By Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman
For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the “torture” memos of professional-misconduct allegations.
Lucy and I are so surprised, she said cynically.
While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authors—Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor—violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action—which, in Bybee’s case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.
These so called learned men who helped set up the policies to allow torture to be used will not be charged with crimes while the soldiers who carried out the acts at Abu Ghraib were sent to prison and given dishonorable discharges. They have also been stigmatized for life. Bybee is still a sitting judge and Yoo continues to shape the legal minds of this country as a law professor, even though they both showed "poor judgement". The soldiers, with the exception of Charles Graner, generally were inexperienced naive kids who just did what they were told by higher ups. Anyone familiar with the psychology of prison guards knows that when abuse gets started it escalates and spreads. A very close eye has to be kept on prison staff to keep them from abusing prisoners. This means those in command either let them run amuck or condoned their actions. The history of the ring leader Graner is he was from a U. S. prison and had a history of abusing prisoners similarly to what was done to many in Abu Ghraib. Do you think they did not know this before they sent him to the middle east? It is common practice to torture U. S. prisoners.
Bush regime torture lawyers are to be cleared of wrong doing. This is in line with how justice is used in the United States. They manipulate the laws to arrest those they want jailed and leave those whose illegal activities are condoned free. Prosecutors all over this country(some states are worse than others) manufacture and manipulate evidence. This is why the word prosecutor and liar are almost synonymous.
Dr. Janine Wedel author of The Shadow Elite describes the phenomenon of truthiness (Colbert was the originator of the word) which is an alternative to real truth used by flexians and their flex-nets. These flexians are actually controlling the policy in our country. Saying Bybee and Yoo just used "poor judgement" instead of prosecuting them for professional misconduct embraces the use of truthiness in our justice system to make a two tier level of justice which ends all hope for repairing the judicial system in this country. This is another case where those in the elite class are given a special kind of justice that excuses almost any crime. Other people are charged with crimes and prosecuted aggressively, but duplicitous interpretations are used to shield the wealthy and politically connected. In this case they not only violated the laws of our country they also violated international laws. The damage they did to the innocent people who were tortured and their families, the reputation of the citizens of the U. S., the soldiers who were just following orders, the safety of the world by creating terrorists, and the psychiatric states of many who are serving in the military, let alone the sadness and shame of our whole country is immeasurable.
They manipulate the truth to keep certain people from being prosecuted, just as they manipulate it to convict innocents and get harsh sentences for defendants who are not in their favor politically. They think their objective is a just enough cause that any action to meet their ends is exonerated, yet they call those of a different faith and from a different land who commit the same acts terrorists or evil-doers. The message to the world is that the United States believes murder and torture in the name of God is condoned, but in the name of Allah it is a crime. I have news for the terrorist from the GWB administration who engineered the torture and the terrorists from other countries, all of you are in the same category.
Since the arrest of thousands who are innocent or are sentenced harshly profits the prison-industrial complex these actions are condoned by manipulating the legislators to pass laws to produce more incarcerations. If you are targeted you have no defense, unless you are wealthy or your name is Palin. Why has Obama not done anything about this gulag system in the U.S?
There was some noise from a few Senators for a while, but that noise has subsided. From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
1. truthiness (noun)
1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)
Law enforcement often uses gut feelings about suspects with expressions like, “I like him for this”. They then use their gut feelings or truthiness instead of the real truth and shape the evidence to fit their suppositions about crimes. They are often not the kind of people who are meticulous, ethical, objective, science oriented, or psychologically savvy as people would expect of law enforcement. They also are not primarily concerned with justice, their goals are concerned with being right and winning. Sometimes their goals are political and they want a fast conviction to make themselves look good in the public’s eyes. These are the characteristics of bullies, not mature adults who protect society. Part of protecting society is to make sure those who are innocent are not charged and convicted of crimes they did not commit. This harms the innocent suspects, destroys their families, and allows the real suspects to go and commit more crimes. The lack of real justice is undermining our society.
Sometimes when I read what has gone on in some of the sad cases in this country I am stupefied. They make promises to people to get them to give false testimony, they threaten women into false testimony by telling them they will have their children taken, they interrogate people for long periods of time using questionable techniques, they threaten, manipulate, or torture people into false testimony, they only record certain parts of the testimony, they leave out evidence that would prove the accused innocent, they get the news media to create a public furor against the accused to sway potential jurors, they strategically don‘t get warrants for particular searches, they “loose“ key evidence, they don‘t save DNA evidence, if collected they don't get DNA evidence tested, they use bad science to misinterpret evidence, they leave evidence in situations which degrade or contaminate it, some have even planted evidence. Some judges don‘t allow retrials when significant new evidence such as DNA is brought forward to protect not only their political careers, but also those of the prosecutors.
