"But he signed up for this gig, vowing to rebuild the nation. As much as he'd like to get beyond the recent past, nothing of any value is ever built on a corrupted foundation."

Um, EXACTLY!!

He chose to run. He wanted the responsibility. Time to step up and do the job he actively sought out. Stop being a pussy, Obama (and staff), and do your job!

Well, yes, there is respect for the rule of law, butit's worse than that...there has to be some serious deterrence to prevent the next group of criminals from saying...Bush got away with it. We will too. Reagan and the Iran Contra mess...we've had too much law breaking without punishment in our recent past.

Most recent Democratic presidents have had to spend a lot of time cleaning up the mess left by the previous Republican administrations.
Clinton had to deal with the huge debt and deficits left by Reagan and Bush. Obama inherited the worse financial crisis since the depression, along with the wars and the blatant violations of the law which Dick Cheney is admitting to every day on t.v.
Cheney has started to look like someone who is daring to be prosecuted, pretty much taunting the current administration. It's looking like he might get his wish even though Obama doesn't want to do it.

Thank you.

"It's a real shame Bush and Cheney screwed up so spectacularly, and ignored the law so systematically, that it's interfering with Obama's desire to govern. It really is. If I were in the president's shoes, I might feel the same temptations. But he signed up for this gig, vowing to rebuild the nation. As much as he'd like to get beyond the recent past, nothing of any value is ever built on a corrupted foundation."

Your last paragraph sums it up nicely - if that's possible. This is an ugly set of circumstances to have to deal with at this time but it does have to be dealt with. And if this drags some Dems down too, so be it. Do the Repubs actually think that if Dems were involved in approving torture, this whole mess will be dropped and disappear? Don't think so....

if the "watergate on steroids" formula is so destructive then a different paradigm must be determined. perhaps a truth and rec commission of some kind.

after all, why the fuck does obama wake up every day with so much on his plate? could it be that the bush-cheney administration was not only incompetent but also filled with lawless thugs?

jeez, yuh think?

perhaps every one of the 300 million of us ought to be able to line up in front of bush cheney and co., and just slap 'em.

These are WAR CRIMES. Obama really has no choice. The longer he waffles and fudges, the more he is complicit in WAR CRIMES.

I'm torn between thinking Obama is mistaken in his actions or acting strategically. As for the photo issue, I think this is simply a political decision. By all indications the courts will order the release of the photos. Although Obama's decision is disappointing to the left, I doubt it will have any real effect other than delaying the eventual release. However, he will eliminate a messy political distraction by not ordering the release himself.

The military commission issue is much more complex, but the problem we face is these detainees have been so corrupted by the Bush policies that, even when warranted, it is likely impossible to achieve any convictions. At least granting prisoners some rights in the context of tribunals will represent an improvement. I think that the real secret that isn't being discussed publicly is that this is a very small number of the cases and that most of the other detainees are simply going to be released.

I'll gladly take the other side of this argument. While few things would please me more than Darth Cheney rotting in prison, I have to say those little items known as healthcare, global warming, and the economy trump my principled need for immediate "rule of law" prosecutions. I don't know about you all, but we won't have a "foundation" of any kind if we don't address these other needs NOW.

Whatever, Obama's role in the prosecution of war crimes would be zero. This isn't really his call to make and the fact that he keeps acting like it is, really ticks me off, especially when the facts aren't even close to becoming known. He can issue a pardon after the fact, but right now by not going after the interrogators, he has essentially pardoned them all, regardless of what happens to the bosses.

And if he's really scared of the big bad republicans, he should get Hilliary out there trying to organize some sort of international trial/court. Then all he has to do is delivery the suspects.

This is getting to the point of comedy, everyone in this country knows they committed war crimes, so what is the problem. If they feel like it's justified, then let them make the case in court under oath with proof.

I think the key point is that Obama really doesn't have an axe to grid-- he's acting in good faith. This is so spectacularly different from the Bush years that people get disoriented and just can't deal with it.

There's good points here, but noting Obama "signed up for this gig" gives the impression (doubtlessly erroneous) that you're leaving all this in his lap as he decided to run for president.

What it comes down to is Obama's one guy in a tough role made tougher by an incompetent predecessor. WE the citizens need to get to work from letter writing, to voting, to protests, to running for office ourselves. We want better handling of the torture situation? We better get to work, because Obama's got enough stuff to deal with anyway.

Obama is too busy to get his hands dirty with Torturegate. He knows the angry media mob will drag Bush and Cheney out in the street and hang them via the court of public opinion.
Free from prison, the Bush/Cheney legacy will doom the GOP for much longer than if the DOJ martyrs them for the hard right.
It is calculating for BO, but it is the best play in an already crappy hand he has been dealt.

Does the Constitution have an "expediency" clause that Mr Obama found buried in the fine print? Maybe he found it during his years as a constitutional professor, and he kept quiet about it during Bush's reign of error.

Such a clause would certainly be handy for any president, and Bush's lawyers must be envious. But FSM HELP US WHEN THE NEXT REPUBLICAN BECOMES PRESIDENT.

Abe Lincoln would have taken on the mess directly and without hesitation.

I think there is something else which everyone is missing: the need to get this pushed up to the Supreme Court. Everyone seems to have forgotten how Bush abused the Court system by pulling cases which were just about to get to a final determination. Or, when a case was decided, he would push through legislation to change the facts and try again.

There is a good chance that the Supreme Court will either agree with the lower court (the Admin lost) or they will decide not to take it with the same result.

But the lower court wasn't the DC circuit, so Obama needs to push this up to settle this area of law.

