May 2009

Jay Bybee is a member of the D.C. bar and could be complained about there and disbarred, since apparently enforcing the laws he violated or impeaching him would just be too much trouble. Except that, as Gordon Clark pointed out to me, the Washington Post just printed a letter from the “senior legal ethics counsel for the District of Columbia Bar” essentially objecting the existence of ethics:

Regarding the May 7 news story “Experts Say Authors of Memos May Avoid Professional read more

By David Swanson

#1: Cheney says that he and Bush ordered torture but did nothing wrong.

On Sunday, Cheney said: “The fact of the matter is that these [torture] techniques that we’re talking about are used on our own people. In the SERE program that in effect trains our people with respect to capture and evasion and so forth, and escape, a lot of them go through these same exact procedures.”

If this were true, participants in the SERE program would be kidnapped and tortured by read more

Elizabeth de la Vega has a new article at truthout arguing that in some cases torture can be prosecuted no matter how many years go by. This is helpful information, but where she loses me is on the notion that delay is desirable. Arguing that delay is possible for certain crimes if certain arguments can be won I understand. But that it’s desirable I’m unable to see. As time passes, the ability of politicians to oppose “looking backward” grows, public interest shrinks, read more