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The Washington Post Endorses Abu Ghraib Scapegoating for Torture
The Washington Post Editorial Page -- keeper of all establishment Washington wisdom -- today advocates that low-level CIA interrogators who went beyond John Yoo's torture guidelines, and only them, be criminally investigated and prosecuted by the Justice Department:
We reject the distorted interpretations that underpin the OLC memos and that serve as legal justification for harsh interrogation techniques that either border on or constitute torture. But those who relied on the memos and shaped their behavior in the good-faith belief that they were following the law should not be subject to prosecution. It is an entirely different story for those who went well beyond the often-extreme measures authorized by the memos.
In 2004, the Pentagon reported that 34 deaths had occurred in detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan; at that time, nine deaths were classified by military medical examiners as homicides. . . .
We continue to believe that an independent commission would best be able to shed light on a wide range of questions regarding detainee detention and treatment policy. It would help to ensure that such mistakes are never repeated. But some acts, including the violent deaths of detainees at the hands of U.S. personnel, must be investigated and addressed by law enforcement.
That, in a nutshell, is the twisted Washington mentality when it comes to lawbreaking: when political crimes become so blatant and extreme that they can no longer be safely excused (Watergate, Iran-contra, Abu Ghraib), then it's necessary to sacrifice some underlings who carried out the crimes by prosecuting them, but -- no matter what else happens -- the high-level political officials responsible for the crimes must be shielded from all accountability. In ordinary criminal justice, what typically guides prosecutions is the opposite mindset: namely, a willingness to immunize low-level soldiers in order to ensure that the higher-level criminals suffer the consequences of their crimes. But when it comes to crimes committed by political officials in America's Versailles culture, only the pawns are subjected to the rule of law while the monarchs and their highest royal court aides are immunized.
Note the distortions on which the Post Editors rely in order to justify their two-tiered justice system. DOJ torture-authorizing memos should shield those who acted in accordance with them because they were created and followed in "good faith." That assertion is groundless and false. The Post itself this morning reports what has long been known: that a DOJ ethics reports due in the next several weeks will not only "renounce Yoo's approval of harsh CIA interrogation practices [but also] recommend that he and Jay S. Bybee, a former colleague, be referred to their state bar associations for discipline." The necessary conclusion of that DOJ recommendation is that the torture-authorizing memos were written in bad faith (i.e., not merely wrong, but entirely groundless and produced with bad intent), since only a finding of "bad faith" (not mere error) could justify ethics proceedings against these lawyers.
A recently released report from five Inspectors General makes clear that Dick Cheney and David Addington selected Yoo to write these memos because they knew in advance that he'd approve of whatever they wanted to do. This process was the opposite of "good faith": what happened was that the highest-level political officials wanted to break the law, and so they found a hardened ideologue at the DOJ willing to write memos to classify those crimes as legal. To describe that process as "good faith" is to twist that phrase beyond recognition. It was blatant criminality accompanied by advanced bureaucratic cover from John Yoo -- the same person who wrote memos advising the President that not even the Bill of Rights could constrain his actions.
For all the talk about how Bush/Cheney executive power theories created a lawless presidency, the "principle" about to be institutionalized -- and that the Post Editorial Page today expressly endorses -- will do more to spawn presidential lawlessness than all of those DOJ memos combined. We now apparently believe that Presidents are free to break the law as long as they can find a low-level DOJ functionary to write a memo justifying that conduct in advance. It's impossible to imagine any President -- occupying the most powerful political office in the country and commanding blind loyalty from all sorts of operatives -- who would be unable to find a lawyer-underling willing to endorse whatever he wants to do. Richard Nixon had lawyers defending what he did in Watergate. Ronald Reagan had lawyers defending what he did in arming Iran in order to fund the Nicaraguan contras in violation of the law. George Bush had lawyers justifying his spying on Americans without warrants even though FISA criminalized exactly that. And Dick Cheney had lawyers justifying his torture regime. That's always going to be true.
If, as appears to be the case, this is the principle by which we're now governed -- presidential acts in blatant violation of clear statutes are no longer crimes if a DOJ lawyer justifies it in advance, even using legal reasoning found to be in bad faith -- then, by definition, Presidents are literally no longer bound by the rule of law. If the crimes are embarrassing enough, we'll find a Lynndie England -- or some obscure, easily demonizable, extra-sadistic CIA interrogator -- to scapegoat and punish in order to pacify the citizenry and create the illusion that the rule of law still prevails. But the one thing that remains off-limits in Washington culture above all else is subjecting high-level political officials to the rule of law when they commit crimes. The low-level scapegoating which the Post today endorses is the approach which, by all accounts, Eric Holder is likely to pursue.
