Hugh, this way President Pontius Pilate gets to vote "present" and not get his dainty hands dirty. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, smirk). Holder is the perfect Judas to get it done. Just ask Marc Rich.

If you've been properly indoctrinated, Obama is the greatest President in US history. If your of traditional American moral values, our country is in a sorry state.

Hmmm. The neocons in the zeal of their inbred anti-Stalinism choose to embrace the author of perpetual war, Leon Bronstein (Trotsky), the father of the Red Army and Stalin's bete noir, and the neocon's first captive president is instructed to "choose" May Day to signal the beginning of a twilight war with the cynical watchword Mission Accomplished.

Believe It or Not!

Obamas jealous that he dont have the gonads to go after terrorists the way GWB did.

Worst loser president hands down ever.

bryanD's tokin' again.

in order to know what is coming, just imagine what an enemy of the US would do if he were foisted into power. because only an enemy of the US would behave the way this guy does.

Rather than leave the debate about water boarding and torture to the American judiciary system .

It has already been decided that it was torture by the Reagan DOJ Justice System, and there are half a dozen other legal precedents.

George W. Bush's Justice Department said subjecting a person to the near-drowning of waterboarding was not a crime and didn't even cause pain, but Ronald Reagan's Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.

Federal prosecutors secured a 10-year sentence against the sheriff and four years in prison for the deputies. But that 1983 case - which would seem to be directly on point for a legal analysis on waterboarding two decades later - was never mentioned in the four Bush administration opinions released last week.

The failure to cite the earlier waterboarding case and a half-dozen other precedents that dealt with torture is reportedly one of the critical findings of a Justice Department watchdog report that legal sources say faults former Bush administration lawyers - Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury - for violating "professional standards."

George W. Bush's Justice Department said subjecting a person to the near-drowning of waterboarding was not a crime and didn't even cause pain, but Ronald Reagan's Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.

What part of US citizen in the United States and TERRORIST in civilian clothing in a foreign country killing US soldiers and plotting to strike the US don't you liberals get?

If this it the standard then I'm sure when next a conservative is president with a Republican congress we can decide that preditor drones killing people is "torture" or against the law somehow. Then we'll have the Obama administration in jail.

If liberals get to after the fact decide what is legal and what is not, and what is torture and what is not then I guess it's only FAIR (you libs like that word) that Republicans can as well.

Libs are starting a precident, don't be surprised when it bites you in the butt.

Sue, to a lib, terrorism is 'a police problem', not a military problem. They get to be advised of their 'rights'. They get to confront witnesses. They get to see evidence. Of course if they're captured on the battlefield, there is a "time out" while someone records the time, date, location, witness names and addresses, evidence is tagged, bagged and photographed. Then the 'accused' is given a lawyer before any questioning is done. That's the way you win wars now.

IF AG Holder decides to cooperate with Judge Garzón, wouldn't reciprocity also dictate that the American government can now issue criminal indictments against government officials from other countries that commit human rights violations? Wouldn't it also mean that we could seize, and then extradite those officials to the US for trial in our criminal courts? After all, who's going to risk a shootout in order to stop a team of Rangers or Green Berets from seizing a top foreign government official in broad daylight, in a public location?

Anyway, this is the craziest, most gutless way I could imagine solving the issue of left-wing moonbats demanding "justice" on behalf of captured terrorists -- dump the whole thing in a foreign court and then pretend you're not responsible for whatever happens. Andy McCarthy is right; anyone who offers a legal opinion to this administration, and therefore opens himself up for indictment and prosecution whenever the political winds arbitrarily change direction, is an absolute fool.

"What part of US citizen in the United States and TERRORIST in civilian clothing in a foreign country killing US soldiers and plotting to strike the US don't you liberals get?"-sue

Leaving aside the amorphic "terrorist" buzzword with the "snipers"(hidden) and "finishers"(hatchetmen, scalpers) on the fields between Lexington and Concord, as a US citizen versed in the Constitution, you would know that human rights are God-granted and guaranteed by compact of the People therewith to "all men".

No, of course you don't. You read Wizbang in between popsicle sticks and Bazooka Joe wrappers. Your logic is nil.