We just suffered eight years of republican exploitation of secret then unsettled law, we need this to go all the way to the top. If the ruling goes against Obama, he may even have more momentum for a liberal justice for his second pick.

There is also no pay-off to U.S. citizens in such a prosecution. It would be hugely better for all if the torture episodes of the previous administration were simply to become an embarrassing milstone around the neck of the Republican Party, rather than for the current administration to postpone the actual governance of the county for those prosecutions.

The torture policies do not threaten the "Rule of Law". They are just one component, albeit a big one. We've got a lot to do. That is just one thing. It would be a dreadful distraction.

President Obama is not mistaken. He is doing exactly what is best for the country.

I don't know what Obama is thinking on the subject of a 'torture tribunal', but this is what I hope he's thinking.

First, while investigating the likely abuses of power of the Bush administration is important, it is not urgent. The economy, health care, global warming and Iraq all are. So they take priority.

Second, we all saw idiots like Limbaugh and Hannity bitching about 'prosecuting policy differences'. If a torture tribunal had commenced on January 21, the right would have screamed holy hell about partisanship and banana republics, and a lot of people would have found such claims credible.

By holding off, Obama allows public sentiment to force an investigation, thus reducing the credibility of claims that it's a partisan witch hunt. Additionally, with revelations such as the CIA briefing where Pelosi was supposedly informed about the torture taking place, Republicans might believe that such a tribunal would actually work to their advantage (would they be willing to throw Bush/Cheney under the bus if they thought they could take down Pelosi too? Absolutely).

In short, by holding off on a tribunal, Obama increases the likelihood of such tribunals being successful.

Maybe I'm giving Obama too much credit for gaming this all out, but for now I'm content with the direction in which things are heading. However, we do still need to keep pushing to get the truth out, and for prosecutions to take place where appropriate (whether those facing prosecution happen to be Republicans or Democrats).

I have no doubt in my mind that Obama will deal with a nuclear-armed Pakistan and North Korea. Bush allowed this to happen...wait - Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1998; North Korea, a few years before that.

OK. Scratch that.

I have no doubt in my mind that Obama will balance the budget. Yesterday, he announced 17 billion in budget cuts...wait, then asked for an additional 81 billion to the budget.

Then he wants to tax soda, which will hurt the poor and middle class more. Even after he promised no new taxes on the poor and middle class.

OK. Scratch that.

I have no doubt in my mind that Obama will deal with a collapsing auto industry. He's already given the Big Three billions in federal dollars...wait, GM and Chrysler are going bankrupt anyway.

Must be Bush's fault...Except, the auto companies outside the Big Three that have plants in the U.S. are doing OK: Toyota, VW, Honda. Why are they OK and the big three are not? There must be some way to tie Bush to the Big Three's problems, because crappy products and bad union contracts are sure not to blame.

Wait a minute, maybe they are to blame.

OK. Scratch that.

A generational economic crisis? Even though most government and private economists see a light at the end of the tunnel by late 2009/2010. I don't know if that's generational, but surely it is all Bush's fault. The Democrats had nothing to do with that.

Wait - Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank, Fannie & Freddie.

OK Scratch that.

Maybe he can get our "global prestige" back. Best bet: throw Israel under the UN bus. Embrace the peaceful and loving Palestinians. Hamas isn't a terrorist organization; they are a loving group of individuals who simply hate Jews.

I'll say it even if it hurts me later:

Better to be destroyed by the Taliban wielding a dirty bomb they got from Pakistan and were taught to use by Iran.

If we just walk forward we deserve whatever happens to us.

The purpose and mandate of the International Criminal Court is to prosecute war criminals such as Dick Cheney and George W. Bush when their national governments are unwilling or unable to do so.

Apparently, and unfortunately, the USA does not have a functioning justice system and is unable to prosecute the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by its government officials -- acts which are very clearly crimes under both US law and international law to which the US is signatory.

So the ICC should step in.

The prime directive for being effective is prioritizing. The arguments for dealing with Bush crimes last are compelling:

1) As stated, that process will suck all the oxygen out of the air and paralyze government for years.

2) Many, many other issues have a temporal urgency that punishing ex-officials for torture/crimes issue simply does not share.

3) The administration will be in a much, much stronger position to handle the dynamite when it has a record of success and trust behind it, and if it is seen as only reluctantly and cautiously following where the law demands.

This is why Obama specifically stated that he would deal with the crimes last in interviews before he was elected. He is doing exactly what he said he would do -- and his approach makes a hell of a lot of sense. It does not mean he will not deal with them. It means he will deal with them in a compellingly effective manner, if you give him room.

The GOP would love to distract you now with endless fact-free partisan debates on bush administration crimes that will aggravate political and cultural divides and crystallize opposition. They want this because it will de-rail economic reform and health care reform and taint Obama's legitimacy. They want a zero-sum game. Don't buy it.

If anything, a slow deliberate Truth Commission is the only approach that should be considered now. Return to this debate when it has completed its work and we have agreed facts to discuss, and not just empty partisan spin over missing information. In the meantime, let's change America now.

Geez, how unfortunate for Goring, Jodl and the rest of the Nazis that Truman didn't have too much on his plate. No distractions keeping him from participating in war crime tribunals. There was that whole "rebuild the world after it went up in flames" project but somehow he managed to walk and chew gum at the same time. Yeah, yeah, apples and oranges. Some guys put up and some guys should just shut up. I think Obama did a lot of talking whereas he should have just shut up. I hate to be a curmudgeon but the list of broken promises is getting longer by the day and they're some pretty serious promises getting broken. DADT, torture transparency, Iraq/Afghanistan troop withdrawal schedules. We're supposed to believe he's such a masterful tactician it'll all make perfect sense down the road. Maybe so. Meanwhile the Army fires badly needed Arab linguists for being gay. The Muslim world knows we have pictures so depraved and revolting the President has to break a promise to release them. And soldiers in Iraq on their 3rd, 4th and 5th tour decide the only way out (since Obama isn't bringing them home) is to go stark raving mad and kill as many people as they can before the rifle is wrested from their grasp. Yeah, he has a fucking master plan. Just don't take at face value any promises he makes to implement it.

