NEWS: Seriously Though, Can We Impeach Now?

POLITICS: Seriously Though, Can We Impeach Now?

The CIA’s destruction of torture tapes is going to be the big news of 2008. We learned a week ago that the CIA destroyed taped “harsh” interrogations of detainees. How harsh? I don’t know. I would probably know more if they had not actually been destroyed. But what I do know is that there are only two reasons to destroy the tapes:

1) A prisoner said something that we don’t want people to hear. (For example, “9/11 was financed by the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia.”)
2) The interrogation was illegal and our government is protecting itself from being prosecuted for war crimes.

The right wing would like us to believe that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of the agents, which is complete and total horseshit. If that were the case then almost every document in the CIA’s possession would need to be destroyed.

The exciting thing about this very, very bad scandal is that it keeps blowing up. First the Justice Department warned a federal judge to back off looking into whether or not the destroying the tapes violated a court order. Then the Justice Department told Congress to back off, as if Congress does not have an obligation to look into these sorts of things. Take a look at The Constitution kids, it’s called oversight.

Now comes the best news yet, though it is not surprising. It seems the destruction of the tapes information chain goes all the way to the White House. Four White House lawyers, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, Dick Cheney’s current Chief of Staff, David S. Addington and John B. Bellinger III, were a part of the discussions on whether or not the tapes should be destroyed. Guess what they decided?

Not illegal? Seriously? Did they give a little wink, wink, nudge, nudge when they didn’t give a direct order to preserve or when they didn't say destroying them would be illegal? Sadly for them, a strong case can be made that the destruction was illegal.

The government was prohibited from destroying any evidence that could be relevant to mistreatment or abuse at the Navy base in Cuba. But the two victims on the tapes were tortured overseas in secret CIA prisons. How awesome of a loophole is that?

One prisoner’s attorney is not pleased.

On Friday, the federal judge overseeing the case was hesitant to investigate why the tapes were destroyed because the Justice Department is conducting an investigation. You know, the same Justice Department who could be implicated in the destruction of the tapes. Dizzy yet?

How many different ways is the Bush administration going to be able to hide their criminal activity? We know the White House cannot be trusted to investigate itself and we certainly can no longer trust the Justice Department. It is time for an independent prosecutor, you know, those guys that spent eight years inside Clinton’s asshole.

The ACLU has asked a federal judge to hold the CIA in contempt for destroying the tapes because the group believes by destroying the tapes, the CIA violated court orders in a Freedom of Information Act case regarding interrogation. I don’t know what lunatic would hold the CIA in contempt and I wish them good luck with that.

Now that makes two different courts that had valid reasons to look into the destruction of the tapes. But that is not all.

It just keeps going and going. Some members of our government did not think the tapes should have been destroyed.

Yeah, probably because our country wouldn’t have given a shit if they just kept the tapes or even showed them on Fox News. But once you go into the obstruction of justice world, people’s ears prick up and they become interested.

As far as our president goes, he is using a method that was made famous by Ronald Reagan.

Get that? Could that statement be any more carefully crafted? She could have easily said that, “Bush didn’t know anything about the tapes destruction.” But she went with the “He doesn’t remember anything” route, which is highly dubious considering four lawyers in the White House were involved. The White House is being careful because at some point the press may uncover evidence that Bush was told and now he can say, “I don’t remember that.” Hi, Ronald Reagan.

This is what the White House is saying: The president does not know anything, yet his own staff and legal team worked for years determining whether or not to destroy the tapes.

Good luck with that, George. Another big, big problem for Bush is that his new mantra may come back to bite him in his anus.

How many times has he made that public statement? If anyone with a soul saw these tapes, they would quickly conclude the president of the United States is a lying motherfucker. And let us not forget that the Department of Justice under Bush was created to protect him from the rule of law, instead of enforcing the rule of law.

This story is just getting started and it is actually a big one. Sit back and enjoy.

I certainly hope this could be the one, but I've watched them squirm out of too many tight spots before this (abetted by a Democratic Party that seems incapable of growing a spine) to have much faith that this won't blow over somehow. Perhaps by being superseded by a new scandal.

