This is just wonderful. According to Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek, some jackass named David Margolis has softened the conclusions of the DOJ’s Office of Personal Responsibility which had concluded that Judge Jay Bybee and Professor John Yoo “violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving” torture. Who is David Margolis? He’s the Associate Deputy Attorney General, and according to the Newsweek article, he saved Bybee and Yoo’s bacon.
But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action—which, in Bybee’s case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.
Harper’s Scott Horton has been wondering what’s wrong with David Margolis for completely different reasons. I’d never heard of him before today. But he supposedly changed the conclusions of the OPR without any consultation with Attorney General Eric Holder or the president. This seems like bullshit of one variety or another to me. Either it’s bullshit that the Deputy Assistant Attorney General gets to make decisions without review, or it’s just a bullshit decision.
Why can’t this country ever hold anyone accountable for anything? Tony Blair got hauled before a commission to explain what the fuck he was thinking when he poodled up to Bush and his excellent Iraqi adventure, but we’ve got deputy assistants exonerating human rights violators so that they continue on the bench or teaching our children about the law. What kind of insanity is this?
I’m tired of it.
I’ve always said since 2008 that I would vote for Obama , despite his centrism. I thought he was the only one who could change the tone of this country, and I see that he’s trying his hardest to do so.
I’ve been willing to give him great room regarding legislative things. Look, dealing with full out Republican obstructionism sucks, and the only way we can end it is to attack them head on; so Obama deserves some of the blame here, but not even most of it.
However, where I left him no room is the torture and civil liberties issue. I cannot in good conscience vote for him in 2012. Of course that doesn’t mean I’ll tell others to join me, especially if the Republican is batshit insane (lol, what Republican ISN’T these days?). I can’t taint myself, personally.
I campaigned hard for Mr. Obama since January 2008, and I’ll continue to root him on in other areas. In 2012, I will campaign against the Republicans and for down-ticket Democrats, but I cannot vote for him because of this issue.
It is my ONLY make or break issue. Sort of like the pro-life people with abortion, I suppose.
He better fix this, and quick. I’m sick of this too, and I won’t tolerate it anymore.
well, what would be worse is if Obama actually had anything to do with this decision. And there is no allegation that he did. The DOJ is supposed to make these decisions without any political considerations. However, people do get a sense for what will please the administration. Or, in Bush’s case, the whole department is politicized.
That’s just it. I know it takes time to root out Bush’s lackeys, and he can’t just fire people Bush hired. However, Holder needs to start taking command of his department, and setting the tone there.
Yeah, I know there’s nothing in here saying Obama had anything to do with the decision, but he and Holder are still the ultimate authority, and if it passed by him without him noticing, well…you know the rest lol.
Maybe Obama didn’t have anything to do with that specific decision, but he has had everything to do with the overall decision to let the whole Bush criminal gang off scot-free, and that has certainly let his administration know that impunity’s the word.
I’m still amazed that people are disappointed by this. The number of high level criminals who the US government has actually prosecuted for these kinds of crimes over the last 50 years is zero, as far as I know.
It would be shocking to see a prosecution. Pleasantly shocking, but I’d sooner expect that New York City would prosecute cops for murder for shooting a black man in the back than than the US government would prosecute high US government officials for war crimes.
Does the word “change” ring a bell with you?
Yeah, I know, it was standard election marketing bullshit, and some of us saw it for what it was – he IS a politician, after all – but a lot of otherwise sophisticated people bought it anyway. Therefore, many people are disappointed. As for me, I had very low expectations, but he has even managed to disappoint me on some things.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised. But miracles would be more shock than surprise.
Pleasantly surprised at what? The fact that America still tortures, and still kidnaps people and sends them off to foreign lands to be tortured by others; that Bagram and other hell holes are being expanded under the cover of te “we’re gonna close Guantanamo – one of these days”; that Obama has now doubled the number of U.S. wars (two undeclared) in Muslim lands, and that three out of the four are being escalated; that there has been no visible effort to restore the Constitution, the balance of power, or civil rights; that the government, aided by the compliant media, are still expanding the meaning and scope of the term terrorism, and will quickly drum up a wave of hysteria at the drop of a hat; that Obama leaves his balls at home every time he has a conversation with Israel, AIPAC, or any of Israel’s other agents; etc; etc; etc; etc.