Perhaps he would prefer not to be murdered. After all, these people have already killed over 200 people. What have they got to lose?

Either the rule of law means something or it doesn't. Unless there is some price to pay, even if only embarrassment, we can expect it to happen again.

We have been very lucky that the Republican Party to this point has been incompetent. My greatest fear is that the next Republican administration is capable as well as evil. How far will they go knowing that there will be no consequences?

The root problem is that for too long we (yes, WE) ignored the rule of law. And not just in regard to torture and the other war crimes the Bushies committed. The rule of law is that for actions there must be consequences -- you risk, you lose, you pay. The moral hazard, if you will. The Obama administratioin is, unfortunately, systematically lifting from those most responsible the need to pay for their unlawfully risking that which was not theirs to risk -- the banks, the hedge founds, the large corporations, the Bushies, Democratic politicians, the voters, the media. It all goes into the memory hole of expediency. Feh.

I disagree. Watergate sucked all of the air out of the room because the hearings were handled by congress and on TV.

Legal proceedings (grand jury, written opinions, trials) would generate coverage, but most of the material (discovery, transcripts) would be in print. Human ferrets like Marcy Wheeler would report the whole story for us, and of course, ABC and the others would continue to publicize only the stuff showing Democrats in a bad light. At this point, it appears that that will be negligible.

The bottom line is that UNLESS CHENEY AND OTHERS GO TO JAIL THEY WILL CONTINUE TO TURN UP LIKE BAD PENNIES, THEY WILL CONTINUE TO POISON OUR ENTIRE POLITICAL SYSTEM.

What we are seeing now is that the whole rotted Republican party grew out of the fetid mess of Nixon's administration. They weren't stopped by Watergate (they only learned how to cover their tracks). Too many people were pardoned and there was not enough investigation into Iran/Contra.

The Republican party is a menace that needs to be buried once and for all.

How about instituting procedures and mechanisms, if they don't already exist and were just not used in post 9/11 fever, to make this less likely to happen again, instead?

ICBW, but I seem to recall some moderate bloggers trying to tamp down the calls for vengeance during the campaign. Maybe that was just politics.

Unless moderate bloggers are willing to assert that the Obama administration will not be seriously hamstrung by the spectacle AND that the effort will lead to substantial incarcerations, not wrist slaps, their support of the pursuit of Pyrrhic convictions seems curious.

Isn't there is a mid-way possibility? Obama may be waiting to be forced to take action by public opinion because he does not want to initiate a policy that could result in prosecutions for a number of members of the preceding administration.

In this view, he is waiting to be forced to do investigate so it is harder to characterize as partisan vengeance. Sort of FDR style - "Make me do it".

This of course carries the possibility that there will be no pressure and no investigation/punishment. I suspect he is willing to live with that for the sake of his agenda.

But Obama is letting a steady drip of revelations come out which drives demand for a full investigation if not prosecution. I think if he really wanted to avoid this kind of pressure he could do enough to throttle the revelation stream down and dampen the firestorm. Maybe Obama is simply very Machiavellian.

I think people's expectations for a Bush/Cheney investigation have to do with which example they think of. Some people think of Watergate where the process was successful; other people think of Iran/Contra where it at least produced some useful information. The situation I think of is Whitewater, where the process was a miserable failure. The prosecutor was given $40 million and a stack of blank subpoenas and told to come back with the president's scalp. The independent prosector statute was abused and the whole thing culminated in a bogus impeachment. A lot of Obama's aides are from the Clinton White House so maybe that's what they are thinking of too.

There are some legal stands that appear on the surface as truly baffling to progressives that Obama has taken. Why not just overturn them with executive power? But if he did that, then there would be no ruling that would prevent it from happening again. By forcing the a legal defense (and rather weak ones), the court is forced to strike them down, this has a permanent effect.

Obama the constitutional expert knows that some of these overreaches need to be permanently shut down, the *only* way to do that is to get the challenged in the judiciary or prosecuted by the legislature.

To this end, Congress has to step in here, the executive policing itself is meaningless in our government. So if you want justice, write your congressional representative.

Frankly I think this all about timing and what they American people are ready to handle. The more radicalized left has been ready for prosecutions for quite awhile. I think the most recent revelations will start pushing more on the left and in the center to that same rationalization.

Do you waste time money energy and legal fees trying to prosecute the frat boys( and I was one, I know the damage that can be done) who trashed your house?- or do you put it towards repainting, cleaning up and shopping for new furniture? Bitter recriminations are the Right's forte. Let them keep frigging themselves in the rigging while the real Captain steers the ship of state.

Who about this possibility: "Don't put up a fight on global warming, financial regulation, Iraq denoument, my economic policies etc etc and I'll try to spare you from jail?"

Maybe Obama should just issue a blanket pardon and start working on that presidential library now.

The way he plays both sides is really starting to concern me.

Whatever Obama's thinking, it's nothing short of disgusting the way so many have decided to defend him for this.

Clearly, you people are too weak-willed and pathetic. Most people already know what they believe. Under Bush, most of you declared this sort of logic to be what it was: self-serving and corrupt. Now you all let Obama tell you this is the right thing.