Obviously, your faith in The People has been exhausted. Fair enough. But the path you tread leads to pogroms and genocide because it is based in preternatural fear whipped up by cowardly goons within the NYC-DC big government axis who wouldn't DREAM of fighting themselves. You are the Appointed instead. Uncle Sam awaits. Or are you a "shirker"?

Ok over the shoulder boulder Holder.

Lets prosecute Your stupid ass for tax evasion?? And We dont even need a foreign piece of shit judge to tell us your ass is guilty...!!!!!!

Yeah, your right. Although technically if they are caught on the battlefield they would be unlawful enemy combatants. But, to make it easy we should just label anyone who the military engages in the middle east as terrorists. It would make things easier. Just torture everyone captured see if we can get them to confess then shoot them. God will sort it all out in the end. That might make some hesitate, but the "just following orders" defense is always right there.

Were the Muhajadin terrorist? No uniforms...couldn't have be though because that would mean that the US supported terrorists. Cold War, your right, alls fair and that.

Steve -

one small problem with your analysis.

There are many practices which all fall under the term "water boarding".

What EXACTLY was the Texas sheriff and three deputies said to have done?

5. Posted by GarandFan
bryanD's tokin' again.

* * * * * * *

He starts at a deficit so there's little hope of improvement when he picks up the bong.

As to the weeniness of behaving obsequiously in the face of a foreign court, this administration may find, if they cross that line, that there is no way to "uncross" it. Mental deficients such bD, may clamor in support of surrendering national sovereignty in this manner, but they, as well as the administration will discover that the country is not behind them. They certainly seem to have developed the sense that they can do absolutely anything without fear of repercussion. Should they indeed cross this line, they will be disabused of such arrogance in due course.

Wizbang, You are quickly becoming one of my favorite daily websites. Keep up the excellent work!

Garand Fan..That is why we have a criminal justice system. From yesterday,

The Obama administration's decision to try al-Marri in criminal court has accomplished what the Bush administration was unable to achieve with over seven years of illegal detention and "enhanced" interrogation techniques. It has not only established the facts about al-Marri's own terrorist activities but has made him available as a witness in further trials.

Isikoff explained that al-Marri was detained in December 2001 and was suspected of plotting a second wave of al Qaeda attacks. "But rather than charging him in a criminal court, the Bush administration designated him an enemy combatant, stripped him of al. his Constitutional rights ... and threw him in a military brig, denied him access to a lawyer, subjected him to 'enhanced' interrogation techniques ... and [he] wasn't charged with any crime."

"This prompted a huge constitutional debate," Isikoff continued, "as to whether or not a president can simply unilaterally strip somebody of his rights." The case was all set to go to the Supreme Court this winter, when the Obama administration took al-Marri out of the military brig and charged him with conspiracy. "And today, amazingly, he pled guilty to some pretty significant set of facts."

BryanD,
I would suggest to you in the future when
you decide to deride another commenter you
leave this site out of it.
Wizbang is not a hate site, and your
disingenuous manipulation of involving it
in your remarks is not appreciated.
Don't do it again.

That Is All

crickmore - Just for your information the Texas sheriff and three deputies thing has been posted here several times in the last couple weeks, just so ya know.

No matter how many times it's posted, it will not change any minds also., just so ya know. So quit.

Additionally, I find it amusing when searching "Ronald Reagan's Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies" it returns every whackjob website in the known universe, poisonplanet and truthout are but a couple examples.

So, at least we know where you get your marching orders.

As to your "criminal justice system" comment, and so? Good, it worked, so di keeping this jihadist-cut-throat off the streets and locked up in Gitmo.

I have to ask, just how well did using the criminal justice way of doing things work when Clinton had bin laden in his sights?

You do recall a strike was called off because the legal beagles were called in and they said NOPE, not enough evidence.

You do remember that correct, or is your memory in the "selective mode?"

Finally, view this short vid snippet, and read the story. That's what torture is.

And as a sidenote pay attention to what may be withheld as a result of this vid and incident. Apparently barack hussein obama thinks it's perfectly A-OK to fund and offer U.S. tech assistance to build a nuclear facility there but.......... NOOOOOOOO, never for the use of U.S. citizens.

