May 28th is Rally Against War Crimes Day. Everyone call your congressman and 2 senators on this day, say "investigate torture."Facebook page.

With Bush FBI Director Robert Mueller confirming that we heard him right, that he didn't "believe" torture had disrupted any attacks, the last of the moral ambiguity hanging over the torture issue is being removed.  Mueller directly contradicts what Dick Cheney has repeated many times, that "enhanced interrogation methods" worked. It turns out that regular tortures included slamming prisoners' heads into walls, sodomy with instruments, electric shocks to the genitals, and the host of tortures we are not even aware of conducted by allies like Egypt during extraordinary rendition. They "did work, they kept us safe for seven years" Cheney told Fox News Sunday.  In one case documented in a report by General Anthony Taguba, a prisoner was forced to drink urine.  Taguba concludes that the tortures were a result of:

[a] permissive environment created by implicit and explicit authorizations by senior US officials to "take the gloves off"...

Former Air Force interrogator Matthew Alexander told MSNBC that, in the course of his interrogations in Iraq, he found repeatedly that claims that the Americans torture were Al Qaeda's number one recruiting tool, and the reason most Iraqis joined the resistance (YouTube link below.) 

This, combined with former Bush official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson's revelation that Bush knew most of those he had at Gitmo were in the wrong place at the wrong time when caught by bounty-hunters, puts a very different sheen on Bush's claim that he was "protecting America." 

    largely unreported is that several in the U.S. leadership became aware of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.

      But to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership from virtually day one of the so-called Global War on Terror and these leaders already had black marks enough: the dead in a field in Pennsylvania, in the ashes of the Pentagon, and in the ruins of the World Trade Towers. They were not about to admit to their further errors at Guantanamo Bay. Better to claim that everyone there was a hardcore terrorist, was of enduring intelligence value, and would return to jihad if released.

Individual detail of the innocent being tortured are emerging randomly.  These should be the focus of any commissions.  Damage control is being attempted by, for example, cleverly placing the spotlight on stories like Khalid Shiek Mohammed being waterboarded 180-something times.  Take a man firmly convicted in the public mind (who knows what the truth is anymore?) as one of those closest to the 9/11 attacks, then make the debate over how right it is to torture him.  Getting less coverage is the story of Dilawar, the 22-year-old taxi-driver who made the mistake of driving past Baghram AFB a few days after a rocket attack with three paying fares.  The New York Times revealed:

"In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.

One form of torture used on Dilawar was the peroneal Strikes. Peroneal strikes are a specific form of beating, consisting of blows to the soft tissue and nerves just above the knee. Dilalwar was beaten to death at Bagram had been given so many peroneal strikes that a coroner testified that his leg tissue had `"basically been pulpified.'"

Orders from the top bring out sadists at the bottom.  Dilawar, was 5'9", 122 pounds.  Dysblog quoting the Times report tells us:

one guard noticed, for instance, that the bruise on his leg was "the size of a fist." Why would guards torture a man they considered innocent? At first it was all in fun: M.P.'s would drop by to give him common peroneal strikes just to hear him scream, "Allah! Allah! Allah!" This was done to him perhaps 100 times, according to one of his tormentors, Specialist Corey E. Jones: "My first reaction was that he was crying out to his god... Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny."

19-year-old Murat Kurnaz disappeared into the House of Horrors That Bush Built even though according to 60 Minutes:

there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one.

Kurnaz says his captors shocked him with electricity, and that he was hoisted up on chains suspended by his arms from the ceiling of an aircraft hangar for five days.

"Every five or six hours they came and pulled me back down. And the doctor came to watch if I can still survive to not. He looked into my eyes. He checked my heart. And when he said okay, then they pulled me back up,"

Former prosecutor and tireless accountability activist Elizabeth De La Vega warns us against jumping the gun in appointing a special prosecutor too soon, before a cohesive and irrefutable public narrative of the criminal activity is developed and an opportunity is given for victims to be heard in an open forum.  She fears the appointment of an SP before open commissions with subpoena powers do their work will result in congresscritters clamming up with "no comment during an ongoing official investigation" gambit.

