I think any objective person or body of people would look at this, not as an isolated incident, but as a regime that was no different that our infamous Stalin, Mao-tsetung, Nazi comparisons. 

We had a government body usurp, not only the constitution, but international law, kidnappings, torture, detainments without charges, etc.

On top of that, an ex-defense contractor and oil tycooon, make millions in each of their businesses, before leaving office, thereby fattening their pockets. 

Now we have Pinocchio in office surrounded by Wall Street tycoons passing out American Tax Money to poor, down-trodden bankers looking to see if anyone can spare a dime.

I think the popular phrase is, you been had, you been tricked, you been bamboozled, you been hoodwinked.

Somebody somewhere has to wake up and realize that the people have been had

Dick Cheney, without doubt, wins the gold medal for being the most manipulative, fear-monger of our time. Every time the issue of the law or of human rights abuses comes up, he leaps up to remind the American public that we are all in mortal danger from ‘terrorists’.
So, are we to believe that the single most powerful nation the world has ever known – a country with a military budget that defies imagination, more destructive weapons than the rest of the planet combined, and with a history of using that power to devastating effect - is in extreme danger by some radicalized, disenfranchised peasants from Asia and the Middle East?

If we listen to Cheney are we required to accept that these detainees are more dangerous than the Soviet Union during the Cold War, which had nuclear weapons to match America’s? 

Are we really to think that the Guantanamo detainees are so dangerous that America has to surrender the very values that it used against the British to gain independence?

Cheney’s clever advantage is that the ‘enemy’ is unseen. If the public could actually see WHO these ‘terrifying human beings’ actually are, understand their stories, their backgrounds, what they believe in and above all, what motivates them, then the public would see people with concepts and passions like the rest of us, not some enduring monsters without faces.

As long as Cheney gets heard, and as long as the influence of fear works, then he has power.

It appears that Cheney’s whole claim that torture has delivered “actionable intelligence” that has saved “hundreds or thousands” of lives is based on the idea that the detainees tortured until they “confessed” an operational cnnection between Saddam and al-Qaida gave Bush all he neded to overthrow Saddam and, in the process, stop WMDs from making their way from Baghdad to NYC by way of Osama bin Laden. That’s his whole schtick. Incredible.

Physician heal thyself.

I am not a supporter of abrogating our own sense of responsibility or our duty to resolve our own serious problems. I further believe that your pessimism regarding the appointment of a special prosecutor is unwarranted as well. While you might point to Kevin Starr I would counter with Patrick Fitzgerald.

INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES TRIALS!!!!!
There is not one facet of our Gov’t, military or Judcical system which has not been stained with these international Atrocities. No commission will be free of the influence of party politics, no special prosecutor will be viewed Impartial, nor will any investigation not be railed against as a Witch Hunt that is carried out in this nation.
Hand these interantional Crimes over to the inerantional courts- a set of impartial, uninvolved nations who can sort through the facts and still understands and adheres to interantional laws and treaties.
We are left with only those crimes which involve Abuse of Power and Treason.Those can then be fully prosecuted once ithas been determined that these international crimes have taken place. Of curse there are some which directly effected and undermined our Constitutional rights- wiretapping. But those to must be prosecuted in the context of the overall High Crimes- were they genuine attempts to keep US safe or merely usurping authority to carry out their other higher crimes.
Cheney and his ‘friendly’ interviews have proven the effectiveness of acceptable interrogation techniques- Give him a friendly face and a video camera and Cheney starts confessing. He has already admitted he did not share all necessary iformation with the ‘Decider’ stating quite clearly Bush only ‘Basically’ knew what was going on- that is undermining an dusurping the powers of Sitting President (a covert Coupe?)
Troture, Rendition,black Sites and assassination squads all operated in the Realm of the Global Community and involved Foreign nationals- this is therefore an Interantional case of High crimes, via international laws and treaties. it must be prosecuted as such to assure objectivity. This is the only way such trials will be viewed by the global Community as just and end the claims of Poltically motivated ‘Witch hunts’ here in the States.Once those Charges are brought by the internaitonal community for War Crimes and Crimes agaisnt Humanity we will be in a justifiable position to level charges of Abuse of power and Treason.

tropicgirl, May 22 at 5:28 pm #

AN OPEN MESSAGE TO RANDI RHODES, RACHEL MADDOW, STEPHANIE MILLER, ED SCHULTZ, ET AL…

Can you guys start shutting up about the Bush Administration already? We already know what they did. We voted them out, remember?
.................................

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, here’s another:

I do not want anyone to “shut up about Bush” not now not ever or until such time as investigations are completed, prosecutions undertaken and justice is served.

Further, every time some GOP blowhard mouths off about Obama’s socialism I want his voting record to be publicly shown for each time he himself came down on the side of deregulation, invasion and torture. Actually Obama’s record would indicate such as well…..

One does not cure an ill by refusing to speak about it. In fact, its not being spoken about often or loudly enough. Especially because Obama is following in Bushs’ footsteps on far too many issues.

AN OPEN MESSAGE TO RANDI RHODES, RACHEL MADDOW, STEPHANIE MILLER, ED SCHULTZ, ET AL…

Can you guys start shutting up about the Bush Administration already? We already know what they did. We voted them out, remember?

What you need to set your sights on is what is happening RIGHT NOW in the White House. Its pitiful.

The Bush administration wasn’t critiqued until it was too late. You all are making the same mistake and will be blindsided by Obama’s upcoming fall.