Don't be shocked if some of us leave the party over this. I don't want to be given shit about voting for the greens. Whatever moral argument you could make not to, that's been shot to shit. There's a whole shitload of a difference between 'not making the perfect the enemy of the good' and 'The lesser of two evils. The former just requires compromise. The later is a bridge too far.

Dare I say it, in Bu$h's defense, he was merely just a puppet. The man obviously lacked what it takes to be a good man, much less a good president, in all arenas.

So let's using Bu$h as a punching bag. The reality is it was the republican party and their masters the global corporatists that left Obama with a very heavily damaged country.

I think David Bailey at 10:14 has got it exactly right -- and while letting public pressure build in support of investigation/prosecution, Obama is also letting Cheney dig himself in deeper with wacko statements that will come back to haunt him in an eventual proceeding.

"...As much as he'd like to get beyond the recent past, nothing of any value is ever built on a corrupted foundation."

Your points are well taken, but if that's really true then we'd have to scrap the entire nation's history and start over from scratch, as chronic corruption and human rights abuses are the rule rather than the exception in our country's formation and development.

This is an ugly set of circumstances to have to deal with at this time but it does have to be dealt with. And if this drags some Dems down too, so be it.

. I hate to be a curmudgeon but the list of broken promises is getting longer by the day and they're some pretty serious promises getting broken. DADT, torture transparency, Iraq/Afghanistan troop withdrawal schedules. We're supposed to believe he's such a masterful tactician it'll all make perfect sense down the road.

It all goes into the memory hole of expediency. Feh.

Interesting comments. I guess you bought into the Republican "Barack the Magic Negro" bullshit too. Did you seriously think that the entire complex and gigantic federal bureaucracy was instantly going to change overnight? Psht.

Give the chance for change more than 5 months people.

Didn't Obama say something about being able to do more than two things at once when McCain tried to call off a debate?

Punting on the war crimes issue is another iteration of trying desperately to focus on what are perceived to be winning liberal issues and ignoring what are perceived to be (by the Dem leadership) losing war issues. Remember Gephardt and Daschle in 2002 hurrying up to vote yes on the Iraq War authorization so that they could turn the debate back to healthcare before the midterm elections?

Didn't work then, won't work now.

Like it or not, Bush left a national security mess of equal or greater proportions to the economic one, and until Obama and the Dems figure out how to fight the right directly on national security they will always be looking for cover and letting the other side get away with it.

ArkPanda - to compare Whitewater with an investigation of war crimes committed by the Bush administration is ridiculous. The Whitewater investigation was a disaster because there was NOTHING there!

As far as prosecutions swallowing the Obama Presidency whole - the failure to investigate fully and prosecute those responsible will swallow our democracy whole. There is no objective more important to the survival of this nation and the U.S. Constitution as seeing justice done here.

Looks like there is a bit of projecting going on here. What evidence do you have for this idea that Obama is in disagreement with Bush on policy? I see the opposite.

Torture: sweep it under the rug.
Civil liberties: oops, never mind.
Gays: gotta admit, nothing worse than being around dem gays.
War: your war = bad, my war = good.
Health care: we can get Dems to vote for us using this, the same way Republicans use abortion.

You're right, Bush and Cheney screwed up -- what would you expect from a bunch of idiots.

But Obama? There are no excuses.

Just because Obama isn't on national TV calling for Cheney's head to roll doesn't mean there aren't investigations going on, evidence being compiled and a strategy for prosecution being quietly mapped out. Any good prosecutor will tell you that you don't trumpet your case in the media before you have it put together. And guess what? It might take years (calm down -- there is no statute of limitations on murder and there's evidence even in the public domain that detainees were tortured to death). The time it takes to make a case will give Obama time to implement much of his domestic agenda and get a handle on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then, when the case is complete, I believe he will take up the challenge and bring the war criminals to justice.

Another factor in this insane calculus is that while the Bush Administration was the driver on all the policies you mention, we can't forget that Congress (both sides of the aisle) acted as tool pushers to condone and enable all of this.

So if you dive into the administration's unforgivable acts, how do you avoid tackling everything that Congress did to enable it? There would be a constant stream of past administration officials taking the stand with embarrassing and damaging references to congressional oversight while Obama tries to persuade the Hill to adopt his administration's agenda?

I think this makes the decision tougher but I still think you have to move on this rather than ignore it for political expediency. Otherwise there's nothing left to defend.

perhaps every one of the 300 million of us ought to be able to line up in front of bush cheney and co., and just slap 'em. neill @ 9:57

Wouldn't work for three reasons. 1) The solution is more of the same; violence. 2) It would get out of hand, somebody would eventually knee him, then the kicking would replace the slapping. And that would be for the first 100 hand selected Repugs at the head of the line. What would the balance get? 3) focusing on the wrong issue, Bush is a puppet.

There is also no pay-off to U.S. citizens in such a prosecution. - Jim G @ 10:13

Bingo. Tighten up the rule of law and generations will point to this era exactly for what it is: FAIL. Bushco will get a proper airing out if things continue to unravel at a slow burn. The ICC is diminished because of all this. History will decide. Gotta love it!

Whatever Obama's thinking, it's nothing short of disgusting the way so many have decided to defend him for this.

Clearly, you people are too weak-willed and pathetic. Most people already know what they believe. Under Bush, most of you declared this sort of logic to be what it was: self-serving and corrupt. Now you all let Obama tell you this is the right thing.

