No Fly Fishing in the Pyrenees for Cheney

Actually, Cheney isn't among those being investigated...
...yet.

conducted under great pressure after the 2001 terrorist attacks, are now being unfairly second-guessed after many years
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I know that after being deprived of sleep for days on end, suspended from my wrists for hours and then waterboarded, being unfairly second guessed would certainly seem like a horrible fate in comparison!

If the administration chooses to seriously pursue those officials who were charged with preparing for the unthinkable, today's intelligence and military officials will no doubt hesitate to fully prepare for those contingencies in the future,” Mr. Yoo wrote.
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Shorter version. If you insist on enforcing the law, people will hesitate to violate it!

Spain knows a war crime when it sees one, I guess.

Actually, as former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet could tell you (were he not busy burning in hell) none of these people should consider anywhere in the EU as a suitable holiday locale. Although, truth be told, Pinochet's eventual release by that notable champion of human rights, Tony Blair, means that the devil himself could visit Britain with total impunity. Of course, we Americans shouldn't be so smug---after all, what does Obama's protection of these war criminals say about us as a people?

(To elaborate slightly: Today's Labour Party has managed to combine Tony Blair's affinity for triangulating against the left with Gordon Brown's total gutlessness, as demonstrated by his willingness to keep the secret of people like John Yoo as the price of Obama's "friendship". Gordon Brown would never dare to turn an American war criminal over to Spanish justice.)

Joe
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Are you still against prosecutions here in the U.S.?

This is why, guys, conservatives are right when we call you unpatriotic or treasonous.

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And, oh by the way, wasn't senior Dem Congressional leadership briefed on this? Oh yes, it was.

spob:
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How so? What's unpatriotic or treasonous?
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What if a British court was looking into filing child endangerment charges against Mark Foley?
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Would it be "unpatriotic" to express joy at that turn of events?

Time to stop feeding....

@spob
We've been throuygh this before. As Americans our allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States of America. That is not an accident. Allegiance to the document that guaratees our rights, prevents the very abuses that our founders forsaw when they drafted it.
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Why do you think they wrote the right against self-incrimination into the fifth amendmnent?
To protect against torture, you moron!

PD, Yes, I am sure the Fifth Amendment was written to give rights to people who are the equivalent of pirates. Who's the moron? So, Paul, were you born this stupid, or did your mother drop you on a floor when you were a baby
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Oh, has SG crawled out from under his rock to comment too? So how was the celebration in Oak-town--was it fun to celebrate the deaths of four cops? Given, sg, that you think six-on-one racially motivated violent assaults are praiseworthy, your commentary is of no worth.
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Like I said, Dem leadership was briefed on this. So, because they didn't speak up, are they accomplices? And, even Bill Clinton is smart enough to say that we should have a policy against torture (note that he didn't say we should never engage in it). KSM had info we needed. We got it thru waterboarding. I'm glad we did. It's easy to throw brickbats when thousands of your countrymen's lives are not depending on it.

Obama would do the same f'in thing. He's already signed off on rendition. What do you think that entails, geniuses?

...Dem leadership was briefed on this
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spob is probably right about this...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03282009/news/nationalnews/friend_of_bidens_daughter_shopping_tape__161772.htm

Some trash, of course. Suffice it to say that if a Bush twin were doing this, the media would be all over it.

ecause they didn't speak up, are they accomplices?
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Yes.
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KSM had info we needed. We got it thru waterboarding.
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Simply false. You've swallowed a self serving lie.
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None of the terrorists we have in captivity can now be brought to justice because they were tortured. There can be no trials. This is also true on many people who weren't terrorists UNTIL they were tortured.

sz, which of course makes them complete f'in hypocrites.

spob:
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No, it makes them hypocrites and centrists, since they don't actually oppose big-government bureaucracies tasked with organized torture regimes on principle. Centrists love them some big government programs, spob.

Oh, PD, I see you've dropped your Fifth Amendment riposte. Probably smart.

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And oh yeah, we created the terrorists. Gotcha, you disloyal moonbat. And, yeah, we got info from KSM. And even if we didn't, you saying we shouldn't have tried?

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Oh, we can bring these turkeys to justice--military law.

sz, it's just f'in rich to hear them now, calling for investigations etc.

The Conventions Against Torture
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Article 1
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1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
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2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.
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Article 2
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1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
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2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
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3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.
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Article 3
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1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
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2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.
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Article 4
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1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.
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2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

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What Ronald Reagan had to say about the conventions before he signed them into law.
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2137_v88/ai_6742034
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The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.
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The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.
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In view of the large number of States concerned, it was not possible to negotiate a treaty that was acceptable to the United States in all respects. Accordingly, certain reservations, understandings, and declarations have been drafted, which are discussed in the report of the Department of State. With the inclusion of these reservations, understandings, and declarations, I believe there are no constitutional or other legal obstacles to United States ratification, The recommended legislation necessary to implement the Convention will be submitted to the Congress separately.
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Should the Senate give its advice and consent to ratification of the Convention, I intend at the time of deposit of United States ratification to make a declaration pursuant to Article 28 that the United States does not recognize the competence of the Committee against Torture under Article 20 to make confidential investigations of charges that torture is being systematically practiced in the United States. In addition, I intend not to make declarations, pursuant to Articles 21 and 22 of the Convention, recognizing the competence of the Committee against Torture to receive and consider communications from States and individuals alleging that the United States is violating the Convention. I believe that a final United States decision as to whether to accept such competence of the Committee should be withheld until we have had an opportunity to assess the Committee's work. It would be possible for the United States in the future to accept the competence of the Committee pursuant to Articles 20, 21, and 22, should experience with the Committee prove satisfactory and should the United States consider this step desirable.
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By giving its advice and consent to ratification of this Convention, the Senate of the United States will demonstrate unequivocally our desire to bring an end to the abhorrent practice of torture.
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RONALD REAGAN

