From Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin):

My first wish for 2010 is that President Obama will direct U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to begin federal prosecutions:

• • of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney — for war crimes and treason against our Constitution.
  • of 30 or so leaders of the largest banks and investment, insurance, accounting, bond rating and law firms responsible for the irresponsible home mortgage lending and fraudulent repackaging of bad mortgages into investment instruments that led to the housing crash — for crimes of purposeful lack of due diligence and any other crimes they perpetrated upon investors, including false balance sheets.
  • of the high-level federal appointees at Treasury, the Federal Reserve and other agencies who were told by staff what was going on with the mortgages/investment instruments and what could be done about it, and who did nothing — thus violating their oaths of office and statutory authorities.

My second wish for 2010 is that Obama wakes up and says, “My God, I am guilty of Bush’s ‘sins.’ ” And that Obama immediately orders the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan; orders the cessation of illegal attacks against alleged terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere; orders the FBI to draft criminal charges against suspected terrorists and presents these charges to federal courts and international police agencies, requesting the apprehension of such terrorists through police channels; orders the cessation of illegal spying on all Americans; orders the immediate closure of GITMO and moves all prisoners to the basement of the Pentagon to stand trial in federal courts; orders the immediate cessation of all actions considered torture under the Geneva Conventions; orders the termination of all agency heads and generals who told him to do all these things; and orders the prosecution of present and past agency heads and generals who advocated the above actions or implemented these actions in violation of U.S. law.My third wish is that Obama then goes to a large park in Los Angeles, invites the poor of all races and nationalities, and states he has seen the error of his ways. He asks for forgiveness from the American people and the millions of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan whose lives he has ruined, and he states he will not run for president in 2012 but will spend the last three years of his presidency working to eradicate poverty in America with public sector jobs and training so that Americans can: live with their families, have a job to go to each day, have food on the table, have a roof over their heads, not fear sickness because they have single-payer/Medicare-for-all health insurance, believe in the future because their kids will go to good, free public schools and higher education, and have a secure retirement due to an improved Social Security system.And lastly, if Obama does not act on wishes No. 1 and No. 2 above in the first few months of 2010, we regretfully and forcefully move to impeach and remove him from office.We have given Obama a year of hope and patience. He deserves no more. We must create a crisis — the crisis of impeachment — and remove from office the person who has violated his oath of office to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States and to uphold and enforce the laws of our nation.Just as America has been strong enough to withstand the massive personal, corporate and governmental corruption of the last 10 years, we are certainly strong enough to withstand the turmoil of impeaching our president.We must take action against the crimes Bush committed and Obama is committing, or we lose our form of government. We must punish those at the top who break our laws or we are finished as a nation ruled by law, not kings.Obama either protects our Constitution and enforces the laws, or we, as citizens, are duty bound to throw him out using the most powerful tool we have: impeachment!

The author: Buzz Davis of Stoughton is a former Army officer and elected official and a retired state government planner. He is a member of Wisconsin Impeachment/Bring Our Troops Home Coalition and Veterans for Peace. 

From TruthOut.org :

During his 36-minute speech after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway Thursday, President Barack Obama explained to an audience of 1,000 how the United States has a “moral and strategic interest” in abiding by a code of conduct when waging war - even one that pits the US against a “vicious adversary that abides by no rules.”“That is what makes us different from those whom we fight,” Obama said. “That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.”To many human rights advocates, however, Obama’s high-minded declaration rang hollow in light of fresh reports that his administration continues to operate secret prisons in Afghanistan where detainees have allegedly been tortured and where the International Committee for the Red Cross has been denied access to the prisoners.Obama has substituted words for action on issues surrounding torture since his first days in office nearly one year ago. Last June, on the 25th anniversary of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Obama said the US government “must stand against torture wherever it takes place” and that his administration “is committed to taking concrete actions against torture and to address the needs of its victims.”But it’s clear that his pledge does not apply to torture committed by Bush administration officials.That’s the point the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) made shortly after Obama’s acceptance speech. Officials from the civil rights organization issued a withering indictment of the Obama administration’s handling of clear-cut cases of war crimes they say were committed by former Bush officials who the Obama administration not only refuses to prosecute but has gone to extraordinary lengths to cover up.“We’re increasingly disappointed and alarmed by the current administration’s stance on accountability for torture,” said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, during a conference call with reporters. “On every front, the [Obama] administration is actively obstructing accountability. This administration is shielding Bush administration officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture.”

