| |
Glen Greenwald made a point last week that people living in this country "should be made to know" the details of what the CIA was directed to do toward detainees. I agree with him. See the still heavily redacted report.
One excerpt: "...debriefer, according to a [redacted] who was present, threatened Al-Nashiri by saying that if he did not talk, 'We could get your mother in here,' and, 'We can bring your family in here.' The [redacted] debriefer reported wanted Al-Nashiri to infer, for psychological reasons, that the debriefer might be [redacted] intelligence office based on his Arabic dialect, and that Al-Nashiri was in [redacted] custody because it was widely believed in Middle East circles that [redacted] interrogation technique involves sexually abusing female relatives in front of the detainee."
Last Monday, Eric Holder appointed a prosecutor to look into whether there should be further investigation of the CIA. What does that mean?
Ken Theisen writes on worldcantwait.org in "Limited Review" of Torture is Really a Cover-up that "It is readily apparent that Holder's announcement is not meant to hold those at the top of the Bush regime responsible for their criminal actions. At most, just like the investigation conducted after the revelations of atrocities at Abu Ghraib, only a few low-level players will face any sort of 'justice.' Those ultimately responsible for torture, such as Bush, Cheney, Rice, Hadley, Addington, Yoo, etc. will escape accountability - if Obama gets his way."
Former VP "Dick" Cheney took to the news programs and stayed on his offensive against any sanction or even investigation into the CIA's torture.
Center for Constitutional Rights Board President Michael Ratner called the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a prosecutor to investigate whether there should be further investigations of CIA agents involved in torture, a "sham and a diversion." Listen to the whole piece on LawandDisorder.org.
Revolution newspaper has a dramatic poster "Torture is a Crime Against Humanity" and analysis by Alan Goodman, "U.S. Torture-Depraved & Systemic."
Thanks to those who donated to World Can't Wait's work in defending Dr. LeRoy Carhart's abortion clinic in Omaha NE last week, after anti-abortion protesters called him "Target #1" in their effort to stop abortion and birth control access. See a fascinating interview with Dr. Carhart in the Kansas City Star, and get a picture of both his determination in the face of murderous threats, and his over-arching compassion and care for women who need abortion.
We came from Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and New York. Our work helped bring activists from 16 states and D.C. Terry O'Neil, President of the National Organization for Women; Emilie Ailtz of NARAL-Colorado, Kathy Spillar from the Fund for a Feminist Majority. Dr. Suzanne Poppema of Physicians for Reproductive Choice & Health voiced the support of abortion providers around the country.
See Lina Thorne's Doctor Carhart is a Hero: A Report From Nebraska.
While the mobilization recieved very positive press coverage and community support, the story is not over, as the state government has responded to the anti-abortion pressure and is launching an "investigation" of Dr. Carhart based on their continual complaints.
This takes me back to point #1 of this newsletter. How can torturers and those who ordered them completely escape even being investigated, and kind, courageous doctors get harassed, investigated, and even killed?
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait
| |
Prosecutor John Durham is no water-carrier for Obama
September 2, 2009 at 8:28am
The man whom Dick Cheney has suggested is an Obama hatchet man to discredit Bush policies in the War on Terror is a registered Republican who was first deputized by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey to probe the CIA’s destruction of detainee videotapes.
But John H. Durham, appointed last week to investigate allegations of CIA abuse of detainees, is no one’s shill. Perhaps the distinguishing feature of his 30-year career as a Connecticut federal prosecutor is his willingness to follow the evidence, wherever it leads.
| |
Durham helped prosecute John G. Rowland, the former Republican governor of Connecticut, on corruption. He put away dirty FBI agents in Boston in the sensational case that inspired Martin Scorcese’s The Departed. And he has successfully prosecuted a rogue’s gallery of mob leaders, including members of the Gambino, Genovese and Patriarca crime families.
“All I know is, if I were being investigated by John H. Durham, I’d probably save him the trouble and commit suicide,” wrote the author of Lawyerworldland, a blog.
A practicing Roman Catholic and devoted Red Sox fan, Durham has been compared to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who served as special prosecutor probing the leaked identity of a CIA officer who won a conviction against Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
“He’s Fitzgerald with a sense of humor,” Hugh O’Keefe, a Connecticut criminal defense lawyer who has known Durham for 20 years, told The Washington Post.
Like Fitzgerald, Durham has tackled knotty cases for both Democrats and Republicans. In the late 1990s, the Clinton Justice Department made him special prosecutor to investigate allegations that the FBI in Boston was colluding with James “Whitey” Bulger and his Winter Hill Gang. Former FBI agent John J. “Zip” Connolly Jr. was indicted in 1999 on charges that he had alerted Bulger to investigations, falsified FBI reports to cover his crimes and accepted bribes.
Since being tapped by the Bush administration 19 months ago, Durham has headed the inquiry into the 2005 destruction of CIA videotapes that depicted brutal waterboarding of high-value terrorism suspects. The investigation is unfolding before a grand jury in Alexandria, although it is unclear whether anyone will be charged, according to the Post.
Now, on behalf of another Democratic administration, he will examine allegations that CIA employees broke laws in connection with a number of cases involving interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other possible secret sites. Durham will make a recommendation to the attorney general about whether to launch a full-scale criminal investigation.
Even for a man routinely described as fearless, that is a daunting assignment.
But Durham’s reply to a reporter’s question at a long-ago press conference in Boston about a probe into FBI corruption may be instructive.
“Does the Department of Justice have the stomach to pursue this investigation to its conclusion?” the reporter asked, according to a 2001 profile of Durham in The Hartford Courant.
“The government absolutely has the stomach,” Durham answered.
It was the only question he took that day.