If you don’t know about the West Memphis Three in Arkansas you might want to rent the two videos(Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2) about it or read some of the information on line. They are innocent and have spent their lives in prison. One of them was Wiccan and wore black(you know just like all the other Goth kids) and the prosecution having no evidence made a huge deal out of nothing to get the jury to think he was evil. They got false testimony against them(which has now been recanted and was based on a threat) and used really, really bad science to convict them. There were some other people who should have been looked at for the crimes, but were not. Once the prosecutors have an obviously false case they never let go of it and continue to block hearings or deny new evidence. The judge who presided over this case is now running for state senate in Arkansas and certainly would not want the biggest case of his career to be overturned before the election (or probably ever), especially considering his looking like he was about to fall asleep through most of the case(he constantly chomped on gum to stay awake). Judges are not allowed to practice as judges after they announce their candidacy, but he was allowed to preside over a Post Conviction Relief hearing based on new evidence and poor lawyering in this case and denied a new trial for one of them. He has already denied new trials before. All this Judge David Burnett cares about is his political career. The really sad thing he is running on the democratic ticket. Note the high rate of clemencies Huckabee granted, yet, he refused to reopen the case of the West Memphis three. At least one of them was not a Christian, so we know why that is.
Try and imagine being put in prison for life or on death row and being innocent. Try and imagine your child in this situation. It destroys lives and the powers that be know this is happening. Our Judicial System is worse than broken. It is being used as a tool by special interests.
http://www.wm3.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_3
http://freewestmemphis3.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=64&28e5bbf660cb545fc854f5c048c7be7c=bae5afe27713c468ff2e6641db0237d8
Part 1:
Part 2:
Remember most people in their situation do not have the finances to get the defense and attention the West Memphis Three have, they have public defenders who do not generally provide a defense or make sure their clients get due process. This country is filled with cases like this. Always remember this every time someone is accused of a crime. Examine the evidence for yourself, do not let the news media decide for you and for heaven's sake never believe the prosecutor until you have seen the evidence for yourself. Look past the theatrics in the court room and look for tangible evidence.
I have spoken with many people who have lived their lives believing the United States has the best system of justice in the world. When they or their loved one ends up with contact with the court system they are shocked. They find out the prosecutors lie, manipulate, use false testimony, coerce confessions(you can get anyone to confess if you threaten or torture them, especially a scared kid), spread false information using the news media, and use bad or false science. They find out judges are highly influenced by politics. In other words judges are contacted by those with political pull and are influenced not by truth and justice, but by how these people want the case to come out. In a system where judges are appointed by governors it is easy to see how favors are owed. There is no presumed innocence which is the foundation of justice in the U.S., our justice system has been taken from us. Thousands are in prison for crimes they have not committed or have gotten harsh sentences. Believe me I have been doing tons of research.
President Obama has addressed the issue of prosecuting those who helped shape the policies which torture by saying, "This is a time for reflection, not retribution...nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.",except when it comes to the scapegoat-soldiers who were directed by higher ups to torture.
The CIA agants are afrad people might find out about all the atrosities they have perpetrated all over the world. Is Obama afraid they will assassinate him if he was to push the ticket?
2 comments:
I've often wondered if the POTUS - any of them, generations deep - truly knows everything there is to know about the workings of the justice system from top to bottom or about covert actions, by the CIA and other possible shadow agencies, within and outside the U.S.
An iffy analogy: how many of us would react in horror if we personally witnessed the way our livestock are treated at the factory farms from birth to the slaughterhouse? How many of us would either swear off meat or, at the very least, demand changes to this particular food-rearing and food-processing business?
When can we finally live by the wisdom that the ends should neither justify nor corrupt the means?
Fynn D, I have often wondered the same thing and there is some evidence that they don't know everything the shadow government is doing from the statement Eisenhower made when he left office, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Then president Kennedy said he wanted to break the CIA into a thousand pieces. They tried to manipulate him into a war with Cuba which he knew could very well precipitate a nuclear war with Russia. They did the opposite of what he wanted them to do in Viet Nam. He was on the verge of peace and some people were about to be fired for defying his orders. The accumulated information since JFK's assasination makes it clear he was killed from within the government with many different levels of players involved.It was clear he would not kowtow to the shadow govenment. The people then just like now elected the president and legislators to run our country not the military or CIA.
Even benign sounding and looking organizations like USAID or NED work with the CIA to affect coups in other countries, putting those who cooperate with U.S. corporations and state goals in their place. I don't know if Obama is with them or fighting against them, as his actions have been somewhat ambivalent. He would have to know if he affected a lot of change he would be in danger. I also have to wonder if the so called incompetence and inexperience that they use for an excuse about the Intelligence community problems is really just an excuse, or have they dumped a lot of the cold war era thinking agents who have been acting as rogues causing gaps in experience. There is some information to support that many have left on their own afraid of the torture investigation exposing their behaviors. We know they were so angry about a possible investigation/trial about torture they threw a huge fit causing Obama to placate them publicly.
-------
I have already changed what I eat based on what goes on in the food industry, it is horrifying. It is not just how the animals are treated, but the antibiotics, pesticides, monsanto's toxic corn, and hormones. The composition of the protein is even changed because of what they feed them. That is why buying locally from growers you know is so important. In Alaska we just can't do this with meat. In the summer it is partially possible with produce.
Post a Comment