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Correcting America's Dark Chapter of Torture
There's a bomb of a contradiction at the heart of what's passing for a debate on the torture regime of the past eight years. President Barack Obama calls those years of secret prisons and "enhanced interrogation techniques" a "dark and painful chapter in our history." That's not just a suggestion of something amiss. It's an admission and an indictment of wrongs, in terms that have been applied to atrocities like war crimes and slavery. The secret Bush administration memos Obama released -- the black book of those years, translating Soviet torture methods into "corrective" and "coercive techniques" like sleep deprivation, simulated drowning, beatings, starvation, hanging from hooks -- prove the point.
Little of it is new information. Obama is merely documenting what's been coming to light in newspaper reports, books and a graphic Red Cross report for the past several years. And he's not doing it of his own initiative. We have the American Civil Liberties Union to thank for forcing his hand. Still, he's removed all doubts about what Jane Mayer, in "The Dark Side" (Doubleday, 2008) summed up: "The Bush administration invoked the fear flowing from the attacks on September 11 to institute a policy of deliberate cruelty that would have been unthinkable on September 10. President (George W.) Bush, Vice President (Dick) Cheney and a small handful of trusted advisers sought and obtained dubious legal opinions enabling them to circumvent American laws and traditions. In the name of protecting national security, the executive branch sanctioned coerced confessions, extrajudicial detention, and other violations of individuals' liberties that had been prohibited since the country's founding."
"Dark and painful chapter" isn't an exaggeration. Nor would be a truth commission, a tribunal, punishment for the perpetrators -- not as retribution, but as correction. And not to appease the rest of the world or even rehabilitate America's image in the world's eyes. World opinion doesn't define who we are. American principles do, for our sake. Yet the response to that dark and painful chapter is turning into its own crime.
Sen. Patrick Leahy's "commission of inquiry" would stop at an inquiry and grant all participants immunity. Obama wants to look forward, not back, because "nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past." But justice is all about squaring proper blame with past and proven crimes. Otherwise, might as well release the 2.4 million people in American prisons and jails, most of whose crimes were victimless, non-violent or less heinous than torturers'.
CIA Director Leon E. Panetta opposed so much as the release of the memos, claiming it set a dangerous precedent for the disclosure of intelligence sources and methods. But sources of intelligence aren't being revealed. Methods of torture are. Keeping them secret would only safeguard them for use in the future. And to date, not a single name of actual torturers ("interrogators," as the preferred euphemism goes) has been released. Only the names of a posse of Bush administration staffers and lawyers tasked with finagling legality out of indefensible practices have: David Addington, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Steven Bradbury.
There's a disturbing parallel between the way the posse and al-Qaida went about justifying their mutually indefensible deeds. The Quran specifically forbids the killing of women and children. It declares in one of the Quran's most humanistic passages that "anyone who murders one innocent person shall be treated as if he murdered all of humanity." No Muslim cleric worth his turban would have sanctioned 9/11, designed exclusively to murder innocent people by way of suicide bombing. So Osama bin Laden shopped around for a rationale. He found it in the twisted sophistry of branding suicide bombers as martyrs, and innocents as infidels. Then he got himself an obscure cleric to sign off on the rationale. He had his secret memos, too.
Should interrogators and the lawyers of a rogue administration be punished? They were just following orders. That, anyway, is the Nuremberg defense -- despicable then, despicable today. In Israel, the country most justifiably outraged by the Nuremberg defense, soldiers may disobey orders they personally consider illegal or unconscionable. Some lawyers and interrogators, we now know, heroically did just that during the Bush regime, and paid the price. Others didn't. Following orders is no defense. Nor is "moving on."
But if there's a bomb of a contradiction at the heart of this debate, there's also an elephant: George W. Bush. His name is hardly mentioned in all these stories of shame and torture. It's all about the lawyers, the process, the exigencies of the moment. But it isn't. The decisions were his. "I am the decider," as he put it. And so he was. This "dark and painful chapter" began with him. His orders for secret memos. His orders to torture. It should end with him.
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51 Comments so far
Show AllA good analysis by Mr. Tristam.
The only flaw in his reasoning is that he apparently still believes the Official Story about the events of 11 September.
The truth of 9/11 IS COMING...slowly, but surely it will be exposed....with or without the help of a complicit government.
To quote _ M O R K , from "Mork and Mindy" TV show :
Nano
Nano
Thermite, that is
____ "unexplainable" scientific peer reviewed evidence, per "plane / gravity collapse theory"
____ unexploded ( and still very very active ) nano-machined residue
____ found in massive ( relative ) quantities in WTC dusts
Sometimes the truth is found initially in very very small places ( one millionth of a mm )
Namaste
Yes...I believe Mork was a prophetic whistleblower.....Yuk Yuk
The truth of 9/11 will set us all free and there are many of us working in many ways toward this goal. Give support to the NYC ballot iniative coming up in NYC in November. It's been re-vitalized and can use any assistance. Please go to 911blogger.com for updates.
