<html>
<head>
<style>
.hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;
padding:0px
}
body.hmmessage
{
font-size: 10pt;
font-family:Verdana
}
</style>
</head>
<body class='hmmessage'>
<title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 3.0 (Win32)"><style type="text/css">
<!--
@page { margin: 0.79in }
P { margin-bottom: 0.08in }
A:link { so-language: zxx }
-->
</style>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFxlzPKLuvg">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFxlzPKLuvg</a></p>
<br> <br> Leahy cites the Frank Church Commission of the 1970s and the<br>South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission as models.<br><br> Olbermann notes that the latter body did not win sanctions <br>against President Botha, and though the Church Commission shed <br>light on abuses by intel agencies against the antiwar movement, <br>it did not prevent Nixon functionaries Rumsfeld and Cheney from <br>doing it all over again and committing the very abuses now under <br>consideration. <br><br> Turley calls the Truth Commissions proposal "shameful," not<br>suitable for a government operating under rule of law. There's no<br>question that torture, a war crime, was committed. Congress<br>considers this an inconvenient time to fight on principle, and they<br>are proposing a useless and toothless Commission to try to avoid our<br>obligations under treaties we helped to write. It's not up to Obama<br>or Leahy; we are obligated to investigate to comply with our <br>promise to the world. <br><br> Turley validates Olbermann's belief that addressing the crimes <br>in a special Commission would endorse Bush's claims that his actions<br>were outside the sphere of ordinary crimes to which regular rules <br>apply. A Special Commission means Special Justice, and its failure to<br>prosecute known war crimes will make the American people accessories. <br>Our treaty says there are no excuses for ordering torture. If the <br>Republicans want to embrace torture and the violation of treaties, <br>let them. Do our legislators want to launch their new administration <br>as principled statesmen or as political hacks? <br><br><br> My comment: Congress is dragging its feet on torture investigations<br>because Pelosi and Reid went along with it when they were briefed in <br>2002. Also, Gore convinced Clinton that rendition was acceptable<br>policy(1), and by 1995 the Clinton team was flying kidnapped prisoners to <br>Egypt for interrogation. (2) Michael Scheuer, who ran the extraordinary<br>rendition program against al Qaeda for the CIA from 1995 to 1999, told a <br>subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2007 that he <br>warned Clinton that the countries they were flying these people to were<br>human rights abusers (torturers). He said: "I have read and been told that <br>Mr. Clinton, Mr. Berger and Mr. Clarke have said, since 9/11, that they <br>insisted that each receiving country treat the rendered person it received <br>according to U.S. legal standards. To the best of my memory, that is a lie."<br>(3) <b>Any honest investigation of torture will drag Pelosi, Reid, Clinton, <br>and Gore into the light.<br><br></b>(1) Clarke, Against All Enemies p. 143-4 <br>Gore said "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, <br>that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass." <br><br>(2) Meyer, "Outsourcing Torture" in The New Yorker <br>http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6?currentPage=3<br><br>(3) House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International
<br>Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, Subcommittee on Europe,
April 17, 2007, p. 12.<br>http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/34712.pdf<br><br><br><br /><hr />Windows Live™: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. <a href='http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_AE_Faster_022009' target='_new'>Check it out.</a></body>
</html>