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Obama Flirts With Show Trials For Former Bush Lawyers
I really wish this whole thing would just go away. Not because I think anyone is going to be prosecuted, but because of the absurdity of it all.
The newly released CIA memos did exactly what Obama intended them to do, inflame his kooky left-wing base.
Obama has said all along his intention is to “look forward” rather than get caught up in phony manufactured issues from the Bush era.
He gave reassurance to the CIA that no one at the agency will be prosecuted for keeping us safe for the last seven years.
However, he left the door open for his Attorney General to prosecute former Bush lawyers for their advice that led to enhanced interrogation.
It’s hysterically funny to imagine the Justice Department prosecuting members of the previous Justice Department for giving the president legal advice.
Obama is too much of a committed a liberal to allow his socialist agenda to go down the shitter for a couple of show trials. The opportunity to turn America into France may never come again.
They have no leg to stand on legally anyway, and it would set a horrible precedent that republicans would be sure to get even with once back in power.
Secondly, the opinions issued by the Bush era lawyers regarding interrogation were completely legitimate.
Moreover, democrats will have to put Nancy Pelosi and other top democrats on trial as well since we know they were fully briefed on interrogations including waterboarding as far back as 2002.
At the end of the day, all the newly released memos did was confirm what most clear thinking Americans already knew anyway — that there was no torture.
As someone who’s pro-torture, I was somewhat disappointed by what I read.
The techniques described in the memos were highly effective enhanced interrogation techniques and nothing more.
Only big pinko pussies would call anything described in those memos as “torture.”
Obama is just keeping this thing hanging out there as a bone for the kooks in his party to gnaw on while he works on getting his agenda passed.
When it comes to prosecuting Bush officials, allow me to borrow a line from the former president and say, bring it on.
-Chris Jones
Blackwater Contractors Prosecuted For Doing Their Job
The cowardly far-left is rejoicing over the news that 5 Blackwater contractors are being charged with manslaughter for a shooting that took place in Iraq.
The five guards are charged with manslaughter and using a machine gun in a crime of violence. Though they are charged in a sealed indictment in Washington, they surrendered at a federal courthouse in Salt Lake City. The Justice Department is preparing to make the charges public later Monday.
Seventeen Iraqis were killed in the September 2007 shooting. Witnesses said the heavily armed U.S. contractors opened fire unprovoked, killing innocent motorists and children at a crowded intersection.
Blackwater says the contractors returned fire after being ambushed by armed insurgents. Just like the Haditha marines, this prosecution is about politics and nothing else.
Those contractors were operating in a war zone where ambushes were happening hundreds of times a day. If they say they were ambushed — then they were ambushed.
A bunch of suits at the DOJ don’t know what the hell happened that day and therefore should give the benefit of the doubt to Blackwater.
The far-left loves to vilify Blackwater in the same way they vilify president Bush and the war on terror in general. They’re are despicable cowards, who only have the freedom to bitch and complain and vilify because of those who fight on their ungrateful behalf.
The men and women of Blackwater are patriots and all good Americans should stand behind them.
Russian War Crimes In Chechnya: Where’s the Outrage?
The entire world has focused their attention on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The slightest perceived human rights violations by the U.S. are broadcast around the world and met with international condemnation. However, what the world has failed to notice or condemn are the very real war crimes taking place in Chechnya.
Russia has been slaughtering civilians there for years with impunity. Russian aircraft routinely carpet bomb villages killing hundreds of men, women, and children. Russia also uses Chechnya as a testing ground for new weapon systems.
Russia’s poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly led Army, commits every atrocity imaginable on a daily basis. Robbery, murder, rape, looting, torture, and kidnapping, are just a few of the things Russia’s Army is known for. Civilians there claim that Russian soldiers often kidnap Chechen citizens and hold them for ransom. If the family is unable to pay, the soldiers simply murder the person and dump their body. Soldiers in Chechnya are usually extremely intoxicated which leads to frequent suicides and accidental deaths as well.
The atrocities taking place in Chechnya are almost beyond belief, yet rarely does the international community even acknowledge that a war is even taking place there.
If human rights organizations are really serious about human rights then they should stop worrying about detainees in Gitmo and start worrying about the wholesale slaughter of civilians in Chechnya.
The extent to which Russia has devastated Chechnya can best be summed up in two photographs.
Photos of Chechnya’s capital Grozny:
You can also watch an excellent documentary about Russian atrocities in Chechnya HERE.
Spanish Judge Indicts 3 U.S. Soldiers
MADRID, Spain (AP) – A judge indicted three U.S. soldiers Friday in the 2003 death of a Spanish journalist who was killed when their tank opened fire at a hotel in Baghdad. Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp were charged with homicide in the death of Jose Couso and “a crime against the international community.” This is defined under Spanish law as an indiscriminate or excessive attack against civilians during war.
At the time of the incident, all were from the 3rd Infantry Division, based in Fort Stewart, Ga. Judge Santiago Pedraz asked U.S. authorities to notify them of the indictment.
Couso, who worked as a cameraman for the Spanish TV network Telecinco, died on April 8, 2003, after a U.S. Army tank crew fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, where many journalists were staying. Taras Portsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman for Reuters, was also killed.
Following the incident, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said the troops responded after drawing hostile fire from the hotel. He said a U.S. review of the incident found the use of force was justified.
According to the five-page indictment, DeCamp ordered the shot, and Wolford then authorized Gibson to carry it out.
“The people indicted knew and were aware that the Palestine Hotel was occupied by civilians, without there being a proved threat (sniper or otherwise) against themselves or the U.S troops, therefore, the tank shot that caused the death of Mr. Couso would constitute an attack, retaliation, or violence threat or act aimed at terrifying journalists,” the indictment said.
DeCamp, who is now an adjunct professor of mathematics at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., did not immediately return a telephone message left at his home. The school said he retired from the Army in July 2005.
Pedraz has issued several arrest warrants against the three, but the United States has made clear it will not hand them over.
The three men still run the risk of arrest under a Spanish-issued international warrant should they travel to any country that has an extradition treaty with Spain.
Under Spanish law, a crime committed against a Spaniard abroad can be prosecuted here if it is not investigated in the country where it was allegedly committed.
In a separate case in Italy that has strained relations between Washington and Rome, former Spc. Mario Lozano, 37, of New York City went on trial in absentia earlier this month for the shooting death of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Iraq two years ago.
The agent, Nicola Calipari, was shot March 4, 2005, on his way to the Baghdad airport shortly after securing the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena. Sgrena and another agent who was driving the car were wounded.
Lozano, who was indicted in February on charges of murder and attempted murder, has defended his actions in comments to the U.S. media, saying he had no choice but to fire. He says he flashed a warning light signaling the vehicle to stop and that he shot first at the ground, and then at the car’s engine.
The judge has adjourned the proceedings until May 14 for technical reasons.
Also in Italy, prosecutors in February indicted 26 Americans, all but one believed to be CIA agents, accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003.
Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr, suspected of recruiting fighters for radical Islamic causes, was flown to Egypt as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, and he was held in a prison where he has said he was tortured.
The 26 Americans have left Italy, and U.S. official have said they would not be turned over for prosecution even if Rome requests it. The trial is expected to start in June.
Resistance to the war in Iraq ran high in both Spain and Italy.
Spain was the scene of major protests before and during the early months of the U.S.-led invasion, with huge demonstrations in Barcelona and Madrid.
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