Time has come today. Put Up or Shut Up. BHO either joins with humanity or he makes himself known to all as the servant of Torturers - and thereby making us accomplices before, during, and after the fact. And we didn't even get to make any money off it either - the richfilth did though. Like Carl Sagan's stars of the firmament, "Billion$$$ & Billion$$$" they stole from us the old fashioned way. With a pen.
President Obama is trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but it is broken in so many small pieces.
The U.S. Government is so corrupted, so bankrupt, so rotten to the core, from torturers, the thieves of glorious capitalism on Wall Street, and the unholy alliance between the defense industry, corporate America and the U.S. Congress, should not President Obama really put our whole nation on trial?
Maybe it is time to take this impossible task off of the shoulders of President Obama and clean the whole slate and start all over again with a major revolution of peaceful non-violent demonstrations !!!
Or are Americans and their universities, churches and synagogues still that clueless?
The real question remains...what are we waiting for? And who will make the first move??
I am an angry old man as well!
So many years wasted believing in what we were fed, eh? The rabbit hole just gets deeper!
If someone made the first move, would you join him or her? It starts with you and me, not someone else. Courage has to replace fear.
Herein lies the rub, my friend. We will all be there IF we know millions will be there also. Do you not think the powers that be have factored this in? They are masters of psyops and mass control...hence we have Obama. AND, if one person makes a move like those priests a year ago or so, where were the millions to support them?
If you are in the position to make a solo move, by all means, do so. Maybe you will get support and maybe not. This is the chance you take. Some folks are in a position to take this chance and succeed or fail. NOW, if you have an idea about how to get millions together to march on DC, put it in motion. Millions WILL NOT FAIL AND THEY KNOW THAT, TOO! As a result, many will join in IF they know it will work. It's not easy and as I have said TPTB know that.
In many respects, the internet works against us as a verbal steam outlet. WE have yet to learn how to use it to our advantage when it comes to mass demonstration since the internet itself is a passive instrument. If it was not, we will have been in DC years ago by the tens of millions.
angryoldman (from another one): "In many respects, the internet works against us as a verbal steam outlet. WE have yet to learn how to use it to our advantage when it comes to mass demonstration since the internet itself is a passive instrument. If it was not, we will have been in DC years ago by the tens of millions."
I have made exactly this point, im other postings, on articles on the CD website and have proposed a remedy to this internet "passivity" that, so far, no one has chosen to accept. To even to begin to organize demonstrations we have to overcome this passivity through direct communication with one another. Fortunately, this is a simple technology available on the internet: it's called e-mail, by means of which we can communicate back and forth individually from our mailbox contacts or in bulk through e-lists like those, for example, in yahoo groups. This interactive process has to start somewhere, and I have previously offered my own e-mail address as a starting point and I offer it again. It is jerrydrose11@yahoo.com. (that 11 is an eleven). Feel free to use it; or of course feel to continue to operate in the mass communications mode in which we only receive information and proposed action by way of websites and the world wide web. (including the comments sections of CD and other websites.) (if no one else does, angryoldman, why don't YOU write me and we can get an interactive ball rolling?) Jerry Rose
Done.........
Thanks we've made contact and ignition, fellow Floridians as it turns out. Hope to hear from many more and maybe we can whip together some kind of yahoo group. You referred in the first e-mail to a "glitch" as you tried to use the e-mail address I left. Others wanting to correspond should, as you apparently did, do a compose with that address for To: and fire away.
I've made a "first move" as per above, and angryoldman and Stephen Riley have already "joined" the move. Will you do likewise by contacting me at jerrydrose11@yahoo.com? And will others? Jerry
I like this idea very much. But, besides the organization of a social network group... What will be the ultimate goal of creating this social network? What vision, goals or theories do you wish to create with this group?
What I am getting at is that there are sooooooo many different types of left activist groups out there and their problem is that they are too divisive - which just makes them so powerless. For ex: You have a gay rights movement, an anti-Federal Reserve movement, anti-capitalist movement, an anti-war movement, 9/11 truthers, etc, etc... And to make them even more powerless, these individual movements are also divided (for ex: there are 4 or 5 different anti-war movements)
Take a look at the recent tea parties... I remember reading some liberal bloggers making fun of these right activists because they had no single message. They thought how funny it was that one guy was holding up a Timothy McVeigh sign and another was holding a sign that said Obama's a socialist, and so forth. But, what's ironic is that the left does the same thing!!
I'm pretty sure the power structures love that we are all so divided.
So, why not try to get all of these movements to work as one? Aren't we essentially revolting against the same power structures? Why not join forces? I would join the first group that does exactly this... hell, I almost joined and helped out Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty movement knowing full well that their 'Ayn Rand' economic philosophy is a complete joke.