Or maybe you are pleasantly surprised that the Congress may – or may not – pass a health insurance reform bill that looks more like a gift to corporations than anything else?
I have to admit I have been surprised, but rarely pleasantly.
I’m pleasantly surprised that the justice department is prosecuting cops for beating prisoners, that the administration has tried so hard to close guatanamo, that the environmental record has been so great, that there has been a general decrease in reckless belligerency, that the labor department has been so active ….
I am not surprised that the empire is still an empire or that its operation is ugly. I did not expect Obama to want to abandon empire, even if he had the power, which I doubt very much he has. I am quite sure that if any President attempted to dismantle the security state, he’d be dead in an instant. Power yields to power, not to anything else.
The best you can hope for with a reformist regime is some space to build organization and sell the message. Nobody is going to ride in and rescue us all.
Just to add: I am totally unsurprised that the election of Obama did not prompt the owners of congress to relinquish their control, or the congresspeople themselves to, in a fit of conscience and bravery, rebel against their corporate masters. No wonder the American left never wins any battles – it has not the faintest glimmer of a realistic understanding of how the system works and keeps whining about what is “supposed” to be happening.
Good golly! This is not some sort of undergraduate classroom where if you bitch at the teacher enough your grade will be restored.
“that there has been no visible effort to restore the Constitution,”
Restore? To what? To the Clinton era? The Bush/Reagan era? To Jimmy Carter era when we created Al Queda and fought the proxy war in Afghanistan and propped up Savak until the last minute?
When was this golden era to which we want to be restored?
Come on! You know exactly what I am referring to, and it is not about “creating” Al Qa`eda, propping up Savak, or fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan, nor has it to do with any “golden era”. You KNOW what I am referring to, so stop pretending you don’t.
I don’t know at all. My understanding is that Presidents have been fighting wars without congressional authorization, that the school of Americas has sent torturers all over latin america, that we’ve been bombing civilians and protecting corporate pillage pretty much non-stop since 1945 if not before.
What the hell do you mean?
Hell, things got better after 1945.
I think it is generally agreed that the Bush regime did more to undermine the Constitution than any previous administration has done, including with respect to the balance of power, and of course civil rights. Many people hoped that Obama, who is after all a constitutional scholar, would take steps to reverse at least some of Bush/Cheney’s more egregious moves. Instead, he seems quite content to enjoy the benefits of what they did.
“I’m pleasantly surprised…that the administration has tried so hard to close guatanamo“
You’re kidding, right? You are impressed that they make a big show of “trying sooooooo hard” to close Guantanamo, only the most visible, and infamous of America’s many, many foreign hell-holes while quietly expanding others, like Bagram, and continuing their activities there? And YOU keep condescending to ME?
Okay.
absolutely. As soon as Congress peed all over-itself – a 90 to 6 vote in the Senate
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/1584623,CST-NWS-sweet21.article
Obama had every excuse to drop the whole issue. But he’s persisted although I suppose all the advocates of curtailing the imperial presidency must be unhappy about this willful refusal to follow the Congressional lead.
I do not appear to be making my point clear. Closing Guantanamo – or rather trying oh, soooooo hard to do so – is little more than a blatant P.R. stunt given that there is not only no movement to close the tens of other American hell holes all over the world, but that many of them, such as Bagram, are being expanded to accommodate even more hapless victims whose lives and the lives of whose families will be destroyed just as were those of the victims of Guantanamo. Even IF they closed Guantanamo, the greater part of the problem remains. Closing Guantanamos with great fanfare and celebration is pointless if they are going to not only leave the rest of the mess, but quietly make it even bigger. You’ver heard of the tip of the iceberg?
My impression was never that Guantanamo was intended for ME prisoners, but that it was intended to grow into a facility to hold prisoners disappeared from the USA. That was the logical next step and it was clearly implicit in Bush administration actions and arguments. So I’m pleased that the standard methods of empire policing have been walked back from 90 miles offshore. I’m far more incensed about the unwillingness of Obama’s administration to do something about the ICE prisons – that seems like something that could be forced if there was any public pressure at all. Basically, there is zero public opposition.
