At what point do progressives stop being Democrats' whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? David Sirota wrote today about Obama's latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions.

How many of the extreme right-wing and criminal policies of Bush-Cheney has Obama adopted? How many of those extreme right-wing policies has he exceeded? Last month, knowledge that Obama has gone a step further than Bush, authorizing the executive branch to murder American citizens on the flimsiest of rationales. This sh__ has GOT to end.

By David Swanson

No one disputes that Jay Bybee's name is at the bottom of memos that were, and to some extent still are, treated as laws which legalized aggressive war at the pleasure of a president and a variety of acts of torture. For many months the House Judiciary Committee has had two excuses for not impeaching Judge Bybee, even while proceeding with the impeachments of a judge for groping and another judge for petty corruption. The private excuse has been that impeaching Bybee would be opposed by Fox News. The public excuse has been that the Justice Department has not yet released its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report on the crimes of Bybee and his former colleagues.

Jon Walker over at Fire Dog Lake makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster.

In which apology would be warranted for being prematurely correct....

The time was one year ago, and fresh off Teh Greatest Inaugural Speech Evah, President Barack Obama grandly (and with no small amount of self-congratulation) signed an executive order to close Bush's illegal imprisonments at Guantanamo Bay. He gave a deadline of one year.....

AP:

The government on Friday released a long-secret list of some 645 detainees held at a military base in Afghanistan, providing the information as part of a lawsuit seeking details of the treatment of terror suspects.

The list was just a small part of roughly 2,000 pages of documents that were released related to various lawsuits seeking government papers about detainees.

The identities of the detainees at Bagram air base had been sought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The list is dated Sept. 22, 2009.

ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman said the government should also provide the details of how the inmates were captured and why they are being held.

An organization of attorneys, journalists, and advocates today filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act requesting the long-suppressed report from the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) regarding the conduct of President Bush's top lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel who authored memos purporting to authorize torture and aggressive war.

The request, reproduced below along with a transmittal letter, asks for the OPR report that has long been promised by Attorney General Eric Holder, as well as an earlier OPR report completed during the last months of the Bush administration. The request also seeks the 10 page rebuttal of the 2008 report by then- Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

We're right back where we've really always been, aren't we?

"I share the President’s conviction that as a nation, we must, to the extent possible, look forward and not backward when it comes to issues such as these. While this Department will follow its obligation to take this preliminary step to examine possible violations of law, we will not allow our important work of keeping the American people safe to be sidetracked.

Greg Sargent's reporting on the release of CIA documents, apparently requested by Dick Cheney. From his RSS feed today:

I’ve also confirmed that the CIA will release a declassified version of the chapter in the CIA Inspector General’s 2004 report that’s widely expected to conclude that there’s no proof torture foiled any attacks.

What this means: The debate over whether torture worked is going to flare up in a big way today — and there may be a strong blast of evidence knocking down Cheney’s claims.

I get email from the ACLU, which I've donated membership fees to and wait my card to carry from. :) But this is a serious matter, and I'm asking y'all to join me in sending this video to the Attorney General along with a letter asking him to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the torture of POWs under the Bush regime.

My somewhat personalized version of the letter's over the jump:

A United States Air Force Reservist, Major David Frakt, JAG Corps, has promised to continue fighting on behalf of his client, as the Obama Administration is opposed to the young man's release. Major Frakt's expertise has earned accolades outside the courtroom, from the ACLU to firedoglake.

A federal judge who had earlier challenged the government's evidence against the detainee ordered him released today, offering a further curb to the unitary executive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/us/31gitmo.html

“Enough has been imposed on this young man to date,” the judge, Ellen Segal Huvelle, said in a courtroom crowded with people drawn by what had become a confrontation between the judge and the Obama administration.

But it was not clear Thursday whether Judge Huvelle’s order will mean freedom for the detainee, Mohammed Jawad, who has long faced American charges that, as a teenager, he threw a hand grenade in Kabul in 2002 that injured two American servicemen and their Afghan interpreter.

The ruling on Thursday came after a concession by the government last week that it could no longer defend Mr. Jawad’s military detention in the habeas corpus case before Judge Huvelle. She had declared that the administration’s case for continuing his detention after nearly seven years was “riddled with holes” and that virtually all of the government’s evidence came from confessions he made after being threatened with death.

Justice Department officials said they were studying whether to file civilian criminal charges against Mr. Jawad. If they do, officials say, he could be transferred to the United States to face charges, instead of being sent to Afghanistan, where his lawyers say he would be released to his mother.

“It is a very real possibility,” a Justice Department official said in an interview, “but whether we can compile enough evidence to support a case is a question we don’t yet know the answer to.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the department does not discuss investigations.

Mr. Jawad’s military lawyer, Maj. David J. R. Frakt, said he would file court challenges to any effort by the administration to move his client to the United States to face charges. But Major Frakt conceded that the Aug. 21 deadline Judge Huvelle gave the government to send Mr. Jawad to Afghanistan also gave prosecutors time to work on a grand jury investigation.

“We have won the battle,” he said outside the federal courthouse here. “Have we won the war? Perhaps it remains to be seen.”