We are sick of hearing about Bush. Every day Bush, Bush, Bush. Its freaking OVER. Get over it. Now you actually have to engage your brain. Trying being objective about Obama, the neolibs and the crooked house and senate… Then you will be saying something rather than just parrot.

Its almost impossible to listen to anymore.

U.S. Officials Admitted that Boys Were Sodomized In Iraq Prison

By Washington’s Blog

“May 21, 2009 “Washington’s Blog”— Many people have heard Pulitzer prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh’s claim that boys were sodomized at Abu Ghraib and that the Pentagon has video of the rapes.

Many people think that they’ll believe it when and if they ever see the video. But we don’t need to wait for the military to release the videos. There is already proof that Hersh is right.

For example, the Guardian wrote in 2004:

  The October 12 memorandum, reported in the Washington Post…came to light as more details emerged of the extent of detainee abuse. Formal statements by inmates published yesterday describe horrific treatment at the hands of guards, including the rape of a teenage Iraqi boy by an army translator…

  According to the leaked memorandum ... it also called for military intelligence officials to work more closely with the military police guards at the prison to “manipulate an internee’s emotions and weaknesses”...

  In the Washington Post report, one detainee, Kasim Hilas, describes the rape of an Iraqi boy by a man in uniform, whose name has been blacked out of the statement, but who appears to be a translator working for the army.

  “I saw [name blacked out] fucking a kid, his age would be about 15-18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard the screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [blacked out], who was wearing the military uniform putting his dick in the little kid’s ass,” Mr Hilas told military investigators. “I couldn’t see the face of the kid because his face wasn’t in front of the door. And the female soldier was taking pictures.”
  It is not clear from the testimony whether the rapist described by Mr Hilas was working for a private contractor or was a US soldier…

  Another inmate, Thaar Dawod, describes more abuse of teenage Iraqis. “They came with two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face and Grainer [Corporal Charles Graner, one of the military policemen facing court martial] was beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures from top and bottom and there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners,” he said.

More convincingly, the Telegraph wrote in 2004:

  America was braced last night for new allegations of torture in Iraq after military officials said that photographs apparently showing US soldiers beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death and having sex with a female PoW were about to be released.

  The officials told the US television network NBC that other images showed soldiers “acting inappropriately with a dead body”. A videotape, apparently made by US personnel, is said to show Iraqi guards raping young boys.

(If that link becomes broken, see this).

There you have it: the Telegraph implied in 2004 that U.S. officials admitted that there was a video of guards raping boys. Even if the Telegraph’s implication is wrong, there is strong evidence that such rapes did in fact occur as Hersh said.

And whether or not any of the rapists were U.S. soldiers or contractors, at the very least, American soldiers aided and abetted the rape by standing around and taking videos and photographs.

Whether or not Obama releases the photographic evidence, he must prosecute all of those who committed such atrocities, stood around and watched, ordered them to be committed, or created an environment in which they could occur.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22675.htm

There could never be a link between al-Queda and Iraq, because al-Queda never existed. This fictional brainchild of the Neocons was never more than a handful of loosely associated Islamists. All of the so-called sleeper cells, upon closer examination, turned out to be trumped up or outright bogus.

The Gitmo prison is little more than carnival haunted house on a grand scale, where our imagined nightmares are paraded through the lenses of an all too cooperative media. Fear sells commercial blocks. Fear sells political agendas.

What criminal is too dangerous for our domestic prisons? Exactly how will these nefarious specters of “Islamo-fascism” (a subtle reductio ad hitlerum)  slip through our justice system?

Here are some more pertinent questions: If these men get their day in court, what will they reveal about the true nature of al-Queda and the Neocons? Why has catching Bin Laden never been a real priority?

I want to see the “proof” that torture has saved “thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands”. But I also want to see the evidence that al-Queda is the threat that justifies the compromising of cherished values, the erosion of fundamental civil and human rights, the loss of national treasure, and the violent invasion of our psychic well-being.

Betsy C, May 21 at 9:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I am shocked! There is evidence of a link between al Qaeda and Iraq!
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I am shocked as well, but at the sketchy nature of said proofs and of a possible link between a socialist government ( Ba’athists) and a religious fundamentalist ( Atta). It isnt worth the time for me to dig up the numerous exposures of this supposed meeting as a lie but I assume that most here remember them.

Up until we overthrew the govt of Iraq there was not a single member of AlQaeda in that nation, in fact, Saddaam Hussein was an implacable foe to radical Islamists, the only one in the region.

The dick and others are attempting to create the phony illusion that patriotism isn’t the same as extremism, when in fact, they’re both one and the same.  Anyone that thinks otherwise don’t know what the hell they’re talking about and are themselves fanatics.

Jonr states: “we must at some point admit that it is not whether one wears a uniform or not that matters, but whether one is engaged in combat.”

Under the international law of war, it does matter whether one wears a uniform.  If you are captured in enemy territory and you are wearing a uniform, you are entitled to be treated as a prisoner of war.  However, if you are captured in enemy territory and you are not wearing a uniform, you may be treated as a spy.  POWs are entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions.  Spies may be executed.

According to Jesuit logic, “an empty vessel makes the most noise”.

  Mr. Cheney a chickenhawk neocon who avoided military service during his country’s war in Vietnam is at present being morphed into by CNN and other msms’ into ” a patriot in the form of a George Washington”.

No wonder US newspapers are becoming relics.

Rather than testifying before a “truth commission,” Cheney, Gonzales, Addington and others involved in the use of torture should be required to testify before a grand jury.  That way, even though the public would not be privy to their testimony, it could be used as the basis for criminal prosecutions.