This is too funny!

Well, funny to many here, but the left, progressives, dems demorats, demoturds, nutzoids and the DKos kiddies (not to mention code pinko and amnesty international) won't think so.

You know that whole obama thing about suspending military commissions for those in Gitmo?

Nevermind.

The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself.

Officials said the first public moves could come as soon as next week, perhaps in filings to military judges at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, outlining an administration plan to amend the Bush administration's system to provide more legal protections for terrorism suspects.

Continuing the military commissions in any form would probably prompt sharp criticism from human rights groups as well as some of Mr. Obama's political allies because the troubled system became an emblem of the effort to use Guantánamo to avoid the American legal system.

"The more they look at it," said one official, "the more commissions don't look as bad as they did on Jan. 20."

Ya think?

"Mental deficients such bD, may clamor in support of surrendering national sovereignty in this manner, but they, as well as the administration will discover that the country is not behind them."-mc

George Bush advocated the melding of the Mexican workforce with that of the US, which the country was completely against. In 2001 George Bush dropped visa requirements for Saudi citizens through his Visa Express program thereby allowing entree of supposed AlQaeda members, Atta and Co. into US. Post-9/11 George Bush escorted the Bin Ladin family (witnesses) out of US jurisdiction. The country collectively threw up on their shoes.

By the time these events percolated through the brains of the avarage American teevee viewer/voter in 2004-2005, Bush and Co. were finished. Kaput. In the bunker terminus.

"They certainly seem to have developed the sense that they can do absolutely anything without fear of repercussion. Should they indeed cross this line, they will be disabused of such arrogance in due course.
15. Posted by MichaelC"

You sound like one of those Arch-Fiends from the Marvel Universe! (One of the sedentary ones.)

Steve Crickmore: re: the Reagan DOJ link:
It's a diamond!

Seems to me if we're going to declare waterboarding a war crime, and permit a foreign court to adjudicate the matter, we should also start an investigation into who originally authorized waterboarding for CERE training. Every president, every Defense Secretary, every Justice Department lawyer and AG for the past 40 years should be put in jail. Every adminstration official who permitted this barbaric torture to be inflicted on our troops should be prosecuted.

We've apparently been torturing our own troops for a generation. This sounds like a job for James Sokolov and Associates! Please contact us TODAY! You may have a major settlement coming from the government! You may already have WON!

James Sokolove! Ha! I love it! Perhaps they have mesothelioma?

So, BrianD, the US was supposed to detain the BinLadin FAMILY because of 9/11.

Did I miss where his family that were here were involved in the 9/11 attack or other terrorism? What proof do you have?

Why is the left insisting that the BinLadin FAMILY should have been detained but give Clinton a pass for not doing anything about BinLadin even though we had proof and the means to do so?

If Bush and Cheney raped you and said it wasn't rape, would you agree? If all the man has to do is deny the facts, how can we be a nation of laws? Remember when Clinton had a girlfriend? Back then, you Rethugs said laws were serious things that had to be followed. But when it's kidnapping, rape, torture and murder, laws don't really matter?

"So, BrianD, the US was supposed to detain the BinLadin FAMILY because of 9/11."-sue

It's called investigating a capital crime. I would have left them comfortably ensconced at the Waldorf Astoria (or wherever they wished to pay the hotel tab). As relatives of Osama, useful information was sure to had.

Who did Bush/Cheney rape JC?

If they raped Me the way Obama is raping the economy I would call it rape. Period.

"As relatives of Osama, useful information was sure to be had."

So, would you have "waterboarded" to get this info or would you rely on their patriotic love for America to divulge info.

914,
I believe the insinuation here is the Bin Laden
family be forced to stay in the United States,
incarcerated in a luxury hotel on their personal
dime. Until they could be interrogated to gain
any assumed valuable information about 9/11
attacks.
But see, that's some how....different.

Yes Maggie I forgot to remember the liberal double standard hypocrisy in my response to bD.