I gotta say that what has shocked me about the whole thing is the alacrity with which Europeans have dropped the pretense of any accountability for the involvement of their governments in Bush’s rendition and torture. Makes me feel naive.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds as if you are not so concerned about the Afghans, Pakistanis, Arabs, Iranians, and other “brown Asian Muslim types” whose human rights and lives were shredded to a bloody pulp in places like Guantanamo, and will continue to be shredded to a bloody pulp in Bagram and the tens or even hundreds of other such sites. It sounds almost as if they could keep Guantanamo open as far as you are concerned as long as it did not end up, as you suggested, not as a place to keep unfortunate Muslims, but as a place to disappear good, red-blooded Americans?
For me humanity, justice, and human rights are universal, and I do not care one iota more about a disappeared American prisoner, or someone held in a ICE prison than I do about some poor guy who got picked up in Baghdad, or Northern Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or anywhere else. I hope you feel the same, and I have just misconstrued what you wrote.
And there is one final thing about Guantanamo which needs to be pointed out. They can close Guantanamo, but what about the fate of those who were held there unjustly, and tortured mentally and physically, and kept from their lives and their families, and their wives, and their children for such a huge piece of their lives? What about the Uighur who will live the rest of their lives in exile from their families? What about those who are permanently psychologically damaged as a result of what the United States did to them? And what about those who have not been and will not be released, or tried, or given an opportunity to speak for themselves, and who will never receive anything that looks remotely like justice? What will closing Guantanamo do for them? The closing of Guantanamo is for P.R. purposes, and that is all. If it were about righting wrongs, and setting things on a correct track, it would not just be Guantanamo.
“It sounds almost as if they could keep Guantanamo open as far as you are concerned as long as it did not end up, as you suggested, not as a place to keep unfortunate Muslims, but as a place to disappear good, red-blooded Americans?”
Well, actually they started with black and Muslim Americans as you probably know. The torture into insanity of Padilla, the Katrina prison camps described in Zeitun etc. I don’t excuse the overseas torture state, I just had no expectations that Obama would end Bagram. I hoped that he would stop or delay Bush/cheney’s rapid transformation of the homeland itself into a torture state and the expansion of the long standing international system of garrisons into a wholesale gulag.
I didn’t expect justice for anyone- just as 20 years later the victims of Bohpal are still living in a chemical disaster and the people who ran the rape camps in Bosnia still have lucrative security contracts with the US Dept. of State. And I certainly did not expect justice for the uighur whose inability to return home has nothing to do with the USA, by the way. My expectations of the foreign policy of someone who had the loathsome Zbigniew Brzenski, the creator of so many generations of Afghani cripples and orphans, as his FP advisor were, I think, realistic.
“I thought he was the only one who could change the tone of this country, and I see that he’s trying his hardest to do so.“
Really? I’m not seeing that at all. What happened to his promise to “change the mindset” that got this country into two simultaneous wars? It looks to me as if the only change he has made in that regard is to magnify that mindset since one of his very first acts as President was to begin a serious escalation of deadly military activity in Pakistan, and he has made major escalations in Afghanistan, initiated an undeclared war in Yemen, and many people acknowledge that the much-touted “withdrawal” from Iraq is little more than a shell-game and a make-believe.
In other areas, America still tortures (though supposedly it no longer waterboards – wooohoooo!), he has continued the practice of extraordinary rendition, and even if he HAD closed the Guantanamo hell holes, which he hasn’t, so what when he has maintained or even expanded tens if not hundreds of other American hell holes in Afghanistan (Bagram, for one, is being expanded), Iraq, and elsewhere.
And what has he done domestically to reverse the worst offenses of the Bush criminals? Has he taken any steps to restore the Constitution? Has he relinquished any of the excessive executive power the Bush administration granted itself? Not as far as I can tell.
I don’t see him trying all that hard in most respects in most areas.
You think it was “mindset”? I’m tempted to believe power politics and media control are more difficult to change than than what a President says.