Press Release from VelvetRevolution.USHolder Warned that Limited Investigation and Selective Prosecution Would Violate the Law and Further Undermine Credibility of DOJWashington, DC: Yesterday, the Disbar Torture Lawyer coalition, consisting of more than 150 NGOs representing over a million members, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling on him to appoint a special prosecutor, independent of the Justice Department, to fully investigate the use of torture, and to prosecute all officials and employees who advocated, ordered and committed acts of torture against people held by the United States.The letter, see below, signed by coalition attorney Kevin Zeese, who is Executive Director of Voters for Peace, carefully analyzed the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), which was signed by President Reagan, to underscore that Mr. Holder has no discretion to ignore its mandates. CAT is written in mandatory language, and it requires the investigation of all acts or torture and the prosecution of all those who conspired to and did commit torture.The media has reported that Mr. Holder is reluctant to prosecute torturers because most of them were “following orders.” The letter to holder points out that CAT specifically prohibits reliance on extraordinary circumstances or the orders of superiors as justifications of torture. CAT provides no discretion, if torture occurred countries must investigate and prosecute those responsible.“Selective prosecution of low-level officials who conducted some acts of torture, while ignoring those who created the policy and facilitated torture would violate the law,” noted Zeese. “Every history student knows from the Nuremberg trials that there is no ‘I was just following orders’ defense allowed for war crimes, yet this is the precise argument now being used to argue against the prosecution for the war crime of torture. Mr. Holder took an oath to uphold the law, and repeatedly promised to remain above politics and restore the integrity of the DOJ. He can accomplish these by appointing a special prosecutor to follow the evidence where it leads without restriction. The Rule of Law applies to all Americans, no matter what office they hold.”The letter concludes: “You can restore our moral high ground and the Department of Justice’s reputation as an agency that follows the law by appointing a special prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, with the very clear mandate – investigate the facts and apply the rule of law wherever it leads – as required by the Convention Against Torture.”The letter warns that a limited investigation that selectively prosecuted only some of those involved in torture, and excluded those who developed the torture policy, would violate the law and would likely to lead to litigation.* * *August 10, 2009Attorney General Eric HolderU.S. Department of Justice950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20530-0001Re: The Convention Against Torture Requires the Investigation and Prosecution of Torture by an Independent Prosecutor Mandated to Investigate the Facts and Apply the Law. Selective Prosecution of Some Instances of Torture, or Limiting Prosecution to Low Level Officials, Will Not Satisfy the Requirements of the Convention Against Torture or Other Laws Proscribing Torture.Dear Mr. Attorney General:I am writing as the attorney for the Disbar Torture Lawyers Campaign, a coalition of more than 150 organizations representing over a million members, in order to request that you appoint a special prosecutor to fully investigate all aspects of the torture issue, and to then follow where the evidence leads. We are concerned, based on various media reports quoting anonymous sources in your office, that you will soon announce a very narrow probe focusing limited instances of torture rather than the full investigation required by law. If the Department of Justice is going to restore its credibility and America’s reputation as a nation of laws, then it must even handedly apply the rule of law, especially in tough situations such as torture.Our coalition has been involved with this issue for some time, and we recently filed disciplinary complaints against 15 lawyers who were instrumental in formulating and advocating the use of torture, including all those who prepared the now rescinded OLC memos. The critical law proscribing torture, which the United States must follow, is the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), adopted by the United States and signed by President Ronald Reagan. CAT is written in mandatory language in order ensure that prosecutorial discretion does not come into play when dealing with state sponsored torture. I have attached a copy of CAT and highlight key portions in this letter.In the Preamble, CAT notes that that it was enacted to “make more effective the struggle against torture….” Article 1 defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.” Emphasis added. Because torture under CAT requires “instigation, consent, or acquiescence” of a government official, the selective prosecution of a few government employees who followed orders, while giving immunity for government officials who gave those orders, would undermine our bedrock rule of law that it applies equally, no matter what position a person holds.Article 2(2) lays out our position in very clear terms: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” [Emphasis added.] In the case of torture by the United States, it has been said by various officials from both parties that, in light of the shock of 9/11, extreme means were necessary and that officials “were scared” and had to act to stop additional attacks. But CAT specifically prohibits such justifications.Article 2(3) underscores our position: “An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.” The media is reporting that you do not intend to investigate and prosecute the public officials who created the torture policy of the previous administration, and that you do not intend to investigate or prosecute those who followed the OLC memoranda because they were complying with legal opinions and orders issued by the DOJ. But this type of justification is precisely what the CAT forbids. Indeed, the DOJ involvement with justifying torture is one reason why it is critical that the prosecutor be a special prosecutor independent of the DOJ. If legal memoranda could be used to change the definition of torture – which is quite clear under CAT – and justify torture, then the Convention would be meaningless because a government that wanted to use torture would merely have their legal officials provide memoranda to allow it.Moreover, the “I was just following orders” defense, made famous in the Nuremberg trials after World War II, has been rejected for decades. Nuremberg Principle IV states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” This “defense of superior orders” is not a defense for war crimes, although it might influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty.Article 4(1) states: “Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.” The United States has complied with this by enacting a criminal statute prohibiting torture under 18 USC 2340. This is clearly an enabling statute that cannot be ignored. Moreover, in order to comply with Article 4(2) to prohibit “complicity” to torture, the Patriot Act, passed during the same time period as much of the torture of detainees, added