Judge Baltasar Garzon, a Socialist militant- has exhibited a notorious tendency to please leftists' agenda by his issuance of arrest warrant for Augusto Pinochet, his desire to prosecute Henry Kissinger, and his reluctant to charge Fidel Castro during the Cuban dictator trip to Spain.
Now he is committed to charge six former Bush officials: Alberto Gonzales, former Attorney General; John Yoo, of the Office of Legal Counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, also at Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff.
In response to a journalist from Dominican Republic, as to whether he would chargeFidel Castro, Judge Garzon answered: "Proceedings cannot be taken against serving heads of state for any kind of crime, and the standards of the 1969 treaties and the immunity of heads of state are valid. Only an international court has the right to do so." He admitted having received accusations against Fidel Castro but he "had not studied them in depth, given that action was not viable on account of the limits imposed by international principles". On April 28, 2001, Castro stated on the daily communist newspaper Granma:" I do not have, nor did I have, the least concern about Mr. Garzon. Quite simply, I am not under his jurisdiction, nor that of Spanish law".
Garzon was expelled from Catholic monasteries where he was pursuing priesthood for serenading a girl at another school.
In 1993, Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez persuaded him to run for the ruling party PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). Garzon came second in votes, behind Gonzalez. Garzon was put in charge of anti-drug projects, but he quickly walked out, saying he was not being given the tools to do the job. Party sources said he was upset about being passed over for higher posts, in specific having not being appointed as Minister of Justice. He then angered Gonzalez followers by pressing criminal charges against government officials. "Garzon has an obsessive ambition to head the International Court of the Hague, no matter what" says a Spanish attorney who knows him both professionally and personally.
Judge Garzon has been questioned for tax irregularities. He took a sabbatical year in 2005-2006 to lecture on international terrorism in United States, making $ 100.000 dollars for each of 17 lectures known as "Transatlantic Dialogue" (1.7 million dollars), most from sponsor Banco de Santander, plus his regular salary. On November 27, 2006, after his paid trip to New York, Garzon dropped charges against Bank Santander directors who were accused of stealing 700 million pesetas, which according to the plaintiff were not in the bank books. One of the main shareholders of Banco de Santander is JP Morgan. Emilio Botin, the director of Bank Santander, is known as "the man of New York in Spain". Garzon is widely considered an "untouchable". The Judicial Power General Council of Spain confirmed that Garzon didn't inform about his double remuneration while in sabbatical leave, in violation of Spain laws.
In February 2003, Garzón also ordered the closure of Egunkaria, the only newspaper wholly written in Basque language, once again alleging links with ETA. The evidence was never presented. There was an outcry of public opinion against the newspaper. Prominent intellectual figures like Salman Rushdie and Noam Chomsky condemned the closure.
The Spanish judge's quixotic quest for justice is deeply conflicting. The Spanish government pardoned officials involved in crimes during the rule of fascist General Francisco Franco. Fidel Castro was a close friend of Franco. Garzón dropped the case against Franco and his allies. Previously, Garzón had formally declared the acts of repression committed by the Franco regime to be crimes against humanity, and accounted them in more than one hundred thousand killings during and after the Spanish Civil War, among them, the poet Federico García Lorca.
Garzon's investigations crossed paths with another Spanish judge; Manuel Garcia-Castellon was examining the whereabouts of 100 Spaniards who "disappeared" under Pinochet's regime. Garcia-Castellon focused on the cross-border assassination schemes known as Operation Condor. In1998, Garcia-Castellon traveled to United States to ask the FBI for its files on Operation Condor. The judge cited a 1990 legal assistance treaty that calls for the exchange of information between U.S. and Spanish law enforcement. He returned to Spain with information that was already known. Most of the U.S. evidence came from the Orlando Letelier's case, the former Chilean diplomat who was murdered by a car-bomb in Washington in 1976. The CIA had worked closely with DINA in the 1970s, but the CIA never divulged anything about Operation Condor. Garcia-Castellon interviewed Michael Townley, the DINA agent who carried out the Letelier assassination- currently in the federal witness protection program. The judge also interviewed former DINA chief Manuel Contreras, who was convicted in Chile for masterminding the Letelier assassination plot. Contreras reaffirmed that his superiors in the Chilean government approved all his actions. Chilean government documents have established that Pinochet kept tight personal control over DINA.