Wether right or wrong the tapes are gone. However does torture of Americans, the English, and other persons considered friends count. We all see their work "BEHEADINGS" on you tube, liveleak, ECT. Who cares what administration did what to whom, it's time to take care of OUR COUNTRY. A little waterboarding I call it a surfing accident!!

Well, that was quick.

thanks for bringing this to our attention. +1.

You can't argue with that logic, though.

But you still have to admit that if it's important enough to torture someone for in the first place it's important enough to have not destroyed the evidence of what was said. Your thinking about it in terms of revenge I am looking at it from the point of what are they covering up, it's no secret were torturing people but whats on those tapes that they want hidden.

We are only civilized when it is convenient. CIA is commissioned to do these dirty little things that have no solution. Why are we surprised that they happen? Do we think LBJ was any different, and he killed a President and subverted our entire democracy. Rant on this a while please. I fear the same people will kill Hilary. I don't support anything she does, but she will still be an elected president and probably will be another statistic. I will be surprised if it doesn't happen.

I'd like to think that this will be the final outrage that will bring these criminals to justice. But I've thought that before, in the cases of:

Illegal wiretapping (which Bush even admitted to on camera),

Outing covert CIA agent Valerie Plame for political retribution,

Firing eight U.S. attorneys for political retribution and then scuttling attempts by Congress to investigate it,

The Downing Street memo and other "smoking gun" documents that prove Bush & Cheney cooked Iraqi WMD intelligence and had always planned on invading Iraq,

Previous torture policies at Abu Graib, Guantanamo and Bagram air base, all of which, with sufficient Congressional oversight, could be linked to top-level decisions made by the Administration.

Not to mention the "minor" incidents that would have sunk other administrations, including Jack Abramoff's dozens of visits to the White House (oops, those visitor logs have been destroyed) and the policy of planting fake reporters at White House press conferences. Oh yeah, and ignoring all the warnings that al Qaeda was going to attack us in September 2001.

In other words, I'm not hopeful. Fool me once, uh, shame on, uh. Fool me twice, uh, shame on, shame on... won't get fooled again!

No Dinner
No Movie
No Lube

i am impressed by the way this story just keeps bobbing back up into view.

"Impeachment?" Yeah, right... 'They' know by now they can do as they please and get away with it, because:

a) Democrats in Congress are not going to do anything about it, and

b) We, the people, are not going to do anything about it either, if our elected representatives do nothing about it.

US citizens = sheep to be shorn (and sacrificed as the need arises).

It is not the fact of liberty, but the way in which liberty is exercised, that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.-
-Dorothy Thompson

or, it's possible that the story will simply gain no traction with the majority of the populace...

Hate all you want, but we haven't been attacked again since 9-11, and even Iraq has turned the corner. While the administration has made more than its share of screw-ups, they're obviously doing something right.

You've convinced me - torture is great. You go first.

Alas, I fear we'll only learn that you can't torture the stupid out of people.

Wow.
I can't even think of a clever comeback for that.
Fuck it, lets nuke everybody. That will take care of our country.

Nothing will be done about this. The Bush administration can do whatever the fuck it wants and nothing will happen. There will be a little outrage, a small report, a bullshit investigation, but nothing will happen.
It has been shown over and over again. Nothing happens.
Bush could execute a babies on TV, say they were terrorists and people would pat him on the back.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.-
-Edward R. Murrow

Your logic stupefies me!

And we were attacked so many times before 9/11. It was like every other day that we were being attacked. And we were never attacked outside the US before or after Iraq and of course that has all stopped.
Not that the corner truly has been turned but there should have never been a corner to turn. All those soldiers and civilians shouldn't have died and all that money should not have been spent.
So the administration put us into a position that it should never have, has trampled the living shit out of our rights, fucked out deficit, killed a lot of people and on and on, but we "turn the corner" in Iraq and they are doing something right.
How could I have been so blind?

And all it cost us was our moral authority (and roughly 1.6 trillion).

What a deal!

Hey, man-
You can not argue hues with the blind. People see what they need to see. Including us.

"Those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin.

None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.
-Goethe