Anyway... I'm not nearly as smart or experienced as some of the other brilliant CD posters on here, so I hope this message makes some sense.
Also... I recently read one of the most incredible essays pertaining to revolt. It's called "The Spirit of Revolt" written by Peter Kropotkin. For those who haven't read it I am going to copy and paste it after this post. I hope those who choose to read it get as much out of it as I did. Notice the end of the essay when he writes...
"The direction which the revolution will take depends, no doubt, upon the sum total of the various circumstances that determine the coming of the cataclysm. But it can be predicted in advance, according to the vigor of revolutionary action displayed in the preparatory period by the different progressive parties.
One party may have developed more clearly the theories which it defines and the program which it desires to realize; it may have made propaganda actively, by speech and in print. But it may not have sufficiently expressed its aspirations in the open, on the street, by actions which embody the thought it represents; it has done little, or it has done nothing against those who are its principal enemies; it has not attacked the institutions which it wants to demolish; its strength has been in theory, not in action; it has contributed little to awaken the spirit of revolt, or it has neglected to direct that spirit against conditions which it particularly desires to attack at the time of the revolution. As a result, this party is less known; its aspirations have not been daily and continuously affirmed by actions, the glamor of which could reach even the remotest hut; they have not sufficiently penetrated into the consciousness of the people; they have not identified themselves with the crowd and the street; they have never found simple expression in a popular slogan."
The Spirit of Revolt, 1880
Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)
There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an application in life; everywhere they are opposed by the inertia of those whose interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling atmosphere of prejudice and traditions. The accepted ideas of the constitution of the State, of the laws of social equilibrium, of the political and economic interrelations of citizens, can hold out no longer against the implacable criticism which is daily undermining them whenever occasion arises,--in drawing room as in cabaret, in the writings of philosophers as in daily conversation. Political, economic, and social institutions are crumbling; the social structure, having become uninhabitable, is hindering, even preventing the development of the seeds which are being propagated within its damaged walls and being brought forth around them.
The need for a new life becomes apparent. The code of established morality, that which governs the greater number of people in their daily life, no longer seems sufficient. What formerly seemed just is now felt to be a crying injustice. The morality of yesterday is today recognized as revolting immorality. The conflict between new ideas and old traditions flames up in every class of society, in every possible environment, in the very bosom of the family. The son struggles against his father, he finds revolting what his father has all his life found natural; the daughter rebels against the principles which her mother has handed down to her as the result of long experience. Daily, the popular conscience rises up against the scandals which breed amidst the privileged and the leisured, against the crimes committed in the name of the law of the stronger, or in order to maintain these privileges. Those who long for the triumph of justice, those who would put new ideas into practice, are soon forced to recognize that the realization of their generous, humanitarian and regenerating ideas cannot take place in a society thus constituted; they perceive the necessity of a revolutionary whirlwind which will sweep away all this rottenness, revive sluggish hearts with its breath, and bring to mankind that spirit of devotion, self-denial, and heroism, without which society sinks through degradation and vileness into complete disintegration.
In periods of frenzied haste toward wealth, of feverish speculation and of crisis, of the sudden downfall of great industries and the ephemeral expansion of other branches of production, of scandalous fortunes amassed in a few years and dissipated as quickly, it becomes evident that the economic institutions which control production and exchange are far from giving to society the prosperity which they are supposed to guarantee; they produce precisely the opposite result. Instead of order they bring forth chaos; instead of prosperity, poverty and insecurity; instead of reconciled interests, war; a perpetual war of the exploiter against the worker, of exploiters and of workers among themselves. Human society is seen to be splitting more and more into two hostile camps, and at the same time to be subdividing into thousands of small groups waging merciless war against each other. Weary of these wars, weary of the miseries which they cause, society rushes to seek a new organization; it clamors loudly for a complete remodeling of the system of property ownership, of production, of exchange and all economic relations which spring from it.
The machinery of government, entrusted with the maintenance of the existing order, continues to function, but at every turn of its deteriorated gears it slips and stops. Its working becomes more and more difficult, and the dissatisfaction caused by its defects grows continuously. Every day gives rise to a new demand. "Reform this," "reform that," is heard from all sides. "War, finance, taxes, courts. police, everything must be remodeled, reorganized, established on a new basis," say the reformers. And vet all know that it is impossible to make things over, to remodel anything at all because everything is interrelated; everything would have to be remade at once; and how can society be remodeled when it is divided into two openly hostile camps? To satisfy the discontented would be only to create new malcontents.
Incapable of undertaking reforms, since this would mean paving the way for revolution, and at the same time too impotent to be frankly reactionary, the governing bodies apply themselves to halfmeasures which can satisfy nobody, and only cause new dissatisfaction. The mediocrities who, in such transition periods, undertake to steer the ship of State, think of but one thing: to enrich then.selves against the coming débâcle. Attacked from all sides they defend themselves awkwardly, they evade, they commit blunder upon blunder, and they soon succeed in cutting the last rope of salvation; they drown the prestige of the government in ridicule, caused by their own incapacity.
