to remain above this fray and stay focused on the main task at hand - the melting economy he inherited six weeks ago - and that's well and good.
But his new attorney general, Eric Holder, and our representatives on Capitol Hill must pursue the truth with great vigor and without fear or favor. Those who took this proud nation to the brink of dictatorship must answer for that, and if they violated our Constitution, our laws and international law, then they must be brought to justice.
We cannot be the shining city on the hill if our gleaming buildings have dungeons and torture chambers in their basements. We cannot be a beacon of hope in a chaotic world if our hands are bloody and our ears still ring with the screams of helpless prisoners.
It's time to get to work cleaning up those dark corners in the White House and the Justice Department and all the other departments that had a hand in George W. Bush's excellent adventure.
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26 Comments so far
Show AllThe actions of an administration whose decisions run contradictory to constitutional protections is a sad and dangerous thing. But even more dangerous would be a failure to investigate and punish those who violated our laws and betrayed the trust of the voter, for then we leave the door open for the next agendized and amoral group to walk through.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
It's going to take millions of We the People marching on DC to get these criminals and traitors to trial. BUT, if it did not happen in the last eight years, what will stir us to action now? Most of our citizens are still mesmerized from the recent election (selection?) and the MSM is doing it's best to keep them in that state. These "truth commissions" are a joke. The best we can get is a written testimony from Bush's brain? Very sad indeed. WE need a new and legitimate investigation of 9/11 and then we can watch the towers start to fall. Do Americans have the stomach...doubtful.
The actions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the politicized "justice" department, the Office of Special Plans hidden away in the Defense Department, the corporatized Defense Department itself, the Republican stooges and Neanderthals that believe God created us as a special sub-species, all those handmaidens to privatization of the national government, the Neocons that infiltrated our government to sway foreign policy to be more supportive of a certain, unnamed foreign country in the Middle East (yeah - you guessed it) - ALL THOSE - came closer to destroying this country than any known terrorist group on the globe.
They were fully prepared to destroy this country as we know it for the sake of private gain and accumulation of raw political power. They now understand that they are in a current and worsening position as a true minority in a democratic (form of government - not party) system. In order to stay on top - they simply cheat, lie, frame bogus arguments, create fictional boogey men and create imbecilic folk heroes (Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber). They care nothing of governance; nothing of legalities; nothing remotely related to the ethical and transparent governance of a nation. They simply cannot abide by positive attributes because they know by doing so they will lose.
So what choice did that leave them? To become criminals in order to retain their power and wealth. That is what we have. Now, what are we going to do with it?
We need to do what federal and international law says we do with those who commit treason and war crimes, do it to the letter, and do so promptly. If we don't have the fortitutde to do so, we need to deliver every one of these criminals to someone who will, such as the Hague. As many have correctly stated, if this bunch is allowed to get away with the heinous crimes they have committed then the door is left wide open for the next wannabe despot to do as he/she wishes.
Investigations are really just a formality at this point as these scum have proudly flaunted their lawlessness for the past eight years and repeatedly admitted to many of their crimes right out in the open. However, they should take place if for no other reason than to determine the extent of their criminal activity. To answer the question of what should be done with this entire group of power starved, greedy, self serving criminals after they have been duly investigated and tried, just answer the question: what would have been done at Nuremberg in the same situation? Are those involved with the hi-jacking of the U.S. government and starting a pre-emptive war with the sovergn nation of Iraq based on lies and resulting in the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops and millions of innocent Iraqi civilians really any less culpable than those who hi-jacked the government of Germany prior to WWII?
The United States was an actual mental-case under George Bush. The Bush years were-still are-and always will be the worst eight years in this country. Bush was a madman surrounded by sycophants. To constantly enable someone with Bush's mentality is horrific-and that is exactly what these people did. They were "enablers." Enablers for a man who is mentally ill, and never should have occuped that office to begin with. They must be held accounable for this. This group of criminals need to see the inside of a courtroom.
. . . the release of these documents . . . add up to a compelling argument in favor of a thorough investigation of George Bush's closet full of horrors by prosecutors and by a congressional Truth Commission.