this language to Section 2340 under subsection (c): “Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.” Clearly, those who conspired to torture, such as those who used their official position to justify and order it, cannot be excused from the dictates of CAT Article 4 or Section 2340.Article 5 requires the establishment of jurisdiction over persons covered under Article 4, including citizens of that country, and in cases where the persons are not extradited to face prosecution for torture in another country under Article 8. Clearly, this gives you jurisdiction to prosecute American citizens who committed torture and places the burden on you to do so unless you intend to rely on Article 8 to extradite Americans who may be indicted for torture by a foreign State Party.Article 6 requires, “after an examination of information available,” that a person who committed torture be taken “into custody” and then that “a preliminary inquiry into the facts” be immediately undertaken. There have been vast amounts of information released, leaked and uncovered, which document who ordered and who committed torture. No doubt an independent investigation would find more evidence of who was responsible for committing these crimes. In our ethics complaints, we included over 600 pages of exhibits, including both the Senate and Red Cross detainee treatment reports and many of OLC memos. Seewww.DisbarTortureLawyers.com for copies of all exhibits filed. Clearly, this and your own internal “examination of information available” require that you take the known torturers into custody and conduct a more thorough investigation.Article 7 requires a State Party, unless it extradites a torturer to another country for prosecution, “to submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.” Again, this is not discretionary. In order to follow the law you must investigate and prosecute all those involved with torture and not selectively prosecute certain low level officials involved in only some acts of torture. In the case of American torturers, despite the widespread torture of hundreds of individuals, including at least 98 deaths, not a single case has been submitted for prosecution, “Command’s Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan” by Hina Shamsi and Edited by Deborah Pearlstein, Human Rights First, February 2006http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/dic/exec-sum.asp.Article 8 states that torture is a required extraditable offense between State Parties. It may be that you do not intend to prosecute American citizens for torture in the UnitedStates because a foreign State Party has notified you of an impending indictment and you intend to extradite those indicted. If that is the case, please confirm that in writing. It has been widely reported that other countries are well on their way to initiating torture charges against Americans.Article 9 requires each State Party to assist each other in connection with torture prosecutions, “including the supply of all evidence at their disposal necessary to carry out the proceedings.” The United States must therefore, once notified, provide all torture evidence in its possession to foreign State Parties working on torture prosecutions.Articles 10 requires the education about the rules against torture of all persons involved with detainees, and Article 11 requires the review of all interrogation and custody rules for detainees “with a view to preventing any cases of torture.” This is another powerful reason why the “I was just following orders” defense cannot be used to provide immunity to people who committed torture and why officials who created the torture policy must also be investigated and prosecuted.Article 12 provides the strongest language for the appointment of a special prosecutor: “Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt andimpartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.” Clearly, in the case of torture by American citizens, there is indisputable evidence in various official reports and news articles to require an impartial investigation by a special prosecutor.Article 13 requires a State Party to investigate all complaints of torture made by persons who have been tortured. Clearly, your office has received many complaints about torture either directly, such as in the case of Jose Padilla, or through proxies such as attorneys representing Guantanamo prisoners, the Red Cross, ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, and Amnesty International. Because victims have complained, you must appoint a special prosecutor with broad authority to investigate all acts of torture.Mr. Attorney General, you have repeatedly stated, in your confirmation hearings and in public statements, that your Department of Justice “will follow the law.” That law, as specified by CAT, outlined above, not only prohibits the use of torture, but requires the investigation and prosecution of those who committed or conspired to commit torture. Applying the rule of law evenly is a key component of our American jurisprudence, and that is why the scales of justice should not be weighted in favor of those who hold positions of power. Our nation suffered a grievous blow to her reputation and moral standing when the previous administration intentionally violated the law by advocating and instituting wholesale torture of detainees. You can restore our moral high ground and the Department of Justice’s reputation as an agency that follows the law by appointing a special prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, with the very clear mandate – investigate the facts and apply the rule of law wherever it leads – as required by the Convention Against Torture.American citizens who ordered and committed acts of torture should be prosecuted in the United States where they will be given the full panoply of legal protections under our Constitution. At trial, they should be allowed to present any defense under the law, and they should be able to argue whatever mitigating factors are applicable during sentencing. They should also be allowed to ask for a pardon or commutation from the President after conviction. However, they should not be granted immunity from prosecution, tantamount to amnesty, in advance of a complete criminal investigation.Failure to hold those accountable for torture will have numerous repercussions. We believe that anything less than a full torture investigation mandated by your office will result in indictment of American citizens by other CAT State Parties, which will then require you to extradite those citizens and provide evidence against them. It is also likely to result in litigation requesting that the federal court compel your office to comply with your duty to follow the dictates of CAT. We also believe that the failure to prosecute will embolden other Party States and non-party states to ignore international treaties and laws protecting Americans, resulting in future atrocities against our own citizens. Failure to prosecute will also create a de facto exception for future administrations that may decide that torture, or any other atrocity, should be U.S. policy.In closing, we strongly urge you to quickly appoint a special prosecutor, independent of the DOJ, to investigate and prosecute torture wherever the facts lead, as required by CAT. If I can be of assistance in your investigations, please contact me.Sincerely,Kevin B. ZeeseAttorney