Such periods demand revolution. It becomes a social necessity; the situation itself is revolutionary.
When we study in the works of our greatest historians the genesis and development of vast revolutionary convulsions, we generally find under the heading, "The Cause of the Revolution," a gripping picture of the situation on the eve of events. The misery of the people, the general insecurity, the vexatious measures of the government, the odious scandals laying bare the immense vices of society, the new ideas struggling to come to the surface and repulsed by the incapacity of the supporters of the former régime,-- nothing is omitted. Examining this picture, one arrives at the conviction that the revolution was indeed inevitable, and that there was no other way out than by the road of insurrection.
Take, for example, the situation before 1789 as the historians picture it. You can almost hear the peasant complaining of the salt tax, of the tithe, of the feudal payments, and vowing in his heart an implacable hatred towards the feudal baron, the monk, the monopolist, the bailiff. You can almost see the citizen bewailing the loss of his municipal liberties, and showering maledictions upon the king. The people censure the queen; they are revolted by the reports of ministerial action, and they cry out continually that the taxes are intolerable and revenue payments exorbitant, that crops are bad and winters hard, that provisions are too dear and the monopolists too grasping, that the village lawyer devours the peasant's crops and the village constable tries to play the role of a petty king, that even the mail service is badly organized and the employees too lazy. In short, nothing works well, everybody complains. "It can last no longer, it will come to a bad end," they cry everywhere.
But, between this pacific arguing and insurrection or revolt, there is a wide abyss,--that abyss which, for the greatest part of humanity, lies between reasoning and action, thought and will,--the urge to act. How has this abyss been bridged? How is it that men who only yesterday were complaining quietly of their lot as they smoked their pipes, and the next moment were humbly saluting the local guard and gendarme whom they had just been abusing,--how is it that these same men a few days later were capable of seizing their scythes and their iron-shod pikes and attacking in his castle the lord who only yesterday was so formidable? By what miracle were these men, whose wives justly called them cowards, transformed in a day into heroes, marching through bullets and cannon balls to the conquest of their rights? How was it that words, so often spoken and lost in the air like the empty chiming of bells, were changed into actions?
The answer is easy.
Action, the continuous action, ceaselessly renewed, of minorities brings about this transformation. Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, are as contagious as cowardice, submission, and panic.
What forms will this action take? All forms,--indeed, the most varied forms, dictated by circumstances, temperament, and the means at disposal. Sometimes tragic, sometimes humorous, but always daring; sometimes collective, sometimes purely individual, this policy of action will neglect none of the means at hand, no event of public life, in order to keep the spirit alive, to propagate and find expression for dissatisfaction, to excite hatred against exploiters, to ridicule the government and expose its weakness, and above all and always, by actual example, to awaken courage and fan the spirit of revolt.
When a revolutionary situation arises in a country, before the spirit of revolt is sufficiently awakened in the masses to express itself in violent demonstrations in the streets or by rebellions and uprisings, it is through action that minorities succeed in awakening that feeling of independence and that spirit of audacity without which no revolution can come to a head.
Men of courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the means to transform them into action,--men of integrity for whom the act is one with the idea, for whom prison, exile, and death are preferable to a life contrary to their principles,--intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to dare in order to succeed,-- these are the lonely sentinels who enter the battle long before the masses are sufficiently roused to raise openly the banner of insurrection and to march, arms in hand, to the conquest of their rights.
In the midst of discontent, talk, theoretical discussions, an individual or collective act of revolt supervenes, symbolizing the dominant aspirations. It is possible that at the beginning the masses will remain indifferent. It is possible that while admiring the courage of the individual or the group which takes the initiative, the masses will at first follow those who are prudent and cautious, who will immediately describe this act as "insanity" and say that "those madmen, those fanatics will endanger everything."
They have calculated so well, those prudent and cautious men, that their party, slowly pursuing its work would, in a hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years perhaps, succeed in conquering the whole world,--and now the unexpected intrudes! The unexpected, of course, is whatever has not been expected by them,--those prudent and cautious ones! Whoever has a slight knowledge of history and a fairly clear head knows perfectly well from the beginning that theoretical propaganda for revolution will necessarily express itself in action long before the theoreticians have decided that the moment to act has come. Nevertheless, the cautious theoreticians are angry at these madmen, they excommunicate them, they anathematize them. But the madmen win sympathy, the mass of the people secretly applaud their courage, and they find imitators. In proportion as the pioneers go to fill the jails and the penal colonies, others continue their work; acts of illegal protest, of revolt, of vengeance, multiply.