This is certainly not enough. The regime of George Wanker Bush was the hors d'oeuvre; it gave the Republican party a taste of authoritarianism that they love even more than money or the brass knuckled, ass kicking God they worship. If you don't prosecute ALL those involved for treason, with attempting to overthrow democracy in this nation, convict them, then throw them in prison for the maximum sentence, THEY WILL BE BACK!
Mord - Shi: You are absolutely correct. These people have no conscience, no sense of justice, equality, or anything else that relates to the foundations of a democratic, constitutional form of government. Since they have no societal / cultural / religious / ethical inhibitions about their methods of operation - YOU BET THEY WILL BE BACK. Just like they came back after Iran-Contra in the '80s. Eliot Abrams should have been in prison for 20 years, the same for Ollie North - not to mention George Bush the Elder.
They will continue to metastatize; unless cut out with the sharpest of legal instruments they will intrude once again on the civil society. They have laid the base; they have created their bogus philosophy. They have their Goebbels (Limbaugh) and their military base. Unless we force Obama to act, the future is already written.
I agree. In South Africa, they FIRST disabled the Apartheid regime, then went on to try to heal the country with truth commissions. Here we have skipped step 1. We have done nothing to disable those who took us darn close to fascism.
I am quite sure they have not given up. They are waiting for Obama to fail. Even the Clintonist presidency is an anathema to the worst of them. They are probably engineering ways to sabotage efforts to clean up the mess they created. Then when people get tired of hoping and wishing, THEY WILL BE BACK worse than before.
It is crazy to try to appease them. They will not work in good faith. We need the rule of law, which means NOTHING if there is no enforcement of fundamentals of human rights and democracy.
Joe
Sioux Rose
JCLIENTELLE: The "rule of law" becomes a moot point when the courts, themselves, are full of authoritarian judges who actually support the "unitary executive" notion, no matter that it directly undermines (and contradicts) the basis of US government in 3 co-equal branches! So many of these clones, like Mr. Smiths nw reside inside the legal matrix, having been already seated, that to see law fulfilled according to the spirit of its application (rather than letter thereof) will be a miracle. This is why the conservatives made use of the Bush years to stack the deck/courts in their own favor.
Am I right in assuming John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury are all lawyers offering legal advice that was way outside the parameters of what was actually legal. I would consider this to be grounds for disbarment - to lose their license to practice law. I would also want to include Alberto Gonzales, who offered Bush the legal rationale to proceed with torture.
Ultimately we need to do what is necessary to prevent this from happening all over again. Since the main rationale for granting Bush dictatorial powers was the war powers vote that he secured from Congress, we need to address the impeachable offense of Bush and his white house team lying their butts off to gain that war powers vote. Bush and Cheney having a retroactive impeachment would be a loud and clear message that no one is above the law. America desperately needs that loud and clear message.
However, we need to go beyond impeachment and eliminate the War Powers Act and return to the original consitution process for going to war - a full congressional vote to declare or not declare war. I think of all of our soldiers that lost their lives or have paid the price of substantial disabilities to involve themselves in an invasion of a country that had absolutely no relationship at all to 9/11 and did not present a compelling national security issue. Our troops at least deserve a full declaration of war, as they will be the ones to pay the ultimate price.
Just think about it - the reality is that John Yoo is no longer at Berkeley but teaching law at a southern CA university.
Sioux Rose
MM: War Powers Act or any fascimile, a catch-22 is created. If a president wants to assume powers resonant with "a unitary executive," (given that until burned from the record, that is the PRECEDENT Bush has left, unprosecuted, on the books) he need only declare war to gain all those groovy powers. It definitely sets up (for loose egos) a motive FOR making war, as if the MIC would not champion the same agenda.
torture and secret detentions have always been the underbelly of the american empire.
what has happened with George Bush is - it was simply practiced in a more methodical way with a CLEARER association with the presidency as a matter of "official policy".
recently -- the Bolivian government had , according to reports, accidentally unearthed basement dungeons that were covered by earth for years -- they were secret prisons, still etched with blood of the prisoners who were tortured and died in the hundreds....as left-wing guerrilas --
mostly under the regime of a certain Right Wing Dictator general who was SCHOOLED in the "SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS" in the USA -- and ruled in the 1980's under the time of reagan.......