The narrative must indeed be focused, and public.  Sen. Pat Leahy's commission must have a narrow title like "Commission on the Torture and Detention of the Innocent," otherwise the defenders of torture will shift the debate onto ground they like, that of the non-existent "ticking-bomb" scenario.  And it must be public, broadcast on CSPAN full-blast, rather than letting them pull a "Conyers" which is to have hearings guaranteed to go nowhere because they let no one in the media know that they are taking place. It must demand an accounting for the full range of tortures which make even waterboarding appear relatively mild, such as:

• Hanging By The Arms. A highly excruciating "stress position" torture used on many prisoners, sometimes every day for two to three months, usually on tiptoe.

• Slamming A Prisoner’s Head Into Concrete Walls. In this torture a towel is wrapped around a prisoner’s neck and is then used to propel the prisoner head first into a concrete wall. This torture was so fraught with risk of serious injury to or death of a prisoner that the CIA kept a doctor on hand at all times to guard against death or crippling injury.

• Additional "Stress Positions" And Electric Shocks. "Palestinian hangings," they were hung by the arms with their feet on a drum through which electric shocks were applied to their feet; the shocks would cause the feet to "dance."

Making the truly awful even worse is that it was all done in your name.  Only the loud shouts that this cannot stand has forced the politicians to address it this far.  They can do whatever they want in their own names, but sure as hell not in mine.

Please circulate and forward this post to your congressmember and to the White House.
LINK TO CONGRESS EMAILS.   LINK TO EMAIL WHITE HOUSE.

Former Air Force Interrogator Mathew Alexander

May 28th is Rally Against War Crimes Day. Everyone call your congressman and 2 senators on this day, say "investigate torture." Capitol switchboard, 24/7 (voicemail after hours): (202) 224-3121 Facebook page.

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Moving more out of step with progressive Vermonters all the time, Senator Pat Leahy announced at a meeting with constituents that his Truth Commission is off.  The Green Mountain Boys and Girls have been at the forefront of movements to hold Bush administration officials accountable for torture, lying us into the Iraq War, subverting the Constitution, and other sundry crimes.  A 2007 CBS poll showed two-thirds of Vermonters for impeaching Bush.  At Matt Stoller's Opens Left 2010 Senate Primary Watch a commenter affirms the grumblings about Leahy:

let's please primary Leahy no matter what happens.  His performance as ranking Dem on the judiciary committee during the Roberts and esp. the Alito hearings was dismal.  Utterly Dismal.  As ranking member, he should have had a game plan for Alito, esp after seeing the stealth type campaign that swept Roberts in.  Now we have two more Scalias.  Sure, it would have been a tough, uphill battle, but it would have been worth it and the buck stops at Leahy.  Lousy strategy (i.e. none) lousy examination during hearings (I listened) and just downright lousy performance.

The news is not all bad however.  Law School Dean Lawrence Velvel of the Justice Jackson prosecution project, which seeks to file a complaint against Bush administration officials for torture this spring, has taken to the airwaves and is tearing them up.  This interview with WMPG FM's Michael Cutting in Portland, Maine is a strong indication that this is not going away, as politicians from Obama on right and on down would like it to.  You can't hang men who are innocent, who you know are innocent, by the arms from the ceiling and torture them in the name of the American people.  This interview is a MUST LISTEN. Velvel nails it.

Matt Stoller wrote last October:

I'm going to assume that the Senate, as the most conservative institution on our Federal level, will be a major breeze to the right in terms of health care, trade agreements, civil liberties, economic justice, etc.  Let's then examine the playing field for 2010; the environment for 2010 is unpredictable and probably chaotic, with a sharp recession on its way and a credit crisis here now.

I'm particularly interested in possible primaries to the Democrats, the party that the lobbyists are going to fete repeatedly and intensely in 2009 and 2010, much to our chagrin.  I'm sure there will be retirements, but here's the list of Democrats up for reelection:

Bayh, Evan - (D - IN)
Boxer, Barbara- (D - CA)
Dodd, Christopher J.- (D - CT)
Dorgan, Byron L.- (D - ND)
Feingold, Russell D.- (D - WI)
Inouye, Daniel K.- (D - HI)
Leahy, Patrick J.- (D - VT)
Lincoln, Blanche L.- (D - AR)
Mikulski, Barbara A.- (D - MD)
Murray, Patty- (D - WA)
Reid, Harry- (D - NV)
Salazar, Ken- (D - CO)
Schumer, Charles E.- (D - NY)

The economic crisis is likely to soften up incumbents as only an economic crisis can, as Americans previously fat and happy keep raiding food pantries and losing homes.  Anger and political involvement always increase when a threshold of greed, beyond what is normal and expected of our ruling classes, is crossed, and Americans wake up from the disbelief of staring at nest eggs which are now empty.  Yep, that's good and empty alright.  A lifetime of work.  And those guys who are getting bailed out, their idea of pain is having to buy a smaller offshore villa.

