EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- 'The Gilded Age' Statistics Corporations Don't Want Workers, or Anyone, to See
- As Death Toll Rises Beyond 500, Garment Factory Disaster 'Worst in World History'
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- Report: Toxic Chemicals Found in Thousands of Children's Products
- Climate Change's 'Evil Twin': Ocean Acidification
- Report: Toxic Chemicals Found in Thousands of Children's Products
- Move Over, Koch Brothers: A Bigger, Darker Rightwing Funder Is Out to Destroy Public Education
- 'The Gilded Age' Statistics Corporations Don't Want Workers, or Anyone, to See
- Time for Big Green to Go Fossil Free
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
Popular content
Today's Top News
NYT: Bush’s Cover-Up of Abuse Turning into Obama’s Cover-Up
It's been said with regards to the Watergate scandal and the Nixonian presidency that the cover-up was worse than the crime. A month after Nixon resigned, his successor, President Gerald Ford pardoned him, and many observers believed his technically-less-than-one-term administration never recovered from that action.
President Obama and former President George W. Bush in the Oval Office in 2008. (File) "The cover-up continues," a New York Times editorial declared on Sunday.
"The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration's expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush's cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama's cover-up," the editorial argues.
A British court recently ruled that the country should release U.S. intelligence information on the alleged torture of a man held in several overseas prisons, despite concerns it could harm intelligence-sharing with the United States.
As RAW STORY reported:
Lord Justice John Thomas and Justice David Lloyd Jones want to disclose seven redacted paragraphs from an earlier ruling on the treatment of an Ethiopian man who moved to Britain as a teenager, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and held by U.S. officials in Afghanistan, Morocco and Guantanamo Bay.
Binyam Mohamed alleges he was tortured by Pakistani intelligence officials in overseas prisons, but that British officials were complicit in his treatment. He told the BBC: "There is information in there, I'm 99 percent sure, which states that the U.S. sub-contracted the UK government to do its dirty work."
However, the NY Times points out, "To block the release of those paragraphs, the Bush administration threatened to cut its intelligence-sharing with Britain, an inappropriate threat that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton repeated. But the court concluded that the actual risk of harm to intelligence-sharing was minimal, given the close relationship between the two countries. The court also found a 'compelling public interest' in disclosure, and said that nothing in the disputed seven paragraphs - a summary of evidence relating to the involvement of the British security services in Mr. Mohamed's ordeal - had anything to do with 'secret intelligence.'"
The editorial adds, "The Obama administration has aggressively pursued such immunity in numerous other cases beyond the ones involving Mr. Mohamed. We do not take seriously the government's claim that it is trying to protect intelligence or avoid harm to national security."
The editorial also chastises Obama for "resist[ing] orders by two federal courts to release photographs of soldiers abusing prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq."
"We share concerns about inflaming anti-American feelings and jeopardizing soldiers, but the best way to truly avoid that is to demonstrate that this nation has turned the page on Mr. Bush's shameful policies," the editorial explains. "Withholding the painful truth shows the opposite."
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
44 Comments so far
Show AllHow much longer will Obama keep looking forward, when he should be looking at all the extraordinary, evil torture done under the Bush and Cheney Administration? Obama is now an accessory after the fact and he needs to be tried for: " withholding the painful truth".
He needs to be tried for a hell of a lot more than only "withholding the painful truth"; unless we include the truth, fact that he's just as guilty as Bush can be judged to be.
"Leftists", many, enjoy trying to whitewash Obama of his criminality, but his criminality is irrefutably fact and there's no whitewashability about it. So people will just produce and re-produce propaganda of deceit about his false, phony innocence and will, in the process, always pretend that Bush is worse than Obama. They're both good waterboys or -carriers for the real rulers of the government of the USA and both know this.
The crimes of the Bush Administration were authorized, aided and abetted by the same people now running the Black Bush Administration. Democrats were in on the torture deal, illegal wiretapping, two illegal wars, etc. so they can't really prosecute crimes they were complicit in, can they?
The crimes of the Bush Administration were authorized, aided and abetted by the same people now running the Black Bush Administration. Democrats were in on the torture deal, illegal wiretapping, two illegal wars, etc. so they can't really prosecute crimes they were complicit in, can they?
Barry O . . . I have some advice for you: You better start spending some time wondering what Hell is going to look like.
