** Support a Truth & Reconciliation Commission = Leahy Petition **

[L. Coyote]

Support a Truth & Reconciliation Commission = Leahy Petition

Check in with the number of signatures after you sign please.

40,249 signatures so far... keep it going!
.............. PETITION ONLINE at ............... http://bushtruthcommission.com/

Whitehouse: To Fix Damage Left by Bush, We Must Learn the Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGt87QKPpHs

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I have proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate abuses during the Bush-Cheney Administration -- so they never happen again. These abuses may include the use of torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws.

Please sign this online petition, urging Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's abuses.

Thank you,

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWTNDLEfMs
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Full Petition Text:

I hereby join Senator Patrick Leahy's call for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission, to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's constitutional abuses so we make sure they never happen again. These abuses may include the use of torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws.

A truth and reconciliation commission should be tasked with seeking answers so that we can develop a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past. Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened. The best way to move forward is getting to the truth and finding out what happened -- so we can make sure it does not happen again.

Signed by:
Your name

[rurallib]

1. I have signed it but I would much rather see them enforce existing laws.

[L. Coyote]

2. This is part of that path. First, we need evidence and the TRUTH, then public support for

criminal prosecutions will follow in correlation with the information revealed.

[Ardent15]

3. Signed

[L. Coyote]

4. 40,479 signatures so far... keep it going!

[L. Coyote]

5. 40,618 signatures so far... keep it going!

[L. Coyote]

6. Momentum Builds for Bush Crimes Inquiry = Pelosi Criticizes Immunity Suggestion

February 26, 7:42 AM, 2009 · No Comment · http://harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004458
Momentum Builds for Bush Crimes Inquiry as Pelosi Criticizes Immunity Suggestion

By Scott Horton

Bipartisan Congressional support for a special commission of inquiry to look into criminal misconduct by Bush Administration officials continues to build this week. Salon’s Mark Benjamin reports:

Spearheading Senate efforts to establish a torture commission is Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. As a member of both the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee, Whitehouse is privy to information about interrogations he can’t yet share. .....

....

Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse announced yesterday their intention to hold hearings next week on the concept.

In a statement delivered on the Senate Floor today, Leahy said the hearing entitled “Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry” will be held at 10 a.m. and will be webcast live online. .....

....

In the meantime, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her strong support for an accountability commission and her expectation that criminal prosecutions would follow. In an extended interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Pelosi sharply criticized suggestions that blanket immunity be granted to those who come forward to testify. Pelosi also responds pointedly to accusations that she was briefed about torture and acquiesced to the Bush program.

PELOSI VIDEO

[L. Coyote]

7. Leahy Announces List of Witnesses For 'Truth Commission' Hearing PDF Print E-mail Written b

Leahy Announces List of Witnesses For 'Truth Commission' Hearing
Friday, 27 February 2009 - http://www.pubrecord.org/politics/714-leahy-announces-list-of-witnesses-for-truth-commission-hearing.html

By Jason Leopold

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy released the list of three witnesses who will testify at a hearing next week on forming a "truth commission" to investigate controversial Bush administration policies, such as torture and domestic surveillance.

Thomas Pickering served as Under Secretary of State from 1997-2000, and served as Ambassador to the United Nations for President George H.W. Bush. He holds the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the United States Foreign Service. Pickering is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Retired Vice Admiral Lee Gunn served in the military for 35 years. He was Inspector General of the Navy, and on the board of the American Security Project. Gunn has been outspoken about his opposition to detention and interrogation policies that have permitted torture.

John Farmer served as a senior counsel and team leader for the 9/11 Commission. Farmer is a former State Attorney General for New Jersey. Through his work with the Constitution Project, Farmer has expressed support for an independent commission to examine Bush administration detainee and interrogation policies and practices.

In a floor statement on Wednesday, Leahy said ...........

[L. Coyote]

8. CSMonitor: We need a truth commission to uncover Bush-era wrongdoing

We need a truth commission to uncover Bush-era wrongdoing
As Latin America's experience shows, there's great value in confronting official misdeeds.
By James L. Cavallaro

from the February 20, 2009 edition http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0220/p09s02-coop.html

.......... In the past eight years of the war on terror, the US government has compiled quite a record of torture, forced disappearances, extralegal killings, and lack of judicial independence. In light of these similarities, we should ask – despite Mr. Specter's objections – whether anything can be learned from the Latin American experience. Two lessons spring to mind:

First, as Senator Leahy implicitly recognizes, while the period immediately following the departure of the offending officials may not always be the most opportune for prosecutions, it is precisely the period in which information must be gathered. In Latin America, where militaries often threatened fragile transitional institutions, many prosecutions were not undertaken for nearly two or even three decades. Because no such threat to US democracy exists, however, that basis for delay does not apply.

Today, in Latin America, the countries that most respect human rights are precisely those that lived through terrible periods of repression but that – gradually – have come to terms with their abusive pasts by thorough investigations and accountability. In each successful case, authorities created truth commissions to document and preserve relevant information in the early transition period in which they were unable or unwilling to prosecute violators.

Second, even without the creation of truth and reconciliation commissions, revelations about past abuses irrupt. Human rights expert Alexander Wilde has termed these "irruptions of memory" – unplanned moments in which vital truths about repressive practices are made public. One example is the 1995 confessions of Adolfo Scilingo, an Argentine naval captain who had participated in death flights over a decade earlier in which drugged detainees were thrown out of planes to drown. Mr. Scilingo simply could not live with his conscience and, a dozen years after Argentina's transition, chose to speak openly about the many crimes he had committed and witnessed.

Another source of this sort of irruption of memory is external: foreign courts, as was seen with the investigation and arrest of Pinochet in London in 1998 and the effects this produced within Chile. ..........

[L. Coyote]

9. 40,906 signatures so far... keep it going!

[L. Coyote]

10. 41,843 signatures so far... keep it going!

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11. 42,780 signatures so far... keep it going!

[L. Coyote]

12. 43,726 signatures so far... keep it going!

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13. 44,393 signatures so far... keep it going!

[L. Coyote]

14. Server Busy We're sorry, but this server is too busy to process your request. Please wait a few mome

8:42 AM PST "Server Busy
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[L. Coyote]

15. 44,911 signatures so far... keep it going!

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16. 60,083 signatures so far... keep it going!