Indifference from this point on is impossible. Those who at the beginning never so much as asked what the "madmen" wanted, are compelled to think about them, to discuss their ideas, to take sides for or against. By actions which compel general attention, the new idea seeps into people's minds and wins converts. One such act may, in a few days, make more propaganda than thousands of pamphlets.
Above all, it awakens the spirit of revolt: it breeds daring. The old order, supported by the police, the magistrates, the gendarmes and the soldiers, appeared unshakable, like the old fortress of the Bastille, which also appeared impregnable to the eyes of the unarmed people gathered beneath its high walls equipped with loaded cannon. But soon it became apparent that the established order has not the force one had supposed. One courageous act has sufficed to upset in a few days the entire governmental machinery, to make the colossus tremble; another revolt has stirred a whole province into turmoil, and the army, till now always so imposing, has retreated before a handful of peasants armed with sticks and stones. The people observe that the monster is not so terrible as they thought they begin dimly to perceive that a few energetic efforts will be sufficient to throw it down. Hope is born in their hearts, and let us remember that if exasperation often drives men to revolt, it is always hope, the hope of victory, which makes revolutions.
The government resists; it is savage in its repressions. But, though formerly persecution killed the energy of the oppressed, now, in periods of excitement, it produces the opposite result. It provokes new acts of revolt, individual and collective, it drives the rebels to heroism; and in rapid succession these acts spread, become general, develop. The revolutionary party is strengthened by elements which up to this time were hostile or indifferent to it. The general disintegration penetrates into the government, the ruling classes, the privileged; some of them advocate resistance to the limit; others are in favor of concessions; others, again, go so far as to declare themselves ready to renounce their privileges for the moment, in order to appease the spirit of revolt, hoping to dominate again later on. The unity of the government and the privileged class is broken.
The ruling classes may also try to find safety in savage reaction. But it is now too late; the battle only becomes more bitter, more terrible, and the revolution which is looming will only be more bloody. On the other hand, the smallest concession of the governing classes, since it comes too late, since it has been snatched in struggle, only awakes the revolutionary spirit still more. The common people, who formerly would have been satisfied with the smallest concession, observe now that the enemy is wavering; they foresee victory, they feel their courage growing, and the same men who were formerly crushed by misery and were content to sigh in secret, now lift their heads and march proudly to the conquest of a better future.
Finally the revolution breaks out, the more terrible as the preceding struggles were bitter.
The direction which the revolution will take depends, no doubt, upon the sum total of the various circumstances that determine the coming of the cataclysm. But it can be predicted in advance, according to the vigor of revolutionary action displayed in the preparatory period by the different progressive parties.
One party may have developed more clearly the theories which it defines and the program which it desires to realize; it may have made propaganda actively, by speech and in print. But it may not have sufficiently expressed its aspirations in the open, on the street, by actions which embody the thought it represents; it has done little, or it has done nothing against those who are its principal enemies; it has not attacked the institutions which it wants to demolish; its strength has been in theory, not in action; it has contributed little to awaken the spirit of revolt, or it has neglected to direct that spirit against conditions which it particularly desires to attack at the time of the revolution. As a result, this party is less known; its aspirations have not been daily and continuously affirmed by actions, the glamor of which could reach even the remotest hut; they have not sufficiently penetrated into the consciousness of the people; they have not identified themselves with the crowd and the street; they have never found simple expression in a popular slogan.
The most active writers of such a party are known by their readers as thinkers of great merit, but they have neither the reputation nor the capacities of men of action; and on the day when the mobs pour through the streets they will prefer to follow the advice of those who have less precise theoretical ideas and not such great aspirations, but whom they know better because they have seen them act.
The party which has made most revolutionary propaganda and which has shown most spirit and daring will be listened to on the day when it is necessary to act, to march in front in order to realize the revolution. But that party which has not had the daring to affirm itself by revolutionary acts in the preparatory periods nor had a driving force strong enough to inspire men and groups to the sentiment of abnegation, to the irresistible desire to put their ideas into practice,--(if this desire had existed it would have expressed itself in action long before the mass of the people had joined the revolt)--and which did not know how to make its flag popular and its aspirations tangible and comprehensive,--that party will have only a small chance of realizing even the least part of its program. It will be pushed aside by the parties of action.
These things we learn from the history of the periods which precede great revolutions. The revolutionary bourgeoisie understood this perfectly,--it neglected no means of agitation to awaken the spirit of revolt when it tried to demolish the monarchical order. The French peasant of the eighteenth century understood it instinctively when it was a question of abolishing feudal rights; and the International acted in accordance with the same principles when it tried to awaken the spirit of revolt among the workers of the cities and to direct it against the natural enemy of the wage earner--the monopolizer of the means of production and of raw materials.