Don't be shocked if some of us leave the party over this. I don't want to be given shit about voting for the greens. Whatever moral argument you could make not to, that's been shot to shit. There's a whole shitload of a difference between 'not making the perfect the enemy of the good' and 'The lesser of two evils. The former just requires compromise. The later is a bridge too far.
Posted by: soullite on May 15, 2009

Calm the Fuck down. Just because some (not all) of us here are saying that an IMMEDIATE prosecution of the Bush administration may be counterproductive, you cry and say I'm leaving the for greener pastures?

Guess what, your demand for "strong will" and forget about "expediency" will end up accomplishing nothing.

So your saying if you had a choice between Obama getting legislation passed on heathcare, energy, and bank reform first and prosecutions later OR prosecutions first and nothing else later, you'd choose the later?

This is politics not theology. Yours is a zero sum game

You know what else is interesting about the timing of all the torture memos? On May 6, 2002, the Bush Administration formally renounced the US signature on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Clinton had signed the statute in December, 2000.

The ICC has authority to try cases involving genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Article 12 of the Rome Statute gives the court jurisdiction over the nationals of any state if the alleged crime takes place on the territory of a state that is a party to the Statute or that delegates jurisdiction for that case to the ICC—even in cases where the defendant’s state of nationality is not a party to the treaty.

I'll bet Bush and Cheney knew they could be prosecuted by the ICC once word got out they were torturing POWs in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. So they just withdrew the US from the ICC's jurisdiction to cover their butts.

What Obama should do is renounce Bush's renunciation of the ICC and sign the US back onto the Rome Statute. Then he should turn all the soon-to-be-public Bush Administration memos authorizing torture over to the ICC at the World Court and let them handle the criminal charges.

Eric Holder would have one less headache and America's stature in the world would increase tremendously.

Maybe he is just trying to put off the inevitable as long as possible, to give himself and Congress a chance to get a few things done before the war crimes issue takes over everything. Look, it is already taking over everything already -- much more coverage and conversation about the war crimes issue than health care, energy or financial reform.
I predict that a special prosecutor will be named at some point, and after that, the window of opportunity for reform will be closing rapidly. THe war crimes issue has a life of its own and it will eventually be addressed.

Tom

Part of me thinks living under a bridge, unemployed and without health insurance, would be greatly ameriolated if Bush, Cheney, Addington, Hadley, Yoo, Gonzalez and Bybee were rotting in jail. The sting of things going to hell in a hand basket might be tolerable because these bastards distracted us whilst we slow roasted them over a fire pit.

johnnymags - unfortunately, these frat boys did much more than "trash the house"...I do agree that we need to make the correct repairs and have some trust in Obama to accomplish it. There are more papers to be declassified and probably more very compelling "testimony" to be heard in the future. We'll just have to sit tight and see how the facts present themselves. At the same time, Obama's agenda is extremely important.

I hate thinking that the American people are so ethically challenged that these kind of transgressions can go unpunished. But this seems to be the road we've been taking for many years - the Bush administration just happened to push it to an extreme. Makes me wonder just how far a democracy can go to justify such actions...I have no faith in Congress as it presently stands to accomplish anything at all on either Obama's agenda or Bush administration malfeasance. Guess I'm in just one of those moods today!

I think Obama is wise to distance himself from prosecution. Maybe he doesn't want to seem like he wants to prosecute people because that would taint the prosecutions.

If he sounds like he is eager to send people to jail, that would make anybody eventually convicted into political martyrs.

If he is non-commital, then it will be harder for the right to turn this into a political football.

Then he needs to bring in the ICC. That's what it's for. The idjits who didn't want to sign on because Americans might be prosecuted unfairly can sit down and shut up.

WTf, there is no compromise on evil. IF he prosecutes this, it will be different. But you're fucking deluding yourself if you think that's where this is heading.

You've made your bed, now lay in it. I don't owe you my vote and I'm not voting for a torturer or an apologist. I'm not voting for a coward who lacks what it takes to stand up to washington. You can sit here and jerk yourself off, pretending that you're doing a good deed by voting for a Democrats for the sake of the letter by their name if you want to. I need them to stand for what I believe in, or at the very least not stand directly against EVERYTHING I believe in.

If you expect us all to stand by you through this, go fuck yourselves you Bushian monster.

Until one of you can either point to some evidence that any investigations are going on, or will be going on, at least be men enough to admit that you're just guessing. There's plenty of evidence for those of us who believe he's trying to dodge the issue entirely. There is no evidence that he ever intends to do anything about this.

You guys sound like Bush supporters screamingly loudly in 2003 that Bush MUST know something the rest of us did not. But he didn't know anything, and Obama probably doesn't have any investigations planned. Grow and admit that daddy doesn't have super-powers and that he aint always a good guy.

Recall that when McCain cynically stopped campaigning laST September to rush to DC to fix the financial emergency Obama stayed on the campaign trail saying at one point that a President has to be able to do more than one thing at a time. Krugman got it right the other day when he pointed out that the folks in the government who have to deal with the torture accountability matters are not the folks dealing with the financial mess, or healthcare or other elements of the Obama agenda.

I haven't visited this site for awhile. I was sick of your non-stop rah rah for Obama. It's nice to see you are not completely soused on koolaid. I voted for Obama but I don't trust him any more than the rest of them.

The 'rule of law' (a mythical beast to begin with) effectively ended when Nixon didn't end up behind bars.

has soullite ever written anything that wasn't tearfully hysterical?

I agree with everything you write here, Steve. And if we're right, that makes Atty. Gen. Holder the real lynch pin here.

If he's truly an advocate for the rule of law, and if he's as independent as we hope him to be, he should pursue the war crime charges as far as necessary.

If Obama is opposed to prosecution, it should be utterly irrelevant.

