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TechnoratiDistorting Public Opinion on Torture Investigations
Last Friday, CNN hosted a panel debate on torture and investigations with two conservatives and two liberals (Daily Kos' David Waldman and Center for American Progress' Erica Williams). Waldman did a genuinely masterful job of arguing the case against torture and for investigations -- you can watch the five-minute segment here -- but, bizarrely, the representative for CAP joined in with the two conservatives against Waldman to insist that there be no investigations. This is what she said:
The American people right now are actually not interested in this sideshow and this discussion. The American people are interested in looking forward -- nobody is concerned anymore with what the Bush administration was doing and did. We decided it was torture. Conservatives may or may not disagree. None of that matters at this point and time.
I wonder how Williams reconciles her claims about what "the American people" are and are not interested in with this:
That poll was from February, and while some subsequent polls have produced different results, all polls -- even the most recent ones with the most anti-investigation findings -- find that roughly 40% of Americans believe there must be some form of investigations in Bush crimes. That's a lot of people to be dismissing away as "nobody." And Democrats in particular -- the group ostensibly represented by CAP and which chose Barack Obama as their nominee -- overwhelmingly favor either criminal prosecutions or investigations. Williams' claim that "nobody is concerned anymore with what the Bush administration was doing and did" is patently false and, more to the point, is a fringe position among Democrats and progressives. Is that really the position CAP wants to be articulating on CNN?
What makes her claims even more strange is that it contradicts what CAP itself seems to be doing. Here is an article that the main website for American Progress, the entity Williams represents, is currently promoting:
That's an odd article to be running given that, according to Williams, it's a topic about which "nobody is concerned." And CAP's blog, ThinkProgress, has some of the best and most comprehensive coverage around of the debates over torture and investigations.
This happens all the time in our political debates. Rather than argue the substance of the issue, there is this virtually compulsive need to assert -- with no evidence -- that "the American people" believes a certain way and that anyone who believes otherwise is fringe and isolated. There's just no denying the fact that, as evidence of the depth of our national crimes continues to emerge, there is increased attention across the political spectrum being paid to these issues. In today's New York Times alone, Frank Rich lays out the case for why investigations are critically necessary, and Maureen Dowd -- in an uncharacteristically cogent and substantive column -- ends with this:
I used to agree with President Obama, that it was better to keep moving and focus on our myriad problems than wallow in the darkness of the past. But now I want a full accounting. I want to know every awful act committed in the name of self-defense and patriotism. Even if it only makes one ambitious congresswoman pay more attention in some future briefing about some future secret technique that is "uniquely" designed to protect us, it will be worth it.
If CAP wants to have its representatives arguing against torture investigations, that's its prerogative, but it really shouldn't be making claims about what the "American people" and especially Democrats believe when those claims are so clearly false.
UPDATE: It's amazing how desperate some Beltway Democrats -- and the Democratic Party establishment -- are to lead the way now in insisting that there be no investigations of any kind into the chronic crimes of the Bush administration. Watch DNC Chairman Tim Kaine squirm endlessly on Meet the Press this morning as he advocates a position that, at least according to polls, only a small portion of Democrats share: let's just forget about all that lawbreaking and torture stuff; who cares if our highest government officials committed serious crimes? Is that the official position of the DNC? Although it's obviously because he perceive it as a cynical tool to attack Nancy Pelosi, the RNC's Michael Steele seems far more interested in disclosure and investigations than Kaine does:
As usual, what must never be mentioned are the torture victims themselves, including the 100 or so that were actually killed while in U.S. custody. It can't be overstated how self-centered, petty and amoral it is for the Tim Kaines and Erica Williamses of the world to insist that their little partisan desires justify telling the victims of our torture regime that it's time for them to pipe down and accept that there will be no accountability for what happened to them because we have Important Things to do and can't and don't want to be bothered by "looking back." What kind of a country commits brutal crimes and then insists that they can't be burdened with disclosure and accountability because they're too busy or because it's too burdensome?
48 Comments so far
Show Allteabagama!
Here is Erica William's email address:
elwilliams@americanprogress.org
The neocons for perpetrating torture and the progressives for being accessories after the fact.