Margaret Thatcher praised Pinochet as "a friend of England during the Falklands War" in 1982. Columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that Pinochet's arrest was "a blow for the most ideologically selective justice and for the rankest hypocrisy" -- an attempt by "the European left ... to give itself a little consolation prize." William F. Buckley denounced the charges as "an act of ideological malice" against a restrained military leader who ousted president Salvador Allende, who was defiling the Chilean constitution and waving proudly the banner of his friend and idol, Fidel Castro."
Pinochet received another blow when the Clinton administration announced that it would declassify more secret documents that might be relevant to Garzon's case. U.S. officials said the cause of human rights outweighed the risk to U.S. national security. Commenting on that decision, one former CIA official complained to The New York Times that the decision could open "a can of worms."
CIA veterans believed that the evidence could implicate senior officials of the U.S. government, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who oversaw the Chile policy for President Nixon in the early 1970s. Even President George Bush Sr. - who was CIA director in 1976 when DINA agents carried out the Letelier bombing in Washington-, could be questioned. It was unclear if the CIA missed the warning signs on Letelier plot or if the agency chose to look the other way while an allied government got rid of a troublesome dissident.
While Pinochet had been arrested at a private London clinic by an order from a left-wing Spanish judge seeking to jail him under international human-rights treaties, the Cuban dictator Castro was pontificating before journalists at a castle in Spain where he was an honored guest at an international conference of Latin American presidents.
"We do not consider that Fidel Castro is a dictator," declares Willy Meyer, a leading parliamentary for Izquierda Unida (United Left), Spain's renamed Communist Party which led the campaign to extradite Pinochet. While enjoying the fruits of Spain's peaceful transition from the Francisco Franco dictatorship to a democratic system, the Spanish left ignores the cries of Cuba's tormented democratic opposition. "We respect the Marxist-Leninist legality by whose definition political persecution, torture and disappearances cannot exist in Cuba," says Meyer.
The communists documented thousands of cases of human-rights violations suffered by leftists, including 90 Spanish nationals who had gone to Chile in 1973. Most of these were violent fighters who travelled to Chile to support the paramilitary activities of the Marxist government of Salvador Allende and seized the opportunity to install a socialist regime. Chile, once South America's most prosperous economy, was on the verge of a communist takeover. The economy was destroyed by 1,000 percent inflation, nationalization of private industry and the terrorism of Cuban-trained revolutionary militias invading factories and farms.
Allende was condemned by democratically elected Chilean parliament for abrogating the constitution, illegally collecting secret arms and moving the international brigades into positions encircling Chile's capital. At that time thousands of women took to the streets in protest, banging pots and pans in opposition to Allende and his Communist policies. Chilean women took the lead because the communists were brutally persecuting those men who dared to oppose Allende and the reds.
The Chilean army, navy and air force moved to stop the Communists and restore constitutional order. Pinochet had been appointed by Allende himself and had refused to act against him until, in a general disintegrating social order, huge crowds of Chilean women began shaming the military and calling them cowards. At that moment, the encirclement of the capital by the international brigades became incontrovertible. These are the people whose "human rights" are alleged to have been violated when military forces declared martial law, rounded up the foreign-led guerrilla forces and executed many of them. Allende himself committed suicide with an assault rifle given to him by Castro.
In fact, according to Cuban secret agents currently exiled, Salvador Allende did not commit suicide, nor died under the bullets of the military coup participants the 11th, September, 1973. During the assault against La Moneda palace, the president of Chile was cowardly assassinated by Cuban police General Patricio de la Guardia, who was in charge of Allende's protection. While the military was bombing the place, Allende, frightened by terror, ran by the corridors of the second floor of the palace shouting: "It is necessary to surrender". Before he could do it, Patricio de la Guardia waited Allende returned to his writing-desk and shot him in the head with a machine-gun burst. Immediately, he put on the body of Allende a gun - making believe that he was murdered by the military attackers and returned in a rush to first floor of the flaming building where they waited for other Cubans to leave. The group left La Moneda palace in complete silence and after minutes took refuge in Cuba´s embassy, located near from the palace (According to testimonies of high ranking Cuban intelligence officers Juan Vives (Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado´s nephew , the operetta's Cuban president that reigned from 1959 to 1976, and "was forced to suicide" in dark circumstances in 1983) and Daniel Alarcón Ramirez (a.k.a "Benigno" , one of the three survivors from the guerrilla of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia).
Gualdo Hidalgo, former Cuban political prisoner(hun.ter99@yahoo.com)