If Obama truly feels that he can't afford to be distracted by the job of digging up the past, he can just ask Holder to appoint an independent counsel to look into the matter, and then just stay out. The prosecutor chosen should be as apolitical a person as can be found, a straight-shooter who ideally is not a registered Democrat.

Has the president done anything to protect the previous administration from future prosecution?

Does it make a any difference whether he goes after these guys now or two years from now?

Maybe that's the calculation. Put this on the backburner for now so the he can make some headway with his agenda.

I doubt that Cheney, Addington, et al feel they have dodged a bullet. They know this is going to come to a head at some point - but it will be on the president's timetable not theirs.

Under Bush, half the country was trained to recite all sorts of dangerous propositions about how important it is to vest The President with all sorts of powers to keep us safe, how vital it is that he keep things secret to protect us from the Terrorists, how we can trust in our leaders to exercise in ways we don't understand because we know he's good at heart.

And now, with Obama, a significant portion of the other half of the country is being trained to recite the same things.

Ok.. damn, I thought I had the solution -- which was just to allow the Spanish to investigate this and make recommendations. And the Convention against Torture Committee could investigate .... this would allow the Obama to say neutral parties are investigating and he would study their recommendations with an eye towards action.

But, that's not the American way.

Oh Senate, House of Reps. Man up! It's messy, it's your job to investigate. Do it. Put some order into this mess and while the investigation goes on, Obama can get stuff done.

In fact more stuff because the Repubs will be freaking out over the investigation and will not have the time to deal with other random issues they ususal flip out over.

"Has the president done anything to protect the previous administration from future prosecution?

Does it make a any difference whether he goes after these guys now or two years from now?"
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I'm not sure where some of these crimes fall as to statute of limitation rules. Would delaying action for a couple years lessen the number of possible charges brought? Maybe?

I do think there will be a special counsel appointed, and there will be an investigation on torture, secret prisons, and Geneva Convention violations in Iraq, such as torturing Saddam's former head of the Mukhabarat. However, it is going to take years to process, much has to be declassified.

The big decisions will happened after the Obama Adminstration runs its course in early 2013 or 2017.

This should be treated like going after an organizing crime family, or something similar to the Enron Debacle. Whether there is a paper trail leading to Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, it is better off to put pressure on associates (at this stage associates of associates) and work up the ladder.

I think the first priority at this moment is to get Jay Bybee impeached as a Federal Judge.

Maybe Cheney crawled out of his hidden bunker with one specific goal which is not to defend his legacy, but rather to throw the Obama administration off track. What better way to slow down health care, energy, EPA, court appointments, work on the deficit, global warming legislation, and Wall Street regulation than to make prosecuting the crimes of the Bus/Cheney years the top priority. Better to let history and the American voters judge them for the corrupt criminals that they are than to blow the opportunity to make some meaningful changes while Obama has a Congressional majority and the support of the country. Prosecution can wait; there's no statue of limitation on war crimes.

I've heard a number of people speculate that the war crimes trials will happen eventually, but not until after 2012, assuming of course (as I devoutly hope) that Obama wins reelection with a strong mandate. Then he really WILL have the "PO-litickle capital" that Bush bragged about, and since he won't be able to run for a third term, no one can accuse him of playing politics. Besides, that allows lots of time to let the devastating information come out in carefully measured doses.

Now maybe I'm a hopelessly naive and idealistic partisan, but Obama has demonstrated his ability to play a long game, and I would like to think that's what he's doing here. So let's allow for a little deferment of gratification (acknowledging of course, as I grind my teeth, that Cheney probably won't live long enough to go to the slammer).

I need them to stand for what I believe in, or at the very least not stand directly against EVERYTHING I believe in.soullite @ 11:21

I don't even know where to begin, but I can say I don't recall Obama running on a platform of "imprison the Bush administration". That was more Kucinich's schtick, so maybe you should vote for him next time. And if you want someone to do and believe everything you do, how did you say it,oh yes, "your fucking deluding yourself".

If you expect us all to stand by you through this, go fuck yourselves you Bushian monster. soullite

Ouch, but it'd hurt more if it wasn't a retarded statement.

You guys sound like Bush supporters screamingly loudly in 2003 that Bush MUST know something the rest of us did not. But he didn't know anything, and Obama probably doesn't have any investigations planned. Grow and admit that daddy doesn't have super-powers and that he aint always a good guy. soullite @ 11:25

Listen dick wad, If you were elected president today and you got to do what you wanted, guess what? You might be successful in putting Bushco. on trial but you would get nothing, absolutely nothing else accomplished. You suck at politics, which is a game. Yet that imperfect system is the only way we have for enacting the best policies and laws which aren't a game.

Does it make a any difference whether he goes after these guys now or two years from now?

That's what I'd like to know, too. Since there's no statute of limitations on war crimes, why is there this huge rush to deal with them NOW NOW NOW!!!

I know we're all impatient after the last 8 years, but I'd rather have an orderly investigation that actually gets some convictions than another scrambling Senate investigation that drags on and never actually accomplishes anything. Am I the only one who remembers that Oliver North ended up being acquitted because of the circus that Congress created around Iran-Contra?

Here it is from Wikipedia:

However, on July 20, 1990, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),[7] North's convictions were vacated, after the appeals court found that witnesses in his trial might have been impermissibly affected by his immunized congressional testimony.[8] Because North had been granted limited immunity for his Congressional testimony, the law prohibited the independent counsel (or any prosecutor) from using that testimony as part of a criminal case against him.

Does everyone really want to rush into Congressional investigations given their record of successfully sending people to jail?

Everyone's just waiting for Dick Cheney to keel over so they can pin it all on him.

It seems that any desire to delay investigating this for years should take into account the extremely short political memory of Americans.

