Nice stuff. Senator Feingold wrote an open letter to Holder:
``Recent news stories indicate that you have reviewed the highly classified 2004 CIA Inspector General report on the CIA's interrogation program, and that as a result you are considering appointing a prosecutor to investigate individuals who may have gone beyond the legal authorization for that program provided by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Department of Justice. I write to encourage you to do so, but also to urge you to focus on holding accountable the architects of the CIA's interrogation program. While allegations that individuals may have even gone beyond what was justified by those now-public OLC memos are extremely disturbing, we should not lose sight of the fact that the program itself -- as authorized -- was illegal, not to mention immoral and unwise.''
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/nichols/458450
It seems just today Bagram prisoners are on a strike:
``...Human rights campaigners have argued that these prisoners should be given the same rights as those at the detention facility at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. military argues that Bagram detainees should be treated differently because they are being held in an active theater of war.
Their status is the subject of lawsuits in the United States. A federal judge ruled in April that the Bagram detainees have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts, and the Obama administration has asked a federal appeals court to overturn the decision.
The Bagram detainees' ongoing protest, which began July 1, is over this lack of access to lawyers or independent reviews, said a military official who spoke on condition on anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the issue to the media...''
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jWtVVc1QLSJzE3fGq4wp3l86TutAD99FF7QG0
So far there is Kucinich, Feingold, Panetta, and now Holter debating with foot dragger Obama over an open investigation into the Bush administration, the wars, prisons, assassinations, and gross abuses of executive power.
And all of this shit is still going on. The military is trying to keep its phoney enemy prisoners justice system. Here was the ACLU Ben Wizner in the House Armed Services committee hearing today:
``The problem is not where the evidence was gathered but how it was gathered. Everything we know suggests it was obtained through very harsh and inhuman interrogation techniques that violate the Geneva Conventions. That was the approach of the Bush Administration. Now the Obama Administration is asking Congress to make it legal, ex post facto.''
http://pubrecord.org/world/2250/2250/
What's going on is the military doesn't want prisoners in open court, because the whole illegal prison system will be revealed. It has nothing to do with any crimes by people in prison. It all has to do with crimes by the US military.
It basically comes down to the fact that Obama can no longer claim he inherited the War on Terror. He is going to own it. And I am beginning to think he has started down the same cover-up road as Bush and Cheney. Obama's refusal so far to open an investigation is beginning to evolve into the kind of creeping preamble.
I am pretty certain if Obama does okay an investigation, he will try to limit the scope under the excuse of national security.
What few people in this administration seem to realize is that the whole policy apparatus of the War on Terror is a prescription for committing atrocities, war crimes, large civilian casualities. It was designed to inflict mass revenge killing and mayhem on random Muslim populations in other countries. There was no war. Just pick a convenient country and kill a few thousand here, a few thousand there. Teach'm a lesson.
We just go out and round'm up, torture a few for where to find the next group to bomb, shoot, and round up so we can render them and repeat the process. That's what asymmetric `warfare' means.
This is a civilian police standard practice. The cops target a neighborhood, go round up a few people, run checks on them for warrants, scare them, beat up a few so they will tell their buddies and spread the word. What for? Clean up the neighborhood, so some cheezy franchises can move in along the main drag.
That's what Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan are about.
Somehow I can't believe it. All this is completely un-necessary. Why? There is no reason. Obama had the opportunity to shut down these stupid wars. Now he's cornered. If he allows a broad investigation of Bush administration crimes, then he will become culpable for them, unless he stops them. But the whole operation of these wars depends on committing war crimes. If Obama tries to limit and impede an investigation, then he takes the road of the cover-up.
CG