NLG ISSUES WHITE PAPER ON TORTURE LIABILITY

[Joanne98]

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS FOR SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS AND LAWYERS WHO WROTE TORTURE MEMOS

New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute high Bush officials and lawyers including John Yoo for their role in the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.

The NLG has issued a White Paper explaining why the memos, which purported to give objective legal advice, subject all those involved to prosecution under international and U.S. domestic law. This includes people who ordered the torture, approved it or gave advice to justify it.

Guild President Marjorie Cohn testified on May 6 before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee, that some lawyers in the Department of Justice were "part of a common plan to violate U.S. and international laws outlawing torture."

The 14-page White Paper details the ways in which the lawyers, including Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, and William Haynes, counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes. The lawyers said that the Department of Justice would not enforce federal laws against torture, maiming, assault and stalking. "Just because the statute says," John Yoo explained in a recent Esquire interview, "that doesn't mean you have to do it."

Professor Cohn told the congressmen it was "reasonably foreseeable" the lawyers' advice "would result in great physical and mental harm or death to many detainees"; more than 100 have died, many from torture. Torture, like genocide, slavery and wars of aggression, is absolutely prohibited at all times. No country can ever pass a law that would allow them.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/33385

[alstephenson]

1. K & R

[bleever]

2. Failure to enforce the law weakens it.

K&R.

[tblue37]

3. K&R n/t

[Vincardog]

4. They should appoint an independent Special Prosecutor, investigate where ever it leads

and where appropriate Charge Indict Convict and imprison whom ever is responsible for these offenses against our honor.

[bluesmail]

5. ME TOO K&R !

I believe the D's (ok, good ones i.e. Conyers Waxman Nadler, etc) have built the legal groundwork to (fingers crossed) bring them to a trial, anywhere. I even think Nancy Pelosi MAY be going along with the stratagem, they all know if they don't go along with *'s wants, (Cheney's) they put them and the ones they care about in the crosshairs.