Looking For White House Accountability (and looking, and looking...)

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=691577
Looking For White House Accountability

In response to a "drumbeat of criticism" and an inability to substantiate its chief claim – desecration of the Quran by the U.S. military – Newsweek magazine has now retracted an article "blamed for inciting widespread protests and riots in the Muslim world … where at least 17 people were killed in the ensuing violence." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice added, "I hope everybody will step back and take a look at how they handled this. Everybody." Newsweek has accepted responsibility for any reporting error; now it's time for the White House to take its own responsibility.

ABU GHRAIB AND GUANTANAMO BAY: One major reason for tarnished U.S. credibility in the world: the White House has abdicated all accountability for the atrocities committed at prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq or Afghanistan, ignoring the responsibility for those in charge who set the conditions for abuse and instead blaming a "few bad apples." Only the soldiers at the bottom of the chain, like Pfc. Lynndie R. England and Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., who were photographed at Abu Ghraib, and Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski have been held responsible for their actions. Abusive methods were allowed to occur at Guantanamo because of an atmosphere that has been described as a "legal, physical and moral black hole."

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION: ........

THE GANG OF FOUR: The White House further damaged U.S. credibility abroad by not only refusing to sanction those involved in creating the atmosphere for abuse but promoting them. Former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who approved a series of memos creating the legal framework for torture, was promoted to attorney general. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was in charge in Iraq during Abu Ghraib, has gotten off scot-free. Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes IV, who led the group of attorneys responsible for the memos contending "the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department," was just renominated by Bush to become a federal judge. And then-Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, who crafted the memo arguing torture wasn't torture unless it caused physical injury equivalent to organ failure, was recently promoted to the 9th Federal Circuit.

THE CREDIBILITY GAP: The White House press secretary denounced the Newsweek article for causing "damage to the image of the United States abroad." Unfortunately, previous abuses committed at places like Abu Ghraib made Newsweek's claims not inconceivable. Before the Newsweek article, for example, the New York Times reported that one of the three major detainee hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay was "a protest of guards' handling of copies of the Koran" and ended in a senior officer having to deliver "an apology over the camp's loudspeaker system." As conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan notes: "One thing worth reiterating: the notion that this obscenity simply couldn't have happened in the U.S. military (something I believed two years ago) is no longer an operative assumption. We know that incidents like this have happened."

THE KNIFE'S EDGE: Unfortunately, Afghanistan has teetered on the knife's edge for months; "after an unusually harsh winter, the coming of Spring has brought a surge in attacks on the US-led coalition and Afghan forces." The Newsweek piece may have stirred passions, but as early as February, a spokesman for the U.S. military stated that they were "bracing for a fresh surge in militant violence in Afghanistan." And before the Newsweek report even hit the newsstands, AP noted a "revived Taliban-led insurgency" and Agence France Press said there was "an upsurge in violence by suspected Taliban rebels" which had left two U.S. Marines dead.

Common Cause PAC - "Holding Power Accountable"
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=186966

I got cold called by these folks - I had never heard of them before but after reviewing their web site and the history of what they have been doing for years, I gladly made a contribution.

Take a look at the above link; it is encouraging to see that someone is working on this, and not in a trivial or haphazard way.