John Dean on Countdown = Torture Prosecutions

[L. Coyote]

Run time: 05:12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ02rX5HTTU   Posted on YouTube: November 27, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 29, 2008 By DU Member: L. Coyote Views on DU: 1298

 

[HillbillyBob]

1. Freaking insane. these people need to be exposed

at the very least. The Repugs & CIA are just another mob type org of bully rich kids mostly from Yale.
If you don't believe me why is it called amongst themselves ''the millionaire bois club''?
Expose them and try then punished for their crimes, if it brings down the cia so be it.
If these crimes go unpunished then we are as bad as the former USSR and the KGB.
If not worse.

[Piewhacket]

2. Prosecute.

[disndat]

3. John Dean said Obama

has few options. Bush is covered from being held crimanlly responsible for the torturing of the detainees because he saw to it that Congress went along with it. Even Nixon suffered public humiliation and had to resign, but Bush is going to end his tenure, totally freed of charges of high crimes and punishment. What's more he will be given the obligatory ceremonial honors that all Presidents get when they leave office, not to speak of the billions of dollars for his Presidential Library by political allies and cronies. There is no justice, just power.

[L. Coyote]

8. WHAT?? U: "Congress went along with it..."

Congress did not "go along" with torture. Unless, of course, you know something we all do not.

The authorities can arrest Bush the minute he is no longer President if he is a suspect in a crime, no Obama needed.

Of course, these criminals are no different than street gangs,
in that they know how to do what they want without incurring the legal jeopardy.
We all witnessed that with Reagan and Iran-Contra, with underlings taking the fall.

[JDPriestly]

4. Bush administration: Well-meaning people who made mistakes?

Or crooks who not only started a war based on evidence that knew or should have known was false and violated international law by torturing prisoners but stole the country blind?

If you think that the Bush administration meant well but made mistakes, you favor a commission -- a friendly inquiry that uncovers why the mistakes were made.

If you think they were crooks, you favor a serious inquiry followed by criminal actions where appropriate.

Problem is, you can't know which view is correct until all the facts are known.

That is why Obama had best not decidr which view to act on at the outset of his administration. This is something he just has to be patient about.

Generally law enforcement gathers and evaluates the evidence before deciding whether a crime has been committed. So, the fair and correct thing for Obama to do is to wait to order an investigation before determining whether a mere informational commission or criminal trials are necessary.

Apologists for the Bush administration and Obama's political advisers may counsel him to go easy on the Bush administration in the hope that the Republicans will in turn give Obama a free ride for a while. Based on the past conduct of Republicans goaded on by talk show hosts like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, Obama would be foolish to believe that. It is not only best for our country but also politically wiser to allow an independent investigation to take place and require all witnesses, bar none, to testify within the limits of the Constitution. The political consequences of immediately going easy on the Bush administration with regard to their crimes is that the right-wing extremists will not respect him. They will see him as weak, a push-over with no resolve. If you know your Lakoff, you will probably agree with me that Obama will not be accepted as a leader unless he punishes those who have committed crimes and punishes them pretty severely.

Obama will also be told that, in this economic crisis, a real investigation and trial would be divisive. To the contrary, the division in the country today can be traced right smack back to the sense on the parts of many that wrongs in the past such as election tampering in Chicago in the Kennedy/Nixon election (a Republican urban myth) or a cover-up regarding the Kennedy assassination and many other assassinations and the Viet Nam War. Rigorous investigation and punishment of wrongdoing will actually bring the country together, not divide it.

And by the way, I'm not an expert on this, but in my opinion, international treaties and the Constitution trump acts of Congress, so, unless there is some legal ground for Dean's statement about laws excusing the Bush administration from prosecution for torture, I don't see how the act that Congress passed allowing the Bush administration to torture based on legal opinions by one of their own appointees would mean they could not be criminally liable for what happened.

[bobd0]

5. If these people aren't brough to justice the wound they've opened will only continue to fester.

No healing will occur until everyone involved, up to and including Bush, is brought to justice. This is not just my opinion. This is how the world works. There are consequences for actions. The longer those consequences are delayed the greater those consequences become.

Republicans passed legislation that was in itself illegal, IMO. The Democrats are in charge now and they need to rescind that legislation and get to the bottom of one of the most corrupt and sordid administrations in U.S. history. Please don't leave it to some foreign power to wait for one of these criminals to travel outside the U.S. to indict them. How embarrassing would that be? Relying on foreign nations to police our own corrupt leaders while we try to convince the world we're their standard for "democracy".

What a disgrace.

[trthnd4jstc]

6. Selective Prosecution of those who apparently violate the law is a weakness in our so called Justice

System. If people may violate the law, and the prosecutor fails to prosecute, and if prosecutors only prosecute when it is politically feasible show a flaw in our system

[pretzel4gore]

7. the pig loses by winning...

yes, they get away with nazi-style bs, and yes they get away with the economic disaster they made to distract from the record, and yes they rewrite history so it's all one big memory hole, but in the end they literally must kill the host in order for the parasite to live on, and they, the parasite, will die along with mother earth :)
The DJIA should began really falling as soon as Obama provides the tapeworms nice cover (Jan 20/09) and the rest is history lol ...