Rachel and Keith barely whisper about the dead, injured, displaced in Iraq

It’s almost as if the disaster/quagmire in Iraq is over. There are not 40,ooo injured American soldiers…forget hearing anything about the the close to a million dead Iraqi people.

Our leaders sure did learn something from Vietnam. Do not show the American people the pictures. Most Americans seem perfectly satisfied to stay in the bubble worrying about health care coverage. All the while the Iraqi people have had parts of their country turned to rubble, close to a million dead, thousands injured, millions displaced due to our invasion of their country.

Feith, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wurmsers, Bolton etc “so”

SHOW THE PICTURES

Those on the panel also kept saying this…Leahy, Feinstein, Feingold, Whitehouse….”no one is above the law”

I guess they believe that theory that if you say something enough the peasants will believe it. “Iraq “has, might have, could, would if they could, think about, moved, desires, dreams about WMD’s” That works for a while but then reality smacks the peasants upside their heads. Watching people go off to wars based on those lies, prison for years for robbing a corner drugstore, growing marijuana etc etc while those who ignored international agreements, re writing torture laws, torturing, started a war based on that “pack of lies” not only run free. But still fill our air waves (Cheney) with their endless lies.

When will our leaders realize that if they want to stop the rotting from within the U.S. They actually need to apply “no one is above the law”

The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law. Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy.

To state that our judicial system encourages acts of terror is wrong and ill thought out. Yuval Ginbar would probably point out that Mukasey is simply continuing the Iraeli “ticking time bomb” defense. That “if” we had tortured in those earlier cases, the continuing attacks would not happen. Now that we know there was no ticking time bomb wrt Iraq, he is walking the “ticking time bomb” narrative backwards.

Article 2 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment states:

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

Mukasey is simple trying to continue how to establish factually that the state has decided to sanction torture. It’s his attempt at the defense of necessity.

It’s a sickness.

If DOJ decides KSM can get a civilian trial, that means there’s enough information to try him and his alleged co-conspirators independent of any evidence tainted by torture. It means the government learned sufficient information about the 9/11 plot via people they did not torture, pocket litter, or in sessions that they believe they can segregate off from the torture they did to KSM.

And that–along with what will surely be extensive litigation about what is admissible–will make it clear how much information was available via means other than torture.

And the fact that “that information” was available to many parties internationally and confirmed by many parties which later joined the US in illegal acts.

Mary stated:

I will once again say that IMO the main reason Mukasey et al don’t want anyone in the US is that we are going to be creating a judicial record of war crimes and torture crimes committed by the US as US policy, in the US courtroom.

I agree but would add that other nations will be named in the process. With the Binyam Mihamed case moving forward with the opening of government suppressed evidence on public record in GB, there will be evidence revealed in foreign courts which will only assist civil cases in the US.

Mukasey is scared of Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Llyod Jones.