ACLU Calls for Independent Counsel to Investigate Bush
Posted on April 13, 2008
Wouldn’t it be a beautiful headline if it were the other way around? The ACLU are jumping up and down over Bush saying he knew about harsh interrogation methods for terrorists and approved of them. Of course they don’t like harsh interrogation methods to be used against our enemies.
In a stunning admission to ABC news Friday night, President Bush declared that he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details of the CIA’s use of torture. Bush reportedly told ABC, “I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.” Bush also defended the use of waterboarding.
Recent reports indicate that high-level advisers including Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet were part of the National Security Council’s “Principals Committee” that met regularly and approved the CIA’s use of “combined” “enhanced” interrogation techniques, even pushing the limits of the now infamous 2002 Justice Department “torture memo.” These top advisers reportedly signed off on how the CIA would interrogate suspects – whether they would be slapped, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning.
“We have always known that the CIA’s use of torture was approved from the very top levels of the U.S. government, yet the latest revelations about knowledge from the president himself and authorization from his top advisers only confirms our worst fears,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “It is a very sad day when the president of the United States subverts the Constitution, the rule of law, and American values of justice.”
Romero added, “It is more important than ever that the U.S. government, when seeking justice against those it suspects of harming us, adhere to our commitment to due process and the rule of law. That’s why the ACLU has taken the extraordinary step to offer our assistance to those being prosecuted under the unconstitutional military commissions process. We unfortunately can’t erase or make up for what has already happened, but at least we can attempt to restore some of the values and some semblance of due process that the Bush administration has squandered in the name of national security.”
The American Civil Liberties Union is calling on Congress to demand an independent prosecutor to investigate possible violations by the Bush administration of laws including the War Crimes Act, the federal Anti-Torture Act, and federal assault laws.
The ACLU have repeated their lies about all of this so often that they believe themselves and assume all of America agrees. They ignore so many aspects of a legitimate debate on this. They assume we all agree that waterboarding and belly slapping are torture. Many of the techniques used by the CIA to get important information out of dangerous captured terrorists are mild compared to things many people’s older brother’s did to them just for fun growing up. Furthermore, many people are quite comfortable with using rough methods on dangerous individuals to save thousands of lives.
Of course high level administration discussed these methods. Lawyers and legal types were included in those conversations as well to cover all the bases and make sure things were kept inside the lines. Just because the ACLU hyperventilates in overexaggerated reactions doesn’t mean their claims have much merit. What they ignore is that the administration discussed the boundaries and tried to stay within them legally. Did they make the right decisions? As the ACLU have even pointed out, both political parties thought so at the time.
The ACLU will spin their wheels on this. The Constitution does not address the treatment of enemy combatants, and they threw the Geneva Convention protections out the window when they decided not to wear uniforms or abide by its guidelines.
Let me repeat Gribbit’s arguement:
I’ve said this before and I will say it until I’m planted in the ground. They are not US citizens. They are not inside of the United States. And they will never come to the United States. Therefore the Constitution DOES NOT APPLY TO THEM!
» Filed Under 1st Amendment
Trackback URL
Comments
14 Responses to “ACLU Calls for Independent Counsel to Investigate Bush”
Affiliations
The Giants
-
Donate
Steal Me
Our Store
Click the design to visit our store and help Stop the ACLU!
More blogs about the ACLU
AGREED–They are not US citizens. They are not inside of the United States. And they will never come to the United States. Therefore the Constitution DOES NOT APPLY TO THEM!
The ACLU is right on to call for an investigation of Bush. Bush should be tried as a war criminal. He is a disgrace to this country.
I often wonder, why do some people read this blog if they do not agree with it. People like Weird Biz are the real disgrace to this country. Too bad a democrat was not in office during 9-ll so we could have seen how they would have handle the situation. They probably would have only said that we would have to negotate. We know that has never worked, just look at Iran.
“Too bad a democrat was not in office during 9-ll so we could have seen how they would have handle the situation.”
Seems to me our commander in chief and his own administration failed us on 9-11; case closed.
