Now, when can we begin prosecuting the instigators? Presumably, after we have prosecuted those who ordered and participated in torture. (There is no statute of limitations on torture, is there?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_videota...
Let’s not forget that Obama re-signed the Patriot Act even after campaigning in 2008 to end it.
This kind of behavior is a problem that spans generations of government positions. It’s about time something is done about it.
* 109 generals oppose her nomination in a letter: https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/RMLSena...
* yes, there were some democrats who voted in her favour, but there were republicans too who voted against her. Overall though, the overwhelming majority democrats did vote against her. Far from "unanimous support" like you claim.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_...
There was at least some level of accountability for US Army members after the Abu Ghraib scandal [0], while I haven't heard about any CIA employee being held accountable in a similar way.
It's one thing to support an authoritarian regime with torture cells because it gives you cheap oil, it's another thing to do it yourself, with your own personel, because with this you lose your moral superiority and tarnish your own reputation. I'm not saying the former is great, it's bad, but that regime is not beholden to the US constitution, laws and judges, unlike the US federal employees.
A good point I heard a senator make in her confirmation hearings [1]: Even if she wasn't involved in torture at all, (and she was), alone the fact that Trump nominated her because he believed she was involved, turns the decision about her nomination into a decision about torture, no matter how much she regrets it in her letter to Sen. Warner (and the letter's regret was minimal).
[0]: Caution, graphic pictures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
109 generals sounds like a large number. It's a compelling metric!
But, I don't really know how many generals (and admirals) there really are in the military. I just know that the US military is kinda huge, so there's got to be a lot of them. I mean, the Pentagon alone is a massive building (the largest office in the world!) that I imagine being full of generals.
And then, I see in the letter that all of the signees are retired, which expands the total number of generals (and admirals) alive significantly.
I guess, I'm trying to ask a question about metrics, because I face this constantly. The absolute metric (>100 generals!) looks very strong, but the relative metric (nn% of all living generals and admirals active and retired) would possibly be underwhelming. It's no small feat to get a person with a real voice to sign a public letter like that so, the absolute number is big, but if the cause were of broad interest the relative number would be significant too....
On a minor bit of research I see there can only be 231 flag officers active at any time. I don't know how many are retired, but that does indicate the absolute number is a significant relative number. I still just struggle with the right way to report and digest metrics like this.
Active duty generals generally do not comment on political matters. Once they have left military service it's much easier for them to give a public opinion about politics without creating a conflict of interest.
109 retired generals is far more than you can regularly expect on ordinarily political matters. For context, nominations for secretary of defense generally elicit opinions from retired generals. James Mattis, who quite possibly is the most popular military general for several decades, only ever received a couple dozen public expressions of support for confirmation as secretary of defense. The fact that 109 generals publicly opposed any confirmation of a Secretary of Anything, let alone a director level position, and did so in a unanimous letter, is absolutely massive.
“How do you sleep at night?”
I would like to see a concerted effort to document these crimes, issue warrants for arrest, and have customs officials in all ICC-party states ready to flag and arrest any suspected war criminal, in order to extradite for ICC trial. Some countries do this already but we need all of the ICC-party states to do it.
And yes, I get that they would likely just never travel to countries where they may be arrested. But for the powerful, that in itself is a punishment. They may not serve prison time, but we can take away their European vacations.
https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/germany-criminal-complaint-agai...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
https://www.wearethemighty.com/us-can-invade-the-hague
"...In 2002, then-President George W. Bush signed the American Service-Members' Protection Act into law, authorizing the use of military force to free its citizens from incarceration and trial by the International Criminal Court. The act, dubbed the "Hague Invasion Act" for the name of the city in the Netherlands where the ICC holds prisoners, allows the President to use the American military to free its service members or those of any allied country who might be captured for trial there. More menacingly for potential U.S. allies, the act allows the United States to end military assistance for signatory countries to the ICC treaty, unless they agree not to extradite American citizens to The Hague."
That law explicitly authorizes the US military to INVADE the Netherlands and attack the ICC in order to free a US citizen on trial there. Netherlands is a NATO member, just like the US!! Not to mention a party to a number of other non-aggression pacts the US has with most Western European countries. That law Bush pushed for and signed makes the entire NATO idea a freaking joke. No country is safe if it ever dares to arrest US military members, no matter how horrible the war crimes committed by them. As they say in the commercials "but wait, there is more!" There are also multiple secret executive actions and DOJ "legal opinions" accompanying that fascist/evil law and the rumor is those secret amendments authorize covert LETHAL action by US special forces against foreign government officials (or any other foreign individual for that matter) working towards bringing a US citizen to trial at the ICC in Hague.
So, I would be thrilled to know what customs officials you have in mind that would be willing to get assassinated (covertly) for doing ANYTHING that can be construed by the US as aiding/abetting the capture and bringing a US citizen to ICC for a war crime trial. Even if you find such kamikazes, no country would dare issue orders authorizing its own officials to perform such acts against US military personnel.
