The current Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, shepherded Bybee's confirmation through the Senate. The two psychologists who devised and advocated the torture program, Jessen and Mitchell, are Mormons, as is Donald Rumsfeld. The CIA has an extraordinarily high percentage of Mormon officers.

Bybee was a Mormon missionary in Chile in 1975-6, the time of the CIA-sponsored Pinochet coup. Although it's unlikely that Bybee would have been involved in Pinochet's atrocities, Mormon missionaries often serve as CIA assets and he could have acquired his fondness for authoritarianism and human rights violations there.

With five Mormons in the Senate, including the Majority Leader, Bybee is probably safe from removal from office should the House impeach him.

Not all of us see the intrusion of Mormon moral principles into our government as a good thing.

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This man should be in jail! Whatever his rationale for torture was it was not justified, & goes against all laws (foreign & domestic)! And the same way those soldiers from Abu-Graib were convicted - he should be too, even more so because he is a "lawyer" and therefore knows better!

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If he had a sliver of decency he would resign. that being said I suspect he will NOT resign and therefore he MUST be impeached .

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Back then, not long after 9/11, the nation was still in shock. They were scared out of their minds of new attacks, anthrax, nukes. The American people demanded that their government keep them safe, at any cost. The official story of 9/11, and the propaganda that followed, dutifully reported in the press by journalists like you, made sure the American people were accepting of illegal invassions, occupations, torture, the Patriot Act, wiretapping, rendition and more.
The media helped in all of this of course.
It was at this time we needed the alternative media to come in and look closely at the events of 9/11. It was beginning to seep out, in obscure sites and by some studious researchers, that the events of the day did not make sense.
But it was ignored by journalists, who have the responsibility of investigating and being skeptical of anything the government does.

But you, David, and all other journalists got scared. You knew if you went in this direction, you would be harassed or otherwise would pay. So you turned away from the movement toward truth of 9/11, and have not retured yet.

And now we have all this mess to deal with........and you all bitch about the results of 9/11. But not ONE of you will really expose the lies of 9/11.

Now we have an excellent peer reviewed study by distinguished scientists, "Active thermite found in the dust samples from the WTC catastrophe" or something like that. Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan, and others........google it. It tells us irrefutably that controlled demolition was used to bring down the WTC.
Real proof of lies about 9/11. And yet you and Alternet purposely ignore it.

Why are you avoiding the obvious glaring evidence that 9/11 was an inside job? Is there pressure from the US government? The Israel lobby? Rightwing Christian fundamentalists? Agents of the Neocon movement?
There is no logical reason that you would not report this scientific paper and its conclusions, other than you are severely pressured or threatened.

If we had just ONE responsible journalist, one that was moved by the search for truth, one patriotic writer, that would break out of the clamp down on this story and tell the American people about the lies, contradictions and impossibilities of the official story.
And then I'm sure a groundswell of realization would overtake the American people and quickly bring an end to occupations, torture, the Patriot Act, all of it.

David, or Alternet, don't you want to make history, and be the first journalist to finally bring truth and honesty to American media? It would change the world for the better. What a great way to spend your time on earth. Wish I was in a position to do it. Don't waste your opportunity.

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is that we are a self-governed people here in the United States. I know, most of us are opposed to torture, just like we're opposed to such things as greed, slavery and exploitation. BUT, "as a people", we somehow manage to do, or at least allow, some pretty despicable behavior under our national banner, and always have.

I think the problem lies in the fact that too many of us become complacent in our belief that our "system" of government is so superior that it ultimately protects us from all manner of evil. Too often, the fact is lost, or subverted, that the system guarantees us nothing other than the right to participate. Too many choose not to, for whatever petty reason they might create in their own mind. Which leads to a situation where a relatively small group of highly motivated individuals are able to seize control of our collective destiny. We're experiencing some of the more dramatic and dire effects of that right now. And I don't mean Obama (100 days is not sufficient to pass judgement, so I'm intentionally remaining hopeful).

Unfortunately, there is little to indicate that this will change anytime soon. A few of things that would improve the situation (the actual implementation of our "system"), would be public campaign financing, election days being "holidays", and a requirement of minimum voter turnout to validate an election. (unless, say 80% of elegible voters cast ballots, the election is void and must be redone) The latter could have the effect of public veto power of the candidates offered. If enough voters don't show up to vote, none of the candidates gets elected.

Until we make some fundamental changes to create a better functioning "system", we will likely be faced with having to continually clean up messes made by public officials who are unfit to serve.

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