The people respnsible for 9-11 came from Saudi Arabia. We should have invaded their country and secured their oil!
Our “strong moral leader” GW Bush has spent billions to enrich his cronies and our Nation is still at risk for another 9-11 today. Anyone with the will and patience can perpetrate such mayhem.
I don’t see how you can defend his failure on 9-11!
So I guess if an American citizen gets detained in a foreign country waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and so forth are all OK.
Just to be sure he doesn’t know something.
You guys are out of your minds.
Dear Weird Biz,
You’re obviously the kind of guy who thinks “Bush=Hitler.” If that’s really true, then why does the ACLU still feel secure enough to call for investigations? If Bush is really Der Kowboy Fuehrer, why hasn’t the entire leadership of the ACLU already been administered Zyklon B mudpacks at one of “Dubya’s Holiday Camps”?
And, cupcake, why are YOU still making idiotic blog posts? Seems to me, Dick Cheney should have been using you for target practice about now.
Hmmmmmmmmmm?????
RumDum,
“Seems to me our commander in chief and his own administration failed us on 9-11; case closed.”
Nope, case NOT closed. You seem to think history started on 9-11. Your brain cells have deteriorated to the point where you no longer remember a little thing called “The Clinton Administration.”
“The people respnsible for 9-11 came from Saudi Arabia. We should have invaded their country and secured their oil!”
Ummm, nope. Nice try, but, hell, as has been repeatedly pointed out (to no avail), if we had really wanted to go to war for oil, we could have just immediately offered American citizenship to Mexicans, Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, and even Canadians. We would snapped up all four oil-producing countries without a shot, plus they’d have provided nicer scenery, better weather, and hotter-looking babes.
“Our “strong moral leader” GW Bush has spent billions to enrich his cronies and our Nation is still at risk for another 9-11 today. Anyone with the will and patience can perpetrate such mayhem.”
Evidence please. Oh, that’s right: on Neptune you don’t have to provide any. My mistake, sorry.
“I don’t see how you can defend his failure on 9-11!”
Sure you can defend it–war is a really f***ed-up thing: you can do everything “right,” plan for every conceivable contingency, fill all the squares….and something bad will still happen. None of the “smart people” in FDR’s administration back in 1941 thought the Japanese would be crazy and stupid enough to bomb Pearl Harbor…but bomb they did, didn’t they?
Dethlanial,
“Too bad a democrat was not in office during 9-ll so we could have seen how they would have handle the situation.”
A democrat was in office during the first World Trade Center attack.
And the guys behind the attack are in prison and it didn’t cost a trillion dollars. And 4,000 soldiers weren’t killed. And the rest of the world didn’t hate out guts.
jharp,
“A democrat was in office during the first World Trade Center attack. And the guys behind the attack are in prison and it didn’t cost a trillion dollars. And 4,000 soldiers weren’t killed. And the rest of the world didn’t hate out guts.”
… and the rest of the story is: that’s why they came back 8 years LATER, better prepared and thought they could get away with murdering 3000 Americans and taking out the Pentagon and probably the White House too. Too bad idiots like you weren’t the ones in the WTC the second time around, or maybe we’d be WINNING this war by now. And that’s why half the COUNTRY hates YOU.
Treasonous Turd.
Treasonous Turd,
“And that’s why half the COUNTRY hates YOU.”
That’d be 1/4 of the country.
Have you not seen the latest polling numbers?
And the biggest tragedy is that so far the perpetrators have gotten away with it.
Had to come back as it isn’t often that someone wishes I was killed.
“… and the rest of the story is: that’s why they came back 8 years LATER, better prepared and thought they could get away with murdering 3000 Americans and taking out the Pentagon and probably the White House too.”
So what are you saying. They came back because we didn’t invade Iraq?
“Too bad idiots like you weren’t the ones in the WTC the second time around, or maybe we’d be WINNING this war by now. And that’s why half the COUNTRY hates YOU.”
Very patriotic of you to wish I was killed.