Well then nobody should mind if the torturers themselves are tortured to death. Tit-for-tat is fair play.
Re. the war on Iraq purportedly having been based or mainly based on false confessions forcefully obtained through torture, I wonder where this notion began, for it's nothing I recall about all of the "news" media war-drumming back at the end of 2002 and early 2003, etcetera.
I made two posts now to provide some historical review on the claims used by the Bush-Cheney administration. My first post, below, and both are in the same page, is about Ahmed Chalabi, who was not tortured, and who was primarily used for a claim about the mythical WMD Iraq supposedly had.
Also in the first post I excerpt from an interview that William Rivers Pitt held with Ray McGovern on, I believe to recall, June 26, 2003, and in which RM describes a few of the "justifications" the Bush admin. attempted to use, including one about WMD, but which the Bush team abandoned because it'd be immediately discredited, and another about the 9-11 attacks, which was also abandoned for similar reason. Another WMD myth that was the primary claim the Bush admin. used to persuade Congress to sign the authorisation it did sign Oct. 9, 2002, and which was used to launch the war was the notorious myth saying that Saddam Hussein was obtaining uranium from Niger and that this would too likely be used to make nuclear weapons, so the Bush admin. tried to instill public fear with images of "mushroom clouds".
Most of what's excerpted from the interview with Ray McGovern is in my second post, the second one just below.
(both url's broken over two lines to fully appear in this post)
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/16-4
#comment-1205473
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/16-4
#comment-1206270
False confessions that provided some things the Bush administration has said evidently is true, but that these constituted the basis upon which the admin. launched the war is evidently not true; or it wasn't the main basis anyway. People should not continue such claims without carefully reading the interview with Ray McGovern, and if they disagree with him, then explanations should be provided for the public to be able to read.
Imho.
Does anyone know how we can stop this?
Can it be done w/o firing a shot?
I'm beginning to feel a sense of doom-- and I'm paralyzed with impotent rage, or rage brought on by the apparent inability to change anything.
How much more will it take?
There will be plenty of progressives who belong in prison with the neoconservatives when this is over. The neocons for perpetrating torture and the progressives for being accessories after the fact. Obama already is in collusion with the Bush regime on covering it up. War criminals all.
9-11 never happened.
There was no building # 7.
There really were WMD &
Cheney & Bush did not lie
the US into the Iraq war w/
NeoCON Cheerleading every
Step. Of. The. Way.
Torture. GB. Renditions.
THE DECIDER & 2 stolen elections.
Now acomes AfPak & Iran!
The FPI promises!
Just another piece of evidence that demonstrates that there is really no difference between the Democrats (who may call themselves progressives) and Republicans, except perhaps their teams wear different colored jerseys.
If I didn't believe iin God, I would commit suicide.
Jim Shea
As usual, Glen Greenwald is spot on.
The appalling thing about the media "discussion" of the whole torture question is that it's solely about waterboarding. What's omitted is any discussion of all the other horrible forms of torture that were routinely practiced: sleep deprivation, suspension from shackles, exposure to low temperatures and cold water, slapping and punching, slamming against walls, removal of all clothes, confinement in small boxes (coffins), and other practices, up to and including murder. Why are these practices almost never mentioned? We have become what we proclaim our enemy is, that is, barbaric.
If I believed in god, I would be terrified of my eventual punishment.
Yeah, other practices, like eye gouging, genital mutilation, and rape. That much is already documented for years. The word on gasoline enemas (yeah, that's right, GASOLINE ENEMAS) is just starting to come out.
But still, it's only waterboarding they talk about. But we know, don't we, that whatever we hear about is not the half, the tenth, the hundredth of it.
This is the slipperiest of evil slopes. Once you convince yourself it's OK to rape a child with the parents watching, to get the parents to talk, well---
I submit that no matter how heinous the technique of torture, someone has already done it in our name. Like skinning alive, boiling, genital shock, iron maiden, impaling them on a wooden spike up their ass on their tiptoes so they slowly disembowel themselves as the leg muscles weaken and their body descends slowly and horribly--
Whatever it is, THEY'VE DONE IT.
Or they might as well have. No matter what it was, it's still torture. This is not a matter of degree.
We have lost our souls, and there will be Hell to pay.
