Bush Owed Bybee for More Than Just "Legalizing" War and Torture

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42400

Bush Owed Bybee for More Than Just "Legalizing" War and Torture
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2009-05-07 18:00.


From Chris Floyd:

...the Italian bank BNL was one of BCCI's main tentacles. BNL's Atlanta branch was the primary conduit used to send millions of secret dollars to Saddam for arms purchases, including deadly chemicals and other WMD materials supplied by the Chilean arms dealer Cardoen and various politically-connected operators in the United States such as weapons merchant Matrix Churchill.

When three BNL officials were indicted in 1991 for a fraud scam used to mask payments to Saddam, Bush I moved to throttle the investigation. He appointed lawyers from both Cardoen and Matrix to top Justice Department posts – where they supervised the officials investigating their old companies. The overall probe was directed by Justice Department investigator Robert Mueller. Meanwhile, White House aides applied heavy pressure on other prosecutors to restrict the range of the probe – especially the fact that Bush cabinet officials Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger had served as consultants for BNL during their pre-White House days as partners in Henry Kissinger's lobbying outfit, Kissinger Associates.....

The Kerry report found that the 1991 BNL probe had been unaccountably "botched" – witnesses went missing, CIA records got "lost," all sorts of bad luck. Most of the big BCCI players went unpunished or got off with wrist-slap fines and sanctions.

One of the White House aides who unlawfully intervened in the BNL prosecution was a certain factotum named Jay S. ByBee. In 2004, ByBee was appointed by George W. Bush to a place on the federal appeals court – a lifetime sinecure of perks and power. Mueller, meanwhile wound up as head of the FBI, appointed to the post in by George W. in July 2001, where directed the FBI's response – or lack of response – to the torrent of terrorism alerts during that fateful summer.

[benld74]

1. They work just like the Effin Mafia did,,,

bring them in early, get them under your thumb, keep them there, and then use them for what you need them for. AND I really don't know if I cannot stand the USERS or the USEES the most. The ones BEING USED, have got to know, unless they're so damn souless they really don't see what is going on around them. THey all make me ill.

[aquart]

2. Which is why RICO should be applied to every dime of their property.

[hootinholler]

10. I've said this for years.

At least one RICO Qui Tam suit has been dismissed that I'm aware of.

-Hoot

[formercia]

11. They are the Effin Mafia.

The wise guys you see on TV are just street-punk stereotypes for sheeple consumption. Bush Gang and their ilk are the Real Mafia.

[aquart]

3. So Bush invaded expecting to find the weapons his daddy sold Saddam?

I wonder if Saddam then converted the arms to cash? Or just used them up fighting Iran?

Thing is, I don't have much of a problem with illegally (?) arming Saddam. The ayatollahs freaked us out and Saddam was a secular dictator. It was pretty normal diplomatic international crap. Wasn't it?

[babylonsister]

4. I'm more interested in the legacies these guys create and maintain.

We can't get rid of these crooks, at least evidenced by the Bushes and the hangers-on that don't ever seem to go away but get rewarded for their crookedness for decades.

[aquart]

5. Yes. Corruption and cockroaches will outlive us all.

And yet...I can vote now. And Maine has gay marriage. Over decades, the Hudson River became less polluted. The FBI arrested my grandpa and tried to deport him, prevented him from ever becoming a citizen, but he died here, freed by habeas corpus. His son, who had an officer assign him Tail End Charlie for 11 missions in a vain attempt to kill him and his crew, was blacklisted out of his profession but found another one, and died at 88 with full military honors.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" but sometimes we get tired. The country got addicted to easy credit and McMansions...and slick deals...but no matter how much we warned there was a terrible price being exacted...the addict still has to hit rock bottom before anything changes.

My favorite metaphor, though, is the squeaky wheel. Which is the mess of government. So you grease the wheel to make it quieter and the ride smoother. But if you keep adding on grease without ever cleaning it up, the wheel is finally so clogged it can't turn at all. So then we clean it up as best we can and get back on the bike and ride. In human terms that means someone has to go to jail.

Right now, Obama is trying to ride a bike that still has too much gunk on the wheels. He doesn't want to stop getting where he's going to clean the damn thing. But someone has to go to jail. I don't know what will convince him. We'll see.

[ControlledDemolition]

6. The weapons were planted (sold) to lay the rationale for future invasion.

The real reason may have something to do with the looting of the Bahgdad Museum.

[Hubert Flottz]

7. Obama had better leave no stone unturned, because there

is a snake under every one of them. Mueller and ByBee need to be removed from their posts and reprogrammed in a nice safe place, like Leavenworth.

K&R...

[annabanana]

8. Error: You've already recommended that thread.. .as much for post #5

as for the OP.

The gunk is thick and gritty around those gears...

[ThomWV]

9. The word "sinecure" was misused in the high-lighted paragraph

the word sinecure was misused; no one can say that Federal Judges have jobs with no work involved, which is part of the meaning of the word. It is not enough that the position is one of power and security for the person holding it, to qualify as a sinecure one must also have a job in which little to no work is involved.

[olegramps]

12. Seems absolutely applicable to me.

The judges use their staff to do all the hard work. I guess if reading their summation is considered work then I would agree. As for Mueller having his secretary rubber stamp Cheney's demands doesn't seem to be too strenuous.

[Supersedeas]

13. interest little social circles

[Octafish]

14. It's like the Bushes work for an Empire of Evil...

...or something.

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

Thanks for the heads-up on Floyd's Bybee article, babylonsister.

There's nothing like a little treason among fiends.

[MagickMuffin]

15. John Kerry IS a National HERO

If anyone wants to read up on the BCCI scandal, here's a link to the report

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/

This link is for the Lawyers and Lobbyist

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/17law.htm

[Joanne98]

16. Good catch