And I thought we were winning. Just be patient and send another couple of trillion.
Dear Treasonous Turd,
“That’d be 1/4 of the country. Have you not seen the latest polling numbers?”
If you were to emerge from underneath that rock you live in, you might realize that there is more to life than the war in Iraq. I myself did not support that war, nor the war in Bosnia. But I most certainly do want to see our government execute complete justice on those who attacked us, and chase them until they have no place to hide.
The difference between you and me is that once the troops were deployed I shut my trap for their sakes, and for the sake of the success of whatever mission MY COUNTRY and MY COMMANDER IN CHIEF sent them to execute. I did not want to give our ENEMIES any encouragement to think they could attack us ever again and get away with it. That is the CRIME of which people like you are GUILTY. You put your personal little opinion ahead of other people’s LIVES, including the life of our nation.
Whatever my politics may be, and we might even agree on some position regarding Iraq, we will never agree on what it means to be patriot.
Rot in hell, treasonous turd.
Dissent is not unpatriotic.
“I did not want to give our ENEMIES any encouragement to think they could attack us ever again and get away with it”
Nor do I. That’s why I think it is so important to bring Osama bin laden to justice.
Dear all:
U.S. citizens Padilla and Hamdi were both
detained with no access to court or lawyer
in conditions of sensory deprivation/ strategic overload for years. These techniques were developed and studied by U.S.
intelligence in the late 1950’s. They found
they cause the disintegration of the human
mind. In fact tens of thousands of U.S.
citizens are held in conditions of solitary
confinement in U.S. ‘maxi’ prisons that mimic
these torture practices every day in America.
Many of these prisoners are mentally ill and
some of them will be released eventually directly from these conditions onto our streets (literally). The fact that the mainstream media have chosen (again)to not report the fact that the president of the U.S.A. has publicly admitted to “approving” techniques which have been treated as torture by our own legal system for over
100 years shows that our whole system is
in deep moral, spiritual but also pure strategic, practical breakdown. The ‘torture
memo’ of John Yoo shows that the torture
policy of the Bush/Cheney regime did not
stop with a few high level offenders but
bled into our military operations in Afghanistan, were taken to Guantanomo where
a General Miller ramped tham up and then
took them to Iraq where they were spread.
These policies, signed off on by Rumsfeld
and Gen. Sanchez C.O. in Iraq at the time,
infected our operations and caused a complete
tactical debacle. The insurgencies in both
Afghanistan and Iraq were jump started. The
populations of both countries were alienated.
The Iraqi’s had been complaining for months
about what was systematically going in at Abu Ghraib before the photos came out. By
scapegoating the National Guard M.P’s the
Bush/Cheney regime short circuited the real
investigation up the chain of command called
for by Gen Taquba the original investigating
officer and prevented any serious reform
of these diastrous policies. Whatever legitimacy our occupation of Iraq ever had
with Iraqis vanished. The violence and chaos
escalated for almost three years. The U.S.
needs to confront this policy debacle if
for no other reason than to make sure we
stop shooting off our own foot with these
policies. This is about accountability and
whether we are a Republic with a system of laws are a Banana Republic controlled by
an out of control oligarchy. The argument
that oil could not be the reason for these
criminal policies is just ignorant. Iraq’s
oil field was the one major oil field we did
not already have control of. We’ve
been in allince with Saudi Arabia since
WW II. Nigeria’s oil has been in multi-national control for decaes and in fact
their abuses there have caused an insurgency.
Bush backed a coup and then shut down
of the refineries in Venezuela to try to
get rid of Chavez both of which failed and
caused gas prices to rise in the run-up
the Iraq invasion. The multi-nationals got
control of Mexico’s oil in their credit crisis in’95. Canada shale oil became cost
effective after the Iraq invasion and speculation in commodity markets drove up oil prices in ‘03. That covers all the major
U.S. foreign oil suppliers. The Iraq invasion
was a premptive strike on peak oil. It has
failed for everyone except oil speculators.
Sincerely,
James E. Van Looy