Last Sunday, Nancy Pelosi vowed to wrangle up the votes needed to pass a health care bill even if it meant some Democratic lawmakers would be voted out of office in November's midterm elections.

"Why are we here? We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. We're here to do the job for the American people," Pelosi said in an interview on ABC News' "This Week."

"The point is we have a responsibility here ... " Pelosi said later on CNN's "State of the Union," explaining the urgency in passing legislation.

If only Pelosi and other Democrats applied the same aggressive attitude toward holding Bush administration officials accountable for implementing a policy of torture against "war on terror detainees" after 9/11.

While it may seem like a stretch to talk about health care benefits and torture in the same breath, there is a direct link between the two issues. Indeed, it was a Medicare benefits statute and other health care provisions that were used to form the basis for one of two August 2002 torture memos.

           Read more... 

Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s letter writing campaign for torture accountability. Last week was not a good week for the cause. The release of the Office of Professional Responsibility report with the conclusion that Mr. Yoo and Judge Bybee showed only poor judgment in their ginning up of legal cover for torture is a travesty. The Associate Attorney General David Margolis overrode the two previous versions of the report which called for them to be referred to their local Bar Associations for professional misconduct. Instead they are very mildly admonished and let go their merry way.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

There is still an avenue to pursue and that is House and Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. The Dog would love to tell you this was going to be a place where things will be different, but the reality is that it is likely to be a lot of smoke and very little fire. However giving up is not an option, at least for this dog. So lets take all the shots we can and keep this issue alive.

Today we will be writing to Judiciary Chair Conyers, below is this weeks letter:

           Read more... 

By David Swanson

There is strong evidence that John Conyers, Patrick Leahy, and most of the rest of us are in love with torture-lawyer Jay Bybee. I'm not talking about sexual love and wouldn't, because people's lives are lost to such bread-and-circuses journalism every day. I'm talking deep personal devotion.

Let's examine the evidence.

1. As head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jay Bybee committed felonies in exchange for being nominated to a life-time seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Bybee violated the Anti-Torture Statute and the War Crimes Statute by facilitating torture through secret memos purporting to legalize specific criminal acts. Bybee also played a leading role in a conspiracy to violate the UN Charter, the US Constitution, and the War Powers Act by signing a secret memo purporting to give presidents the unrestricted power to launch aggressive wars.

2. The excuses that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers used for not impeaching Bush or Cheney, outlandish and revolting as they may have been, do not apply to a judge who is not president and who is not known to most Americans. Yet Conyers, his committee, and the House of Representatives impeached a judge this year for groping people and have not attempted to impeach Bybee.

           Read more... 

Dick Cheney and his lawyer, David Addington, pressured the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2005 to quickly approve a torture memo that authorized CIA interrogators to use a combination of barbaric techniques during interrogations of "high-value" detainees, despite objections from senior DOJ officials, according to emails written by James Comey, the agency's former deputy attorney general.

In the emails, Comey also wrote that then Attorney General (AG) Alberto Gonzales was "weak" and had essentially allowed Cheney and Addington to politicize the DOJ. The emails can be found here: Documents: Justice Department Communication on Interrogation Opinions.

"The AG explained that he was under great pressure from the Vice President to complete both memos, and that the President had even raised it last week, apparently at the VP's request and the AG had promised they would be ready early this week," Comey wrote. Gonzales "added that the VP kept telling him 'we are getting killed on the Hill.'"

           Read more... 

After the news broke of torture and humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, George W. Bush set up interviews to make the case that it was just a "few bad apples".

Bush on an Arab television station after the Abu Ghraib situation went public, explaining the difference between a free nation with the rule of law and a dictatorship:

"It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth. In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation, and justice will be delivered. ... It's very important for people and your listeners to understand that in our country, when an issue is brought to our attention on this magnitude, we act. And we act in a way in which leaders are willing to discuss it with the media. ... In other words, people want to know the truth. That stands in contrast to dictatorships. A dictator wouldn't be answering questions about this. A dictator wouldn't be saying that the system will be investigated and the world will see the results of the investigation."