Mohamed Jawad's age is unknown. He was accused of taking part in a 2002 grenade attack that injured two GIs and a translator in Kabul, but Major Frakt has provided evidence that at least three adults

From the Daily Mail:

Hillary Clinton has threatened to end intelligence sharing with Britain if the High Court publishes its findings on what happened to former terror detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Letters from the U.S. Secretary of State and the CIA to the Government warn they will cease co-operation with British counterparts if two judges release details about Mr Mohamed's alleged torture.

Human rights campaigners yesterday claimed the threat - which could put British lives at risk - was merely a ' smokescreen', but Foreign Secretary David Miliband insisted it was serious.

New President, new Congress, new policy, new rules, new Joint Chiefs, new chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Same old torture. Same old coverup.

Six months in,

I'm sure you all recall the early days of the NSA Hoovering up all domestic data warrantless wiretapping scandal, when they referred to it as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" and assured us that they were only targeting Al-Qaeda operatives.

Naturally, this turned out to be a lie enhanced duplicity technique, because it turns out they were spying on all of us everyday American citizens. Nobody was off the target list, and we were all potential Al-Qaeda operatives.

Now, there's a big hubbub about some sketchy CIA assassination ring, apparently answering to Cheney himself. Nobody's willing to talk about the nitty-gritty details, but it's enough to have even Nancy "off the table" Pelosi spooked or pissed off enough to start publicly discussing how fucked-up it was, whatever "it" was.

The public justification for this shadowy, super-classified, apparently reprehensible death squad?

They were only targeting Al-Qaeda operatives.

Yeah, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit. Does anyone seriously doubt that what we'll eventually learn is that they formed a group to assassinate American citizens in the National Interest? Consider this, via TPM:

Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, told TPMmuckraker that because we've been in a state of war against al Qaeda since just after September 11, there would have been no need for a secret CIA program that received special legal authorization...

As for what the program did involve, Cannistraro suggested that it involved Americans as targets, and that it went beyond surveillance, but declined to elaborate. He added that, though Cheney may have directly ordered the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, the veep wasn't acting alone. "The approval was from the president," said Cannistraro.

Hmm, I wonder...

These are ugly images, so I'm warning you ahead of time.
The person who originally put them online has seen more and speaks about that in a posting at another blog.

Australians have seen more of the photos that the Obama administration is refusing to release, if I read that posting right. It is important that we keep after the Democrats in Congress and in the Obama administration so that the torture Bush and Cheney ordered is not the torture Bush and Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld, and their myriad minions, get away with.

More pictures beyond the break.

is this one, and for those of you whose delicate sensibilities preclude a visit to DKos, this time you should go read it anyway, because it's not cross-posted anywhere else. Don't let it be the last thing you read at night, though.

Just laying this down as a data point:

And then the teacher walked in. He had a gray crew cut, a message-free tank top and shorts, without a Buddhist bead or Sanskrit phrase visible anywhere.

“Come on people, let’s get started,” he said in a New York accent, as if leading a conference call.

Then he cranked up “Misty Mountain Hop” by Led Zeppelin and led the students through a warm-up of sun salutations. Soon he had them stretching into a difficult split pose.

Oh, Obama's failing us again because Gitmo's still open!!!!! Outrage meter up to 11-plus, Stat! Call for impeachment! This is horrible! We were promised CHANGE, and we're getting NOTHING but rhetorical flourishes!!!

Only not so much, because Obama isn't Bush, and it turns out you have to have money to close a prison -- even one as heinous as Guantanamo Bay's military detainment center.

President Obama will seek today to wrest back control of the debate on the future of Guantánamo Bay after the Senate stripped $80 million (£50 million) earmarked for closing the detention centre from a war funding Bill.

Yesterday’s 90-6 vote, after a similar decision by the House of Representatives last week, shows how far the Administration’s national security agenda risks being blown off course by powerful political crosswinds even within a Democratic-dominated Congress.

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said that the Administration had to work with Congress on a number of tough choices resulting from a “hasty decision” to close the base: “The President has not decided where some of the detainees will be transferred.”

Mr Obama will deliver what aides describe as a big-picture speech clarifying the philosophy that led him to order the closure of the detention camp in southeastern Cuba and publish secret memos on interrogation techniques — while resorting to many of the same security tools or legal arguments for which the Bush Administration was widely denounced.

You also have to figure out where to send the people who are in that prison when you close it. Some of them you can probably just turn loose because you had no right to hold them in the first place. Others you might need to hang onto, but nobody wants to help you make sure they're safely (let alone humanely) detained.

