In Spain, lawmakers are trying to block their judiciary’s war crimes investigations of foreign governments including the United States. On Tuesday, Spain’s Congress voted to limit judges’ jurisdiction to cases with a clear Spanish connection. Spain’s National Court is currently investigating thirteen foreign cases under the principle of universal jurisdiction. They include the torture of US prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. The Spanish vote follows weeks of pressure by foreign governments seeking to curb the investigations. It’s unclear whether the vote will apply to the current cases or only to future ones.

Off with their heads–well so to speak!

A coalition of liberal groups filed petitions Monday seeking disbarment of Bush administration attorneys linked to memos on harsh interrogation techniques of detainees.

Complaints were filed against 12 individuals, including former attorneys general John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, said a member of the groups. The complaints filed with bar associations in the District of Columbia and four states — New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania — say their licenses should be revoked for “moral turpitude.”

“These lawyers misused their license to practice law to provide legal cover for the war crime of torture,” said Kevin Zeese, executive director of VotersForPeace.US and a board member with VelvetRevolution.US, the two groups leading the effort.

Memos by the Bush Justice Department contended that waterboarding — a form of simulated drowning — as well as sleep deprivation and other extreme techniques were legal under U.S. and international law.

The other attorneys who are targets of the campaign are:

• John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Stephen Bradbury, who worked in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel

• and Alice Fisher, former director of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

The group Physicians for Human Rights is calling for an independent investigation of the role of the American Psychological Association in the US torture of foreign prisoners. The APA has come under wide scrutiny for allowing psychologists to oversee abusive and coercive interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo and secret CIA black sites. Physician for Human Rights says newly released documents show the APA’s ethics task force altered its policy to conform with Pentagon guidelines on interrogations.

Newly released documents show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the Bush administration’s torture of foreign prisoners in September 2002. The disclosure apparently contradicts Pelosi’s claim she was never given details on what techniques were used. Intelligence records show Pelosi and then-House Intelligence Committee chair Porter Goss were briefed on the interrogation of suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded eighty-three times. Pelosi says she was never told the waterboarding was used.

The leaked details of the Justice Department probe come amidst reports Yoo and Bybee have launched an aggressive behind-the-scenes effort to water it down. According to the Washington Post, Yoo and Bybee have encouraged former Bush administration colleagues to warn current Justice Department officials against recommending criminal prosecution.

The Daily Beast’s Scott Horton reports that a judge in Spain decided today that an investigation of Bush officials involved in torture policy will go forward and can lead to prosecution.

In a ruling in Madrid today, Judge Baltasar Garzón has announced that an inquiry into the Bush administration’s torture policymakers now will proceed to a formal criminal investigation. The ruling came as a jolt following the recommendation of Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido against proceeding with a criminal inquiry, which was reported in The Daily Beast on April 16.

Judge Garzón previously initiated and handled investigations involving Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Argentine “Dirty War” strategist Adolfo Scilingo and Guatemalan strongman José Efraín Ríos Montt, often over the objections of the Spanish attorney general. His case against Pinochet gained international attention when the Chilean general was apprehended in England on a Spanish arrest warrant. Scilingo was extradited to Spain and is now serving a sentence of 30 years for his role in the torture and murder of some 30 people, several of whom were Spanish citizens.

Garzón’s ruling today marks a decision to begin a formal criminal inquiry into the allegations of torture and inhumane treatment he has been collecting for several years now.

Now, Garzón has announced a preliminary criminal inquiry into the Bush administration torture policy, specifying the evidence that a crime had been perpetrated against Spanish subjects, but not yet specifying the specific targets of the investigation. Judge Garzón’s decision revealed a deep engagement with documents which had been released in Washington in the last two weeks, particularly a group of memoranda prepared by lawyers in the Bush Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, a report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and a memo released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, making it likely that he would focus on the authors of the torture memoranda and other lawyers who worked with them.

Obama keeps saying we must look forward which is just a bunch of bull.  Nobody is above the law and it seems like when any other country does something wrong the we are the first to call for investigations.  But yet, we turn around and do the same thing and all the sudden it’s ok.  Let’s just get past this.  Bull bull bull….