           Read more... 

In their first attempt to inform President Obama on a major intelligence issue, a powerful group of twelve intelligence experts who oppose torture has written a memo to President Obama asking him to investigate and prosecute torture by the Bush Administration. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), consistently challenged pre-war lies and fabricated justifications for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. in 2003. They were absolutely right - and were ignored by the media.

Now they are battling the widely-accepted lie that torture "works":

The fact that the exploits of Jack Bauer have injected a dangerous level of fiction and fear among impressionable viewers, and have misled not only interrogators at Guantanamo but also the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes - not to mention Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - leaves no doubt that such illusionary scenarios need to be addressed by professionals with real-life experience.

They insist from professional experience that:

torture tactics are not only ineffective in terms of getting reliable, actionable intelligence but have fueled recruitment by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to the point that, arguably, more U.S. troops have been killed by terrorists bent on revenge for torture than the 3,000 civilians killed on 9/11

As Bob Fertik at Democrats.com put it yesterday:

In effect, Bush's torture regime created a second "9/11" - only the victims were our soldiers.

The VIPS Memo to President Obama on Torture is reproduced in full below...

           Read more... 

Sen. Robert Byrd, the longest-serving Senator in history, today demanded an investigation of torture by the Bush Administration:

The recently leaked report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as the four released memorandums from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), confirm our worst fears. These documents point to brutal, inhumane acts which were repeatedly carried out by U.S. military personnel, and which were authorized and condoned at the highest levels of the Bush Administration. These acts appear to directly violate both the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. Spain and the United Kingdom have already initiated investigations of Bush Administration officials who approved these acts. The United States needs to investigate as well. To continue to ignore the mounting evidence of clear wrongdoing is a national humiliation.

Byrd is the President pro tempore of the Senate, which puts him third in the line of Presidential succession behind Vice President Biden and Speaker Pelosi.

Byrd's new blog did not specify the form of the investigation, but insisted on "consequences" for those who "condoned and approved" torture.

           Read more... 

Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon is recognized worldwide for his determination to bring suspects to justice, wherever they seek refuge or how old the crime.

A 2005 BBC profile of Garzon notes that:

He came to prominence in the late 1990s, when he campaigned for the extradition former Chilean military ruler Augusto Pinochet, from London to Spain for human rights abuses.

In late 2003 Judge Garzon compiled a 692-page indictment which called for the arrest of 35 men, including Osama Bin Laden, for their alleged membership of a terrorist group. The number of suspects was later increased to 41.
...
Mr Garzon is one of six investigating judges for Spain's National Court which, like many other European countries, operates an inquisitorial system, as opposed to the adversarial system used by the US and UK.

The investigating judge's role is to examine the cases assigned to him by the court, gathering evidence and evaluating whether the case should be brought to trial. He does not try the cases himself.

Today, April 30, 2009, Garzon opened a Spanish investigation into torture allegations against US military personnel at the Guantánamo detention centre:

           Read more... 

I don't know the procedure, and of course the procedures certainly haven't been followed in this era that is...we hope... beginning to end.

But the head of the House Judiciary Committee and the Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties have now asked the Head of the Department of Justice to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate.

And that should be good enough, now that...well, if, indeed... the Rule of Law has now been restored.

If the Rule of Law is once again operating, the Chairman of House Judiciary Committee asking the Attorney General to appoint a Special Prosecutor should be good enough.

[April 28], Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Congressman John Conyers (MI-14), Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and their Judiciary colleagues wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute torture committed against detainees during the Bush administration. Similar letters were also sent to previous Attorneys General Gonzalez and Mukasey.

           Read more... 

Not a single Democrat questioned Bybee at the session, and the proceedings came to a quick conclusion. The following month he was confirmed by the full Senate. Just six months prior to the hearing, Jay Bybee had signed legal memos providing cover for CIA agents torturing detainees -- yet Congress voted him to a lifetime on the federal bench. How did this happen? And what will become of Judge Bybee now?

           Read more...