On Tue, January 27, 2009 3:00 pm, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> I disagree. There is certainly enough evidence to appoint a prosecutor > right now. Convening a grand jury is part of 'prosecution'. Agreed - but so is investigation. Just becuase low-level folks have been prosecuted doesn't mean the investigation for others is complete... I don't disagree - it's time to convene a prosecution, I just doubt the investigation would have been complete at this point... if we're going to see high-level officials prosecuted, I'd imagine the investigation will have to be extensive, and not something that could have been completed by now. > As has > been pointed out before, there is no question that crimes were > committed. Low level people have already been convicted and sentenced. Agreed, but again conviction of a soldier - and the preceding investigations - don't necessarily mean the investigations are complete for officials. I'm not a lawyer and not terribly familiar with the order of operations here - I'm just saying that I doubt the investigations are complete, particularly those needed to prosecute a Cabinet member, member of Congress, or higher. > The only question is how far up the chain of command this should be > pursued. That is more a question of policy than a question of fact. I disagree - it's both. We need a full accounting of what happened, and then a grand jury (or its equivalent - I have no idea how such a case would be tried) can weigh the evidence and decide how to proceed and against whom. > I think that there are serious arguments to be made pro an con and > there is no really good course of action. There is, however, a really > bad course of action and that is to go after Cheney and Rumsfeld while > giving Pelosi, Rockefeller and other leading congressional Democrats > a pass. Well that goes to both facts and policy - who knew what, who ordered what, and where do you drawn the line between knowledge and criminal complicity. All along we're gonna be up against the following: 1. Defendants had it on good legal advice that what they were doing was within the law; of course, between two lawyers and a judge you could have 4 opinions about what's legal, but this will be a fundamental defense. 2. Barring that defense, there's always the claims of extraordinary powers by the Executive, particularly during a time of war. Anyway, as usual I think we're on the same side, and quibbling about the details. I have no idea what the process should be or will be, but I hope there is a process involving extensive documentation about what occurred and who authorized it, and if criminal wrongdoing is shown (which I would expect unless it's a complete whitewash, which is possible) then I would expect nothing less than trials. If the investigations are complete then bring on the indictments. I'm cynical and expect little to happen, of course. We've seen plenty of crimes against the country, let alone the world, go unpunished when committed by the Executive and his staff. _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
