Guest / Items
Filibuster of Dawn Johnsen for OLC Head May Be Key to Impunity for Bush Administration Crimes - Democratic Underground
Get Feed- Description
-
Filibuster of Dawn Johnsen for OLC Head May Be Key to Impunity for Bush Administration Crimes
Time for change
Sun Apr-26-09 02:00 PM
Original message
Filibuster of Dawn Johnsen for OLC Head May Be Key to Impunity for Bush Administration Crimes
Our nation has a decision of monumental importance to make.
Throughout the eight years of the Bush/Cheney administration, top government officials have strayed further from the rule of law and moral decency than at any time since our nation first took the lead in establishing a system of international law and morality.
Following the Nazi Holocaust and World War II the recognition of the need for such a system became acute and widespread. The United Nations was conceived by President Roosevelt and led to fruition by President Truman, in an effort to make it a reality. Our nation also took the lead, through the Nuremberg trials , in holding the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity accountable for their actions.
But the Bush administration did away with all that. Not only did they set up a torture regime , but they used that torture regime largely to force false confessions to justify an illegal and immoral war of aggression.
If we allow that to stand; if we confer impunity upon the perpetrators of those crimes, then we effectively condone them and thereby allow a terrible precedent to stand.
Of all the single actions that could lead towards the re-establishment of the rule of law and morality in our country, the confirmation of Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel is perhaps the most important.
It was from the OLC that John Yoo authored his infamous torture memos . As head of the OLC , Dawn Johnsen will be the principle legal advisor to the ...
- Original URL
Comments
Report ThisTwine is about discovering, collecting and sharing the content that interests you. Learn More
Tags
Source Tags
Community Tags
Who's Interested In This?
-
lynn-ecg added to The American Dream?, *Changing America?, The Radical Twine, law & politics, Public Policy, *Hope, *Rants, *US Constitution, Politics, Accountability, Activism 10 months ago
Public Comments
Add a Comment