It’s weird to believe that one man can change the half century long operation of the worlds greatest empire in a year. What makes me sad is to realize how many supposed “radicals” turn out to believe all the propaganda about how the system works.
Don’t be condescending, please. I don’t “think” it was “mindset”, that was precisely the word Obama used, and he used it more that once. This might be his first such public pronouncement, but it was not his last:
Barack Obama, January 31, 2008
And so, what was one of his very first acts within hours, or perhaps minutes, of taking the oath of office? Why, to sign off on acts of war, of course.
And again, do not be condescending. I don’t recall suggesting that “one man can change the half-century-long operation of the worlds greatest empire in a year”. I would just like to see a good faith effort. If, as he so eloquently said, “it’s time to turn the page”, I would like to see him at least putting his hand on the corner of the page, and attempting to begin to lift it up. I would like to see a good faith effort to begin to change that mindset (his word, not mine) that got the U.S. into war in the first place, and I don’t think escalating one war; initiating and steadily escalating two additional (undeclared) wars; threatening another country that hasn’t attacked another country in nearly three centuries over completely trumped-up nonsense that it is “threat to world peace and security” (at least he could come up with new lyrics), and playing a shell game with an occupation that he himself has declared was “dumb” is any indication of either good faith, or effort.
I’m really sorry for the condescending tone which was inadvertant and stupid, but I’m really irritated by the liberal pretense that all Obama has to do is, I dunno, “show some leadership” and things will change radically.
The US economy depends on oil. The oil flow depends on maintaining kleptocracies in the ME and a vast military that can intervene anywhere. That in itself creates a internal military industrial/security state that seeks to protect and extend its power and so on and so on. The whole system interlocks all over the place and reinforces itself. That’s not the whole story of the USA, by a long shot, but its a massive chain of interests that produces an enormous amount of suffering and wealth. We’re in a situation where the Chinese government, in its capacity as a bondholder, is objecting to deficit spending. Nothing dramatic can change until the system collapses or there is a genuine popular movement for radical change in a positive direction – and we are a long way from the second. the most radical change Obama has started is to boost US wind/geothermal energy. That’s a step towards changing power balances.
BTW – this is the most positive spin I’ve seen. I’m sure I can believe it, but it would be nice.
http://www.juancole.com/2010/01/one-year-later-did-obama-win-iraq-war.html
NOT sure
With great respect to Juan Cole for what he DOES have to offer, he is woefully lacking in background on Iraq, he has no “feel” for it, and his analysis is based more on his personal biases as an American (not to mention an American from a strongly military family), and as a partisan for the Shi`a than on a real understanding of the country, its society and its social and political history. He has never been to Iraq, and is even lacking in information about very obvious aspects of its physical terrain, let alone realities of demography, social history, or the culture and mentality of Iraqis. Consequently, his analysis mostly makes little or no sense to anyone who does know and “get” the country and its people from the POV of the country and its people. Let us not forget that he was for the invasion of Iraq before he was against it, because he thought it would be “good for the Shi’ites”. It wasn’t, unless you consider the tiny and rather extreme minority of Shi`as who are in the government now to constitute “the Shi’ites”, which I do not. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was not good for the Shi’ites, or anyone else, and it has been particularly horrific for the Christians, the Mandaeans, the Yezidis, and the numerous other ancient minorities most of whom predated the Muslims there, who thrived there for thousands of years, and the overwhelming majority of whom were driven out of the country.
I have seen the piece you linked to. It looks like vintage Juan Cole Iraq analysis.
I accept your apology, but I do not recall ever suggesting that all Obama has to do is “show some leadership”. All I have asked for is some signs of a good faith effort to make at least some of his pretty rhetoric begin to become reality. I have seen neither good faith nor any real effort in regard, for example, to “changing the mindset that got us into war in the first place”.