United Nations Official Strongly Suggests That Obama Is In Violation International Law in Refusing to Investigate War Crimes
April 19, 2008
By Jonathan Turley
U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak has gone public with a stinging indictment of President Barack Obama’s failure to investigate and prosecute officials for the American torture program, a clear war crime under existing treaties. Obama is in open violation of international law due to his failure to uphold the clear legal and moral obligations of this country.
(snip...)
...It is obvious that Obama does not want to allow an investigation that would likely lead to an indictment of Bush officials and probably Bush himself. If Obama wants to excuse war crimes, he can take the personal responsibility and pardon Bush and these officials — tying his own legacy to the commission of torture. However, his blocking of an investigation is an international outrage and puts us into the same category as countries like Serbia.
Full and unedited at:
http://jonathanturley.org
Start the prosecutions with the ones most responsible, Bush and Cheney. Cheney has already confessed on NBC news before the whole world, so that should be an easy conviction. Then we can go down the chain of command and bring JUSTICE to the world and to the victims. Without Justice there is nothing left of the moral fibre that gives legitimacy to a civilization, and so it will take a fall. The US has fallen a long way down into the deep pit of moral depravity and has instigated many crimes against humanity and many war crimes as well. Al Quada must be having a hay day with people lining up to enlist! Can anyone blame them? Just look what we do to innocent women and children with our drone attacks and our illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq! The US government and military are totally hypocritical institutions and ought to be filled with immense shame. I long for the day when Justice shall prevail and the Bush/Cheney cabal and now, most sadly, Obama will be made accountable before the courts of justice!!!
We have all seen cause after cause come and go in the past eight years. Until We the People are willing to hit the streets and put our butts on the line, nothing will change and NO ONE will be held to count. THEY KNOW THIS BETTER THAN WE DO!!
The necessity for a Nuremberg style proceeding in The Hague has become more apparent with the release of these barbaric memos.
Obama doesn't want to get up every morning, look at himself in the mirror and have to admit that his present employer, the federal government, is a bunch of goons who heat words over the stove and bend them to make torture into "enhanced interrogation techniques". Obama thinks of himself as being superior to all that. After all, he wrote two books and George Wanker Bush can't even string two coherent sentences together unless someone who can writes them for him. This torture business was something temporary, seasonal, like egg nog or hot cross buns. It happened because of an "unfortunate confluence of events and personalities" (or whatever euphemistic language he chooses), which makes it all sound temporarily less than optimal but ultimately harmless and without consequence. He rubs one forefinger over the top of the other and says, now don't do that again. Yeah, that'll show 'em.
Prosecuting Bush admin officials and operatives would be very devisive as Obama is trying to build enough of a main stream consensus to move his plans forward. I have already heard several nasty earfuls about the relased documents from the Fox News junkies.
Obama seems to be on the defensive with Fox, Rush... challenging his fitness and patriotism, the oil companies ads and the tea parties, but the Republicans better start paying attention. Obama has fired a couple shots across the bow of the seditious "Just say No!" machine.
The released memos and the recent EPA CO2 finding are saying to me: I want to build a consensus and move forward, but I am the President, and my administration will execute its plans, administer the government and enforce the law with or without your cooperation. You keep biting my hand as I put forth the carrots, and it will soon be time for the stick.
No offense, bbr-001, but your interpretation of Obama and his subordinates' actions seems to me an attempt to put the sweetest possible coating on a poison pill.
For one thing, Obama can't give away his carrots fast enough to the banksters and military/state security agencies. And it isn't only the "Republicans" who Obama's actions affect-- every reaffirmation of the status quo put in place by the criminal cabal that preceded him IS a stick jammed in We the People where the sun don't shine.
Furthermore, there's an implicit "ends/means" dimension to your argument which I reject on principle-- i.e., even if Obama is forced to seemingly take wrong-headed positions because they're politically acceptable, whereas Doing the Right Thing is bound to be controversial and divisive, it's OK because once Obama gets enough momentum and traction, he'll soon bring things to rights!
The problem is-- and this is true of all holders of high political office, not just Obama-- by the time a politician finishes cutting his cloth to suit the political exigencies of the moment, the remaining scraps and shreds can't be stitched back together to fit the noble ends for which the politician supposedly made all those concessions and compromises to achieve in the first place.
Even the less-onerous, and even favorable, decisions of the Obama admin are what critics have called "boutique issues". But they're not unequivocal, e.g. Obama declaring that federal law enforcement authorities won't go after medical marijuana growers in states permitting the use of medical marijuana, then the feds afterwards raiding just such a grower.
It's always nice to be thrown a bone or two, but not when the thrower is also busy shoring up his predecessor's abominable Hollow State version of our former constitutional republic.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obedient Servant and Dave B. - thank you for your comments, your commitment to true justice. There will be nothing to 'divide' if the country does not live by the rule of law. And a note about 'torture.' There is ample, in fact overwhelming evidence that human beings were actually KILLED by their interrogators - that, under any type of legal system (except the Nazis and Bush et al) constitutes MURDER - a capital crime. Do you think this is what they really fear the most - a full investigation into those who have permanently disappeared?