http://www.truthout.org/062209J?nJamie Doward, Gaby Hinsliff and Mark Townsend, The Observer UK: “A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK’s role in toppling Saddam Hussein. The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.”

I am writing to urge the impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee. As the former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee was the primary author of “legal” memoranda used to justify torture, including memos long known to the public and two memos recently released by the Department of Justice from March 13, 2002, and June 8, 2002. The June 8th memo claims to justify depriving an American citizen of the right to a trial, claiming the power to imprison him without charge on the grounds that he was already guilty in the eyes of the memo’s author, Jay Bybee. These positions are inappropriate for a federal judge to hold. He needs to be removed from the bench. The International Committee of the Red Cross and other sources have described the brutal torture techniques employed in our name over the last several years under the legal analysis of Bybee. Bybee’s signature is on the August 1, 2002, memo listing the supposedly “legal” illegal techniques. Torture violates U.S. law and violates international treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory. He is now serving as a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A man who abuses his power to facilitate violation of laws and treaties banning torture has no business reversing the decisions of honest judges and juries. Please immediately introduce either articles of impeachment or a bill requiring the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation into Judge Jay Bybee. We cannot have this judge in the position of making law in the United States, overruling other judges and sitting in judgment of American citizens. The actions he took as a Bush administration constitute war crimes and that makes Bybee inappropriate for the federal judiciary.

From LibertyUnderground :The Attorney General said yesterday he would not prosecute the CIA agents who committed acts of torture under orders from those who led our government.  But Alex Koppelman says this doesn’t appear to apply to those who led our government, themselves. 

http://www.truthout.org/040709JMarjorie Cohn, The San Francisco Chronicle: “A Spanish court has initiated criminal proceedings against six former officials of the Bush administration. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith may face charges in Spain for authorizing torture at Guantanamo Bay. If arrest warrants are issued, Spain and any of the other 24 countries that are parties to European extradition conventions could arrest these six men when they travel abroad.”

