It is my sincere hope that a through investgation of 9-11 will start anew.  Although there are many who argue my feelings concerning 9-11, I believe now, and have always believed from day one that our government was complicit directly in 9-11.  The way the Bush Administration has conducted itself in the aftermath has none nothing to change my mind.

Felicity—the threat of torture creates fear in the population, and US wars are against populations under current military imperialism. So does terror bombing create fear, which is why the US uses it against the Afghans, Iraqis and Pakistani.  Terror is the only way to subdue a population in the short term, although in the long term it is often counterproductive.

The chief advisor of Obama in determining appointments in the intelligence agencies is John Brennan, an ass’t to the former chief of the CIA, Tenet.  He is a stong believer in warrentless wiretapping, which Obama supported after promoising to oppose it. 

And Brennan is a strong supporter of ‘extraordinary rendition,’ sending prisoners to client regimes to be tortured.  On Amy Goodman’s DEMOCRACY NOW he strongly defended torture as a ‘vital tool.’

I assume that torture will be more concealed under Obama, to assuage the conscience of his supporters.  But it will obviously continue with the wars for Freedom and Democracy, because it IS a vital tool in a war against the population.  As it will continue in Israel, where Jews are now being tortured as well as Arabs.

This occurs because Obiden is a continuation of the Bush regime, and is to the RIGHT of the Clinton administration, because power structure consensus has gone historically to the right.  And torture is part of Bushite policy. While saying publically that we do not torture.

Folktruther - Since, statistically, the threat of capital punishment doesn’t effect a decrease in the rate of capital crimes committed, it’s maybe up for grabs that the threat of torture intimidates populations into submission before a nation on an imperialistic binge.

I don’t think imperialism is what we’re into these days as much as just plain war, any war, any place, for any reason - actually the threat of war, a terrorist attack, whatever seems to get the same sought after results.

Eisenhower’s prescient ‘beware of the military/industrial complex’ seems to be playing out big time.  The average value of defense contracts posted by the Pentagon in 2007 was $2,030,000,000.  Ten years ago it was $642,000,000. (Harper’s Index, Oct. ‘08) 

Odd, or is it, that just about every policy coming out of DC inevitably ends up feeding the greedy, which in turn starves the rest of us - not to mention the country.

Yeah, you’re right, Kati.  Psych experiments, notably the famous Stanford prison experiments by Lombardo, indicate that people taken at random will torture as means of inflicting power.  But this is used by despotic power systems to serve the interests of the state controlled by ruling classes.

And both Israel and the US are despotic power systems in regard to Muslims at the present time.  Israel is currently blocading a million and a half people in Gaza from getting food, water, medicines, cooking oil, etc despite the pleas of the EU, preventing journalists from entering Gaza to tell the story.  One remembers how the Israeli military blocaded the refugee camps in Lebanon and sent in fascist allies to kill every man, woman and child in the camps.

In Gaza, as in Lebanon, this is being done with US consent, including Obama’s.

No, Kati, torture is not being carried out ONLY by American and Jewish authorities.  But I happen to be an American Jew and this torture is being done in my name as well that of the rest of the population.  So I protest it, specifically what MY power system is doing rather than the torture being carried out in, say, India, where I have no voice.

I am sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, since I think you should protest it too. For exactly the same reasons. Because we have an historical example of Germans remaining silent when Jews were rounded up to be killed, and I do not want to be like them.  Or want you to be like them.

This is simply elementary political decency.  But decency in America or Israel at the present time in history is increasingly unpatriotic.  Patriotic Americans do not speak out in the same way that Good Germans didn’t.  And the political indecency increased.  As it is doing in America and Israel.  And will continue to do so until you become uncomfortable enough to oppose it.  You personally.

We are living at a time in history when the morality that is instilled in interpersonal relations is starting to be applied to gruupings of persons.  It is only if this morality becomes widespread that earthpeople will survive and prevail.  And if you don’t protest your leaders conducting torture, it is difficult to think what kind of obscenity you would protest.

