Bush Admitted To ABC News That He Approved Torture. The Criminal Has Been Caught And Confessed. Would Obama Prosecute the President? We Need Investigation and A Trial For High Crimes
skepticl1
Thursday, 17 April 2008
By Dennis Loo
The following posting by Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Daily News'
website on April 14, 2008 is worth looking at carefully, especially
for Obama's remarks about the White House's torture policies. My
comments follow Bunch's posting.
Bunch's post:
Tonight I had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question that is on
the minds of many Americans, yet rarely rises to the surface in the
great ruckus of the 2008 presidential race -- and that is whether an
Obama administration would seek to prosecute officials of a former
Bush administration on the revelations that they greenlighted torture,
or for other potential crimes that took place in the White House.
Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney
General and his deputies to "immediately review the information that's
already there" and determine if an inquiry is warranted -- but he also
tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking
to bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be
spun as "a partisan witch hunt." However, he said that equation
changes if there was willful criminality, because "nobody is above the
law."
The question was inspired by a recent report by ABC News, confirmed by
the Associated Press, that high-level officials including Vice
President Dick Cheney and former Cabinet secretaries Colin Powell,
John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, met in the White
House and discussed the use of waterboarding and other torture
techniques on terrorism suspects.
I mentioned the report in my question, and said "I know you've talked
about reconciliation and moving on, but there's also the issue of
justice, and a lot of people -- certainly around the world and
certainly within this country -- feel that crimes were possibly
committed" regarding torture, rendition, and illegal wiretapping. I
wanted to know how whether his Justice Department "would aggressively
go after and investigate whether crimes have been committed."
Here's his answer, in its entirety:
What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my
Attorney General immediately review the information that's already
there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I
can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material
right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed,
they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want
my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of
Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too
many problems we've got to solve.
So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I
would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having
pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there
possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And
I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in
our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb
policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You
know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings
and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to
pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be
reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there
were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws,
engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I
think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law --
and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.
The bottom line is that: Obama sent a clear signal that -- unlike
impeachment, which he's ruled out and which now seems a practical
impossibility -- he is at the least open to the possibility of
investigating potential high crimes in the Bush White House. To many,
the information that waterboarding -- which the United States has
considered torture and a violation of law in the past -- was openly
planned out in the seat of American government is evidence enough to
at least start asking some tough questions in January 2009.
End of Bunch’s posting.
My comments:
Bunch asks for and expects too little from Obama. He wonders if Obama
as President will look into whether Bush et al have committed crimes.
He should be asking why Obama as a US Senator and Presidential hopeful
refuses to impeach the criminal Bush gang now!
Bush admitted on April 11, 2008 to ABC News that he approved of the
torture. The criminals have been caught red-handed and have confessed!
Where then is the need for investigations?!
Obama continues to rule out impeachment on the grounds that
impeachment is “reserved for exceptional circumstances.” If launching
an immoral and illegal war based on conscious lies that has caused the
unnecessary deaths of between 1.1 and 1.3 million innocent Iraqis, the
deaths of over 4,000 Americans, cost each and every American family to
date $120,000, instituting a monstrous policy of torture, shredding
the Bill of Rights and major elements of the Constitution, including
the right of habeas corpus, carrying out the felonious act of
violating FISA and first secretly and now openly spying on every
American, savaging FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget,
leaving New Orleans open to disaster, and failing to come to its aid
in a timely fashion are not exceptional circumstances, then what pray
tell, is?
Obama continues to claim in relation to the Bush White House’s
policies that his differences with them are over their competence,
rather than their criminality: “one of the things we've got to figure
out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between
really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal
activity.” Was the deliberate lie taking us into Iraq principally a
question of being “dumb?” Is the main problem with torturing people
daily and murdering people in custody that it is “dumb?” What does
this say about Obama’s values? Obama continues to play this game in
part because he wants to be president and knows that the people who
run the show won’t stand for a candidate who calls out Bush and Cheney
for crimes against humanity. He also continues to claim that his
differences with Bush et al are primarily over tactics because he does
in fact share overall similar objectives with the Bush cabal. You want
to ask yourself: do you share those objectives too? Do you believe
that it’s right for the U.S. to carry out unprovoked aggression upon
other countries and carry out mass murder? Is it right for the U.S. to
threaten and to attack Pakistan and Iran, as Obama has stated he is
for:
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told "the Chicago Tribune on September 26,
2004, '[T]he big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to
these pressures [to stop its nuclear program], including economic
sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at
what point ... if any, are we going to take military action?' "He
added, '[L]aunching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal
position for us to be in' given the ongoing war in Iraq. 'On the other
hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear
weapons is worse.' Obama went on to argue that military strikes on
Pakistan should not be ruled out if 'violent Islamic extremists' were
to 'take over'," Joshua Frank wrote January 22, 2005, for Antiwar.com.
[1] (From Sourcewatch.org.)
Is this the kind of country that you want to live in, one that acts
like the Godfather on a global scale?
If you pay close enough attention to what these candidates for
president are saying, doing and not doing, there should be no
surprises about what they will end up doing when one of them becomes
president. If they have tolerated outrageous and obvious criminality
to go on all of these years when they have had both the power to speak
out about it and to stop it as public officials (if necessary, through
filibuster), If they have looked the other way when tyrannical
measures have been explicitly instituted before the country and the
world, then why should we expect them to do something differently once
they become president?
People need to stop grasping at straws and engaging in wishful/magical
thinking. We need to wake up and smell the coffee. Bush et al are
criminals and the pretenders to the throne are all complicit in crimes
against humanity. This isn’t mere rhetoric or based on speculation and
inference. It’s a palpable, inescapable fact. The only way that
justice will be done – so long overdue - is if the people act as an
independent political force – speak out, protest, shut down the
military recruiters, step forward and urge others to declare
themselves, create a different political dynamic and an entirely
different political pole, wear and spread orange – the color of
resistance - daily! The Bush regime has earned the people’s wrath.
Let’s give it to them! This path, while difficult, is the only truly
realistic path. The other paths are guaranteed to fail as they are
nothing but will o’ the wisps. The basis for actions by the people, on
the basis of the moral high ground, to catch fire is powerfully
present. We have seen inklings of this in, for example, the February
Berkeley protests against the Marine Recruiters. But this path of the
people must be taken up for its potential to be realized:
“Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans: the moment one definitely commits oneself, then
Providence moves too… Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Begin it now." – Goethe
It’s up to each of us to make an individual decision to act.
Dennis Loo is an awards winning sociologist, co-editor of Impeach the
President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney, Cal Poly Pomona Associate
Professor of Sociology, WCW National Steering Committee Member,
Declare It Now originator.
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