Apparently, today is to be video day.
Sen. Carl Levin with Rachel Maddow.
Maddow: "One of the things I think has been so I guess challenging to the American debate about this is that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have essentially argued that they have legalized waterboarding. That they have legalized torture. They think that the actions of their Justice Department made things like waterboarding not war crimes any more. Are they right?"
Levin: "You can't just suddenly change something that's illegal into something that is legal by having a lawyer write an opinion saying that it's legal. Things can't work that way or else someone could get a lawyer to say a crime is not a crime and then that would be a defense. That is not a defense and I just, I was astounded frankly when I heard the Vice President of the United States sort of just blandly, blithely saying that oh he thought that was an appropriate thing and yes he was involved in the discussions about it."
Senator Levin, why are you shocked about this when no one who has been paying any attention to what this administration has done is shocked? And can we get a straight answer that there should be prosecutions and not hedging?
From Heather at Video Café
John Dean with Kieth Olbermann on Countdown.
Keith talks to John Dean about whether we might ever see prosecutions for war crimes after Cheney's public admissions and the findings from the Senate Armed Services Committee. He rightfully notes that a commission to determine if there were any crimes committed is just a way to kick the can down the road and make sure no one is prosecuted for anything before the statute of limitations runs out. It's a sad state of affairs when we have to be wondering yet again if this country is going to allow crimes to go unpunished for political reasons rather than caring about the rule of law. We still have a two tiered system of justice in America. One for the rich and politically connected and another one for everyone else.
Again from Heather at Video Café.
UPDATE: For one reason (excuse?) or another, I predict that there will be no prosecution of the top officials of the Bush maladministration for the crime of ordering torture techniques. The statute of limitations will be allowed to run out.
If a commission is set up, as John Dean says, it will kick the can down the road. However, if there are no prosecutions, then perhaps a commission would, at least, shed light on the dark deeds of those at the highest levels of government, just for the record.
They had best be careful where they travel. According to International Law there is NO statute of limitations on war crimes.
ReplyDeleteUeber-G, there is that. Somehow, I don't think Bush and Cheney will miss foreign travel all that much. I don't know about Rummy. But you're right, they'd best be careful.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I think Mimi is right.
ReplyDeleteAnd to think, we hanged people at Nuremberg and Tokyo for less than what these guys did.
Nothing will be done, until years later when all this comes back to bite us in the ass; by which time, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al will be facing a much higher court with no statute of limitations.
I would like to see the record set straight, if they won't be brought to trial.
ReplyDeleteThe USA have been the leading lights in the Nürnberg processes and the Geneva Conventions and the UN Declaration of Human Rights - and now this?
ReplyDeleteThere sure is something very rotten in the state of the US!
Goran's (mis)quote would be funny if it weren't so true.
ReplyDeleteMimi, you're right on, as always. This guys will get away with murder. They already have.
Last night, I read or heard somewhere that Italy and Spain were waiting to see what the next administration will do. Our CIA was involved in kidnapping an Islamic cleric off the street in Italy, and a plane carrying prisoners to another country to be tortured in the rendition program landed without permission in Spain.
ReplyDeleteAny official involved in the torture program had best be careful about those two countries.