If I believed in God, I would pray for immediate nuclear war or an asteroid impact, to wipe this evolutionary mistake off the planet and start the fuck over. I am neither a proud american nor a proud human. I am simply ashamed.
Ashamed and enraged.
Sioux Rose
THE PUFFIN: Note the sexual nature of some of these torture tactics? I believe the worldwide profliferation in a very disgusting form of porn is acting to desensitize persons and diffuse the lines between decency and all kinds of dehumanizing forms of rape. Serial killers and lots of soldiers "consume" porn, and notice they are on the front lines of the new fashion articulated as "the banality of evil."
Sioux Rose
JIM: Have you ever noticed that the media sends its reporters out like a pack of vultures to feed off the same carcass? Whether THE story du jour is Jon Benet or OJ or the vanishing bride, there's a sameness to every story. Note, too, that more attention is being projected at the banker bonuses rather than the far greater sums (largely unaccounted for) alloted to the banks, themselves.
Thus it would appear to sanitize the full measure of how sadistic, and I would even say homo-erotically sadistic, some of the acts being perpetrated indeed are, as you said, the media subsumes all the various and sundry details and distills them into the image of the quintessential baptism, alas, a little swim, a fraternity prank, what's a little water boarding between friends of nations? It's smoke and mirrors, or Orwell meets Pavlov meets Bernays. PR, pro-style mind bending tricks for our times!
So which is it? The sideshow no one is interested in, or the main event that ties up all legilative and judicial resources we can't afford.
"What kind of a country commits brutal crimes and then insists that they can't be burdened with disclosure and accountability because they're too busy or because it's too burdensome?"
A very Evil, Vile, Malevolent Empire; one that lies thorugh its teeth about anything of importance; one that protects the rich and devastates the poor; one whose Christian and Jewish supporters ignore its violating all of their God's Commandments as outlined in their Holy Book; one whose Propaganda and Indoctrination Systems are so sophisticated that few realize what's being and has been done to them; one whose Founders would go to war to eradicate.
Like Germany at WW2's end, the US Empire must be demilitarized, occupied and partitioned, and its citizenry forced to look at/learn about the horrors inflicted on the planet's people and ecosystems in thier name over the past 60-65 years. By my count, the US Empire has killed millions more than the Nazis, and continues to kill thousands monthly directly thouugh its illegal wars or indirectly through its other policies.
True. However, it's not the US that's evil, vile, malevolent. It's human beings. If the US collapses, another evil, vile, malevolent empire will replace it.
It's been the history of the planet and it's not going to change. Greece, Rome, Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, etc. have all committed heinous crimes against humanity when it was their turn as empires. It's the human race that needs to be destroyed if peace is to be experienced on Earth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries FORWARD SLASH
worldnews/5330481 FORWARD SLASH New-outrage-over-Iraq-prison-abuse-photographs.html
Sioux Rose
OBUSHA: I never really looked at his chart, but if that is the correct birth date (8/4/61) then his I ching (life imprint) is 29, the Abyss. The message is "water above and water below." Water has a tendency to assume the shape of its container, and it's a highly change-oriented medium in that it can go from 212 steam to 32 degrees freezing.
This is NOT a happy portent. Interesting that he stepped into office when the U.S. was facing what some writers defined as the abyss. The 2 + 9 can be read as an 11, which would resonate with his Aquarian Ascendant... and that number is said to be humanitarian. However, the 11 is also read as 2 (1 + 1) and that makes it absolutely dependent on a partner or significant other.
Water is a YIN element, and this can explain why we don't see much "Yang" capacity to lead, although the Yin is hardly demonstrative of genuine nurture towards the LIFE principle. His destiny is facing the abyss that is the fruit of America's foreign and domestic policies. Strange fate, strange brew, see what's inside of you. (The Cream)
The first thing Wikipedia should say about Obama: (born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American War Criminal to hold the office.
Colin Powell held the office of Secretary of State, and is a war criminal going back to his Vietnam days, and Rice, already a war criminal as head of NSA, continued where he left off. Obama became a war criminal on his first day in office by not ending all US Imperial military operations. The same will be true of his successor.
Still, Obaminable's the first African American War Criminal to hold the office of President.