I am astonished that the NYT would print such an editorial. I don't know what's changed in their editorial room, but it's a very welcome turn of events.
I had the same reaction, John Mitchell. Is that some kind of latent clue that Mr. O may be on his way out in some way? Suddenly, the NY TIMES has seen the light? Or is this just a bone thrown to an increasingly disgruntled public. Wassup? We'll find out.
See my long post in response to "donnalou" on today's headline story: NO REFUGE FOR AFGHAN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE.
/cm
The solution to this Government in crisis is not a new brave Senator, it's not a new brave Party and now we finally realize it is not a new brave President.
It is a new Government by a new brave citizenry.
Bang-on and succinctly said. Now all we've to do is convince others that we're 'it', and the game is being played with our lives as the stake.
...the cover-up was worse than the crime.
Who will Pardon Obama?
The same people who pardoned Bush
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Those photos must really be bad. I know that women and children were sexually assaulted, and tortured, and maybe worse things were done. Probably, worse things were done. Who was it that said, "The truth must be told at all costs"? He was right.
I think the motto 'Fiat juticia, ruat coelum' is close to what you're thinking of - 'See that justice is done even if it makes the heavens fall'.
Unfortunately, if slavery were the Bush administration's policy, Obama would support slavery and his administration would fight anti-slavery judiciary rulings. As has been shown with the administration's actions on health-care, the wars of aggression, the raping of our country by the banksters, and Guantánamo, as long as Obama has a little room in the mansion, all is well and the field-hands be damned. If massa(Goldman Sachs) be pleased Obama be happy
Slavery is U.S. policy, but, again, the government of the USA is ruled by the corporatists, corporate oligarchy.
What, slavery, really? Definitely. Check out the following excellent and important interview with Keith Harmon Snow and, I believe the host is, Bonnie Faulkner on the Guns and Butter program of Pacifica's KPFA radio. This is a very important audio interview and KPFA unfortunately doesn't provide a download link; but I listened to it over this past weekend, so we can at least play it from within the Web browser. (There's a link for being able to listen to the audio with a separate player, but the link's apparently invalid now; the two players I tried couldn't find the file.)
"Blood Diamonds and Devastation in Congo", Apr 25, 2007
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/4503
QUOTE: "Interview with journalist, Keith Harmon Snow, just returning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Keith Snow's travels; Congo under King Leopold, corporate slavery plantations; police and soldiers; the March 2007 five-day war in Kinshasa; Laurent Kabila and Joseph Kabila; foreign capitalist "untouchables"; logging, mineral and diamond exploitation. Visit his website www.allthingspass.com."
Keith Snow gets a little emotional in his expressionism at times, but he provides a lot of critically important information from his own on-the-ground investigations, and, I suppose anyway, additional research.
Listen carefully.
He's a three-time Project Censored award recipient for his work, btw. Or maybe it's four times.
Snipped. This was an unintended duplicate.
Snipped. Seemed to have problems with CD reloading and resubmitted the same post, so it got posted more than once.
Robert Johnson sold his soul at the Crossroads,
And BO got down on his knees and took the offer too; "All this will be yours, the kingdoms of the world! Yours." And Obama knelt, a sweart-sworn fealty now roaming the Earth, To and Fro, Killing, Raping, Torturing for sexual-sadistic joy with the fulfillment of their Liege's commands
And The Right King for WWIII is enthroned now, Religious war. Civilizational. Oil the side-show, the stakes whole cultures, peoples, languages, countries And Our Souls.
What's that supposed to be, comic relief? It's comedic anyway, for the GWoT is definitely not a religious war; it's a war of aggression by, for and of "corporate America" and Europe. The real rulers don't care about religion.
"The real rulers don't care about religion."
unless they can use it to convince good people that doing bad things to other good people is ... good.
If enough Americans have the courage to make the Laws of this 'once great nation' work, then justice will be served for the victims of the offenders who have hidden 'in plain site' for too long.
For an initial show of support you may send an email to
nurembergrevisited@gmail.com
More to come later on this project.
Thanks,
A "once great nation", the USA you mean? If so, then you need to brush up on truthful history.
We can say "once (and still) great hegemon" (satan and beast according to some people), "once (and still) great superpower", etcetera; but "great nation", absolutely never in U.S. history. There were a few good, maybe even great, [moments], now and then, a few times perhaps, but this doesn't make the U.S. a "great nation" at any time in its history.
So how did that Brand Obama kool-aid taste?
