President Bush knew of and approved of high level meetings in which White House officials like Rice, Powell, Cheney, Tenet, and Rumsfeld signed off on American torture policies. This strikes against the heart of who we are as a nation.

The ACLU and John Amato of Crooks & Liars are calling for a special counsel to investigate the Bush administration’s actions regarding torture and war crimes.

Join the ACLU and our friends at Crooks & Liars: Call on your members of Congress to demand an independent prosecutor to investigate possible violations by the Bush administration of laws including the War Crimes Act, the federal Anti-Torture Act and federal assault laws.

Please sign on.

Digby et alia at Hullaballoo have been doing a ton of leg work on this story since it broke, shock of shocks, on late Friday.

Separate from the discussions of what this says about Bush and his cabal or how and when these officials should be tried for their crimes against our country (not to mention the almost entirely unknown list of victims of policies set and approved by Bush and his top officials), there has to be a public, thorough re-commitment to the rule of law. NJ House candidate Dennis Shulman gets the ball rolling with a good statement at Open Left. But this is just a small start. We need to proclaim loud and clear that we do not believe in torture, that what was done both from a legalistic standpoint and under the guidance of such opinions was illegal, and that those who made these decisions will be held accountable.

Contrary to what Bush has said in the past, America has tortured on his watch. It is wrong and it cannot be allowed to go without massive public scrutiny and investigation leading to the prosecution of those who orchestrated this strike against the US Constitution and America’s sensibilities of human dignity.

Update:

Turkana at The Left Coaster has more.