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What a p*ssy!
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/snark

Reasoning with a brick wall is likely to leave you frustrated
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Anonymous

But hey, sg, you think that a six-on-one stomping of a guy is praiseworthy, and you're not cool with waterboarding, which isn't torture, by the way.

spob,
Disloyal?
You really don't understand do you. General Petraues were to suddenly decide that he couldn't accept orders from Barack Obama, who would be being disloyal? Addington and Yoo circumvented the Constitution and the law of the land. Their actions are significantly more treasonous than anything I could muster. They did so specifically to remove the restraints to humanity that we Americans agreed to adhere to as a result of WWII. They bear responsiblty not only for the waterboarding that you seem so proud of but the light-stick sodomy and the rest of the fun and games that were perpetrated on Iraqi detainees none of whom were terrorists

spob:
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sz, it's just f'in rich to hear them now, calling for investigations etc.
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Who?
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Who is calling for investigations? Joe Klein isn't calling for investigations!
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This is what Joe Klein is calling for (along with the rest of the centrist crowd):
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Indeed, it seems probable that nothing much is going to happen to the Bush Administration officials who perpetrated what many legal scholars consider to be war crimes. "I would say that there's some theoretical exposure here" to a war-crimes indictment in U.S. federal court, says Gene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School. "But I don't think there's much public appetite for that sort of action." There is, I'm told, absolutely no interest on the part of the incoming Obama Administration to pursue indictments against its predecessors. "We're focused on the future," said one of the President-elect's legal advisers. Fidell and others say it is possible, though highly unlikely, that Bush et al. could be arrested overseas — one imagines the Vice President pinched midstream on a fly-fishing trip to Norway — just as Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, was indicted in Spain and arrested in London for his crimes.
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If Barack Obama really wanted to be cagey, he could pardon Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for the possible commission of war crimes. Then they'd have to live with official acknowledgment of their ignominy in perpetuity. More likely, Obama will simply make sure — through his excellent team of legal appointees — that no such behavior happens again. Still, there should be some official acknowledgment by the U.S. government that the Bush Administration's policies were reprehensible, and quite possibly illegal, and that the U.S. is no longer in the torture business. If Obama doesn't want to make that statement, perhaps we could do it in the form of a Bush Memorial in Washington: a statue of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner in cruciform stress position — the real Bush legacy.

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So that's Joe Klein passing on from a respected polling organization --sorry, that's a military justice professor at Yale the falsehood that there isn't "much public appetite for that sort of action", when that isn't true in the slightest:
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By AFP
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WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two-thirds of Americans favor investigating whether the George W. Bush administration overstepped legal boundaries in its "war on terror," according to a poll released Thursday by USA Today and Gallup.
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A majority of respondents said a probe should be launched into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terror suspects.
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Investigators also should look into the former president's program of wiretapping US citizens without first securing court-issued warrants, respondents said.
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About four respondents in 10 polled by USA Today (38 percent) favored criminal investigations, while about a quarter (24 percent) said they want an investigation without criminal charges being filed.

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You can't be referring to Joe Klein, spob. Even though he seems to be implying by this post that he's all for it, in the pages of Time magazine he came out against it. He thinks that the Obama Administration should do something symbolic at best against the wishes of the American people, because when the American people disagree with the Beltway centrist consensus, they just go ahead and write articles for major publications in which they cite no polling data and generally make sh*t up.
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Who amongst the Democratic establishment is even posing as if they're in favor of war crimes prosecutions, spob?

First of all, PD, the violation of law is not a synonym for unpatriotic. I know that moonbats like you, who actually are disloyal, like to have company, but no dice here.
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Second of all, whatever happened to KSM, the Constitution most certainly was not circumvented, or at least by any rational reading of it. What could the US Navy do with pirates? It could hang them. No trial; no nothing. Simple hanging from the yardarm. Well, genius, the relevant provisions of the Constitution haven't changed since then.
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Third of all, the clowns at Abu Ghraib almost certainly were not aware of any of this. So blaming Yoo for those crimes is ridiculous. By the way, to his everlasting discredit, that fat drunk Kennedy's quip that Abu Ghraib was merely different management was disloyal too. Real Americans don't give propaganda to our enemies.

I still have no idea how in the world Cal Law hired Yoo. It's not like they couldn't have perused his résumé and figured out he was THAT John Yoo. There had to be some kind of chicanery going on there, that or Yoo got lucky where Gonzales and Addington have had to ride out unemployment.
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I am still of the opinion that Obama is planning on getting his agenda through until the midterms then he turns Holder loose. I don't see the slow leaks of the Yoo memos occuring without some kind of a wink and a nudge from the head boss. It's possible those that get released are only those that don't embarrass Pelosi or the other leadership, at least not until the public pressure builds. I think it's still way early in the game to assume that Obama will do nothing, but the last thing he needs now is a partisan war, especially without having Franken in the Senate yet. It's a cwappy political game but it has to be played or else Obama will do worse than Clinton or even Carter.