I take a look at this individual who has been charged criminally, does that mean he’s going to get his Miranda warnings?

Does that mean the only kind of information we want to get from him is if he volunteers it. He’s not a citizen of this country. He’s a terrorist, and I don’t think he deserves the full range of protections of our criminal justice system embodied in the Constitution of the United States. (emphasis added)

So Tom Ridge, our former governor, is the person who determines whether a person is a terrorist. That is great news since the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is in such financial straits due to the Bush recession. We can disband all the courts in the state and save billions of dollars a year paying judges, juries, and other court costs. All we have to do is get Ridge to come back to Pennsylvania and pay him $50 million a year to decide the innocence and guilt of every accused person.

I wonder why Tom Ridge never displayed this super power when he was governor? I worked for the state when Ridge was governor; I never realized I worked for God. I wonder if Governor Ridge can use his divine powers to hold the “criminals” in suspended animation or something until he declares they are reformed or he sends them to hell. That way we can eliminate all prisons and save even more billions.

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He claims the CIA came to him for guidance on what tactics could be used. I am convinced the truth is even more sordid. Why would the CIA come to Richard Cheney if they wanted to know what tactics they could legally use?

In the first place, Cheney is not an attorney. He flunked out of Yale. He then got a a BA and MA in political science from the University of Wyoming. He failed to complete a Doctorate at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In the second place, the Vice-President is not in the chain-of-command for any government agency. His opinion would not hold any legal wight even if he was equipped give an opinion.

If the CIA, or any other Bush-Cheney agency, wanted to know what techniques they could use they would go to the attorneys in their own agency. The Counsel for the CIA would not want to make such a decision. The agency attorneys would then go to the Attorney General’s office for a ruling.

The Attorney General would pass the question on to the Office of Legal Counsel. The Legal Counsel would make a ruling. This would go back up the chain to the Attorney General (at the time, John Ashcroft). On such a sensitive issue the decision would then go to the White House.

At no time would the Vice-President be involved in such a decision as whether to use torture. I am convinced Dick Cheney went to the CIA, or sent one of his henchmen. He would have encouraged the CIA to use torture. OK, they would have called it enhanced interrogation. Do I believe President George W Bush was involved? Up to his eyeballs.

Cheney is trying to throw the burden of starting down the road to torture onto the CIA and the Department of Defense. Were the agencies responsible for what they did to prisoners? Yes, they were.

Dick Cheney and his ventriloquism puppet George W Bush have to be investigated for war crimes. However, it is probably going to be difficult to build a case starting from the top. The Bush administration has had eight years to hide their tracks. Start with the CIA and work up. The CIA agents and even the leadership is not going to want to be the fall guys. If a persistent prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald is appointed Special Prosecutor the underlings will turn state’s witness in a minute.

If the United States government is not willing to take war crimes to court then Bush, Cheney, George Tenet, and Donald Rumsfeld should be surrendered to the Hague International Court.

Dear Volunteer,

Every time our nation faces crisis, our national experience has shown Americans rise to the challenge. While government has an important role to play in helping rekindle our economy and addressing the problems of a distressed nation, President-elect Obama believes each of us, as Americans, have a responsibility to do what we can for our communities and fellow citizens. We are one nation.

The United States is once again at a crossroads and that is why the President-elect hopes to use the occasion of his Inauguration to rally our nation to commit to service in our communities. We are asking for your organization’s participation in meeting this challenge.

In 1994, Congress transformed the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday into a national day of community service to further commemorate a man who lived his life in service to others. As a tribute to that legacy and the very real needs of our nation, the President-elect and Vice President-elect will launch a national organizing effort on the eve of their Inauguration to engage Americans in service. This national day of service will fall on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 19, 2009 and, unlike past calls to service, President-elect Obama will ask Americans to do more than just offer a single day of service to their cities, towns and neighborhoods. He will ask all of us to make an ongoing commitment to our communities. Never has it been more important to come together in shared purpose to tackle the common challenges we face.