Rotten at the Corehttp://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/40890#comment-240070By David Swanson–Remarks on March 19, 2009, in a park in which people are living inRichmond, Va., in front of offices of the Federal Reserve–From outside the United States it’s easy to imagine that everyoneinside the United States is doing well. If you live in a countryoccupied by U.S. soldiers, as over 150 countries are around the world,if you live with extreme poverty and disease, if the United Statesprovides your country’s government with shiny expensive weapons, ifthe Americans you come into contact with treat you with contempt, andif the images you have of the United States come from Hollywood, itwould be understandable to think that everyone in the homeland of theempire is doing well.But it would make no sense. A nation that invests in empire is anation with no respect for human life. A nation that invests in empireis a nation ruled by a small group of power mad officials andoligarchs. A nation controlled by the majority of its people would notinvest in empire. The Roman Empire spread far and wide, but theeternal city itself was full of slaves. And since nothing is trulyeternal, the madness of empire progressed until it destroyed itself.So, in reality, while we possess more weapons and bases and soldiersthan the rest of the world combined, we trail many other nations inbasic measures of health and well-being. We have more peoplestruggling to find jobs, working long hours, and suffering unnecessaryillnesses, all of which makes it harder for people to be active andengaged citizens. But it’s at least as important to state this in theother direction too. It is because we are not active and engagedcitizens and have permitted the development of a system of governmentof, by, and for the corporations that we end up jobless, homeless, andwithout healthcare.But it is NOT too late to turn this thing around and revolutionize our values.Say yes if you want to shift our funding from war to healthcare, frombanker bailouts to affordable housing, from corporate tax cuts to masstransit, from nuclear weapons to green energy.Now, somebody might say: Wait a minute. Why do we have to shiftfunding from one place to another? When the bankers want a fewtrillion dollars here or there, the people in charge just borrow itfrom China, or the Federal Reserve just invents it out of thin air.Why can’t we do that for useful things like schools and family farms?Why do you have to work on Wall Street to get free money? And what ifwe do cut the military spending and end all the wars, how do we knowany of that money will be redirected to something more useful than taxcuts for corporations and billionaires?The first answer is this: If we organize a movement powerful enough tostop the spending of our hard earned money on killing people we willbe in charge of what our money does get spent on. And if we do notorganize that movement, our money will continue to go to both bankersand wars, and the Federal Reserve, which is no more federal thanFederal Express, is not going to invent any money for you or me.The second answer is this: If we create awareness that a war economyis no economy at all, that investment only in killing does notstimulate the rest of the economy as needed, then shifting to a peaceeconomy in which the same dollars create more and better paying jobswill take away the power that weapons lobbyists have over ourso-called representatives. If government investment in human needsbecomes a normal means of job creation, then job creation will nolonger be a decisive political argument for investment in death anddestruction.The third answer is this: The benefits of beginning to relate to theworld through non-military aid, diplomacy, cooperation, andfriendship, rather than bombs and bases will have transformingbenefits for us as well as them, as will elimination of our corporatetrade agreements. While empires come and go, the people in the homenation often do better when they go than when they came.The fourth answer is this: No matter how bad things become in theUnited States, we have a responsibility to recognize the horrors ourgovernment is imposing on others around the world and to end them.We’re now at 6 years of bloody and horrific occupation in Iraq, and7.5 years in Afghanistan. Little children in Iraq and Afghanistan havegrown up with these wars and been scarred by them in ways it’s hard tothink about very long. While we don’t provide housing to our ownpeople, we also don’t provide it to the people of Iraq, 5 million ofwhom have been displaced from their homes, over a million killed, manymillions injured, everyone’s family impacted in a way that’s notfamiliar to most parts of America outside of New Orleans.And while the Iraqi people want us out, we stay in the name ofdemocracy. That should be a clear signal to the world of the state ofour democracy at home. We’ve killed, displaced, isolated, bribed,terrified, so many Iraqis, and made so many promises to leave, thatviolence has decreased. And that is supposed to be a reason to stay,just as violence increasing was always supposed to be a reason tostay.Have we learned anything in the past 6 years? Many Americans havelearned that the war in Iraq was based on lies and have learned to besuspicious of similar lies about Iran. But some have not yet learnedto oppose all aggressive wars, because the occupation of Afghanistanis not yet as unpopular as the one in Iraq.What HAS been learned has in large part been taught by the peacemovement. We knew 6 years ago and a year before that, that this warwould be fraudulent, illegal, and disastrous. Many of you knew it andopposed it.Yesterday there were