Cleaning Out.

Conditions: Warm, Fragile.


Spaniards To The Fore

Surprisingly, it is a Spanish court that has decided to stick it's toe in the legal waters surrounding the former President Bush's administration and their various nefarious activities while in power. Spain, you say?

A Spanish court has initiated criminal proceedings against six former officials of the Bush administration. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith may face charges in Spain for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay.

If arrest warrants are issued, Spain and any of the other 24 countries that are parties to European extradition conventions could arrest these six men when they travel abroad.

Does Spain have the authority to prosecute Americans for crimes that didn't take place on Spanish soil?

The answer is yes. It's called "universal jurisdiction." Universal jurisdiction is a well-established theory that countries, including the United States, have used for many years to investigate and prosecute foreign nationals for crimes that shock the conscience of the global community. It provides a critical legal tool to hold accountable those who commit crimes against the law of nations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. Without universal jurisdiction, many of the most notorious criminals would go free. Countries that have used this as a basis to prosecute the most serious of crimes should be commended for their courage. They help to create a just world in which we all seek to live.

Israel used universal jurisdiction to prosecute, convict and execute Adolph Eichmann for his crimes during the Holocaust, even they had no direct relationship with Israel.

Huh, okay, go Spain, then. So how is the case proceeding?

Evidence that Bush officials set a policy that led to the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo continues to emerge.

According to ABC News, Gonzales met with other officials in the White House and authorized torture, including waterboarding.

The Office of Professional Responsibility, which reports to the U.S. attorney general, drafted a report that excoriates Yoo and Bybee for writing the infamous torture memos. Haynes, Addington and Feith participated in decisions that led to torture. The release of additional graphic torture memos by the U.S. Department of Justice is imminent.

It is the responsibility of the United States to investigate allegations of torture. Almost two-thirds of respondents to a USA Today/Gallup Poll favor investigations of the Bush team for torture and warrantless wiretapping. Nearly four in 10 support criminal investigations.

Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora told Congress, "There are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq - as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat - are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo." Providing impunity to those who ordered the torture will be the third recruiting tool.

- alternet.org/rights/

Hey, all right. But you know that the one thing America cannot stand is other countries trying to authorize something over their heads. In fact if anything, this may well make Americans less likely to push for congressional investigations in the Bush administration. They'll rally around the flag and close ranks an nothing will ever come out. Of course, that scenario is probably going to happen anyway, so what the hell. Let that Spaniards run with ball.



CIA Cleaning House

As the priorities start to change, the old guard dogs are seen as less 'tough and brave' and more 'ugly and monstrous'. In that light, the CIA have been making some changes to how they've been operating overseas recently.

The CIA is decommissioning the secret overseas prisons where top al Qaida suspects were subjected to interrogation methods, including simulated drowning, that Attorney General Eric Holder, allied governments, the Red Cross and numerous other experts consider torture, the agency said Thursday.

In an e-mail to the agency's work force outlining current interrogation and detention policies, CIA Director Leon Panetta also announced that agreements with the private security firms guarding the so-called black sites will be "promptly terminated," and contractors no longer will be used to conduct interrogations.

Panetta, however, said that CIA officers who were involved in interrogations using "enhanced" methods authorized by the Justice Department during the Bush administration "should not be investigated, let alone punished."

Hey, he's a good dog. Okay, so he chewed the mailman a little, but we've put him on a leash and smacked him around with a newspaper, it's all good.

The Justice Department is investigating the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, while the Senate Intelligence Committee has launched an inquiry into the interrogation and detention program authorized by the Bush administration as part of its post-9/11 "war on terrorism."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called for the creation of a truth commission to investigate the Bush administration's detainee policies, but so far the Obama administration has shown little appetite for the idea.

The steps announced by Panetta are consistent with a Jan. 22 executive order in which President Barack Obama directed the CIA to halt the use of its secret overseas detention facilities and use only interrogation procedures authorized by an Army Field Manual.

Panetta's actions follow the leaking of a confidential February 2007 International Committee of the Red Cross report, made public this week by The New York Review of Books, that concluded that descriptions of the interrogation methods provided in interviews by 14 detainees who underwent them "amounted to torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" under international law.

- truthout.org/

Can old dogs learn new tricks? Can a leopard change it's spots? Can some other old cliche equal false? I think we all know the answer to that. So while the CIA is packing up it’s shit and pulling shutters down over it’s deserted torture sites, you can damn well bet they’re moving their various tools into some other quiet residence in some other part of the world, ready to open up for business yet again. Frankly, come to think of it, I’m a little insulted they’d even think we’d fall for this bullshit.




Film Review: Transporter 3

Ahh, the Transporter franchise. If nothing, a testament to how much say an Automobile company can have over a film that features their product. Yes, Frank and his Magical Audi are back, and this time, it's decaf. If you're the kind of guy who watched Transporter Two and thought "Nice stunts, but too much plot", then this is the Transporter film for you. The plot is barely there, it's basically a quick road trip up through Europe with Frank, the Magical Audi, and some girl.

I'll say this for Luc Besson, he really believes in a wide range of cast members. Virtually every member of the E.U is represented here, usually as a baddy that Frank has to beat up at some point, after removing his shirt. This time there's a device wired to his wrist that will explode if he goes too far from the car, but who really cares. With a wildly inconsistent plot, characters who really don't seem to be related to what they're doing, a romance that is ridiculous, and a car that absolutely will not get dented, no matter what, this is the very essence of a film not to be taken seriously.

Which is a shame as I thought the first film had something of merit there. Oh, well. There's not a lot of shaky cam, but instead each fight sequence is cut into approximately 53,876 shots. So it's still a little hard to follow, assuming you still care. One Scratch out of Five




Film Review: 12 Rounds

Okay, I'll admit it. I got suckered. The trailer for 12 Rounds seemed interesting, they even said it was from the director of Die Hard 2 and the producer of Speed. That's some pedigree. And while it stars John Cena, it seemed on the surface to be a return of sorts to the old days of big action movies. Boy oh boy is it not. 12 Rounds is an awful, cheap, tragically formulaic, weak ripoff of several classic ideas. Chief among them Speed and Die Hard unsurprisingly. In fact, the plot is basically a low rent version of Die Hard 3 but, to be blunt, without any real talent. This is the second John Cena movie I've seen, and his thespian abilities have not improved. The bad guy is stupid and the love interest is very lacking in chemistry. But all that pales in comparison to how it was made.

I simply cannot remember a film that has worse shaky camera than this thing. It is unbelievable, the camera relentlessly shakes and rocks back and forth and round and round no matter what is happening, and with no respite ever. I literally had to close my eyes on occasion to give my brain a chance to breathe. Naturally, it completely ruins the film. - Not that we were dealing with anything all that special anyway, it's not that good, but the shaky cam lowers this thing to a whole new sub-level of hell.

I couldn't stand this film and I could not wait until it was over so I could finally escape it. If this is their brave new world of action films then I want no part of it. A curse on their studio. Zero stars out of Five.



- Peace out.