“The new Obama administration has a duty to conduct its own investigation and tell us exactly what was done in our name.”

Hear hear!

I could care less who gets jailed for it, or who gets punished. Don’t get me wrong, Justice needs a born-again era Herself. So if the torture enablers do suffer criminal punishment for what they did, all the better.

But what most of us want, much more than revenge or retribution, is to know the whole truth, and to make certain we, the citizens of the United States, are NEVER AGAIN the unwilling or unwitting sponsors of torture, in any form.

And it goes deeper than Gitmo or Abu Ghraib.  When the Shiite militias were empowered under Negraponte’s tenure (The “El Salvador solution”, remember?) to go after former Sunni leaders, it was our tax money that paid for the drills they used on the kneecaps of their victims, before they were murdered.

So don’t stop at Gitmo and Abu Gahrib or at those grotesque gulags scattered around the uncivilized world.  We need to know just who gave the wink and the nod and the power drills to those vengeful torturers.

Like I said, I could care less if they get punished, I’m not talking revenge here.  But we need to know the depth and the breadth of our own lack of vigilance towards the use of turture, with our tax money and our tools.

Maybe we will all be shamed into an abiding certitude, that says we will never again hand our precious democracy over to war mongers and their fellow profiteers.

You can’t prosecute leaders for torture, Felicity, if you are going to continue it.  And it MUST be continued to fight the War on Terrorism, to intimidate populations.  Both Dem and Gop leaders are determinted to continue the War to disguise imperialism. So torture in both the US and Israel will continue, and if anyone is punished, it will be the least culpable.

According to a legal-eagle writing in this month’s Harpers, torture is the one issue that can bring the culprits perpetrating in it - starting at the top - before a court of justice with the assurance that justice could be done. 

The article argues that the Bush Administration is guilty of far more than torture but pursuing those issues would most likely result in dead ends. (Sort of like nailing a big time criminal guilty of multiple offenses, finally, on income tax evasion.)

Yeah, Mendez, that was a typo.  It should have been 250 million instead of billion.

Yeah, you’re right, Mendez, that was a typo.  It should have been million instead of billion.

The War on Terrorism began in a Jeruselum conference in 1979 sponsored by Natanyahu and attended by the Senior Bush, Began, and other high Israeli and US officials.  It kicked off the Brzezinski Afghan war against Soviet backed regimes, entrapping a Soviet army in Afghanistan.

I believe your math is a bit off - “has 25 billiion dollars. 1% of that is 250 billion dollars” I believe that should be 250,000. Do you believe the “zionists” pulled this off without a Clinton here and a Biden there?  Do you think this is the culmination of a plan began back in the fifties or sixties?

Key house and senate democrats were given closed door briefings on the “interrogation techniques” which were being used on “detainees” and they signed off on it.  That’s why nothing can be done about it.  Bush was smart enough to make congressional democrats complicit in torture.  So much for our supposedly stupid president. 

Mark Danner has a piece in the latest issue of the New York Review about how and why this issue goes on and on with no resolution, no punishment of the guilty.  He says scandal is our growth industry.

“When we look back on 2000-2008” we will discover that the Democratic politicos in Congress, including Mr. Obama, did nothing to stop this disgrace. Eugene, you are many years too late with your false wailing wall tears.

The reason is, Mendez, that tens of millions of isolated, deluded and inactive people have no power.  They only have power when they are organized into a united force with money, media and violence resources.  Historical politics is, except during social revolutions, a play of minority forces against each other.  That is how a ruling class of 1% of the population can largely control the power organs. 

The Jewish population, a few milliions of the three hundred milliion Americans, does not have any more power than any other ethnic group.  However, since Jews were historically prevented from owning land, they went into the money and truth industries during the capitalist period.  And those who were most successful gained the power resources of money and the media.