hearings in Congress on suicides in the USmilitary. The people we recruit to commit our crimes now end upkilling themselves at an alarming rate. We will lose more Americans toslow deaths from injuries and to suicides than to deaths in combat. Ifthat finally wakes some people up, it won’t be a moment too soon. Butit has to be asked: Where are the hearings for Iraqis, Afghanis,Pakistanis, Palestinians? A victim of US torture testified last yearvia satellite to a nearly empty committee room, after whichCongressman Rohrabacher explained to him that in a war mistakes mustbe tolerated. And our senators now talk about truth andreconciliation, oblivious to the fact that involving the people withwhom we need reconciliation is literally unthinkable. The idea,instead, is for us to get reconciled with ourselves. Tell me this:will you ever be reconciled with your nation committing war crimes?Will you?A solid majority of Americans has opposed the occupation of Iraq foryears. And about half and rising now oppose the occupation ofAfghanistan as well.The primary reason that we do not have a democracy is not thecorruption of Congress, although that comes in a close second. Theprimary reason is that Congress has no power, having given it all tothe president. A democratic society cannot coexist with thepresidential powers seized by Bush and now being maintained andexpanded by Obama. A democratic society does not have secretgovernment agencies, secret laws, laws rewritten by the executive, oneman with the power of war, one man with the power of the purse, oneman with the power of treaty. Yet President Obama, who to his credithas said he will end torture and close one of the many places where wedetain people outside the law, last week wrote a signing statementtelling Congress not to interfere in his Constitutional power to maketreaties, despite the fact that the Constitution says two-thirds ofthe senate must approve any treaty.We are being sold changiness when we asked for transformationalchange. We’re done with extraordinary rendition, but rendition willnow be ordinary. We have no more enemy combatants, but we aredetaining hundreds of combative nemeses. We’re going to use non-combattroops to do our combat. We’ll get healthcare reform in which a publicoption means private insurance mandated by the government. Blackwaterwon’t have to leave Iraq because it’s changed its name. Is this whatyou voted for?Yesterday I got an Email from Amnesty International asking me toobject to Obama reviving Bush’s policies. Well, they never died andthey are not policies. They are what we used to call crimes. Alsoyesterday, the ACLU finally, finally, finally — FINALLY! — came toits senses and asked the attorney general to appoint a specialprosecutor and enforce the law.And yet too many in the peace movement don’t want to talk about thelaw, even the laws against aggressive war. Many don’t even want totalk about wars, preferring to talk about military spending. And wemust talk about military spending. We must. But doing that alone willnot end wars. And the wars are just as bloody no matter who issleeping in the White House.We may even end up halting some weapons programs, especially weaponsthat don’t work or are designed to fight the Soviet Union or theJapanese fleet. But this Congress and president want to increase theoverall budget for killing. This will be a victory against corruptionon behalf of the greatest moral corruption known to our species. We’llend up recruiting more troops and buying better weapons that kill morepeople. This will miss President Eisenhower’s point when he said that”EVERY gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket firedsignifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and arenot fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”For what we’re giving to bankers we could give tens of thousands ofdollars to every American, but for what we’re spending — includingindirect economic costs — on the occupation of Iraq, we could give$100,000 to every Iraqi.Let’s get our priorities straight — including ending wars not justbecause they are badly fought or corruptly managed, or even becausethey cost money, but because they kill human beings.End the occupations.End the missile strikes.Close the bases.Bring our brothers and sisters home.Prosecute the war criminals.And create a truth and reconciliation commission that reconciles theUnited States with the other 95 percent of humanity.Power to the people.

We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W.  Bush, former Vice President Richard B.  Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed.  Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations.  The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or “truth” commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain.  We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.Drafted by The Robert Jackson Steering Committeehttp://www.afterdowningstreet.org/robertjackson

http://www.truthout.org/021709BJeff Cohen, Truthout: “I have a plan to get NBC out of last place in the ratings. I’m promising blockbuster audience and international buzz. As a once disgruntled ex-employee, I now just want to be positive and help NBC, which needs all the free advice it can get. Here’s my idea: A series of NBC News prime-time specials featuring spectacular ambushes of big-time criminals lured into what they expect to be pleasurable surroundings. But, with hidden cameras whirring, the startled villain is dramatically confronted with the evidence of his massive crimes as millions of viewers look on in scorn and righteous amusement. Coming to NBC next week: ‘To Catch a Cheney.’ Next month: ‘To Catch a Kissinger.’”