that is clearly not the only one that the USA has sanctioned across the globe -- while pointing fingers at "china, russia, iran, iraq" etc. etc. etc.
it's likely a FAIR judgement that where there are AMERICAN establishments of state anywhere in the globe -- there are the accompanying policies of torture and detentions, assassinations , kidnappings, fomenting instabilities. -- all to serve the EMPIRE...\
the George Bush regime's open declaration of these powers are not THAT surprising. it was just a matter of "labelling", changing the "portfolio", shifting from one "program" to another and moving from one decade to another.
after all -- why should it be surprising since the creation of the american nation -- after all -- was based on Theft of Land, Genocide, Murders, Mass deprivation of people, abrogation of treaties, centuries of Slavery and kidnapping AFricans and selling them as "chattel"....etc?
why should TORTURE be a SURPRISE? why should "SPYING" be a surprise?
the only thing that is SLIGHTLY surprising -- is how americans have somehow GOTTEN AWAY with BELIEVING the USA is as "benevolent" and "righteous" and "just" and "law abiding" as it has CLAIMED to be....since they are not NAIVE -- they can ......"SEE" or SENSE that there is and was ALWAYS something --- WRONG about a country with 300 million people as of today -- to have amassed such POWER and WEALTH and "prosperity" --- ALL BASED ON "american ingenuity and hard work and honest labor?"
IT WAS ALWAYS OBVIOUS to others in the world --- that "is too good to be true" -- SOMETHING is VERY OUT OF WHACK there.
and the truth is this is an example -- if the nation was an "individual" -- of a saying:
"BEHIND EVERY GREAT WEALTH -- is a GREAT CRIME".
the USA -- in a sense as the world's greatest power -- IS A CRIME.
it would NEVER have arrived at its power today -- without UNTOLD , UNCOUNTABLE DEEDS of great evil and exploitation and mendacious behavior. that kind of "prosperity" and "wealth" and "power" can't be arrived at with just HONEST LABOR ...no
something ELSE had to be injected -- the STEROIDS of evil deeds.
The title of this article, and John Yoo's opinion on crushing a child's testicles remind me of "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin. The wise Ms Le Guin said it all.
Nothing exists.
Yes Rove, we want to barbecue you, after a fair hearing. You deserve no less.
Saint Reagan never saw his shining city on a hill having poor people in it. When Lancelot rides his charger into Camelot nothing brings spoils the effect like a beggar lying in the street.
OK so you've got thousands of serfs living in the country whose lives are nasty, brutish, and short, but they are out of sight, out of mind.
What can't be tolerated is an obvious example of this not being the land of opportunity, or even the land of a strong middle class.
The solution? Lock 'em up. Land of the free? All our ideals are become jokes. Dishonesty, greed, cruelty, indifference. Most of us don't know we are being punished for our sins.
again..as Benjamin Franklin warned:
"...a republic madame......IF you can keep it".....
"Democracy eventually Arrives at Tyranny..."
connected to his warning: "...should this nation fall...it shall fall not because of foreign enemies or threats, real or imagined...it shall fall because the people are corrupt".
it seems , contrary to the claims, the USA has become a polyglot, melting pot nation brimming with a collection of the WORST instincts of people....encouraged to come out by the WORST possible foundation of "creating" a nation -- not just artificially - but creating it on a foundation of GREED, RAPACIOUSNESS, and continuing to exist and even "hope" to create an even "better" ALTAR for the almighty DOLLAR and PROFIT.
the TRUE religion of America -- clear -- is MONEY and PROFIT and POWER.
everything else is ruled by these .
“We cannot be the shining city on the hill if our gleaming buildings have dungeons and torture chambers in their basements. We cannot be a beacon of hope in a chaotic world if our hands are bloody and our ears still ring with the screams of helpless prisoners.”
Maybe Mr. Galloway is onto something with these snappy lines. Perhaps the readers of McClatchey newspapers will now begin to nod in stunned agreement?
But with messages catapulted all day every day through a giant suck-hose mediacorpse echo chamber will enough scrubbly bubbly brains pop free of the reverberating harmony? Just move forward. Don’t look back. Looking back’s for losers, ingrates and “haters”.
