Support a Truth & Reconciliation Commission = Leahy Petition

[L. Coyote]

Check in with the number of signatures after you sign please.

38,323 signatures so far... keep it going!

Whitehouse: To Fix Damage Left by Bush, We Must Learn the Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGt87QKPpHs

=========================
I have proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate abuses during the Bush-Cheney Administration -- so they never happen again. These abuses may include the use of torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws.

Please sign this online petition, urging Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's abuses.

Thank you,

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWTNDLEfMs
===============================

Full Petition Text:

I hereby join Senator Patrick Leahy's call for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission, to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's constitutional abuses so we make sure they never happen again. These abuses may include the use of torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws.

A truth and reconciliation commission should be tasked with seeking answers so that we can develop a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past. Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened. The best way to move forward is getting to the truth and finding out what happened -- so we can make sure it does not happen again.

Signed by:
Your name

[HereSince1628]

1. There can be no immunity for civilian authorities who authorized this

The enlisted and company grade officers of the military were somewhat stuck with their pledge to obey lawful orders of the commander in chief.

The CIC, civilian DOD authorities, and field grade and general officers appear to have LIED to uniformed military about the legality of their orders. There can be no immunity for them. I can not support a reconciliation committee that has no punishment for authorities who broke the law.

[pleah]

2. I agree.

Prosecutions nothing less.

[L. Coyote]

4. This is a path to prosecutions. It is also a path to delivering the truth to the People, who

then will demand the prosecutions and digging to the bottom of this pit of horrors.

[L. Coyote]

3. You can support this one then.

[HereSince1628]

6. I want to read the fine print first. Truth and reconciliation has meant

immunity from prosecution in other countries where these substitutes for justice have been used.

Generally, they are most effective when BOTH sides of a conflict have committed the same sorts of crimes against each other.

I don't really see how the people of the US have committed the same sorts of crimes against civilian authorities of the Bush administration.

I am quite reluctant to be uncritical of the conditions that will be used to motivate individuals to come forward and tell ugly truths that, if the truth actually is told, will be self-incriminating.

[Dhalgren]

5. I don't want "reconciliation", I want justice.

I will support a call for appointing a special prosecutor, for impaneling a grand jury, for forming a special group within the Justice Department to be dedicated investigators on the crimes of the previous administration, but not another white-wash commission. And this one sets out to be a "reconciliation" to investigate "constitutional abuses". "Constitutional abuses"? To achieve an "understanding of the failures" of the "recent past"? "Vengeance"?

This is insulting. We don't want vengeance, we need justice. Not "so we can make sure it does not happen again", but because laws were broken and the guilty should be prosecuted and tried, because THAT'S justice.

We have to come to grips with the fact that because of the current congress and the current administration the Bush administration is going to get away with murder - literally...


:puke:

[L. Coyote]

7. It all depends on which definition one chooses. reconciliation - noun

I would place the emphasis on TRUTH. And once you get to the truth, the prosecutions will begin in earnest.

rec⋅on⋅cil⋅i⋅a⋅tion – noun
1. an act of reconciling or the state of being reconciled.
2. the process of making consistent or compatible.

reconciliation - noun
1. the reestablishing of cordial relations
2. getting two things to correspond

Reconciliation

1. The act of reconciling, or the state of being reconciled; reconcilenment; restoration to harmony; renewal of friendship.
2. Reduction to congruence or consistency; removal of inconsistency; harmony.

Syn: Reconcilement; reunion; pacification; appeasement; propitiation; atonement; expiation.