The call will go to all Americans to organize service projects and join others at events in their communities. As the Co-chairs of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, we invite you and your organization to join other Americans to organize service projects in your communities. The Presidential Inaugural Committee will offer Americans a new website to help promote your events and for Americans to make their commitments, build communities, find opportunities to serve and share their results. These can be events that orient people to your organization’s work, engage people in direct service, or bring people together to reflect on Dr. King’s legacy and how they can commit to becoming more engaged citizens. To submit a service event that you will help organize, please go to http://www.pic2009.org/page/s/DS1

We have a great opportunity to set the tone for the next four years and I know you will rise to the challenge. Thank you for all your support.

Sincerely,
William M. Daley
Patrick Ryan
Penny Pritzker
Julianna Smoot
John W. Rogers, Jr.

By Cernig Tuesday Dec 09, 2008 7:00pm

What Donald Rumsfield failed to mention when he famously said that America had to “go to war with the army it has” in response to criticisms from soldiers about a lack of armor is that the US went to war with the army it couldn’t be bothered upgrading.

The US Marine Corps asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to perform the audit after coming under fire for setting aside an urgent request from field commanders in 2005 for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles.

“DoD (Department of Defense) was aware of the threat posed by mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in low-intensity conflicts and of the availability of mine-resistant vehicles years before insurgent actions began in Iraq in 2003,” the audit found.

“Yet DoD did not develop requirements for, fund, or acquire MRAP-type vehicles for low-intensity conflicts that involved mines and IEDs,” a summary of the report said.

“As a result, the department entered into operations in Iraq without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and IED risk to soldiers and Marines,” it said.

Heads should roll for this, even now, including those in charge of Marine Corps procurement, the Corps itself and Rummie as top man at the DoD at the time (and we all know where the buck eventually stops). Their inertia and lack of action even long after it was obvious what was needed led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths and tens of thousands of wounded, ruined lives. We’re talking about at least half the entire butcher’s bill from Bush’s military adventures. This isn’t a matter of history to the crippled, the dead and their families and justice demands accountability.

Can servicemen even bring a class action suit? I’m thinking about if the powers-that-be won’t respond appropriately, which I highly doubt they will.

This would go a long way to restoring America’s standing in the world community. There are already laws on the books forbidding torture. The military has regulations forbidding torture. The only thing which allows the practice is executive orders signed by President Bush and his outlaw followers. An executive order signed by one president can be overturned by another president with the stroke of a pen.

This would not interfere with the work on economic recovery. The President Elect has plenty of attorneys working on the transition who are not involved in the economic program. As a constitutional scholar I am sure Obama could write such an order in his sleep. It probably only needs to be one paragraph long. If examples are needed they are readily available going clear back to General Washington.

Submitted by Vicky on 28/Nov/2008 in reply to On the First Day posted by John Harvey on 27/Nov/2008

What exactly is an executive order, John?

I certainly agree that we should not be torturing people. It makes a risk that our troops could be tortured, I think.

Submitted by John Harvey on 28/Nov/2008 in reply to Re: On the First Day posted by Vicky on 28/Nov/2008

An executive order is all that is needed. Congress already passed a law outlawing torture. It is Bush’s signing statement and orders issued by Bush and his cronies that allowed its use.

You are exactly right. Our practicing torture endangers any member of the armed forces who is captured. One cannot demand any better treatment
when captured than our side gives our prisoners. In fact, several war criminals, including Charles Taylor, have claimed that they are not guilty because they were just doing what George Bush authorized.

There is even proof that the Geneva Conventions work. After World War II the government studied treatment of POWs by the Germans and Japanese.
Germany and the United States had signed the treaties governing the treatment of POWs. Russia and Japan had not signed.

I do not remember the exact numbers but only about 10% of Americans captured by the Germans were mistreated or tortured. Russians captured
by the Germans had about 40% mistreated or tortured. About 60% of Americans captured by the Japanese were tortured or mistreated.

The first order forbidding torture was issues by General Washington as soon as he took command of the Continental Army. While torture has certainly been used by the United States. George W Bush is the first president to explicitly authorize it. It will be a black mark on American history as long as this country exists.