#65904 by Concrete man on 4/23 at 2:39 pm
(Unregistered commenter)

“But Leahy is just another establishment figure dinosaur. He OPPOSES the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. People get caught up in small little details and miss the big picture: The Democrats are part and parcel of the War and Money system which is USA all the way. Not to mention that Democrats receive even more financial support from the Zionist Lobby than do the Republicrats!”

The devil is in the “small little details” you ignore—and encourage others to ignore.

#65904 by Concrete man on 4/23 at 2:39 pm
(Unregistered commenter)

“But Leahy is just another establishment figure dinosaur. He OPPOSES the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. People get caught up in small little details and miss the big picture: The Democrats are part and parcel of the War and Money system which is USA all the way. Not to mention that Democrats receive even more financial support from the Zionist Lobby than do the Republicrats!”

Substantiate any of that.

re comment #65787 by JNagarya.  Thank you for your kind words.  On the subject of torture, you might want to read my 4/4/07 op ed piece, “Unmasking the real stupidity of torture” which appeared in the Ventura County Star.  Go to VenturaCountyStar.com, then go to opinion, plug in my name and it will come up.

#65679 by Ernest Canning on 4/22 at 9:16 am
(52 comments total)

Even if it had been truthful, the Attorney General’s statement that we had rendered Maher Arar to Syria on that nation’s “assurance” that he would not be tortured was akin to releasing a seven-year old girl to the custody of a known child molester upon his “assurance” he would not rape her. . . .

The oath to support and defend the constitution and laws of these United States is one that every attorney takes.  As someone who has practiced law for nearly thirty years, I cannot begin to convey the level of grief inflicted by this disgraceful moment in our nation’s history when our nation’s chief law enforcement officer, a former Texas Supreme Court Justice no less, dissembled repeatedly over the course of a seven hour hearing even while under oath.

One does not need a “smoking gun.” The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.  There is but one reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from it.  A cabal operating within the White House and inside the Justice Department conspired to replace competent federal prosecutors with loyal ideologues for purposes of partisan advantage, including, at the least, illegal efforts to deprive citizens of their lawful right to vote under the cover of bogus “voter fraud” allegations, and potentially including efforts to obstruct justice by putting a cap on corruption probes.

Lest some of my fellow Truthdig readers look to this shameful episode as a basis for condemnation of “all” lawyers, I would point out that the senators who were grilling Mr. Gonzales are also lawyers, whose focused questioning exposed the lies.

Exaclty right, especially on the last point.  The out-of-context snippet from Shakespeare that “first, we kill all the lawyers,” leaves out the context: d the speaker was a conspirator in a drive to establish dictatorship.

On one side are lawyers who took an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, and are focused on doing that.  On the other side are criminal thugs, and their lawyers, who publicly swore the same oath (excepting such as unelected Rove and Card), and that of “protecting and defending” the Constitution and laws against “all enemies, foreign and domestic”. 

But in private took a fact-free, lawless, “divine right”-based oath of loyalty to a person, as a personality cult equivalent to those around Hitler and Tojo, and Stalin and Mao.  And Saddam Hussein.

I am impressed with Sen. Leahy’s perfectly articulated laying down of the legitimate ground rules and limits—directly and without equivocation to the core evil of the person most responsible for rationalizing a transparently anti-American lawlessness in defense of the most morally depraved of human behaviors: torture.

I too am profoundly a/grieved, but more than that compelled to speak out against the growing tyranny, and against any views which assert that the only effective response to tyranny is an escalation and dissemination of another tyranny under such as the NRA’s Second Amendment lie.  Those who push that lie are the very people who voted for the Bush gang, and would vote for him again, in their continuing effort to establish that anti-American lie as their means to assist Bush in making his tyranny final and permanent. 

Bush claims “divine right” as exemption from the rule of all law, including the Constitution itself.  The NRA’s “responsible gun owner” liars also claim “divine right”.  For the realities which refute both lies in actual defense of “freedom” and “liberty,” see the film “A Man for All Seasons”—

“. . . .  What would you do then, the laws all being flat, when the Devil turned ‘round on you?  Yes: I give the Devil the benefit of law _for my own safety’s sake_.”

Gonzales shows that lawlessness will label anyone—anyone—“Devil”.

#65685 by Douglas Lindsay on 4/22 at 10:03 am
(Unregistered commenter)

Thanks to Senator Leahy and any other elected leaders willing to shed light into the dark corners of this Executive Administration. Hopefully this light will result in the outrage of an apathetic populace. There is so much to be angry about. One needs only to look and to care and then to register and to vote.

The “populace” is not apathetic.  Rather, there is a significant number who pays so little attention that they actually believe the “populace” is apathetic.

