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Mary Beth Buchanan and the Obscenity of War Crimes
Mary Beth Buchanan is a US Attorney, formerly the director of the Executive Office of US Attorneys.
Buchanan asserted she directed FBI agents to conduct "hom interviews" of Wech Jury Members.
Yet, we have a different picture when it comes to the firing of US Attorneys, and FBI agents at Guantanamo. FBI agents were told not to retain war crimes records.
When Buchanan was asked about her involvement with the US Attorney firings, her attorney and GOP said she "wasn't involved".
War crimes have been documented on FBI agent 302. Those forms are missing. Addington and CIA General Counsel Rizzo visited Guantanamo to review the POW interrogation. MajGen Teguba asserts this Administration did direct an effort to commit war crimes.
War crimes are offenses against civilians, unarmed combatants, and people who are protected under the Geneva Conventions.
The public should find out what role Buchanan had in reviewing the war crimes evidence from Guantanamo. She may not have been involved with the US Attorney firings, but she should have been in a position to hear something. She was connnected, indirectly, with Attorney General Ashroft who asked that discussions about war crimes be kept out of the White House.
Buchanan had led a prosecution against someone for obscenity. The public should ask Buchanan how her views of the Guantanamo inerrogation might change if the President had detained young children, or abuse women in Iraq.
Oh, wait. The President did detain young children, and US combat forces have sexually assaulted women and children in combat zones and in non-combat zones.
Buchanan's role as a prosecutor isn;t merely to narrowly look at her jurisidication. It is to provide leadership, where it is absent, for the Department of Justice. The public has a right to know what role Buchanan had in reviewing detailed descriptions of POW interrogations.
It is one thing to enforce the laws of war, quite another to do something when reading in emails detailed descriptions of those horrific abuses during interrogations. Buchanan should shed light on what information she has about POW abuse, her connections with the CIA General counsel, and what information she as Director EOUSA had access related to POW abuse, prisoner logs, and FBI descriptions of abuses committed against POWs.
Buchanan's made a name for herself for providing lega insight on FISA issues and conduting high profile litigation. Buchanan should disclose what information she has about the obscene war crimes her President directed, and what information she and others were reading in the JCON database related to prisoner abuse.
It's one thing to get upset when someone writes about obscenity. It's quite another to do something about obscene war crimes. The questoin is whether Buchanan did what she should have done; or, as with the US Attorney firings, she "had no role" in taking action to ensure US personnel did not engage in any obscene abuses of the Geneva Conventions.
When Buchanan cooperates in disclosing what information she had access to during obscene, repulsive prisoner interrogations, the public might take seriously her efforts to confront obscenity at home.
Comments (11)
When criminals start a war, the war is a crime
July 5, 2008 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Testing ,
Thank you for ( paraphrasing Neil Young here..)"keeping us still rockin in the free world " .
...
and jAMES DD where have you been hiding ? Can you answer how Mary Beth Buchanon illegally obtained the names of the Wecht jurors -and then had the FBI go and illegally interview the jurors at home ?
And contrary to the disinformation you post up james dean -there will be no retrial of Wecht -we will find the link to turdblossom here in due time - we might have to track it through the OVP /Addington office - but dollars to donuts its there -hiding in plain site -
Maybe the law suits being filed against Elston will turn up something regarding the executive office, mary beth , and the Wecht show trial- one never knows - thats why the lawyers call it discovery .. I bet Ms Goodling in her depositions might also share some insights into the executive & DOJ's unlawful collusions into political prosecutions . And what about dear Ms Palouse getting deposed- what do do you think will come of the civil law suits jimmy dean aka james dd.?
July 5, 2008 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Serious Albie,
You are an idiot. Your continued argument that GW Bush is somehow a puppet master on these things is both ridiculous and absurd. The fact of the matter is GW put incompetent individuals in charge of government agencies, and these individuals had there own crazy agendas.
Interesting, because right now the government has chosen to opt for a retrial. The appeals court has stayed the retrial proceedings due to the appeals. This means the appeals court has put a pause on the retrial.
I understand that such information is difficult for you to comprehend since you are both not a lawyer, which you disclosed from your prior postings, and you are clearly incapable of a rationale thought since you seem to believe the misinformation that testing posts here.
I hope the goverment does drop the case. It is a waste of tax payers money and an overreach of the law. At most, Wecht should have been brought up on a civil trial if anything at all. I am guessing the appeals court won't rule until the end of the year and by that time, Buchanan will be on her way out. As such, I imagine the decision to retry will be debated again.
I think that you won't get very much out of the civil depositions because these people are not stupid. They are lawyers after all and know how to parse their words.
