Crossposted from West Virginia Blue.
It's 1:43 a.m. and I'm awake posting on torture. I have to be at work in a few short hours. I have a life and family outside of politics. Yet I'm not asleep. If anyone can take charge of investigating the torture issue, it's Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He's always been known as a fair-minded man who has worked in a bipartisan spirit throughout his political career. I'm not sure if this will come out the way I mean it too, but I'd sleep better if I knew Senator Rockefeller was losing sleep too because of the torture issue.
A reminder of the role of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
Created pursuant to S.Res. 400, 94th Congress: to oversee and make continuing studies of the intelligence activities and programs of the United States Government, and to submit to the Senate appropriate proposals for legislation and report to the Senate concerning such intelligence activities and programs. In carrying out this purpose, the Select Committee on Intelligence shall make every effort to assure that the appropriate departments and agencies of the United States provide informed and timely intelligence necessary for the executive and legislative branches to make sound decisions affecting the security and vital interests of the Nation. It is further the purpose of this resolution to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States.
Do not confirm John Rizzo as CIA general counsel.
He should be investigated as an accessory for crimes against humanity, not promoted.
Investigate torture. Sunlight is a good disinfectant to the stains on our nation's honor and soul.
That's not just a blogger saying it. The widely respected author and war correspondent Joe Galloway is saying it too.
From his latest column on June 19:
The president and the secretary of defense expressed their shock and surprise that a few rogue reserve military police soldiers - a few "bad apples" - had treated prisoners in their charge so badly.
That when it was obvious that President Bush and his White House counsel Alberto Gonzales had done everything they could to unleash military and CIA interrogators from the constraints of the Geneva Convention and common human decency.
snip
It’s long past time for Congress to reopen the matter of who's really responsible for Abu Ghraib and let the chips fall where they may - even if that means they pile up around the retirement home of a former secretary of defense or the gates of the White House itself.
Me on March 20, Abu Ghraib and West Virginia
It is time for Congress to take a real look at what happened at Abu Ghraib.
While West Virginia's Lynndie England and other low ranking Maryland National Guard soldiers sit in prison, the culprits behind the deeds remain free.
What England and others did was deplorable. But the sadism and cruelty that occurred in Abu Ghraib was not the work of just "bad apples" as administration officials claimed.
Though the people in power would like us to think it was an isolated case involving just low-level soldiers, the evidence at England's court martial and from the Army's Taguba report proved otherwise.
The atmosphere of depravity that the then-20-year-old private worked in was not created by England. It was an atmosphere shaped by a White House that viewed the Geneva Convention as a "quaint document" and where the then White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez wrote memos how to legally protect the President and Vice President from their own authorization orders.
More on torture at this link.
If you believe the committee should investigate torture and not confirm Rizzo, here's the number: 202-224-1700