Either the administration or Congress, preferably Congress, should take it off Obama's shoulders by appointing a commission or committee similar to the Church committee to examine the issue and make recommendations. Better yet, use a committee of preachers, rabbis, imams, lamas - you get the drift. Investigate the morality and ethics of the issue.

The goal should not necessarily be prosecutions, but the question of when and if torture will be used in the future MUST be settled. As it stands now, the next president - dare I say the next republican president? - will use torture because a precedent has been set, a precedent that says torture works and can be used legitimately to save American lives. It's a slippery slope the bushies have left behind.

I'm not sure where some of these crimes fall as to statute of limitation rules. Would delaying action for a couple years lessen the number of possible charges brought? Maybe?

We just deported John Demjanjuk to Germany to stand trial for war crimes he committed as a concentration camp guard over 60 years ago. Ex-cops in Chicago were indicted in 2008 for torturing suspects in the 1908s.

I don't think there's a statute of limitations on war crimes or torture.

D'oh! Sorry, should be "1980s" above, not "1908."

Until one of you can either point to some evidence that any investigations are going on, or will be going on, at least be men enough to admit that you're just guessing. There's plenty of evidence for those of us who believe he's trying to dodge the issue entirely. There is no evidence that he ever intends to do anything about this.-soullite

I can point to Obama declaring torture forbidden, to the closing of Gitmo Prison, to the declassification of Bush era memos. I think/hope Obama is going to allow prosecutions, he just knows enough to control the floodgates a bit.

It seems that any desire to delay investigating this for years should take into account the extremely short political memory of Americans.

You know, I always hear this, but is it really true? Some people are still pissed off at Nixon. Some people still bring Bill Clinton into the conversation whenever possible. We constantly hear conservatives pining for the good ol' days of Ronald Reagan.

I think the media has an extremely short political memory, but that's not quite the same thing.

Quoted from Sullivan's reader:

"The prosecutions you are asking for would simply swallow the Obama presidency whole."

No. No. No.

Prosecutions are a Judicial Branch procedure, and the only Executive Branch participants are the prosecutors and THEIR investigators.

The White House does not need to be involved in any way, no more than it needs to be involved in an immigration case or a counterfeiting case.

This is not a political hot potato. All Obama has to do is get the f___ out of the damned way and let the prosecutors look at the evidence, so they can put some of it in front of a Federal Grand Jury.

What is so hard about understanding this? Congessional hearings are NOT required and DO NOTHING. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission - YES, that would require many tens of thousands of hours of political investigating.

But this is not necessary. It goes like this:
1. Someone breaks a Federal Law.
2. The crime is discovered to probably have occurred
3. The alleged crime is brought to the attention of a Federal Prosecutor
4. The DA decides to prosecute or not
5. If yes, the DA brings it to the Federal Grand Jury
6. The Grand Jury - NOT THE WHITE HOUSE - indicts - OR NOT
7. If yes, the DA prosecutes the case
8. It goes to the Federal Court
9. The Court proceedings decide guilt or innocence.
10. If guilty, the perps go to Federal prison. If not, they go free.

All this we all know. Why does everyone insist on injecting politics into this criminal proceeding???

.

Mnemosyne, certainly not all of the possible misconduct by various Bush admin functionaries fall into the category of war crimes. The construction of legal memos, the participation in flight renditions, illegal arrests and imprisonments and a host of other crimes having nothing to do with actual torture need addressed. I'm not a lawyer but my sense is only the most heinous infractions have perpetual exposure to prosecution accorded them. Should everything else not in that category merely be allowed to lapse?

As much as he'd like to get beyond the recent past, nothing of any value is ever built on a corrupted foundation.

Obama is responsible for the welfare of the nation as a whole, not for the individual elements of it. If political triage is required, then the country's economy, the health care system, the ongoing foreign conflicts, etc., all take precedence over prosecuting former officials for their actions. The political aspects of prosecutions will, unfortunately, far outweigh the legal aspects. There are statutes of limitations for whatever crimes may have been committed, presumably.

One can argue for prosecutions because they're just and necessary, but the need isn't immediate.

If one is living in a house built by corrupt people, and the floors are warping, the roof is leaking, etc., one rebuilds the house first and concentrates on suing the builders later.

SRS

For way too long, our elected officals and their appointees that have gotten caught doing things that were illegal, underhanded, etc., etc., and instead of something being done, everyone has decided to "move forward" and "get past this" rather than do anything to stop it. I don't really care if we need to move past it or not, but I do care when it happens again. They all know they can do what they want, illegal or not, and nothing will happen because everyone wants to "get past this". Please! Let's set something up so it doesn't happen again in any way, shape or form without some kind of due process. Then maybe we can focus on real problems instead of repeatedly on the crooks we vote into office and the "crimes" they commit.

soullite: "WTf, there is no compromise on evil. IF he prosecutes this, it will be different. But you're fucking deluding yourself if you think that's where this is heading.

You've made your bed, now lay in it. I don't owe you my vote and I'm not voting for a torturer or an apologist. I'm not voting for a coward who lacks what it takes to stand up to washington. You can sit here and jerk yourself off, pretending that you're doing a good deed by voting for a Democrats for the sake of the letter by their name if you want to. I need them to stand for what I believe in, or at the very least not stand directly against EVERYTHING I believe in.

If you expect us all to stand by you through this, go fuck yourselves you Bushian monster."

Get a grip. Who are you going to vote for then? Alternative parties and candidates, after decades of trying, still don't know how to mobilize people and win elections. All they seem to know how to do is have pointless candlelight vigils and throw paper peace cranes off mesas.

Don't know how much it's been mentioned above, but,

everything we need to do is blocked by Republicans.