Oh, and of course there is the cruel joke that was the Cairo speech; his insistence that Iran, which has not attacked or invaded anyone for nearly three centuries, and which is not, as far as anyone can determine, developing nuclear weapons, is the greatest threat to world peace and security known to man (actually the United States is the owner of that distinction, with Israel very close on its heels); his utterly balless approach to Israel (“you have to stop building stuff in the Occupied Territories….oh, you don’t want to?….oh, OK, well, how about you just claim you are suspending building for a little while, and we’ll let it go at that…..oh, and about the people you are starving in Gaza….oh, you think they need to stay on a diet? Oh, OK, well, you know best, but please don’t slaughter too many more of their kids, you know, over 400 kids last December and January, well, that kind of made you look bad….oh, you don’t care how you look, and they’re all terrorists anyway? Well, OK, if you think all those little terrorist kids need killin’, who are we to tell you what to do?”).
The bottom line is that he talks much prettier than most politicians, but in the end a politician is what he is, so his pretty talk doesn’t mean even a little bit more than anyone else’s talk.
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(The Public Record) Jan. 8, 2010 – The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) completed the report in December 2008 following a five-year investigation.
Adding to the delay in releasing the report (Attorney General Eric Holder testified before Congress last year that the report was complete and was expected be released by end of November), according to several legal sources knowledgeable about the review process, were additional responses to its conclusions that Yoo filed via his attorney, Miguel Estrada.
The big question is will the report be released on or before January 15, 2010?
That’s the date lawyers representing alleged “dirty bomb” plotter Jose Padilla are due to file a response to the government’s friend-of-the-court-brief, which recommended that a lawsuit Padilla filed aginst Yoo over the legal advice he gave to the Bush White House that resulted in Padilla being tortured be tossed out because the OPR report would address the issue that Yoo provided the White House with poor legal advice.
“In addition to potential discipline by a state bar, Department of Justice attorneys are also subject to investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility (“OPR”)… OPR and the Office of the Inspector General have broad investigatory powers and can recommend discipline and even criminal prosecution, where appropriate, the government’s December 3, court filing states.
Believing that the report is being suppressed, a coalition of attorneys, journalists and activists to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the Justice Department to obtain a copy of the report and other documents.
“Adverse Findings”
The Justice Department was prepared to publicly release the report January 2009. But it underwent revisions after then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy, Mark Filip, demanded that Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury be given the chance to review and respond to the findings.
… Legal sources familiar with an early draft of the report said it concluded that some of Yoo and Bybee’s legal work for the Bush White House rose to the level of professional misconduct and therefore warranted a disciplinary referral state bar officials. These sources said they were unaware whether OPR reached the same conclusions about Bradbury’s legal work.
Weich’s letter noted that if the appeals filed by Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury resulted in a rejection of OPR’s findings by the “career official” reviewing the document then no such referral would occur.
Stephen Bradbury attempted to justify or forgive Yoo’s controversial opinion by explaining that it was “the product of an extraordinary period in the history of the Nation: the immediate aftermath of the attacks of 9/11.”
Bradbury wrote another memo five days before Bush left office last January, in which he once again repudiated Yoo’s legal opinions.
Durbin and Whitehouse said they believed Bradbury’s “memorandum for the files” made it a “conflict-of-interest” for him to participate in the formal review process.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Poor judgment might be applied where an official selects poorly upon being presented with several choices. How it applies when one creates a document laying the basis for torture will remain a mystery. Oops. Margolis is Yoda. My mistake.
so now war crimes and crimes against humanity have been officially sanctioned by the obama administration and rendered as quaint as the geneva conventions.
there’s a lot of ‘poor judgement’ going around here.
l have to agree with seabe above, this, the restoration of civil liberties and the rule of law are non-negotiable.
My bet is that Holder doesn’t prosecute anybody for torture, because he’s scared stiff that bringing charges against any one of the perpetrators would open a big, ugly can of worms. Anyone being charged with a serious human rights crime would try to pass the buck up the chain of command, and Holder clearly doesn’t want to go there. Trials of Yoo and Bybee and Addington would lead to Cheney, and would reveal all sorts of dark secrets that would incriminate a whole lot of other people in Washington, so the wagons have been circled and none of then are going to be prosecuted. They are all going to go free. But we’re the greatest nation on earth, right?
David Margolis, as some of you readers no doubt suspect, is way more than just an Associate Deputy Attorney General.