When it sinks in that a mere $114 million to senators and lobbyists bought $300 billion in TARP funds for banks and financial institutions who made bad bets, a 260,000 PERCENT return on investment, American Idol will no longer keep the rabble diverted and entertained, especially if they have to shut off the cable to buy food.  Meanwhile, the top one-percenters in income who by themselves get 1/3 of the pie, go bargain hunting in the stock market, with the bailouts you are paying for.  Sucks, doesn't it?

Even Donald Trump admits he has lost plenty of net worth, but sunnily gloats:

"We're going up.  We're buying things we couldn't have dreamed of buying two years ago. And we have a lot of cash."

The way the pie is now divided and how it got there is neatly summarized in these two charts, from the Too Much Newsletter on Excess and Inequality:

Ronald Reagan was only the first part of the build-up in the action which continued under Clinton and the Bushes until the grand finale - now -  when they steal the last of your childrens' inheritance and disappear to places like Monaco and off-shore havens like "The Colony." Too Much reported just last September:

several top Wall Streeters purchased villas in The Colony, a new Caribbean luxury project touted as Jamaica's "most expensive gated oceanfront development on record." The villas run up to $7 million each and carry a $72,000 annual fee that gives owners 60 days of butler, chef, and maid service.

When you own a third of the whole American pie, that kind of money is no problem.  And this is who is getting your bail-out money.  

It sure isn't going to the schmucks getting laid off at these institutions.  It sure isn't going toward a 2-year voucher for any worker training you choose, help with your mortgage, and jobs programs.  That's because you aren't the one who gave $114 million in campaign money to fewer than 100 men and women, especially those sitting on banking and finance committees and sub-committees.  

You ain't seen nothing yet.  The economy is hemorrhaging jobs like the blood of an accident victim in the head trauma unit, and we haven't even had a terror attack produced by the blown job in Afghanistan yet.  Or the Chinese calling in their debt.  

Primary challenges to senators like Leahy are hard to come by in ordinary times, but the next two years will be anything but ordinary times.  The following is posted on behalf of Charlotte Dennett, one of the Vermonters reporting on Leahy's Truth Commission wimp-out.

Leahy's Truth Commission Hits the Skids

Those of you following the prosecution trail will be interested to know that Patrick Leahy's Truth Commission is a no-go.   I was in a meeting with Leahy and 4 other Vermonters on Monday when he broke the news to us.  We had asked for the meeting to learn why he supported a Truth Commission over the appointment of a special prosecutor. Halfway through the allotted 30 minute meeting (with him taking up much of the time  explaining why he was not generally opposed to prosecution, since he had been a DA for 8 years and had the highest conviction rate in Vermont) he told us that his Truth Commission had failed to get the broad support it needed in Congress , and since he couldn't get one Republican to come behind the plan, "it's not going to happen."

It was a sobering exchange. The meeting had begun with our expressing serious concerns about ongoing dangers to our democracy, with the trend going to executive power while damaging our constitution. "We are a nation of laws," said Dan DeWalt, who had helped organize 36 Vermont towns to vote for Impeachment of Bush on town meeting day. " If we have a system of justice, why not let it take its course? It seems to many Americans that the rich and powerful don't have the same system of justice, and they're getting away with torture, murder, fraud, and Ponzi schemes."

By the end of the meeting, we were beginning to wonder whether anything at all was going to done  - by Congress, by Attorney General Holder, by President Obama --  to hold the Bush team accountable for its crimes.

           Leahy own aversion to appointing a special prosecutor appeared to be more practical than philosophical.

"We don't want another Abu Ghraib," he said. "You know, `Boy did we get those privates and corporals. So many up on high will never get touched. Its like the war on drugs - lets get those black kids on cocaine." So its not that he had a problem with prosecutions per se. "I just worry that the prosecutions will be done only on middle-level people."