Torture will also be a dark and painful chapter of the USA's future unless someone is actually charged, tried and convicted for this outrage
"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
And, what are we to teach our children and inspire our young people when all this is given a pass?...
NO CONCERN...(THEY) will teach your children what (THEY) and only (THEY) want them to know.
I used to be angry young man I was hiding my head in the sand, but you gave me The Word, and I finally heard, and I am doing the best that can. I've got to admit it's getting better, it's getting better all the time.
Say The Word, and you'll be free, say the word I am thinking of, have you heard The Word is love, it's so fine, it's sunshine, it's The Word, love.
All you need is love, love, love is all need.
Yeah, if John Lennon could see this world now he'd just say it's the same old crazy world as it was when he came into this world, and when he left. Maybe even crazier, I don't know?
When I was on the Hopi Rez living with a family I got up one morning, got a pencil & paper. Sitting on the couch, and began to draw an Ancient Symbol. The mother of the family saw me drawing the symbol. She froze instantly & completely. Then her right arm shot straight out with finger pointing out as she said from within her entire inner being, "That world out there is crazy."
So all am doing is the same thing the Hopi are doing which is nothing. Go to the store & buy stuff, & then back to the Rez.
I love the Hopi as my friends. I love my enemies, too.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
If someone beat and raped your girlfriend with a knife would you be so quick to love your enemies? Talk is cheap. I love Gandhi & Jesus too along with John Lennon and the boys but as a flesh and blood man I find it hard to forgive one such as I mentioned. Just saying…
Overall, peaceful non-violence works.
It worked for Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., whole societies were changed through their efforts. Redemptive violence is destroying the world, so we have to think about it, not dismiss it with the futility of some exceptional situations.
Mr. Riley - I agree with your premise concerning redemptive violence, but I'm also concerned about the current collective ignornace of America, and the inability to foster a mass movement such as those that sustained Gandhi and King. This country has never been as divided as it now is, with the obvious exception of the American Civil War - and that fact is sobering in and of itself.
So I take it that that is a ‘no,’ your girlfriend wasn’t beaten and raped with a knife and you still have your values and shiny ideals intact. It’s funny how they change with reality; when it smacks you square in the face. I am a simple man and not yet worthy of a higher elevation of consciousness as is evident in my reaction to this very real experience. I still love Gandhi & King … I’m just not worthy of them at this point. These are my problems; these are my words.
This angry old man has been out there for the past 12 years, helping to lead the biggest 2000 campaign for Nader on the West Coast of Florida, protesting at the WTO and World Bank, marching for peace with Kathy Kelly, Fr. John Deer, working with the JustFaith program that is considered subversive by many U.S. Catholic Bishops, writing hundreds of letter to the editor, and being a skunk at the lawn party on many occasions. Gladly I will e-mail you Jerry D. Rose.
"Following orders is no defense. Nor is "moving on.""
Obama's defense is that he is most concerned about the economy and does not want to create additional problems, yet he enriches the wealthy. Obama is shouting, "I am a crook," and nobody is listening. Obams is shouting, " I am a war criminal," and nobody is acting. Unfortunately, liberty is disabled. American manhood has been lowered to, "give me beer and give me whiskey, give me a woman and I'll get frisky!
You can't 'correct' something that happened. This is not a history exam. People suffered. Lots of them will carry physical and mental scars for as long as they live. If they have kids you can bet that a crippled parent has an effect on a child.
History can and will be revised, but that's not the same thing.
Right On BO-
What would the GOP have done? Oh yeah, I forgot, they DID the torturing, lied about and hid the memos.
It is political naivette to believe the US would/could eviscerate it's own intel estab. Just releasing the memos was a fight. BO does not act in a vacuum.
Common Dream Obama Detractors. Do you think the USAF pilots that bombed/murdered/maimed the hundreds of thousands of INNOCENT CIVILIANS in Iraq should be prosecuted for MASS MURDER?
It is EXACTLY THE SAME LOGIC. EXACTLY & PRECISELY. But I'm guessing you who feel the torturers should be hung feel differently about these squadrons of Baby-Killers. Am I wrong? The agony & death the USAF visited upon sleeping dreaming souls exceeds mightily even the torturer's efforts-the bodies of the USAF genocide would fill Stadiums Overflowing with Blood & Death. SHOULD THE CREWS BE PROSECUTED? No answer means lay off Obama, you concede the system is monolithic multi-dimensional and a function of a plethora of competing moral truths that mandate compromise. Which is not just the world YOU live in, but BO too. allmylove.
Dead Suns,
A Newborn's Iris-
Twined as a flower
To her Roots.
joe
The GOP did the torture with Democratic full knowledge, approval and complicity, including Pelosi's and Obama's, no wonder Obama's now covering for Bush and Cheney.