Addleson, for example, profiled in the NEW YORKER, has 25 billiion dollars. 1% of that is 250 billion dollars and you can buy a lot of leaders, truthers and activists with that amount of money.  He lobbies Aipac from the right and provides them with money to influence both parties. 

Most Jews don’t know this any more than other Amereians do.  And since Jews have had such a disatrous history, the threat of annialation tends to overcome the ability to reason and evaluate evidence,  Jews tend to equate Anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.  Which of course Zionists encourage and promote. 

Zioism gains its power by the ability to ally with other groupings.  Addleson, for example, got his money largely by initially gambling in Las Vegas, but primarily by the Chinese giving him the gambling and hotel business in Macao.  The Chinese play their political cards very well and for long term affects, and it is to their advantage to keep US foreign policy tied to Zionism.  They trade with Israel as well, which has gained enormous secruity industries from the 9//11 homicide.  Which their secret police, the Mossad, was involved in, possibly in a marginal way.

But since there is no general theory of power relations, as there is, for example, a theory of particles, it is very difficult for people to disentangle the reality based truth from the power delusions with which all power structures delude their populations.

Well that sounds about right but still doesn’t offer an explanation about how 6% of the U.S. population is able to circumvent our otherwise Gentile power structure?

Anarcissie- your view is the common progressive one that is hard to refute because Zionist power in the US is a peculiar ethnic artifact that occurs occasionally in power systems. The orginal argument is not mine but that of James Petras who has argued that what he calls the Zionist Power Configuration has fundemnatally distorts the US power system.

I think he is right.  But since there is no clear conceptual theory of power relations, it is difficult to argue it in a simple way.  Especially as it conflicts with standard marxist and liberal theory and US schoolbook history.

But Zionist policies, from bombing Iran (checked so far by Zionists like Biden) to the thought control amendment of Zionist Jane Harman—passed overwhelmingly in the house- and not yet implemented, influence not only US imperalism but the police state necessary to implement it.

And this is done because the crurrent policy of Likud Zionism is “transfer’ of the Palestinian population, a form of genicide by ethnic cleansing.  It is incrreasingly supported by a fraction of the Israeli Jewish population and involves mass murder as well as forced emigration.  It cannot be done without US implicit support, and this requires war and the restriction of the American population’s opposition.

So the Isreali tail wags the US dog.  Through American Zionists, who are typically the most right wing.  Addleson, with his 25 billion dollars, is to the right of Aipac, and is sopported by agents, such as Sepharad, and dodo’s of the Jewish population like Inherit, who will justify Israeli policy no matter what it is.

And this massacre is the least of the historical problem. The US is on a trajectory toward nuclear war, as exempliefied by its first strike capacity that Bush wanted to put into Poland. 

The American power system cannot comepte economically in the world arena because of its neoliberal ideology, and so it has emphasized its military power.  But this American imperialism is perverted in disastrous ways by Zionist imperialism, making it irrational and unstable.

And Obama is an insturment of it.  Will he be strong enough to restrain it?  I don’t know, but I fear not.

This is perhaps the one area where we most need to hear strong words from our president elect, for the healing of our nation to begin, so that we can begin to face our recent past and and start repairing our relations with the rest of the world.  I hope that even even stronger action will follow.  I even still hope to see Bush and Cheney arrested for war crimes, though I’m not holding my breath.

“It’s hard to say which is more appalling—the torture itself, or the tortured legal rationalizations that Bush administration lawyers came up with to “justify” making barbarity the official policy of the United States government.”

C’mon Eugene. The Bush/Cheney abuses have been worse than appalling. They have been a nightmare – a seemingly never-ending nightmare.