Well then,  what would happen to the higher ups?  Leahy had said, on previous occasions, that the purpose of his Truth Commission was to grant immunity to those willing to testify - presumably middle level people - and we could infer from that that they, in turn, would spill the beans on their superiors. If any of the witnesses lied under oath or were less than thorough in their answers, he had told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow a month ago, they could be prosecuted for perjury. But that still left the destiny of high government officials uncertain.

Leahy had hinted to Maddow that if officials refused to honor subpoenas, they, too could be prosecuted. But in the real world, as Monday's news suggests, the people most responsible for the crimes will continue to get off free.

We should at least be content, Leahy said, with his success in forcing former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez's resignation.

           After Leahy left the meeting, his aide, Chuck Ross, assured our group that there was no one more devoted to protecting the Constitution than Leahy.  "He has been persistent in the face of obfuscation. He got rid of Gonzalez. I would challenge you to find someone who has done more to defend the Constitution."

Then Ross let out a memorable one-liner. "He's all you've got."

What? Leahy's all we've got to protect the Constitution? And we have to accept Gonzalez's resignation as the only punishment for years of gutting the rule of law? It took about five minutes for all this to sink in. Then fellow Vermonter John Nirenberg spoke, I think, for all of us. "If he's the only guy, this is not a healthy situation."

It is, perhaps, no coincidence, that the same time Leahy downplayed the Truth Commission, Congressional aides were quoted by reporter Jason Leopold of Consortium News that "the focus has shifted to the economy and that pressure for a special prosecutor to bring criminal charges over the Bush administration's past actions could become a distraction to that focus." Leahy's aide Ross had said the same thing. Everyone was focusing on the economy.

So now, it seems, the wrecked economy - complements of the Bush Administration -- is becoming the excuse for Congressional inaction after eight years of unremitting malfeasance. This is serious, folks. Appointing a Special Prosecutor had been the top issue on President Obama's website when he took office. Either he's not listening any more, or his supporters are "moving forward, not backward," just as he prefers - and his right flank (the CIA, the neocons, and everyone else who has something to hide) desperately want.. It remains to be seen if his huge base can get through to him on this issue, now that he occupies the White House. If they cannot, then the failure to hold even a Truth Commission, let alone prosecutions, signals a return to the same old way of doing things. Deterrence be damned.

Charlotte Dennett is a lawyer and investigative journalist. She ran for Attorney General in Vermont on a pledge to prosecute George W. Bush using state criminal statutes

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When is President Obama going to live up to his statement that "no one is above the law".  Refusing to appoint a Special Prosecutor is very close to protecting Bush and Cheney.

And critics of the Bush administration say a truth commission inquiry would probably be a half-measure, that immunity would shoeld lawbreakers.

"This is not about mistakes. This is about fundamental lawbreaking, about the disposal of the Constitution, and about the end of treaties," Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a radio interview earlier this month.

Now, a US Congressman is calling for an investigation of the Seymour Hersch allegations that former Vice President Cheney controlled a secret US Military squad that carried out assassinations of foreigners. This against US Law and President Ford's executive order prohibiting any US citizen from doing so. This Must Be Investigated by a Special Prosecutor.

How far outside US law did Cheney go?

Did Cheney use the assassination squad inside the United States?

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Dear Senator Leahy,

You have commented that Senator Clinton does not have any good reason to contest in elections/primaries. While I can give you several, I shall just give you one- Democracy. I know it is a bold concept, hard to fathom even for somebody with your knowledge and intelligence, but it is one for which several people have fought for and even died for. It is also sort of mentioned in the Constitution. You know that document that you should have read in your capacity as the Chairperson of the Judiciary Committee, but one that you have obviously not read thoroughly enough to grasp all the nuances.

So, my humble advice to you is instead of bullying people into forgoing their rights, maybe you should go back and read that document. Oh, while you are at it, you may also look at a phrase called ``High Crimes and Misdemeanors'' and  start using my tax dollars for what you are supposed to do as opposed to taking away my right to express my opinion on who should lead this country. If you are incapable of doing so, maybe we can find somebody else for that job. There are several more capable senators ready to take over that job (Senator Feingold comes to my mind).

Thanks.

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It's Sen. Barack Obama, a huge endorsement in my opinion, considering that Leahy's a true heavy-hitter for liberals in Congress.  Not to mention the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  The breaking story just hit TPM:

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