Obama is just as much a creature of the Corporate machine and it's drones in government as Bush was.
There was an 'election' but the government did not change at all.
Plenty of people who are critically objective warned that Obama was not qualified for the presidency, while I and I don't know how many of these other people said the same about Hillary Clinton; but "leftists" in the U.S. either like voting for evil while pretending that theirs is the "lesser" of the two opposing evils and as if evil isn't evil, or these voters prefer to live in "invincible ignorance", which is a considerably willful kind of ignorance and, therefore, denial. Those voters are facilitators of evil(s), instead of having the courage required to push for and promote real change and, therefore, really qualified political candidates.
And to be a facilitator is to be complicit in the crimes committed by the evil or evil-prone candidates who are elected to political offices.
When 2010 and 2012 elections happen, then these above voters likely will again facilitate only more evil, repeated evils. They're addicted to this malicious form of so-called "democracy" and "justice". Heroin addicts are better.
In any society anywhere in the world, if the nation's law are not respected and where their courts enforce their laws selectively, such a society can only be said to be dysfuntional and whether she is the USA or some 3rd world "Banana Republic" makes no difference; such a society is LAWLESS and the USA today is lawless.
I have an ongoing case bouncing around in the Malaysian High Courts, and after 10 years of miscarriage of justice and the law, my case is still standing at the door of the Malaysian High Court, and has progressed nowhere. The problem that I face arose because the adjudicating Judge, Dato Zainon binti Mohd. Ali took it upon herself to award to the respondents 2 opposing orders one for security for costs, and when I paid the Rm.60,000 towards security for costs, Judge Zainon binti Mohd. Ali promptly went on to approve a 2nd and opposing order for striking out my petition.
Her actions in approving these two opposing orders is like 'IF YOU PAY $60,000 FOR THE PURCHASE A CAR, AND WHEN YOU CALL TO COLLECT THE CAR ONLY TO BE TOLD BY THE MANAGER OF THE CAR COMPANY THAT YOUR PURCHASE AGREEMENT IS CANCELLED AND THE CAR COMPANY HAS THE RIGHT TO RETAIN THE $60,000 THAT WAS ALREADY PAID FOR THE PURCHASE. To reflect the dysfuntional state of the High Court of Malaysia, this illiterate Judge Zainon Binti Mohd. Ali was soon promoted to the bench of the Malaysian Court of Appeal; and despite my public protest of the criminal behaviour and actions of this judge.
What has happened on the heels of the illegal war of aggression perpetrated on Iraq by the Bush Administration openly reflect the dysfuntional state of the USA judiciary. We in Asia thought that America is the beacon of RULE OF LAW AND DEMOCRACY. we do not see the USA in this light anymore. It is fitting to mention at this point that we in Asia see today, THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA as the prefered model for excellent government. Look at what Socialism with Chinese characteristics has achieved in China in a mere glimpse of 3 decades, THE UPLIFTMENT OF 400 MILLION CHINESE PEOPLE FROM DIRE POVERTY TO A LIFE THAT PUTS FOOD ON THE TABLE, ROOF OVER OUR HEAD, FREE EDUCATION FOR OUR CHILDREN, FREE HEALTH CARE AND SOME MONEY TO SAVE IN THE BANK.
Chinese people do not have two cars in their garage, but then we do not have debts that drown us either. Chinese people parise the Lord that we do not have American type democracy like the IRAQIS or we too will be mired in state sponsored MISERY.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE USA AND DEMOCRACY IS THAT EVERY PRESIDENT OF THE USA WANTS TO BE RE-ELECTED TO A 2ND TERM, hence they do not dare ROCK THE BOAT. The Obama administration too dare not rock the boat !Give me socialism with Chinese characteristics anyday !
take a good look at the above picture.
a really good hard look.
(see the cat? see the cradle?)
I don't know about cats and cradles in the picture, but wouldn't be surprised if Obama and Bush kissed and hugged each other, while also singing "Oh, how I love you", say. They must really enjoy each others' presence.
Cat's Cradle - by Kurt Vonnegut.
Read it to discover all about bicycles to Afghanistan and granfalloons.
The reason is simple --- Obama is EMPIRE pond-scum.
No one can be that gutless --- he is completely complicit in the same torture, mass murder, and crimes against humanity that Bush and Cheney were and are.
