Friday, January 1, 2010

Coincidence or Conspiracy?

Is there any doubt, was there ever any doubt among thinking Americans, that the Bush Administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) was so thoroughly politicized that basic American laws were broken in the questioning of the Blackwater Five? I heard a former attorney in the Bush DOJ say that perhaps the State Department officials hadn't heard of the Miranda warnings and were unaware that you couldn't promise immunity and then use those statements - coerced, no less - against these accused.

I really thought that was a stretch; I don't remember reading any intimations that the Blackwater Five were waterboarded!

I'm writing now about the release and dismissal of all charges against the five Blackwater employees who killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in September 2007. How did it come to be that the State Department (?!!) was the organization that interrogated these men? Why wasn't this done by the FBI or another federal law enforcement agency? Since when did the State Department add criminal jurisprudence to their mandate?

This is the same Justice Department that was so lax with the rules in the case of former Senator Ted Stevens that his charges were also dropped. Unfortunately, getting rid of these folks hasn't yet occurred in the Obama DOJ - and we're going to pay for it.

But the dropped charges only happened for Republicans or Republican donors. And the Obama Justice Department doesn't see any wrongdoing in the political lynching of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman? I sure do.

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