Great moment from "All The President's Men" - when Woodward and Bernstein are ready to drop the big bomb. Ben Bradly yells at them that "half the people never even heard of Watergate and the other half don't give a shit!"
Off with their metaphorical heads!
It's no surprise that the press is wanting to make it look like we, the people , don't want investigations and prosecutions. They PAID for the previous administration to be in power to do what it did. They certainly don't want the possibility of that coming out.
The press is owned by the Military/Industrial complex, now. It USED to be independent, until Clinton signed the "Media consolidation act", which was just an excuse for it to be bought up by the largest moneyed interests in the world, the gun and bomb makes. Is it any wonder that shortly after that, there were 6 companies that owned it all and that they were mostly the gun and bomb people?
Those interests WANTED war, they put in power a MORON they could control and who had previously stated that he WANTED to invade Iraq, even BEFORE his appointing to the highest office in the land. Cheney was supposed to decide who the VP would be, and of course, he chose himself. Who better to make sure the war kept on going, who better to maximize the profits?
And now that they are no longer in power and are in danger, minimal though it may be, of being exposed and held accountable, they are trying desperately to make it look like "real" Americans don't want any accountability, even though we have been screaming for it for the better part of the last decade.
This is what happens when you let those whose goal is personal enrichment run a country. We have seen it in every third world banana republic, and now we have become that very thing. Our press is a mockery of what a real press should be, and we will be paying the price to get our country back for generations to come.
If we don't hold these vermin accountable, then we will have let the greatest promise in the world's history disappear within our lifetimes. We will have lost the future for our children and theirs and indeed all mankind until humanity no longer means a thing, and we have truly destroyed ourselves.
We don't WANT accountability, we DEMAND it! We don't want it, the future of the country and indeed the world REQUIRE it. Without living up to that standard, we are truly NOTHING as a country. Which is just the way the righties want us.
Sioux Rose
WJM: Don't let the steam out of your own argument, sir. It's the same MIC in control of media then as now, but it's always helpful to make those who still believe they live in a representative democracy think their (manufactured) opinions matter! Smoke and mirrors, my friend, it's all smoke and mirrors in salutation to the interests of Mammon and Mars.
Bring America Back !!!! ..............YES, Public Opinion is
systematically being distorted, distracted, mis-focused onto the admitted Torture Practices of King Bush.
***Mainstream Media is most certainly creating the sideshow and spectacle, Team Obama and Team Neocon are pitching right in there playing their roles to the hilt !
***It Never started with Torture, it started pre and post
9/11==that mother of days which changed this Nation. But, the torture aspects, like the Iraq War aspects, are much more newsworthy and sexy than Sept 11, 2001 ! Team Bush has already plead guilty to Torture===but they avoid like the swine flu, and will never plead guilty to 9/11 !!! And, thats where Mainstream Media has played right into their hands since that fateful day of infamy!
***The intelligence community is not stupid, and they know Torture in all it's forms is a wonderful and great way to create Patsies. A Patsy is a fall-guy, a cover-up who will admit to most anything their torturers want them to !
The instant facts are that we have a waterboarded chauffeur of bin Laden and the so called 19th Hijacker admitting to being masterminds, and proud of it, of the 9/11 attacks. They also ask for martyrdom by which to enter Islam Hero Heaven !
***Even John McCain admits to 'breaking' under the strain of his Vietnamese
captivity and treatment. He admitted to falsehoods under pressure as well .
**Last week , an intelligence agent testified behind a screen on Capitol Hill
that no actionable info was gained from any of the detainee tortures==but that
friendly persuasion yields much more data which may prevent some terrorist action.
Neocons are absolutely lying when claiming Torture "kept us safe" !
**The FBI created an Anthrax Patsy who sued them in court and won a judgement
against them. So then, they needed another Anthrax Patsy---for which reason
is no brainer seeing that those strains were traced to the labs of the NSA---then they created that Guy--who conveniently turns up dead of a very questionable suicide===meaning that case-closed again--dead Patsies tell no anthrax tales, and
dead Patsies bring no lawsuits !! As you remember, Anthrax was the MSM sideshow that supposedly "terrorists" used to follow up on their 9/11 attacks. Changed the entire US Postal system. The FBI never turned up any evidence that bin Laden was connected to 9/11, or anthrax, so Patsies were needed !
