Cheney On Not Catching Bin-Laden: “We’ve Got A Few Days Left”

Sam Stein • see more in NEWS & ANALYSIS     

This Dick gets to write history?

Pressed on some of the foreign policy missteps and shortcomings of the Bush administration, Dick Cheney, even with just days to go in his time in public office, pleaded for more time.

Asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer why President Bush had been unable to “capture or kill [Osama] bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 al Qaeda leader,” the vice president replied:

Well, we’ve got a few days left yet, Wolf.

He later expanded his answer, arguing that bin Laden’s reclusion in the hills of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border had greatly limited his effectiveness as a terrorist leader.

“My guess is at this point he’s operating in an area that’s very difficult, very hard to get to, that he’s not an effective leader at this stage,” said Cheney. “He can’t really engage his organization without coming out of whatever hole he’s hiding in. And the key thing for us, even if we got bin Laden tomorrow, is to take down his organization. And that’s what we’ve been actively doing.”

It’s Official: Total Defeat for U.S. in Iraq

MARJORIE COHN • CounterPunch      see all posts in: NEWS & ANALYSIS      

Dick Cheney has publicly confessed to ordering war crimes. Asked about waterboarding in an ABC News interview, Cheney replied, “I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared.” He also said he still believes waterboarding was an appropriate method to use on terrorism suspects. CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed that the agency waterboarded three Al  Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003.

U.S. courts have long held that waterboarding, where water is poured into someone’s nose and mouth until he nearly drowns, constitutes torture. Our federal War Crimes Act defines torture as a war crime punishable by life imprisonment or even the death penalty if the victim dies.

Under the doctrine of command responsibility, enshrined in U.S. law, commanders all the way up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief can be held liable for war crimes if they knew or should haveknown their subordinates would commit them and they did nothing to stop or prevent it.

Why is Cheney so sanguine about admitting he is a war criminal? Because he’s confident that either President Bush will preemptively pardon him or President-elect Obama won’t prosecute him.

Both of those courses of action would be illegal.

First, a president cannot immunize himself or his subordinates for committing crimes that he himself authorized. On February 7, 2002, Bush signed a memo erroneously stating that the Geneva Conventions, which require humane treatment, did not apply to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But the Supreme Court made clear that Geneva protects all prisoners. Bush also admitted that he approved of high level meetings where waterboarding was authorized by Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and George Tenet.

What Does Letting Our Own War Criminals Go Free Tell Us About Ourselves?

By Nat Hentoff • The Village Voice

Since I live in the Village, my Congressman is Jerrold Nadler, a civil libertarian for all seasons. Unlike many of his Democratic colleagues, he has never been in fear of being targeted as “soft on terrorism” for opposing the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights. Nadler certainly does not underestimate the jihadists: The 9/11 attacks exploded in his district.   

In The Almanac of American Politics, Michael Barone describes Nadler’s reaction to that day of terror: Securing “$20 billion for the cleanup and eventual rebuilding, he spearheaded numerous actions on behalf of affected families . . .” but “Nadler remained true to his civil libertarian views. He vigorously opposed the USA Patriot Act and the Iraq War Resolution.” And since 2007, he has chaired the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.

In that subcommittee, and on the floor of the House, he fought Bush (and some Democrats) in order to give “enemy combatants” their habeas corpus rights. (The Supreme Court has agreed.) And, unlike many Democrats, he has worked to narrow the very definition of “enemy combatant,” which is especially important. Under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, voted for by too many Democrats, anyone held as a captured “detainee” in a military prison can be charged with giving “material support” to the enemy and can be locked up indefinitely. American citizens have also been held on this charge—which could include giving money to a charity they weren’t aware was on some secret government list—and thus accused of having “links,” however tenuous, to terrorism.

Obama’s First 100 Days • After ending American torture, will we prosecute those who ordered other war crimes?

Nat Hentoff • The Village Voice                                                                               jump to most recent post 
Pressure is building on the new president from his more urgent supporters to begin validating their audacious hopes within his first 100 days. Special heat is on to abolish torture. After all, during Obama’s 60 minutes interview on November 16, he said: “I’m going to make sure we don’t torture.” As I noted last week, he could stop it eventually with an executive order, but for many, that’s not soon enough.On November 13, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture assembled more than 50 delegations of religious leaders in Washington—from Rabbi Gerry Serotta, chair of Rabbis for Human Rights, to Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America—to tell Obama to sign that executive order as soon as he gets into the Oval Office.

1 MILLION FOR IMPEACHMENT!

As Glenn Greenwald and others have been documenting, the police tactics at the RNC don’t look like the America most people want to think that they live in. Then again, most of America is not paying attention. What does Amy Goodman getting arrested for covering protests at  the RNC this have to do with Impeachment? I’ll try to make my case in the video below.

Visit KUCINICH.US to sign the petition today. Then grab this link- and send it to 100 and ask them to send it another 100:
  https://operationitch.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/impeach

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