Marc. I have great respect for the legal acumen of Scott Horton of Harper's, who knows his brief, and wrote the article I linked to that appeared on 'raw story' and elsewhere. He is the one that has been doing much of the work on the railroading of the ex-Alabama governor Siegelman, according to one of my favorite bloggers, Mark Kleiman-

Steve:
Thanks for the kind words. Yes, "bribor" is sort of an in-joke.
Note that it's Scott Horton who's been doing all the work on this (about Siegelman).
Mark

Horton wrote also this piece on Harper's, yesterday which focused on the weak defense, on a video to Stanford student questions. by Condoleezza Rice, "We didn't torture any one", "by definition", because the President said so.

bryanD - "Post-9/11 George Bush escorted the Bin Ladin family (witnesses) out of US jurisdiction. The country collectively threw up on their shoes."

You REALLY will believe anything you read, hear and read don't you? It explains that whole fire DOES melt steel doesn't it?

You're the dimmest of all bulbs.

So Obama says water boarding is torture, but he clarified it by saying HE considers it so. I don't. GW don't. And most people who want to keep our families safe do not. You lefties are really a weak tiresome lot. ww

How about what you see? Scroll down to the photo from left to right: Dick Cheney, Prince Bandar, Condoleezza Rice, and George W. Bush, on the Truman Balcony of the White House on September 13, 2001. Of course the source isn't unimpeachable [Source: (Bush) White House Official Site] but it seems more reliable than the one you chose marc, Scopes was it.

Prince Bandar, given his nickname by Bush I believe, of Bandor Bush, seems as ever remarkably cozy, with Bush Cheney and Rice, immediately after 9/11.

President Bush and Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the US, hold a private meeting at the White House. Vice President Cheney, National Security Adviser Rice, and Bandar's aide Rihab Massoud also attend. [Woodward, 2006, pp. 80] Bandar is so close to the Bush family that he is nicknamed "Bandar Bush." Sen. Bob Graham (D) later will note that while little is known about what is discussed in the meeting, mere hours later, the first flights transporting Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden family are in the air (see September 13, 2001). Over the next week, they will be taken to several gathering points, and then flown back to Saudi Arabia, apparently without first being properly interviewed by the FBI (see September 14-19, 2001). Graham will say, "Richard Clarke, then the White House's counterterrorism tsar, told me that he was approached by someone in the White House seeking approval for the departures. He did not remember who made the request... The remaining question is where in the White House the request originated, and how." Graham will imply that, ultimately, the request originated from this meeting between Bush and Bandar. [Graham and Nussbaum, 2004, pp. 105-107] Others also will later suggest that it was Bandar who pushed for and helped arrange the flights. [Vanity Fair, 10/2003; Fifth Estate, 10/29/2003 ] Bob Woodward will mention in a 2006 book that during the meeting, Bush tells Bandar, "If we [capture] somebody and we can't get them to cooperate, we'll hand them over to you."

crickmore.... and so?

Prince Bandar was the damn the Saudi ambassador to the US, what the hell did you expect Bush to do two days after 9/11 and far before positive knowledge of where and from who the attack came from?

Your delusions match rather nicely with bryanD's - separated at birth?

Good one, Steve.
Sad trombones, marc.

Historic correction:
Captain Gridley was the CO of USS Olympia, Commodore Dewey's Flagship.
Nitpicking, I know but to an old seadog, it matters.
Nice article, by the way.

Ref# 27. Starting to see the light are you? Even through it may hurt you, keep thinking. The truth will set you free.

If waterboarding is torture? Than being in this Country with all these libs is certainly Hell!