As stated before in previous posts, my opinion is that the bush DOJ created an environment that caused the rank and file US Attorneys believe that prosecutions of democrats was the preferred action in the DOJ. This belief is not only shared by me, it is also testified to by former AG Thornburgh.
With this environment, you get someone like Buchanan, who is a boot polisher that wants to impress her bosses in DC and get another position. She then proceeds to target major democrats in her area to placate the belief that her bosses want her to prosecute democrats. As such, she gets involved in a local battle between the Demcrat DA and the Democrat coroner. Hence the Wecht case is born.
In the end, you may find a paper trail that explains why this nothing of a case was pushed. I doubt the paper trail will lead anywhere near the White House. Hell, I doubt it will lead anywhere past Buchanan's office, except for a few choice communications from Washington asking Buchanan what teh hell she is thinking with this one.
July 5, 2008 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Albie,
Overlooked your question since I have answered it on numerous occasions. I recommend you read up on the Wecht case. The answer is clearly there in the press reports.
When the judge failed to have an anonymous jury seated, he created some crazy procedural rules for the handling of the jurors' names. The rules basically stated that once the potential jurors were cut down to the actual jurors, the names of the jurors would be announced in the court room to both the defense and the prosecution.
The announcement of the names was to placate the concern of Wecht's defense that someone could get into the jury that Wecht had testified against in a prior trial.
When the names were announced though, the prosecution and the defense were barred from recording the names. They basically could only address the concerns of any potential juror at that time.
So your argument is how did the names get out. Well since the names of the entire juror pool was released previously, it is pretty clear that the prosecution or members of the prosecution such as FBI agents left the court room with either the names of the jurors written down or in their minds and recorded them afterwards.
Not very hard to do Albie. Does not really require some grand conspiracy involving the White House staff over three hundred miles away.
Since the Wecht defense team filed a motion arguing that the prosecution clearly violated the judge's order on the jurors' names, we will hopefully find out what occurred in the prosecution's response brief.
I imagine that the viewpoint I have backed up by the newspaper and trial coverage of the case is closer to what occurred than your viewpoint based off of testing's unsubstantiated postings.
July 5, 2008 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
my my my how things change testing when you actual read up on the facts in cases.
Hmmm...this is what I have stated on numerous occasions, yet you keep stating that such is impossible and not true. Are you now accepting the facts of the situation that Buchanan directed these people?
July 5, 2008 9:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
jimmy dean -
Good to see you back buddy ! Did you have a fun Fourth ? You sure are sure of yourself jimmy -maybe I'll just concede all the arguments to you . And just wait and see how this all shakes out ..
Happy Trails & trials jimmy - until we meet again ..
July 5, 2008 9:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Albie,
My name is James. Not jimmy dean, jimmy, etc. I wish you could at least get the fact of someone's name right; however I imagine even that is difficult for you.
July 5, 2008 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, James DD
How was your fourth? Did you drink a fifth?
Funny when you visited my blog, no reading showed up on my sitemeter. Who DO you work for? It really has me curious.
"testing" - you will know soon enough, but I found the perfect backer. Minnesota is an AWESOME state for civics lessons. We even understand GENEVA. Now I can change my avatar, too.
Now, I can relax and read Telford Taylor's book. That's what I wanted to do for weeks.
XXX OOOO
July 6, 2008 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
VIRGINIA,
Sorry, I am not a drunk like you. You still make me laugh though. Perfect backer. that foil hat you have on is starting to leech into your brain; because you sound more dimwitted than ever.
July 6, 2008 2:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt you could ever find a more "Loyal Bushie" than Mary Beth BUSHanan. She is in at least one respect behind the Prosecutors' Purge scandal - it was she who hired Monica Goodling.
Goodling would have been indicted when she admitted to crossing the line (IOW breaking the law) but she was under immunity. Goodling in turn hired Esther Slater McDonald, who shared with Michael Eston the dubious distinction of being named by the Inspector General as being involved in the politicization of the Department of Justice. In any case the trail leads inexorably to MBB.
Buchanan also validates what Paul Krugman observed over a year ago. The Prosecutors' Purge scandal is important less because of the eight US Attorneys who were dismissed and more because of those who remained, who "decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance."
July 6, 2008 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
SadButTrue,
It is so much more than that. GW Bush has put incompetent people in charge at all levels of government. While the Democrats are upset by the selective prosecutions, how do you think the average person feels? Buchanan has had a very liberal approach to the rule of law and as such we have cases such as Tommy chong going to jail for selling glass bongs, the owners of extreme associates being threatened with over forty plus years in jail for pornography in very poor taste, the Fletcher case, the vets lying about their service being threatened with jail time, etc.
It is time to clean house and get people in these positions for their intellectual merit not the amount of money one's husband donates to certain Republican campaigns.
July 6, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
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