It won’t be the torture, or even the cold blooded murder of children, that history will judge so harshly but the total failure of the media to write honestly about this period.  Gene’s a good guy, but, like the rest of his cronies, he’s unable to criticize anyone in power at the level of honest journalism.  The Washington Post surely won’t expect the Obama administration to perform differently.  Neither will the so-called left wing press.  Few “Americans” whomever they are will demand justice or be looking for serious journalistic writing from the Obama generation.  Justice, if we ever see it, will be in the hands of those who, eventually, take us down.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! (tell the people what they want to hear so they will PERCEIVE and BELIEVE that you are going to stop the torture) REPEATEDLY we have trained & sent torturers into countries, and overthrown them for the “great Corps” to RULE CRUEL & let the Wealthy strip their lands, with no justice to be found. Oil companies repeatedly used criminals who should never have had visas overseas: where they raped, abused, killed (shades of Haliburton) whom was involved with criminals there as well. They have an IMAGE to uphold: it would never do to let the people of the USA KNOW that we are on our way to killing & genocide back in the Congo so we can strip their land of wealth: THEY are going to “rule” as THEY have been able to “get away with it in the USA” for years”; THEY will own the water rights, & large farms in every country: and THEY will set the prices: and the land is stripped, & people are treated horribly: THIS is what THEY CALL “democracy” and THIS is the reason they are so determined to SHOVE IT DOWN EVERYONES THROATS!

Folktruther—I doubt if Zionists are as influential as you believe.  (I’m using Zionist to mean something like “fan of the State of Israel”.)  Some of my relatives, people with whom I have as little to do with as possible these days, are middling members of the power elite.  As a young person, I got what I think is a good idea of how such people think.  They are not loyal to a state, country, religion, ethnic group or other community out of feeling but because the group gives them, so to speak, a job—the job of exerting power over other people.  They are loyal to their masters, at least until they get a new master.

Zionists are able to influence American media and academia to damp or censor criticism of Israel, but that is because their purpose is narrow and focused.  There are many other interest groups, for example the police, who also form such quasi-political parties, but only on the very narrow range of issues which concern each.  It’s a sociological and political truth: a few who care much can defeat many who care a little.  The kind of people in the USA who plan, authorize, and perform torture as well as the other works of the state, murder, kidnapping, terror, theft and so on, by and large care nothing about Israel and will drop Israel whenever it seems to be to their advantage.  In fact, a significant portion of the ones I have known were at least mildly anti-Semitic and would probably enjoy hanging Israel out to twist slowly in the wind someday.  Until then they will use the various opportunities and advantages which the existence and embattled situation of Israel affords them.

Of course there is a similar group of people in Israel and in every other state, and when two states are working together they may seem to be integrated with one another.  But they aren’t—they’re just doing the job assigned to them by their masters.

narcissie—It is quite true that the difference between the Bush regime and previous American history is that the Bushites openly legitmated torture.  The US previous practiced it, for example, in teacking it to death sqauads in the School of Americas, but it was kept concealed as much as possible.

I was not a change in the population’s opinions that was insturmental in legitimating torture, but a change in the opinions of the power structure.  The American power structure was strongly influenced by Zionism to support both the War on Terrroism and torture, both imported from Israel.

In elections, giving the population a choice between personalities with the same policies, these policies indoctrinated by the mass media of the power structure, is no policy choice at all. Blaming the people for the crimes of their rulers is common but unjustified. Torture is conceived of as part of foreign policy which the population does not understand or is much interested in, and is supported by both parties.

If the mass media justifies torture on the grounds that it is necessary to quickly get information that prevents a city from being incinerated by nuclear weapons, a common deceit in the American mainstream truth tradition, you can not expect people to quickly realize that this is just the usual bullshit. 

Especially if Congress passes a law supposedly abolising torture, supported by both the Gops and Dems.

It is the American power struture, the ruling class and its professional agents, whose support for torture is commanding, and that power structure controls both the Gop and Dem parties.  Both support the War on Terrorism, which has been ideologically formed in a Jeruselum conference in 1979, and legitmates torture as part of the necessary combat.

It was not initiated by the oil compancies, or the banks, or by the population.  It was initiated by Zionists, such as Dershowitz, who wanted it legal and open and justified.  And whose policies Obama, like Bush, is implementing.

