George's Bottom Line

Obama will let them walk, as expected. Failure to prosecute will make him complicit.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/forgive-and-forgetforget/

If the Dems want to lose in 2010 and 2012- by all means start the witch hunts. That will do so much to unite the Republicans and conservatives of the party and kill any bipartisanship that is left in Congress.And I'm sure Pelosi and Reid have more important things to do like protecting their Democratic corript Rangel, Dodd and Frank who have a ethics cloud over them but are still committee chairs. So as someone once said' Bring it on'.

There is no question that the people who committed torture -- people who killed detainees, for example, as well as those who physically assaulted them -- need to be prosecuted and punished. Period. There is no alternative. I hate to be absolutist, but if we want torture to take place in the future, we should ignore the past. If we want to prevent torture, we should deal with the past so we don't repeat it.

My how we throw out words like "torture" without even knowing what the word means. Good thing that Islamic extremists don't use torture...

Let's just prosecute our military. Yup, that's the ticket!

Seriously go after a President that had no choice but protect his nation would be a very foolish action. But of course in America everything is possible. Are we really so naive to worry for enemies that would have tortured and slaugther our people without a thought? Do we forget that soon the victims of 9/11 and many others since? What an achievement for the greatest democracy in the world.

I think that JSchmidt is right. Attempting to prosecute Bush or any members of the intelligence community would only galvanize the opposition.

We will eventually get the truth, but it does not need to be a priority to the Obama Administration in his first term.

Reid and Murtha need to stand trial for treason. Despite these comical cretins, we have been safe since 9/11. Bush may not please everyone, but let's remember, Congress overwhelmingly voted to kick Sadam's arse as well as seek out fundies in Afghanistan. Detainees as a result were sent to camps where they receive 3 meals a day, baths, Korans, whatever. Who's the bad guy here?

Hello Good morning America my favorite show,why Torry Johnson doesn't have email? or we i click email from her site , it is not going thorough ? how can i contact her for Job or Job at home? I love you all & i like to know were is Same ?

Mr. George Stephanopoulos, I like and believe your opinion & any interviews with anyone from both PARTY because you do your job for your COUNTRY=AMERICA. Spcially you have been work under CLINTON times.
I wish OBAMA HUSSEIN BARRACK =ERIC HOLDER will prosecute BUSH Officials because AMERICAN will sorry....and they find out somethings were hiden:
-Eric Holder helped CLINTON ...not IMPEACHMENT
-Eric Holder helped Marc Rich...who ...helped CLINTON..
-If CLINTON was IMPEACHMENT then HILLARY did not have chance to become NY Senate= no chance was picked...by OBAMA.
I think CLINTON made WHITE HOUSE got a ...SPOT so now the WHITE HOUSE become a FUN HOUSE. Am I wrong?

I wonder if any of the families of killed service men or women would allow some type of torture if it would bring their family member back? If it takes cutting the b**ls off one of those ba*t*rds to get info on where IED's are placed then start cutting. Bleeding heart liberals will the end of this country.
If any type of prosecution takes place it should be pointed towards wallstreet.

Yes, absolutely. Go after Bush and Cheney for 1. Lying to the American people for the purposes of engaging this country in an act of illegaly invading a sovereign nation. 2.Being wholly complict in outing a CIA agent. An act of TREASON punishable by death.3. Authorizing warrantless wiretapes. And 4. Authorizing torture. If some of you don't know what "torture" is, let someone waterboard you and get back to me. Anything less than investigation and prosecution will be an embarrassment to this country, and a major act of perfidy by the Obama Administration.

Prosecute Bush & Cheney, FIRST!!!!

"I wonder if any of the families of killed service men or women would allow some type of torture if it would bring their family member back? If it takes cutting the b**ls off one of those ba*t*rds to get info on where IED's are placed then start cutting. Bleeding heart liberals will the end of this country.If any type of prosecution takes place it should be pointed towards wallstreet." Posted by: randy shumaker | Jan 11, 2009 1:35:32 PM

Except that it's been known for over 100 years that torture doesn't produce good information, it doesn't work. But why expect logic from a reactionary? Also, your grammar is atrocious. Have you ever had an original thought in your entire life? Did evolution bring us this far to make you?

No, we must prosecute Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rice, Yoo, Rove, Miers, and everyone else knowingly involved in the crimes they authorized.

There will be one, unlikeable fall guy that will suffer a token prosecution by the Obama administration. Bush, like Reagan, will have "memory lapses" and survive special prosecution with ease.