The vote came as FBI Director Robert Mueller warned that bringing the bad guys here presented risks that ranged from “concerns about providing financing, radicalizing others” to increasing “the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States.” And, of course, somewhere there breathes a federal judge who will seek to begin the process to release them, even here if no other nation will take them.
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), responding to public concerns, has introduced legislation called “Protecting America’s Communities Act” to prohibit the transfer. Said Chambliss:
“People across America are very concerned that this administration has not developed a plan for what to do with these hard-core terrorists once the detention center at Guantanamo is shuttered. Americans are concerned that they will be released into the United States. It is important to remember most detainees held at Guantanamo were captured on the battlefields in Afghanistan or Iraq and were determined to be a threat to our nation’s security. Whatever their ties to terrorists groups or activities, these individuals should never be given the privilege of crossing our borders, even if incarcerated. To do so would be nothing short of an invitation for al-Qaida to operate inside our homeland.”
Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution, Congress has the absolute power to exclude aliens for security reasons that include terrorist activities, he said. He;d add to the no-entry list “an alien who, as of January 1, 2009, was being detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.”
Other provisions would seek to ensure that if the President does find a way to transfer them here, they won’t be released until another country is willing to take them. The legislation also acknowledges that armed conflict exists with al-Qaida, the Taliban and related forces and reaffirms the President’s authority to detain enemy fighters regardless of where they’re captured.

Some of them you probably shouldn't just turn loose, and some of them -- especially from a place as heinous as Gitmo -- it would be inhumane not to take care of, considering the damage that's been done them in our names because we were stupid enough not to actively stop w and Cheney when we had the chance.
So now we have to live with the consequences, and it's not fun. But if we're going to turn ours back into a better nation,

but it's one I found today re: Gen. J. Karpinski.

As I was reminded while perusing another blog today -- where I found not merely an account of the murder of young Emmitt Till but a photo of his corpseafter its recovery from the river where his body was "hidden". Graphic? Sensational? Disturbing? Damn straight -- and damn sure necessary, in its day and time, to make utterly clear the distribution, extent and severity of not just his fate but the unsung and unremarked and undeserved fates of countless other black men, boys, children, and women at the hands of racists in the US. Did that photo help convict the men who killed that boy? No. But it changed the limits of tolerance for a generation of Americans. That's why hiding the torture photos is wrong.

to be sent with the help of the ACLU.

Here's mine:

President Barack Hussein Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Dear Mr. President:

Today I read that you have changed your mind about revealing the photographic evidence of the torture and war crimes committed against detainees by contractors and American GIs in Iraq, Guantanamo, and other secret prisons.

I am so ashamed to hear that you have chosen to bolster the dishonesty and cover up the lawbreaking instituted by the previous administration during this wanton war.

Say what you will about the former Minnesota governor and ex-wrestler, Jesse Ventura has some cred on this issue: a SERE school survivor, he served as a SEAL in the Navy in the Vietnam era.   Read more…

Just aksin.

Would it be wrong not to?

There is nothing, *nothing* that is "funny" nor "entertaining" nor easily dismissed, about the act of torture. Ever.

This is not hard for civilized people to understand. And religious people, too. Their sacred texts agree. And decent atheists, and humanists, and people who love children, or care for the weak and helpless. Or have been such.

I am likely too "serious" for this business, but I feel all my Divinity School training coming forth, as well as my personal experience as an abuse survivor. Please, stop the jokes and foolish dismissals of the American, and indeed all, record of "approved" methods of torture. As they say, 'you don't know it's not funny until it happens to you." Just stop it. And stop excusing it.

This extends not only to the current and past administrations, but all those who would make a joke of child-rape, or electrocution, or any of the other humiliations and tortures of those who are the subject of current discussion, regardless of how well they suit the purpose of casual snarking. It's disgusting. Inhumane. And most of all, something that will rebound ten-fold upon those who treat it casually, if that is the only thing that motivates. Yes, it can happen to you. And I promise you, you won't laugh when it does.

Because, as she points out, unless we WIN we don't accomplish anything. This is why I think you need to hear her out:

First, the bottom line: From the perspective of anyone who wants Bush and Cheney and their top aides to be held accountable for their crimes, the designation of some sort of independent prosecutor right now would be the worst possible eventuality. It's a move that has so many downsides - and holds so few real benefits - that I would be more inclined to question President Obama's motives if he appointed a special prosecutor than if he did not.

J'adore Russ Feingold, all over again. Because Russ Feingold (D.-Spinal Integrity) doesn't think Peggy Noonan's point of view is legitimate any more than I do.

"If you want to see just how outrageous this is, I refer you to the remarks made by Peggy Noonan this Sunday," he said, referring to the longtime conservative columnist's appearance on ABC's This Week. "I frankly have never heard anything quite as disturbing as her remark that was something to the affect of: 'well sometimes you just have to move on.'"

"Some things in life need to be mysterious," Noonan said on Sunday about the release of the torture memos. "Sometimes you need to just keep walking. ... It's hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, oh, much good will come of that."

Feingold's remarks, delivered before the Religious Action Center convention, represent some of the most forceful pushback against the line coming out of the White House to date. Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod have suggested that prosecution of Bush officials is likely off the table due to the political sensitivities that would accompany such retroactive action. On Tuesday morning, however, the New York Times reported that White House "aides did not rule out legal sanctions for the Bush lawyers who developed the legal basis for the use of the techniques."

A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a long-time critic of torture, Feingold viewed investigations and, perhaps, prosecutions as a key tool to restoring America's moral standing.

The Wisconsin solon also understands how poverty motivates both pirates and terrorists, and that the two need not be seen as interchangeable.