There are not good Emperors and bad Emperors ---- all are horrid
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"No one can be that gutless"? Bull. You're exaggerating, as many people tend to do. As gutless: Bill Clinton was and would again be, and so would his wife. Also would be Sen. John Kerry and many others in the Dem. Party, with a few exceptions, while evidently none of those people are among the party's leadership. Why do you think they make themselves [complicit] in "corporate America" un- and anti-constitutionally, un- and anti-democratically, unjustifiably, heinously, ... excluding Dennis Kucinich from, well, for last year, six Dem. Party presidential candidate debates? Well, one reason is because they are all GUTLESS. Worse, they're spineless. And they have no noteworthy intelligence; they're a bunch of goons.
Obama's no worse than all of those many gutless, spineless, ... worthiless people in the Dem. Party. There's no need to exaggerate that he is otherwise, or special among them.
Mike, perhaps you are right in saying that I exaggerate in putting Obama in an entirely different class than the others, who, as you say are "themselves [complicit] in "corporate America" un- and anti-constitutionally, un- and anti-democratically, unjustifiably, heinously, .... gutless, spineless, ... worthless people in the Dem. Party."
Yes, perhaps Obama is no worse than that --- but is that any kind of presidential timber?
No, Mike, I guess Obama is not dramatically worse than the kind of bottom-feeder scum that you well describe.
And as long as we are in agreement on being equanimous in dealing equally with such slugs, I'm very glad that you brought up our dear Senator Kerry in this crew.
The gutless, nuanced waffler just did an interview with Margaret Warner for Jim Lehrer's News Hour on PBS, and I immediately sent Jim a 'feedback' --- that recommended in brief, "Jim, for god's sake save that tape --- SNL could use it as a skit and you would make enough to support your show for a whole season. Maybe SNL would have to edit in Amy Poelher as Margaret, because Margaret was too polite to say more than "in other words you're saying ....", "and by that you mean to say....", "What you seem ot be saying is..." about ten times during the interview to get this arrogant, banal, vacuous, horse's arse to commit to anything."
Just listen to Mr, Waffle. PBS only has audio for now on this amazing interview in which Kerry does everythign except verbally climb inside his own rectum.
But hopefully, we will soon be able to watch this "News-makers Interview" with Mr. Windserfing Waffler extraordinaire:
http://pbs.vo.llnwd.net/kip0/_pxn=1+_pxI0=A3337+_pxL0=begin+_pxM0=+_pxR0=10800+_pxK=17082/newshour/rss/media/2009/10/26/20091026_kerry.mp3
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"How can you be the one to ask the last boy to be killed in a battle to talk himself to death in Congress?"
"There are not good Emperors and bad Emperors ---- all are horrid"
Well, if the documentary film "The Money Masters" is right about emperor Caesar, then he evidently wasn't all that bad and would've been mostly likely assassinated because of this. The film's producers say that when he came to power he wanted to make some socio-economic-justice corrections, to make society fairer for [everyone] and this didn't suit the rich elites at the time, so they would've had him assassinated by his inside right-hand man.
It happens to good and relatively good leaders. The U.S. has seen to overthrowing and assassinating good leaders of other countries, besides its own, numerous enough times now and always for the profit of the real rulers of the government of the USA, the corporate oligarchs.
Unfortunately, we should have the opposite reality; bad, evil leaders eliminated and replaced with good ones, which hardly ever happens, if it ever has. Well, maybe it's happened even several times, but I suppose it was mostly through peaceful, yet affirmative, elections; no eliminations like final jobs, such as assassinations. Those are good ways to get rid of "bad apples", but the good seems to usually be short-lived.
The "emperor" Gaius Julius Caesar was never emperor. He was dictator for life. It was his nephew Augustus Caesar who became the first emperor. Guess how Gaius Julius Caesar became dictator for life? Through military power. Caesar led his army against Rome.
That not "all that bad" Caesar led Roman imperialism into Gaul because he was in debt. That was the time-honoured method for politicians from the Roman Republic, especially the late Republic, who were in debt, especially soldier politicians such as Caesar: become a governor in the provinces, then lead an imperialistic invasion into the neighbouring foreign lands. It was one reason why the late Roman Republic fought so many aggressive foreign wars, and why authoritarian generals such as Marius, Sulla, Pompeius Magnus, and Caesar, became so powerful; and one reason why the Republic ultimately failed, the generals, the soldiers became too powerful, and political disputes, personal political rivalries were settled with soldiers, no one was willing to give up any power. That not "all that bad" Caesar killed and enslaved Gauls because he was in debt.