And, rather: ours is a _REPRESENTATIVE_ democracy: “we” jabber that the gov’t is to follow the orders of “We the people,” and they “we” bitch that they don’t follow “our” orders, in effort to “overlook” that “we” are AWOL from our responsibility to _communicate_ the orders. 

Impeachment is to originate with and be urged by We the people, from the grassroots, as informed citizens, not infotaimnentbloated couch ptatoes who assert that the “populace” is apathetic.  Or making excuses that they are apathetic because the gov’t isn’t obeying “our” orders.

And it is to be, and be seen as being, a clean, aboveboard, non-partisan process based upon actual hard evidence obtained by proper, aboveboard investigation.  And the responsiblity of the investigators to lay out and give context to the evidence.

_Communicate_ your views to your elected representatives—they cannot respond to a message they do not receive.

Reading the post, one gets the false impression that the clip comes from the testimony last Thursday relating to the Prosecutor Purge scandal. It doesn’t, and was put on YouTube on January 23.

A significant part of the clip deals with Gonzales’ assurances that more information on the Arar case would be forthcoming in a week. I know that he did not follow up on this, and Leahy was still waiting for the promised information at least into the beginning of February. So, what happened? Is Gonzo still stonewalling on the Arar case (and by extension on the issue of rendition in general)?

As has so often been the case, the pursuit of one Republican scandal gets deflected by the emergence of yet another one. As the views of previous commenters reflect, their are still a lot of people who remember what real American values of justice are. We can only hope they are not lost forever down the neocon memory hole.

Even if it had been truthful, the Attorney General’s statement that we had rendered Maher Arar to Syria on that nation’s “assurance” that he would not be tortured was akin to releasing a seven-year old girl to the custody of a known child molester upon his “assurance” he would not rape her.  As documented by Stephen Grey in “Ghost Plane” and elsewhere, the core purpose of the extraordinary rendition program was to outsource torture.

The oath to support and defend the constitution and laws of these United States is one that every attorney takes.  As someone who has practiced law for nearly thirty years, I cannot begin to convey the level of grief inflicted by this disgraceful moment in our nation’s history when our nation’s chief law enforcement officer, a former Texas Supreme Court Justice no less, dissembled repeatedly over the course of a seven hour hearing even while under oath.

One does not need a “smoking gun.”  The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.  There is but one reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from it.  A cabal operating within the White House and inside the Justice Department conspired to replace competent federal prosecutors with loyal ideologues for purposes of partisan advantage, including, at the least, illegal efforts to deprive citizens of their lawful right to vote under the cover of bogus “voter fraud” allegations, and potentially including efforts to obstruct justice by putting a cap on corruption probes.

Lest some of my fellow Truthdig readers look to this shameful episode as a basis for condemnation of “all” lawyers, I would point out that the senators who were grilling Mr. Gonzales are also lawyers, whose focused questioning exposed the lies.

Others in Congress should follow Leahy’s lead and act with strength and assertiveness in uncovering the corruption of the Bush-Cheney gang.

The Dems proceeded cautiously after the recent election, and that was appropriate. Now, Americans see that they can lead responsibly.

At this point, many more Americans are realizing the depth of the many kinds of corruption of the Bush-Cheney administration and their warmonger, war-profiteer, chicken hawk and neocons associates.

More on this at:

“Winds of change again blowing across America”

PopulistAmerica.com  
Populist Party of America
April 20, 2007

http://www.populistamerica.com/winds_of_change_again_blowing_across_america

I’ll second that motion!

#65590 by QuyTran

Dear Sen. Leahy,

The whole civilized world is looking at you. We think that you’re the ones and only who could clean up the U.S. image before humanity. We’re all proud of you and your committee in fighting against crimes.

Sen. Lahey’s words are the real thing, actual US values—unlike the fake “patriot” extremist chickenhawks who stole the flag, executed Saddam Hussein for having committed the war crime of torture, while at the same time committing the war crime of torture.

And in his opening statement that morning, he mentioned the torture memoes, which tie directly to Gonzales, and to Bush, and to Cheney and to Rumsfeld. 

And war profiteering.

The Democrats have wasted no time getting directly to the issues.  They are doing exactly as they were elected to do: restore the check of Congress against an out of control—deranged—Executive branch.  Actively do oversight. 

Even the appearance of wrongdoing must be avoided by the Executive, or the appearance of wrongdoing must be investigated and the evidence gathered.

One gets the facts and evidence before one has a trial, not after.  The foremost reason to do that is that it is justice under democracy. 

A coincidental reason is to show Bush the actual meaning and process of justice under US law, as contrasted with justice under fake Texas cowboy.

Dear Sen. Leahy,

The whole civilized world is looking at you. We think that you’re the ones and only who could clean up the U.S. image before humanity. We’re all proud of you and your committee in fighting against crimes.