Again Mr. Galloway writes: “It's time to get to work cleaning up those dark corners in the White House and the Justice Department and all the other departments that had a hand in George W. Bush's excellent adventure.”
My, what a breezy sense of can-do know-how. Just put some orange cones and yellow tape around the capitol til we get ‘er done!
But there’s a lingering odor in the body politic from the excrement of that “excellent adventure”. Even Mr. Clean might not get it out.
Anyone else catch a whiff that operation ollie-ollie oil free (ooof) was a cheney/rumsfeld Viet-Nam do-over? (Take that all you namby-pamby peacenik hippy scum!)
And they wanted it so badly they were willing to bank on false intelligence, take the gloves off, go to the dark side, stay on message, fix facts around policy and the thousand other euphemisms for lying.
Do you think that counts as betraying, not just their oaths of office, but the founding principles? Mr. Galloway suggests so.
So that means, if the generals went along, then they did betray us; and not just them but all those in positions of power and authority, civilian included, who didn’t want to ask serious questions and take a close look. They had (have) a hand in devastating a country, its people, their life support systems, means of livlihood and mental, spiritual and physical health for generations to come. (And I’m not talking about us).
How many, then or now, resigned in protest and spoke out about it? Less than a handful? How many of the lawyers appalled by the shoddy work of the “justice” department did anything about it?
So go ahead, go after crybaby bybee, you-hoo yoo and brad burythetruth. Whatever. They were the paper hangers of plausible deniability, as it used to be called. Not real impressive.
But as for the “shining beacon” thing. Let’s remember those at the very top shat on it. And since they flung open the treasury doors for their buddies on the way out of Dodge it’s kinda hard to say if there’s enough elbow grease left even to polish cheney’s pate.
And, what’s the point of spiffing up the “shining city” right now anyway, Mr. Galloway?
With about forty-seven tons of bullshit still flying around in search of a colossal fan.
nothing is revealed
So you're shooting the messenger?
I guess that's genius in some parts.
Galloway is spot on.
So you still buy that shining city and beacon stuff, eh?
Even when it means we have to destroy that ville, that country, hell, why not the whole world in order to remake it into our image and likeness?
Hang on, you may soon get your wish.
nothing is revealed
And don't go mistaking Paradise
For that home across the road.
· Yr Obd't Servant
the way things have gone and are more revealed by the day...
from warlike statehood, to pharmaceuticals profiteering and intentionally selling harmful drugs (LILLY corporation has a long - decades long - history of it) , to the health industry for PROFIT, to the financial implosion,...to torture, the car and other "leading industries" that hav led and dragged the world to adopting the most polluting and costly and inefficient ways of existing, etc etc etc ...
i mean -- take a cursory look only:
THESE are the GIANT SYMBOLS , the VERY PILLARS of american society! I never even really put that together as consciously as nowadays - except for a vague or undefined sense of it....but there you are.
so much so that ,coupled with its history of really VICIOUS rapaciousness upon other nations...
the title might as well have been more complete put:
"THE SHINING CITY ON A HILL OF CARCASSES".
It is interesting that the same people that spent two years and tremendous expense investigating one president for not being entirely truthful about his escapade with an intern now see no reason to go after the entire bunch of Bush criminals. This last administration pretty well wrecked everything they got close to with their lies and lawbreaking, leaving our country and many others in a shambles, and they are supposed to have immunity from any punishment. Now we are to move ahead, and forget all of the dead and ruined lives, the near collapse of our economy, the trampling of our Constitution, etc. Our country may never completly recover from the actions of this rotten group of criminals, and now they have gone back to high-living and giving speeches about how to run the country. What is wrong with this nation to permit this behaviour?
Arrogance...indifference.....de-education....conditioning........TV...........
these GOP are also the same that just until last year were all up in arms = beating their chests and pulling hair out that the democrats were thinking of "filibuster" on bush's appointees....
and NOW sent a WARNING letter to Obama that the GOP will filibuster HIS appointees unless THEY approve of his appointees........
Lots of catchy phrases in this puff piece but if truth were the common dream for this crowd, you'd all be laughing at the "on the brink" joke. The 2000 election sealed the deal. Wherever it is we now live, it is not the U.S.A.
thong-girl