Nothing we need to do can move forward with Republicans in the way.

Torture prosecutions, and prosecution of all the other Bush administration scandals and corruptions, undermine Republicans for good.

It's not about 'killing them too dead', it's about killing them for good.

What the Bush administration accomplished was to provide enough fire power to kill them for good, if we only really want to.

Obama won't accomplish anything he really wants to while the Republican party remains an organized bloc.

Varecia, even voting for nobody is better than putting my stamp of approval on rape, torture and murder.

IF you want to support those things, go right the fuck ahead. At least be enough of a human being to ADMIT that's what you;re fucking doing instead of hiding like a coward behind BS arguments.

You're fine with children being raped in front of their parents so long as you get what you want. You're fine with people having their genitals mutilated. You're fine with setting dogs on people. Don't fucking lecture me like I'm not a responsible citizen. you're the scumbag here. You're the one who decided to give up and give in.

Steven, live in the real fucking world. Either we do something now, or nothing will ever get done. Those who argue that we should take care of our problems later are rarely doing so honestly. More often, they want to kill reform in the dead of night.

Varecia, and all Democrats now how to do is surrender and bitch and moan. A member of a party best known for the personal cowardice of it's leaders has no room to mock anyone else for being ineffectual.

At least they are fucking trying. Scum like you gave up a long time ago.

Mnemosyne, certainly not all of the possible misconduct by various Bush admin functionaries fall into the category of war crimes. The construction of legal memos, the participation in flight renditions, illegal arrests and imprisonments and a host of other crimes having nothing to do with actual torture need addressed.

Again, I'm not sure you're right about that. Eichmann was merely the planner of the Holocaust and never personally killed or tortured anyone, but he was hanged for his crimes 17 years after he committed them. There are plenty of war crimes provisions for the planners and enablers.

I'm not sure I want to go as far down the ladder as the pilots who flew rendition flights or the people who arrested and delivered people for rendition. I think they have valuable evidence that they would be well worth being immunized for giving, but I'd be willing to let those little fish go if it meant we had better evidence against the big fish.

It seems to me that we have here a problem with the system, the constitution itself, that has resulted in this situation. There are checks on the executive built into the system, but one of them is not that the new executive will investigate the misbehavior of his predecessor. Executive misbehavior is dealt with by the judicial and legislative branch. Since this was never done, we now look to the executive to perform this function, but in some ways this is just not Obama's job. And the reason that this happened was that partisan politics was never really contemplated when the constitution was written. It was assumed that the congress would guard it's power against encroachment by the executive and enforce the laws that they enacted, by impeachment if necessary. Since congress never did it's job, Obama is now in the awkward position of being the only enforcement mechanism available, a role never contemplated under our system. Hence the present conundrum.

Steven, live in the real fucking world. Either we do something now, or nothing will ever get done.

Most of the U.S. citizens in the real world don't see a need for immediate action either. It's the activists, who were against the Iraq war from the start, and who want to see those involved in torture pay dearly for their crimes because of their emotional involvement, who are pushing for prosecution and trials.

If the seriousness of the war crimes doesn't survive, say, six months to a year of national debate and evidence gathering, then the crimes won't have been serious.

SRS

The only reason this economic facade has survived since the oil crisis of the 70s is debt and we all know who will pay for it and it ain't the fucking rich.

Gerald R. Ford has SOOO much to answer for!
The best outcome would be for AG Holder to initiate investigations into the various allegations and, should he think it necessary, ask for a Special Prosecutor. By the time the trials started occurring the 2010 mid-terms would most likely be past, thus reducing the believability of any "partisan" charges. Besides, what's "partisan" about law-breaking?
There is no need for any "Truth Commission" or any other such "bipartisan" clap-trap. The laws of this country, when honestly applied, are fully capable of handling the trial/conviction of former political leaders, of ANY level.
All that is needed is the will on the part of our elected representatives.
And ourselves.

Has anyone ever considered that Bush left exactly the kind of mess conservatives wanted him to leave? I'm thinking back to Grover Norquist's desire to shrink government to a size small enough to drown in a bathtub. If Obama is unsuccessful in turning around the havoc Bush set in place, the GOP is perfectly positioned to do just that, aren't they? I imagine the calls for "less government" and lower taxes might ring true in 2012 if the markers aren't better by that time.

I cannot bear the thought of conservatives having a free hand to destroy this country for all but wealthy white people (the master race). It's pretty damned scary.

Several advantages to criminal prosecutions from Bush down to the actual hands on torturers and murderers:

(1) we won't have to listen to Dick Cheney, as he will be advised by his lawyers to shut up before he further incriminates himself;

(2) Obama won't have to worry about photos being released that are embarrassing, as the federal court(s) hearing the criminal trials can prohibit trial evidence from being released to the general public until they are produced at trial, and then all photos can be released after the trial;

(3) we won't have to worry about our soldiers being endangered by the release of photos, because they will come out in the context of criminally prosecuting the persons responsible;

(4) and my favorite, we probably can extract guilty pleas from the highest on the food chain- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Rice, et al, by giving them a choice: plead in an American Court, or be turned over for trial (and death by hanging) in Iraq or any other home country of a detainee killed by CIA or Army interrogators. Plus, their confessions could be extracted by torture in foreign countries- poetic justice indeed.

So Obama can't walk and chew gum at the same time? Is justice just too inconvenient for the modern head of state? Obama looks to be acting like George W. Obama from over here, killing people indiscriminately with robot planes, not stopping the torture in our overseas prisons, not closing gitmo, not pulling out of two idiotic wars of conquest. Is he Barbara's son now or what?