So, no offense, but what world exactly are you living in!?!?
"[N]othing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past … we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future."
Are you attributing based on occurrence or based on decision not to prosecute? Did you accidentally switch them?
The illegal wire-tapping was a matter known to the public before Obama's time and there was a case brought by the EFF during the Bush years. The CIA torture comment most likely refers to the fact that a Senate report on CIA abuses was published during Obama's tenure and led to no punishment that I'm aware of.
It seemed obvious to me that the point being made was that neither party seems to care to hold wrongdoers in government accountable for their actions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/5-people-who-lied-...
"In July 1987, North was summoned to testify before televised hearings of a joint congressional committee that was formed to investigate the Iran–Contra scandal. During the hearings, North admitted that he had misled Congress..."
One of the sources explains that when congress investigated the Iran-Contra scandal, it granted Oliver North immunity for what he would say. From one of the Wikipedia sources:
"The most serious obstacle to North's prosecution was the immunity grant extended him by the Select Committees that in 1987 investigated the Iran/contra matter. North's nationally televised testimony under that grant of use immunity, which guaranteed that nothing he told Congress could be used against him in a criminal proceeding, greatly complicated Independent Counsel's investigation and raised serious questions as to whether North could ever be tried."
The witness cannot plead the fifth but they also cannot be prosecuted for anything they say.
And yes 2/3 of a committee is a small number of people.
It’s grifts all the way down!
If what you do actually matters, then meh, whatever, it's all good.
1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-baseball-clemens/clemens-...
He testified to congress that this program helped foil 54 terror plots. Weeks later, he conceded that it was helpful in "only one or two".
We later found out there was basically just one, and it wasn't a terror plot; it was a Somali-born taxi driver living in San Diego who attempted to send $8,500 to a Somali terror group.
But the damage was done. The headlines blared from his initial testimony about the NSA using this program to thwart 50+ terror plots, but there was a fraction of that coverage correcting it.
Clapper's perjury may be more blatant, but Gen. Alexander's is pretty galling too. They both should've been charged.
For one thing, the decision would have to be upheld at the Supreme Court -- although Gorsuch has signaled some willingness to put firm limits on this kind of data collection, which might tilt things in favor of upholding the lower court's ruling.
At the time of the offenses, the perps knew they were violating the law. If the law authorizing the action is found unconstitutional, then that retroactive permission has been withdrawn. There is no question of "double jeopardy", because they never faced trial.
>The call-tracking effort began without court authorization under President George W. Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.<
So the PotUS gave them the authority.
>A similar program was approved by the secretive FISA Court beginning in 2006 and renewed numerous times, but the 9th Circuit panel said those rulings were legally flawed.<
So in this instance the IC was still operating under the authority of the FISA court. Whether the court came to the right conclusions or not is irrelevant to whether or not the agencies were bound to following those conclusions.
>The metadata program was officially shut down in 2015 after Congress passed the USA FREEDOM Act, which provided a new mechanism where phone providers retained their data instead of turning it over to the government. The revamped system appears to have been abandoned by the NSA in 2018 or 2019.<
So the programs being discussed have already been terminated. What more would you have done? Are we going to prosecute judges for making rulings we disagree with?
>The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the decision as "a victory for our privacy rights," though the left-leaning group said it was "disappointed that, having found the surveillance of Mr. Moalin unlawful, the court declined to order suppression of the illegally obtained evidence in his case."<
As an aside, it's wildly funny to me that the ACLU won't defend free speech anymore but they'll defend terrorists and their supporters.
When has the ACLU stopped defending free speech? They defend convicted terrorists or alleged terrorists?
2: ACLU is not a strong proponent of individual gun ownership, according to the article this has been true for at least 30 years.
3: Article makes far reaching claim in headline but mostly focuses about a single issue, the changes to title IX. Clearly the author disagrees with the ACLU, but the article doesn't give any context on the issue. It's hard to tell if it really is an uncharacteristic position for them to take. I think the heritage foundation has hated the ACLU for a very long time, so that's consistent.
>No, they never said that it was illegal. And Jack was always very careful in saying: "We're not saying what the government has done is illegal. We're just saying we can't find any legal basis for this." And there's a difference. There is a difference.
>I did it because I wanted to protect the president. That's why I signed that document. And I felt that there was a legal basis to sign that document. I thought it was necessary to provide that signature.
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez explaining why he signed his name to an order that had no legal basis.
Because the “relevant authorities” didn’t have the legal right to give that permission.
No one is allowed to decide to torture people - it’s illegal even if your boss says it’s okay.
So in your mind, as soon as someone is accused of being a terrorist, no proof is needed. You can just proceed straight to torture.
Oh boy, I wonder if such a system could even be abused? You are basically supporting Gulags and because you think it can't possibly happen to you.
> Why would you prosecute people who were given permission by the relevant authorities?
Nuremberg trials, just following orders?