You must be one of those tragic people who battled the bitter cold on Jan 20 to welcome our new war criminal, Bush clone in chief, Barack Obama, the cold must've frozen the very few remaining brain cells those zombies had left.
The implication that joe can't think as well as you is a time honored and untoward attempt to discredit him personally as a means to dismiss the excellent question he raises:
Is one person a criminal for intentionally inflicting pain one person at a time and another a hero for sentencing hundreds or thousands to years of unspeakable pain by a single act of dropping white phosphorous on masses of people?
Our 'guests' in Iraq have asked us to leave. We are an ugly, rude, dirty soldier sitting on a Persian rug with his muddy boots on, his welcome long since worn out, just because he can.
We need not go away mad, just go away.
Of course, we need to keep in mind that only recently, in a thread on the death penalty, you argued that torture is justifiable on certain circumstances. Using the old, tired and morally bankrupt "oh noes, won't someone please think of the children" argument.
So, it is not surprising that someone who believes that torture is justifiable under certain circumstances, also believes that torturers should not be prosecuted.
"Dark and painful chapter" make this sound like something that's over. Let us not forget how thoroughly torture fits into American foreign policy in general.
First, torture has not been isolated to the Bush administration, though they sure seemed moved to make horror mainstream.
Then, Obama's policies right now cause tremendous suffering that he could largely avoid rather simply. Yet he remains in Iraq, escalates Afghanistan, increases military spending, moves against single-payer health care.
If we raise the lights on this dark chapter, we won't see a period, but an elipse . . . .
"Dark and painful chapter" should be used to describe someone's history of alcoholism or drug addiction, not heinous crimes against humanity.
To excuse these crimes' investigation and prosecution as "spending our time and energy laying blame for the past" is one the most perverse and corrupt statements a sitting president has ever uttered.
In 1998, President Clinton signed "The Torture Victims Relief Act."
What a difference a stolen election makes.
Bring America Back !!!!............Thanks to the Author Tristan for the correct attribution that media fluff on 'torture' is forgetting to state that the mother cause of it all was 9/11 !!
***Thanks to the posts and bloggers for the proposition that 911 is NOT a done deal, and that our 'Deep Throat', will give over the real criminals who set up
those Towers for the controlled demolitioning.
***Neocon Media wants to focus on the blood and guts and gore of the Torture
thereby forgetting the real Cause. Bush, Cheney, and the cabal already have admitted to Torture--what they do not want to plea to is 911==and the fore-
knowledge of the attacks on that Day !!!!
***What the torture has produced is a bunch of waterboarded Patsies who will
admit to whatever their military-minded captors wqnt them to admit to !!
Patsies, our Govt loves its Patsies they can Blame for atrocities and events which it really does not want to investigate !!!
Patsies for the Anthrax Patsies for 9/11 Patsies for the Axis of Evil
****Our Govt is real good at giving itself Plausible Deniablilty, and Bush' Tortue agenda gave them the means and opportunites to do just that !!!!!!
Patsies !!!
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I have a section in my news archives labeled Bush-Cheney Police State Fascism and I have, this morning, created another labeled Obama Police State Fascism.
From Scott Shane of the New York Times we have this piece dated 4/20/09 today
entitled:
US memo cites frequent waterboarding of 2 suspects
Surfaces after US renounced use of method
In it we are re-educated that two detainees were waterboarded a total of 266 times and that this is somehow supposed to be legal.
President Oboreo "has repeatedly suggested that he opposes congressional proposals for a 'truth commission' to examine Bush administration counterterrorism programs, including interrogation and warrantless eavesdropping."
Such a commission would be marginally better than nothing but would grant immunity to people who deserve none.
But the cork in Oboreo's asshole is Rahm Emmanuel, who has conclusively proved he is just a David Addington copycat: A sneering punk enforcer of the administration's worst tendencies, a denier of the need for legal accountability for the ruling elite, and proof positive that all of Oboreo's rhetoric about "listening to other viewpoints" is hog excrement:
Re: Team Bush officials who ordered the torture and wrote the memos:
"Emanuel said the president believes they 'should not be prosecuted either and that's not the place that we go.'"
I'd have to be Groucho Marx to begin to tell Emmanuel Rahm where to go.
One cannot help but wonder if there is some thought that prosecuting the real pushers of the torture, Bush and Cheney,and the pack of enablers with them would incite violence from those that supported them. We now have nearly 300 million guns in this country, many of them assault weapons good only for killing large numbers of people or elephants. We do not have enough elephants to use them on.
No, we don't have enough elephants to accommodate the capacity of all those assault weapons. But now that Secretary of Interior Salazar has "de-listed" wolves from protection, Sarah Palin and her friends will be free to use those weapons to shoot them from the air; so maybe a few people anyway will be saved as targets of all these weapons that people will want to be using because they have them.