The most ironic aspect of the Post's Editorial is its oh-so-solemn plea that we do what's necessary "to ensure that such mistakes are never repeated." Leaving aside the perversity of referring to a formal torture regime as a "mistake," what the Post advocates -- enabling Presidents to break the law as long as they have a low-level DOJ permission slip -- is to ensure that these sorts of things will happen over and over. We have rampant lawlessness in our political class precisely because the consequences for high-level lawbreaking no longer exist.
UPDATE: In comments, BriGuy301 writes:
Apparently the Washington Post believes the Oath goes like this:
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Memos of John Yoo."
It isn't just The Washington Post that believes that, but most of official Washington. It was once the case that "the law" meant "the Constitution, treaties, and laws approved by Congress and signed by the President." Now, in Washington, "the law" means: "what John Yoo wrote."
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10 Comments so far
Show AllTo describe that process as "good faith" is to twist that phrase beyond recognition.
Enter Obama. Twisting "hope and change" into more aggresive war, more health insurance profiteering, more indiscriminate spying powers, more violations of the law and the constitution.
When you are ready for change, check out the Green party. They are on your side on this. you only have to look at what they are doing. While Obama is wining and dining his insurance company backers, Cynthia Mckinney is risking her life running the Gaza blockade to bring medical supplies.
The crimes of the Bush/Cheney administration are legion and this is but one example. Yet the POTUS - who ran on a platform of "change we can believe in" - appears unwilling to hold those responsible accountable. Or in most cases, to even change the Bush/Cheney policies. No surprise there - we have yet to get accountability for Viet Nam era crimes. Pardoning Nixon opened the door for Bush. The failure to charge Bush and Cheney only ensures that it will all happen again.
Well said, Mr. Greenwald. I would add one thing: the Washington Post, even though it does have some intelligent readers (not just you), isn't able, and can't be expected due to advertising commitments, the level general level of the readership, etc., to reach reasonable conclusions like those stated in your article. We need to confront prosecutors, and those with power over them, directly in addition to pointing out the shortcomings of the MSM, which in comparison to your reporting is like elementary school compared to graduate school.
Bring America Back !!!!.........!...WAPO has not done any real investigative journalism since Watergate. Long time gone.
****Lally just got her fingers slapped for her quarter mil tea party invitations to lunch with the real in-crowd !!
****Like all mainstream media, WAPO is getting a free pass when moralizing on the big T--torture. Total distraction from the fact that all these were offshoots of 9/11 !!
Torture produced "Patsies", waterboarded detainees who would admit to "masterminding" 9/11 ! Cover for the real Terrorists, fall guys for the Inside Jobbers. The kangeroo courts of Gitmo produced exactly that==waterboarded masterminds begging for martyrdom and hero worship. Nonsense.
****For folks who don't realize the history of torture to produce 'Patsies', I suggest the library book or DVD "The Manchurian Candidate"... couple different versions.
****WAPO website claimed to finally have a pix of the jumbo jet which allegedly struck the Pentagon on 9/11 & when you go there, it is a fuzzy nosecone only==of a drone or almost anything...then, when you E-mail the WAPO Ombudsman (Woman), asking "Wheres the Jumbo Jet"==she will not even
answer.
****WAPO recently did a 7=day Regurge of the Chandra Levy case, concluding the perp just had to be an already incarcerated Patsy, non English speaking Guandique, who admitted following a couple of women at Rock Creek Park, but never touching them. After totally blowing the case for two years, guess who the DC Police decide to charge==to give all their "CLOSURE"====right, poor ol Guandique. WAPO sets up the perfect Patsy, and the jackboots are there catching all the little crumbs.
****If we have a choice, probably the NY Times gets us closer to the 'Truth" we need than WAPO .
****WAPO thinks it is the Fourth Branch of Govt in DC, and we should not fail to take WAPO to task where it comes way overboard to support the Bush-Bama bureaucracies.
Greenwald does this but his Encyclopedias always forget that without 9/11 (mother of all attacks on USA) there would be no Torture. It created Patsies to cover for the Inside Job of 9/11, and never generated one shred of data preventing another attack. Patsies
WAPO is just copying Obama/Eric Holder's position.
"Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said Holder planned to "follow the facts and the law."
"We have made no decisions on investigations or prosecutions, including whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct further inquiry," he told the AP on Saturday. "As the attorney general has made clear, it would be unfair to prosecute any official who acted in good faith based on legal guidance from the Justice Department."
Sioux Rose
Watching as laws are bent to protect thieves, liars, cheats, murderers, and sadists, of course I had to seek an answer, or some semblance of resonance, with the "higher" plan. And it was easy to find. For those who find astrology problematic, I encourage you to bypass this post.
Whereas the Judeo-Christian faith perceives the world in terms of a dominant dualism, most notably depicted as the conflict between "good" and "evil," our more ancient ancestors partook the world as evidence of "the 3 fates." Power was shared among 3 brothers which included Jupiter (a/k/a Zeus) the main honcho, CEO of Olympus and evident ruler of the manifest/surface world. His brothers Neptune (Poseidon) and Pluto (Hades) were given respective powers over the sea kingdoms and underworld.
Jupiter, as astrological principle, "rules" lawyers. It also governs religion, publishing, ethics, foreign commerce, and higher education. Prior to the discovery of Neptune (the outer 3 planets have only been known for the past 150 years or so) Jupiter was said to rule the signs of Sagittarius and Pisces. Its orbit is 12 years and over the past 10 weeks it has been "in conjunction" with Neptune, the ruler of Pisces as both have merged in Aquarius, the sign of truth.
Neptune is known as the deceiver in astrology. And while Neptune crosses Aquarius, the realm of Truth, its ruler Uranus, is caught in a sort of virtual prison, in Pisces. (In other words each of these 2 planets, which happen to be THE planets that represent the rare age phase transition... from Pisces to Aquarius, are crossing each other's kingdoms. These "kingdoms" are next door neighbors so that Jupiter will pass first through Aquarius where for the only time in its 12 year orbit it will unite forces with Neptune; and then next year it will enter Pisces to join with Uranus.) It's the equivlent of a powerful lawyer meeting with his key 2 clients in a major transfer of acquisitions-style settlement.
On this plane it's quite clear that too many lawyers have gone along with one of the most dangerous masquerades in history. Possibly THE most dangerous, given the magnitude of weapons and how many have already been killed due to a war based entirely on fixed evidence. Marjorie Kohn and others (like Mr. Greenwald) did not go along; but far too many did, or held their silence. Now we see lawyers using their insider understanding of the subject, the plastic quality of words well known to them, to turn law entirely against its own intended principles. Yoo has the face of a child, his inexperience and want to please his masters shows.
Back in l994 when the asteroids crashed into the planet Jupiter and everyone interviewed on TV sounded like sports casters stating the number of hits, I was interviewed on the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque. I did not let the host control the conversation, using the few minutes I had to let the public know the deeper esoteric significance of that event. And it well mirrors this one. Inasmuch as Jupiter signifies the law of the land, those asteroid hits reveal BLACK MARKS on his report card.
I went further with this metaphor basing my first script on a funny elaboration that takes place on Olympus. When the asteroids hit, Zeus' house is shaken, and he turns to his wife Hera in bed and asks if she thinks a coup is in the works? He inquires if it's possible that the Olympian cast (or any of its key players) think he's not doing a good enough job of running things. Wife Hera responds that he's mostly focused on stock averages and sports scores, and that these are not the full measure for how well a world (earth) is doing. Looks like the Olympian cast is throwing rotten tomatoes again. "As above, so below." One can think of the planetary clockworks in the order of a vast and magical theatrical marquis: these tell us the NATURE of the ACT that's about to be featured on stage. And we can learn a lot from these cues! Ignorance of cosmic law hardly warrants bliss.
"For those who find astrology problematic, I encourage you to bypass this post."
How diplomatic of you.
What we had for eight years was a very stupid appointee with a very sadistic Vice gestapo to destroy this country through fear. They were and are the number one and two terrorist in the world. We were led to believe that Obama was an intelligent man. Now we see a difference there. Eric Holder is his Dick (draft dodger) Cheney. Watch out America.
The whole DC Party Circuit, Demoplicans and Republicrats, will try to stanch the bleeding at every level of command.
Each level that breaks through will break through when someone sacrifices it to protect him or her self.
More!
The law no longer functions in the United States. The forms of the law are kept for the little people. Public opinion is fed into a data warehouse for control purposes.
The Constitution has been nullified by the U.S. PATRIOT Act and theories of the unitary executive.
People can read the corporate mainstream press if they wish, but it's largely useless or propaganda.
Elected officials are just PR agents for corporations. Plutocrats rule.
I'm waiting for other folks to figure this out. Despite the bleakness, change will happen when enough people have wakened from their slumber. At this point, there's only waiting and preserving memory, and resisting in small ways.
-TIA