The Optimate party, the elite faction were certainly in many cases scum, with a few exceptions, and they certainly did assassinate those who tried to reform the system: the brothers Gracchi, Titus Sempronius and Gaius, and Marcus Livius Drusus.
But Caesar WAS all that bad. By the end of the Roman Republic, pretty much all the politicians in positions of high power were "all that bad". To get to those positions, they had to be "all that bad".
Well Mike, you may be right but then all hope is dead according to this philosophy. I do believe we are in the grips of corporate greed but I won't buy that all good leaders are short lived. Franklin D. Roosevelt stuck around for a while and we have many programs that help us now. All is not lost. We have to keep fighting to expose the CEO's and the corporations for what they are...flesh-eating bacteria.. willing to eat up the middleclass and destroy our country. We always need to fight for our freedom or we lose it. The teabaggers are right ..just confused and misguided as to who is the real problem. We must stand up as one voice and demand that our leaders take the action to control the oligarchy that the corporations have become. They run things and they must be stopped. Corporate fascism has taken over in America. Run for profit greedy health insurance companies are at the root of the problem along with the banks. It is up to us to maintain freedom in America..no one is going to do it for you. And for those of you that now blame Obama for everything and before that Bush and before that Clinton...etc. STOP IT! There are three branches of gov't and other people around influences what happens. Our president is not a king and is not just in charge of it all so read the Constitution and the bill of rights and learn about his powers and the other two branches. He can only do so much and he is taking on a lot at once.
Between the teabags and the progressives I think we could impeach Obama.
Biden could not be worse.
Oh, yes, he could. He's a Christian Zionist and nothing is worse than that!
Who threw THIS editorial over the transom?
Perhaps there'll be a retraction tomorrow.
It refreshingly eschews the "looming crisis" hook that's becoming standard in Respectful Critiques of Obama, i.e. framing policies and attitudes established in the first months of Obama's maladministration as if they're mere trends leading up to some decisive crossroads. One sees it in CD articles all the time lately-- Obama is always "on the verge" of screwing up.
Speaking of "crossroads", this just popped into my head: I once knew a co-worker who supposedly was afraid to make left turns while driving. I never rode with her, but when teased about it she didn't deny it. She would devise routes to regular destinations that didn't require left turns-- and would resort to making "three right turns" to avoid making left turns.
I hadn't thought of her in years. See where I'm going here? Obama obviously suffers from the same phobia. He doesn't stall at the crossroads, though; he just keeps making right turns in a cloud of dust.
A dwindling number of apologists still Hope that he "really" is making a LEFT turn in his own canny way. There may even be a few die-hopers who are willing to view his entire "first" term as merely getting up to speed and executing the three right turns that will allow him to burst forth and put the pedal to the metal in 2012.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Bush and Obama, same dog different collar.
Bush, Clinton, Bush again, Obama, all Ivy Leaguers..
What do they teach at these expensive Schools? Is it possible that the Ivy League depends on their investment in Oil?
The destruction of our Industrial base was completed under
the Bush Family and the Clinton Circus. It has become obvious that both parties are involved. We the working classes have been done in my Clinton and Obama is simply to young and to inexperienced to know or understand what the hell he is doing.
In the coming election we must dump people like Sen Dodd and any of Obama's cohorts. Forget Move-on and let's move out of the Democratic party. Let the Democrats depend of their buddies in the GOP vote for them.
Rawstory needs to work on producing some original content. "NYT: Bush’s Cover-Up of Abuse Turning into Obama’s Cover-Up"? Why bother writing about this when the "Turning" happened last winter? Well, maybe it's Rawstory's point; but I won't waste time reading the article to find out. It's a pointless topic at this point in time.
I wonder if Obama knew that it was Wall Street and the gop who helped get him elected, to be their new puppet, and at the same time make sure he fails, so the republicans can be re -elected? It also proves the god father,--Poppy -is still running the show, and messing things up.
NO NO NO NO NO, Say It ain't So.
I refuse to believe , after all it was editorial by NYT.
Everyone has an opinion.
toophat for you!
I sure wish Mike Corbeil would weigh in on what he thinks about this.
“Neither McCain nor Obama is interested in turning back the imperial presidency. They want to be the imperial president.” Boston University historian Andrew Bacevich (2008)
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY