Obama - If Elected, Would Investigate Bush Administration For Possible Torture Crimes (1 Viewer)

[DadsDream]

Philidelphia Daily News
Obama would ask his AG to "immediately review" potential of crimes in Bush White House
by Will Bunch
Monday, April 14, 2008
Obama would ask his AG to "immediately review" potential of crimes in Bush White House | Philadelphia Daily News | 04/14/2008

Obama's Statement in its entirety:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

 

[LSSpam]

Zero percent chance it would ever amount to anything. Rhetoric.

 

[LSSpam]

Oh just to clarify.

1) I do not support torture

2) I do not think this administration is "clean" in that regard

But these sorts of comments smack of the same stuff the Democrats, as a party, were saying in 2006 prior to the congressional elections. As you've noticed, nothing came of it.

"Zero percent" is probably too strong but you can predict the drill, lot of noise is made, official inquires are lodged, and it disappears from the news cycle.

 

[DadsDream]

He gave and he took. His AG will investigate. He wouldn't want to impeach. I love it.

Yes, as an exercise in rhetoric to mollify both sides in an argument, this is a classic.

 

[Jeff Miller]

FYI, the US Congress is above the law, as it exempts itself from most of the statues it passes.

 

[LSSpam]

Here, this is what i'm specifically being reminded of

Democrats Won't Try To Impeach President

In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Pelosi said a Democratic-controlled House would launch investigations of the administration on energy policy and other matters. She said impeachment would not be a goal of the investigations, but she added: "You never know where it leads to."

Of course, as you can see in the Post story, she had to retract that. But they're very close parallels, except Obama is craftier and isn't as explicit in letting the word "impeachment" enter the discussion.

It'll be interesting if Republicans use the same playbook and shoehorn that into Obama's comments anyways in order to "rally the base". In which case Obama may also soon be declaring

"impeachment is off the table"

 

[CitySaint]

Its sad to know that war criminals like those in the Bush administration will never have to answer to justice. Anything of a war crimes nature proposed at the U.N. will be vetoed and any indictment stateside will be pardoned by the future President whomever it may be. It really is pathetic, but even some of the Nazi's in Germany got away with murder too. What makes it even worse is that the people with the highest likelihood of being criminalized are the young soldiers that were "just following orders".

 

[saintned]

Its sad to know that war criminals like those in the Bush administration will never have to answer to justice. Anything of a war crimes nature proposed at the U.N. will be vetoed and any indictment stateside will be pardoned by the future President whomever it may be. It really is pathetic, but even some of the Nazi's in Germany got away with murder too. What makes it even worse is that the people with the highest likelihood of being criminalized are the young soldiers that were "just following orders".

This is garbage. pure garbage. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah infinity.

 

[LSSpam]

Its sad to know that war criminals like those in the Bush administration will never have to answer to justice. Anything of a war crimes nature proposed at the U.N. will be vetoed and any indictment stateside will be pardoned by the future President whomever it may be. It really is pathetic, but even some of the Nazi's in Germany got away with murder too. What makes it even worse is that the people with the highest likelihood of being criminalized are the young soldiers that were "just following orders".

Let's be clear here, you're comparing potential Bush Administration "war crimes" with Nazi Germany's?

 

[blackadder]

Let's be clear here, you're comparing potential Bush Administration "war crimes" with Nazi Germany's?

We could dispense with Nazis and limit the comparison to Imperial Japan.

After the war we convicted several Japanese of war crimes for water boarding and sentenced them to years at hard labor, and according to McCain hanged some:

McCain: Japanese Hanged For Waterboarding, GOP Candidate Says There Should Be "Little Doubt" It Is Torture - CBS News

Columns: We sentenced Japanese for this

When waterboarding was a crime - Joan Walsh - Salon.com

 

[CitySaint]

No, I was saying there were war criminals in Germany that got off. I wasn't comparing the crimes themselves.

 

[Saint77]

Zero percent chance it would ever amount to anything. Rhetoric.

Indeed. You just know this stuff when spoken just fluffs up the fervor in some of the left.

 

[LSSpam]

We could dispense with Nazis and limit the comparison to Imperial Japan.

After the war we convicted several Japanese of war crimes for water boarding and sentenced them to years at hard labor:

I'm not even going to bother responding in kind with a flurry of links to the Korean occupation, Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March, Unit 731, etc, etc, etc

par for the course

 

[DadsDream]

Well, this response is clearly something that Senator Obama mapped out in his head in advance.

He's not going to part ways with the party leadership, which has said impeachment is off the table. But he's not going to alienate the far-left pro-impeachment folks who are mobilizing all kinds of resources for him.

It's a balancing act. He can get away trying to please both...for a while.

In the end, once he's pressed and facing an opponent from the opposite party, he'll please neither one. It's going to be interesting to watch what he does with this issue.

 

[Dave]

Aren't US pilots waterboarded as part of their training?