Good time to screen Taxi to the Dark Side at my club meeting today.

The passage in question is no more “unequivocal” than most of the vague lucubrations of Obama Copacabana. Torture may “never be a matter of debate.” But it is, sometimes a matter of definition. In a rare instance of international concord, the U.S. actually ratified the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment as well as the universal declaration of human rights, which also bans torture. After the revolt in congress against some of the more ghastly forms of American torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere – spearheaded in part by John McCain - Bush sadists were forced to revise their methods, if only for PR purposes. Torture did not go away entirely, it was redefined as ‘enhanced interrogation’ and there it remains today. The CIA and its director, Michael Hayden – whom Obama is reportedly considering keeping on in that post – have defended these practices that many feel constitute torture. Further, Hayden has also defended the use of outside ‘contractors’ or ‘green badges’ to carry out these grisly tasks, saying in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Comm. “In many instances, the individual best suited for the task may be a contractor.”  As usual, Obama’s interview assertion does little to clarify this equivocation, both for the definition of torture as well as his own position regarding it. The definition many adopt is the unequivocal one in the Army Field Manual: “The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government” Obama however despite his lofty campaign rhetoric may be hedging again on this “issue” as he has on so many others since buying the Oval Office without the help of public funding. The Wall St Journal reported a few days ago that according to a government official familiar with the transition, “Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.”  Equivocation again in typical Obamaspeak or perhaps more ominously, another ‘slippery slope’. Certainly the prominent presence in the transition team of former CIA official John Brennan, who has in the past defended torture and rendition practices, is not reassuring. “Whether the Army field manual is comprehensive enough to cover all those tactics and techniques, that’s something I think he’d look to his national security advisers for,” Brennan equivocated in an interview with CQ in August. And the odious matter of extraordinary rendition is not fully laid to rest either, loopholes are available to permit prisoner transfer. Equally troubling, many of America’s favorite client states and leading aid recipients such as Israel, Egypt, and Columbia are all known to make liberal use of torture. Will Obama unequivocally pledge to end all U.S. aid to foreign countries guilty of torture? Better check with AIPAC about that.  And while it should certainly be true that,  “Years from now, we will be shocked to see those pictures of naked prisoners being humiliated and abused at Abu Ghraib—and we will be ashamed of a U.S. government that punished low-level troops for their sadism but exonerated the higher-ups who made such sadism possible”, that shame will continue for at least another four years since two key Obama advisers just now anonymously confided to AP that there is virtually no chance that any higher-ups involved will be prosecuted by the new administration. So, at least, Obama seems to be unequivocal about protecting the guilty. In fact, Obama’s lack of clarity “on the issues of Guantanamo and torture” are perfectly consistent with his slippery “vagueness about how he will deal with the economic crisis.” It’s going to be a long four years.

Folktruther:
Torture was imported as a state policy, along with the War on Terrorism, from Israel, which routinely totures Palestinians, often to death. ...

Israelis did not invent torture, and the United States hardly needs to import it from anywhere in any case.

The big difference between G. W. Bush’s regime and previous ones was that its leaders felt free to practice torture more or less openly, even jovially, since the morale of the people had degenerated to point where it was overtly acceptable.

It was well-known that the U.S. government was practicing torture in 2004, when Bush was re-elected along with a Republican Congress, and as noted, in 2007-2008, the Democratic Congress did nothing effective to stop it.  If we are going to allocate blame for the practice of torture, there are a mighty lot of enthusiasts, enablers and condoners around besides Zionists or neo-cons.

Obama’s catch phrases “hope” and “change” have echoed all around the world, leading to sky-high expectations of “change” across the globe. One of the expected changes is a regain of the United States’ former respectability. This is impossible if the United States does not reject torture in its entirety.

What prevents Obama from fulfilling expectations of “change” at home and abroad is that the Democratic party is not in essence a left-wing party that believes in radical change. Democrats do not fundamentally oppose the death penalty, and this makes it impossible for them to fundamentally oppose the use of torture. It should not be expected that Obama close down Guantánamo, and it certainly should not be expected that he proceed with the timely withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But that’s where a lot of the expectations have been leading.

For more: http://www.ilpodesta.org/2008/11/after-euphoria.html

Obama has decided not to pursue criminal charges against anyone in the Bush administration for torture of prisoners according to democracynow 11/18/08.  So I think that Mr Robinson is being naive to say that a crime for which there will be no punishment is something we will look back on in disgust.  Also according to Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Law, Obama will close Guantanimo but continue the practices carried out there in other locations, probably within the US.  (democracynow.org 11/17/08)  It’s way too early for cheering, Mr Robinson.

Obama and the Dems continue their journey to the right, under the codeword ‘bipartisanship’, by retaining, this morning, Lieberman as chairman of an important committee. At Obama’s instignation, he clearly being in the grip of his Zionist backers.

Torture was instigated by Zionist policy to legitimate Israli torture.  Dershowitz, who calls himself a liberal Dem, called for legalizing torture, which has been operatively done by the US power system under Bush.

Obama has stated that the US does not torture.  And that he is going to eliminate it.  HE IS LYING ON BOTH COUNTS.  The US DOES torute and he is NOT going to eliminate it.  He can’t, while continuing to intimidate the Muslim populations under the War On Terrorism.

So he will probably eliminate Gitmo as a public relations gesture to better conceal the world wide torture practices of the CIA and the US military.  And may well expand it in the US to combat progressives. Since the Dem leadership is now attacking “leftists” according to columnists Serota and Greenberg, under the guise of ‘bipartisanship.’

So torture will be continued under the Dems rather than the Gops, as Obiden consolidates the Bushite counterrevolution.

  Change you can believe in.

AND THE 20,000 DISAPPEARED?

Robert Fisk reports that 20,000 muslims have been ‘disappeared.’ Are their mass graves in our future, too, along with ‘no more torture?’ http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk /robert-fisk-obama-has-to-pay-for-eight-years-of-bushs-delu sions-1001092.html?startindex=20

ACTUALLY IT’S 27,000

Clive Stafford Smith: US Holding 27,000 in Secret Overseas Prisons; Transporting Prisoners to Iraqi Jails to Avoid Media & Legal Scrutiny

Clive Stafford Smith, British born lawyer for over fifty detainees in Guantanamo Bay. He is the legal director of the UK charity Reprieve and has defended prisoners on death row for over twenty years. He is the author of Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay. http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/19/clive_stafford_smith

Closing Guantanamo Bay should be one of the first, if not the first order of business president-elect Barack Obama should instate.

Terrorists aren’t nihilists.

Torture was imported as a state policy, along with the War on Terrorism, from Israel, which routinely totures Palestinians, often to death.  This torture is not primarily to gain information, but to intimidate the population from becoming militant in opposition to despotism.

While the War on Terroism continues, American-Zionist torture will continue.  It has to, because this War is actually directed against the Muslim population, and the function of torture, like terror bombing, is to repress them.  You can’t end torure until you end the War on Terrorism.

Obama is committed to continuing it.  At most, therefore, he will cover it up while he continues it.

And so will the President, Vice President, Condi and others be held accountable for these crimes?  Lord knows that Senator Stephens is being punished for lying about a measly $200,000 or so.

For two years a Democratic Congress has refused to investigate all the way down to the bottom of this filthy pit and that includes our current President-Elect. They share responsibility for this shame.

Follow the trail of Bush-Cheney end of term pardons or the blanket immunity or whatever the legal eagles dream up to cover up this nightmare that was The American Dream.  When the Bush hacks were arguing with congress whether waterboarding was torture or not all I could think was “strap the SOB down and do it to him and then see what he thinks !!”

It will never happen, of course, but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the others should be charged as international war criminals.  What they did can never be erased but unless we hold them accountable history would be right to include all of us as accomplices to their crimes.

which part we should belive?

Barack assured us in recent interview his
determination to close guantanamo and end all illegal rendition, inhuman interrogation procedures and torture. However, certain names in the transition team for the intelligence policy has ill reputation and were involved in the illegal unconsititutional policies of Bush admin. As appeared
on democracy NOW;
November 17, 2008*
Ciaweb
Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama’s Intelligence Transition Team

John Brennan and Jami MiscikMiscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading Barack Obama’s review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has suppwarrantlesswarrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendMiscik and Miscik speak with former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. [includes rush transcript.

you can not talk about change and aRatnersame time name persons who formed executed and defended such bad policies under bush . The people who engineered these unlawful measures do not have any respect for human rights, national or international law. I am very disturbed to see them surfing again in the new administration.

The statement is not whether we will look back on the shrub’s administration as a disgraceful interlude, but whether, will we, look back on his torture stance as a crime against humanity, war crimes and crimes against the laws of this nation?
Mr. Robinson, if we were to look back on these issues as moral and legal wrongs then we, the people, would be obliged to hand over to the International Courts of Justice, the whole administration of the Shrub and his “gang of Five,” to international justice. Will this happen, never in a million years! For, the shrub and his cronies will be protected by the next administration and furthermore he and all of the people associated with his time in office will never travel outside the US again. For if they do, then of course the country they were visiting would be obliged to hand over to international justice those men and women.
We will never know the depths of depravity to which the shrub’s administration has sunk. Records will be destroyed and emails deleted from the records. No paper trail will ever exist that proves one person authorized the detention and torture of men, women and children for things they did not commit and have nothing to do with.
In point of fact, the transition team, of Barack Obama, has on it the very people who authorized and helped to plan the very crimes with which we charge the shrub’s administration. Why should we now believe that anything will change? Are we the people, so gullible as to, believe in change when change will not be forthcoming?
Let us pray to whatever is holy, that some things will change in this new administration, yet optimistic pessimist that I am, I do not see the changes happening and can not for the life of me, see the players changing, only the scorecard is new.

I am thankful to here Pres elect Obama remain true to this campaign promise..But would have preferred to hear him say the same for those other internment camps too.
He also mentioned, quickly and quitely He would seek Investigations and criminal prosecutions for the War crimes and the Intentional Fraud against US committed by this adminstation to gain our support for the Illegally invasion Iraq. Had we been told the TRUTH we would have rejected the idea. But we were lied to so as to elicit a ‘fight’ response due to Fear.
Closing Gitmo will be a factor in our Reputational recovery, but it will not be the major influence. Unless we Prosecute those who have intentionally misled, used and abused the Power and resposnislbities of the USA, We will be punished for their transgression against Humanity. We must prove We are not only Fair, but also JUST. Which means when someone is guilty their punishment will match the Crime. Treason, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity are the most agregious Crimes known to Man.
So don’t close Gitmo, We may need it to hold members of this Admin, their cohorts in Congress and on SCOTUS, and their Corp & Foreign co conspirators.
In fact a Taste of their own medicine would not cause me to shed a tear! Grandfather in the Habius corpus exception, the ‘Renditions’ practices and the ‘enhanced Interrogation techniques’ JUST for THEM!
REVENGE A DISH BEST SERVED COLD!

P.S.
Oh, and just to be clear; I blame the bankrupt bastards in charge (both Dems and Repubs).  This country has gone to hell and I’m not convinced Obama will change it.  On this; only time will tell and times running out very quickly.  :(

“We will look back on the Bush years and find it incredible, and disgraceful, that individuals were captured in battle or “purchased” from self-interested tribal warlords, whisked to Guantanamo, classified as “enemy combatants” but not accorded the rights that status should have accorded, held for years without charges—and denied the right to prove that they were victims of mistaken identity and never should have been taken into custody.”

Eugene, I find your above quote incredible; many of us have always felt that way and for many years now.