In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.Here's the cable.
The previous month, a Spanish human rights group called the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners had requested that Spain's National Court indict six former Bush officials for, as the cable describes it, "creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture." The six were former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; David Addington, former chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney; William Haynes, the Pentagon's former general counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and John Yoo, a former official in the Office of Legal Counsel. The human rights group contended that Spain had a duty to open an investigation under the nation's "universal jurisdiction" law, which permits its legal system to prosecute overseas human rights crimes involving Spanish citizens and residents. Five Guantanamo detainees, the group maintained, fit that criteria.
The depth of my disappointment knows no limit. Same with my disgust.
2 comments:
Don't know if they were just blowing smoke, but for what it's worth when I talked to Chelsea Clinton during the 2008 campaign, she said that Hillary was definitely going to go after Bush officials for just this kind of crap if she became president...
:-D
We can't fool ourselves any longer. Obama's "team" played on our expectations during the run up to the election, but they only used us. Simple as that. They never wanted to rock the boat and "do the right thing."
Truth is? I'm not sure what the hell they do want or what they hope to accomplish.
At my most hopeful moments (rare) I imagine that a national witch hunt would indeed be a severely destabilizing event and might help The GOP more than hurt them -- as I hear too many of my fellow citizens mouthing the "let's just move on" mantra.
At my most cynical moments (frequent) I imagine that there is a code (omerta?) which governs the Presidency -- and includes a fear that tit-for-tat legal wrangling is to be avoided at all costs, including "high crimes and misdemeanors."
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