Charlottesville Right Now (Subscribe) Charlottesville Right Now: 11-15-11 David Swanson David Swanson joins Coy to discuss Dick Cheney postponing his visit to The University of Virginia and Occupy Charlottesville.

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Number 5. When John Yoo came here, he got a good rowdy rule-of-law unwelcome, which no doubt made the Miller Center hesitate to promise Cheney a room free of decent human beings.

Number 4. Our brothers and sisters in San Francisco confronted Cheney with his crimes last week.

Number 3. It's a heck of a lot of crimes.

Number 2. Cheney just might have found himself face-to-face with a set of handcuffs.

And the Number 1 reason Cheney won't be seen at the University of Virginia this week: The first part of a Chicken Hawk is the chicken.

Another year, another war criminal book-touring at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.

This time, at 11 a.m. on November 16th, it'll be Dick Cheney.

The Miller Center is not allowing members of the public to attend on a first-come basis, as is the standard practice.  Instead, it is asking people to send an email to dcforum@virginia.edu and then wait for approval to attend.

Whether any or some or all people not known by the Miller Center to be welcoming of war criminals are being screened out we do not yet know. 

Reasons some might ask Cheney uncomfortable questions during his Q&A include:

--Cheney lied to and defrauded the public and the Congress to launch a war on Iraq.

--Cheney pressured the CIA to assist in that fraud.

--Cheney threatened and worked to promote war on Iran.

--Cheney lied to the public and Congress in an effort to launch a war on Iran.

--Cheney led a campaign of retribution against whistleblower Joseph Wilson, including the outing of a covert CIA operative.

--Cheney refused to comply with Congressional subpoenas and obstructed Department of Justice investigations.

--Cheney profited financially from his war-making through compensation from Halliburton.

--Cheney led efforts to create programs of warrantless spying, lawless imprisonment, and torture.

--Cheney created the secret Energy Task Force which operated in defiance of open-government laws.

--Cheney violated laws on the handling of classified information and destroyed official visitors logs.

--Cheney Suppressed Evidence in the California Energy Crisis.

--Cheney continues to make false claims as well as to openly brag about many of these offenses.

For more information, see http://warisacrime.org/cheneycrimes

Two Years Ago Obama Decided Not to Prosecute Torturers
Now We Get An Account of Why
By David Swanson

If you can think back all the way to January 2009, back when wars were ending, Guantanamo was closing, the Pentagon was getting oversight, employees were going to have free choice, the rich would start paying taxes, the air would be getting cleaner, and so forth, you'll recall that the Obama transition team was acting super populist and high-tech.

They had questions from ordinary people for the President Elect submitted on their website and voted up or down. The top question at the end of the voting had come from Bob Fertik of Democrats.com and it was this:

I recently sat down for 90 minutes to speak with six Afghan judges, all of them women, and an English-Dari interpreter, a man. They spoke to me as individuals. They aren't preparing any investigations or indictments. The relevance of their being judges is that they know the law. They've studied international law, and they were visiting the United States to learn about our legal and political systems. They believe the United States is guilty of war crimes.

Nailing Rupert Murdoch for his employees' phone tapping or bribery would be a little like bringing down Al Capone for tax fraud, or George W. Bush for torture. I'd be glad to see it happen but there'd still be something perverse about it.

I remember how outraged Americans were in 2005 learning about our government's warrantless spying, or for that matter how furious some of my compatriots become when a census form expects them to reveal how many bathrooms are in their home.

I'm entirely supportive of outrage. I just have larger crimes in mind. Specifically this:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
"Article 20
"1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law."

Statutes of limitations for torture not resulting in death have passed. The DOJ has refused to prosecute 99 of 101 cases of torture-to-death that it looked at. Obama has long since publicly told the DOJ not to prosecute the CIA for torture. Obama's torture of Bradley Manning has been widely ignored. Rendition has been established as normal. Torturers have published confessional/bragging memoirs. Habeas corpus has been formally ended. The Bagram-Gitmo archipelago is here to stay. Torture continues in Iraq, Afghanistan, elsewhere. Assassinations have been established as the truly big new fashion. Harold Koh has replaced John Yoo as the Guy Who Will "Legalize" Anything. We've got more illegal wars going at once than ever before. Congress has practically dropped the pretense of a rule of law. The President can't clear his throat without opposing "relitigating the past," as if on the planet he comes from it is common to litigate the future. And Human Rights Watch has chosen this moment to announce that Bush and Cheney might just have been responsible for torture?

(Washington, DC) - Overwhelming evidence of torture by the Bush administration obliges President Barack Obama to order a criminal investigation into allegations of detainee abuse authorized by former President George W. Bush and other senior officials, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Obama administration has failed to meet US obligations under the Convention against Torture to investigate acts of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, Human Rights Watch said.

Hey, thanks, Sherlock.  What was your first clue? 

I'm glad someone still cares.  But why not care a little faster?  This report ends by reviewing foreign efforts to step in where the U.S. justice system has failed, and U.S. efforts -- successful thus far -- to prevent that.

If Human Rights Watch turns against illegal wars someday, we can perhaps expect a review of the bombing of Libya several years after it ceases.  And we'll be better off, I guess.  But why not speak up at the time? If Bush and Cheney belong in prison, why would it have been so unacceptably impolite to impeach them and remove them from office?