Look? our country is divided 50/50 on many things, especialy on religion, the for fathers had it right when keeping it out of our goverment, unfortunutly not all its in our courts, swear on the bible so help you god. what ngod whos god should not be there. on our money should not be there! whos god what god.supposed gods and suposed rules of gods and lunitics right and left are the main causes of all the wars and conflicts of all time. if you took gos and especially religon out of the sinaryo, we would all be so much more concerned and caring to all those around us. we should not be citisens of the our countries but citisins of the world first, if a god as you all say created every thing in our world and the universe than why should we follow like lemings and kill those we disagree with just to satisfy a certain rule of a certain god, our forfathers came to america, with the suposed reson of religous freedom, what freedom ? you simpiltons argue that barroks hussain barrama, must be muslim and so can possibly be our president and yet you numbskulls, spout religious fredom, but if its a religion you dont like the hell with them , well sirs and madem idgits if you are a citizen of the supposed great country , you can be anything you want or strive too be. those are the rules my, but of course people like you pick and choose what rules to follow /// as did pres. bush , chaney rumsfeld, rice and the rest of the administration, but those that had the sense to say hell no!!! and got out. So us the other half you say, but not half on these war crimes, more like 70%, believe in the rule of law , thats what this country is governed by so we believe everyone has to follow the laws or suffer the conciquinces, but you all go back to the pick and chose . well we all believe the rules are for us all! even the, no most of all our elected officils, wake up get your collective heds out of your collected arses?

Look? our country is divided 50/50 on many things, especialy on religion, the for fathers had it right when keeping it out of our goverment, unfortunutly not all its in our courts, swear on the bible so help you god. what ngod whos god should not be there. on our money should not be there! whos god what god.supposed gods and suposed rules of gods and lunitics right and left are the main causes of all the wars and conflicts of all time. if you took gos and especially religon out of the sinaryo, we would all be so much more concerned and caring to all those around us. we should not be citisens of the our countries but citisins of the world first, if a god as you all say created every thing in our world and the universe than why should we follow like lemings and kill those we disagree with just to satisfy a certain rule of a certain god, our forfathers came to america, with the suposed reson of religous freedom, what freedom ? you simpiltons argue that barroks hussain barrama, must be muslim and so can possibly be our president and yet you numbskulls, spout religious fredom, but if its a religion you dont like the hell with them , well sirs and madem idgits if you are a citizen of the supposed great country , you can be anything you want or strive too be. those are the rules my, but of course people like you pick and choose what rules to follow /// as did pres. bush , chaney rumsfeld, rice and the rest of the administration, but those that had the sense to say hell no!!! and got out. So us the other half you say, but not half on these war crimes, more like 70%, believe in the rule of law , thats what this country is governed by so we believe everyone has to follow the laws or suffer the conciquinces, but you all go back to the pick and chose . well we all believe the rules are for us all! even the, no most of all our elected officils, wake up get your collective heds out of your collected arses?

I think it would cause a rift with gop and the dems if we start going after the gop for things they did while in office.So what !Do we let robbers or killers off because someone migth vote difer in 2012

Obama's general direction seems to be to wipe the slate clean. Bush officials were operating by an extremely misguided principle and Obama knows that. Perhaps that principle was even unconstitutional, but Obama makes it clear that it is not part of his active agenda to go after crimes of the previous administration. I believe there would have to be a much larger public movement to prosecute. Otherwise Obama is afraid of distracting from his larger mission of building a bipartisan coalition government.

also, bush or cheney will never be charged ,let alone tried for anything they did in office .just like nixon got away so would they.even if charged thier money would keep it in the court longer they would live

It will not be Obama that pushes it. But Pelosi and Reid. If they don't have a turnaround of the economy in 6 months, look for them to start hearings on the Bush Administration to take the focus away from their incompetence. Then they'll spend months on the hearing, not proving anything but since media is left leaning the headlines will be big and the lefty commentators will be condemn the Republicans in the press and continue to do it until 2010. In the end, nothing will be proven, but the Dems will have their headlines and the appearance like they did something. And through it all Pelosi and Reid will protect their corrupt politicians, Rangel, Frank and Dodd.

I think that Obama as well as Reid and Pelosi, the powers behind the throne, realize that prosecuting Bush officials would be, to say the least, impractical. The only real result would be a political bloodletting every time the government changed hands between one party and the other. This is the whole reason that (good or bad) civil service jobs are protected.

i think the best thing is for the UN to hand up indictments and the cases can be tried in the International UN Court in The Hague. that we do not follow our own laws (and the political considerations in the US inhibit prosecution here) makes an international court the ideal path to persue torture and extraordinary rendition. waterboarding is considered torture in international law and so is extraordinary rendition. we do not better ourselves as a nation by torturing. and as has already been pointed out torture does not yield meaningful information just false confessions and whatever the torturer wants the prisoner to say.

FederalFred---have you been waterboarded, sir? have you been tortured? it's easy to be a torcherer and torcher others. but what kind of pain would you be willing to endure before you call it torture, sir?

Given that "torture" occurred before 2005, why is nobody mentioning that Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, and George Tenet need to be impeached also?
You stupid, stupid people!

"FederalFred---have you been waterboarded, sir?"

Nope. Haven't been beheaded either, dude.

"have you been tortured?"

Nope, and none of the detainees have either. Humiliation is not torture, pumpkin.

"it's easy to be a torcherer and torcher others. but what kind of pain would you be willing to endure before you call it torture, sir?"

Unless you've got some sort of evidence that we have maimed, killed, or crippled prisoners of war, save your keystrokes. Our service men and women are not afforded any privileges that we provide prisoners of war. Have you served, sir?