If you still think, as Team Obama==as Team Neocon==as MSM diverts us==to think that a cave-dwelling Boogieman and 19 airline pilot school flunkouts pulled off the technical genius that was 9/11 , then you've purchased the Brooklyn Bridge once again. You may as well be waterboarded mindless robots, just like the Patsies created at abu Gharib and Gitmo ! Patsys !!!!
****Greenwald, in this piece, says 40% of America wants investigations, truth commissions into Bush crimes. Seems Greenwald does not limit this to just Torture atrocities or the sideshows of renditions, or merely policies of what is allowed under Geneva Convention, or not!
**So while this piece does not eliminate 9/11 itself, as a target of future inquiry, it does not include it either , by specific reference. Most journalistic hacks writing nowdays are dupes and enablers of MSM, glossing over 9/11 as a 'done deal'==those war monger heros keeping us out of so called trouble since then. Pure garbage. 9/11 was a false flag attack on King George's watch, which He used to fabricate an invasion of a defenseless nation totally unrelated to Terrorism, the picture painted by MSM and the Neocon military-industrial complex !!
The US Public most assuredly is being diverted by the never ending spectacle of Torture, for sure certainly, but let us not forget why it is being done ! NOw
enter the pictures of the Drone attacks, Tora Bora and Pakistan.
*We will never forget===9/11 !!!! MSM wants you to forget.
Sioux Rose
TRUTH KNOLLER: Excellent post.
Would it not be ironic if the repugs start the invetigations in order to get Pelosi. Perhaps we should get on the nail Pelosi bandwagon.
Oregoncharles
How about "nail the empire" bandwagon. How many progressives does it take to assert some power? How many progressive would refuse to pay mandated health insurance? How many progressives would stay home from work, from shopping for three straight days a month?
Arundhati Roy suggests: (essentially) "Why play their game, where they make all the rules and have all the power? Why can't we find our own power, design our own game with our own rules and force them to play."
This is how propaganda works and especially with a Mass of people who are so prone to groupthink.
If you have on day 1 any degree of division on an issue , all you need to do is TELL the people over and over again what THEY really think and in a time a significant portion will believe that is what they think.
This is pretty elementary stuff. Frame it right and the peoples opinion will shift to the opinion you want them to have.
Now it even better if you use keywords that the people have been conditioned to like some Pavlovian dog such as "Freedom and patriotic"
So if you have a room of 100 people with 60 wanting prosecutions and 40 not you need only say "FREEDOM loving AMERICANS do NOT want prosecutions and want to move FORWARDS"
Say that over and over again and a significant number of that 60 will change their opinions because they want to ensure they are in the "FREEDOM loving AMERICANS" group.
This is all very calculated. It not spontaneous discussion you watch.
Sioux
GW NORTH: You make an excellent point. There is also the matter of basic conformity. How about young men wearing their pants under their tushes, as if it's a fashion statement? People copy the most IDIOTIC behaviors, so why wouldn't campaigns to also "fashion" thought work similarly? Only those with enlightenment can stand to stand alone and stand for integrity when others fall rank and file with the idiocies, delusions, and beliefs manufactured during their eras.
The "desire to conform" or be seen as part of a group is very real and very far reaching. There was a Professor in Denmark who tried an experiment.
He created, from scratch, a false issue posting the information on a website and citing various "experts" who were consulted to discuss the issue. In this case it was about the local Government having plans to destroy a centuries old water fountain inside the city of Copenhagen.
Peoples were encouraged to sign a petition against this and encourage friends and neighbors to join the same group.
On that web page he also posted a disclaimer, clearly stating that there was NO initiative to destroy said fountain and that this was an experiment.
The group grew by leaps and bounds, tens of thousands joined the group and signed the petition in protest of an issue did not exist.
Even when some in the group pointed out it was FABRICATED the people continued to join the group, enter into debates protesting said action and ignoring those who pointed out that it was a false issue.
Those who continued to join the group would cite the "experts" and ridicule the persons who were pointing out the entire issue was faked and non existant. There was NO initiative whatsoever to destroy said fountain.
The Professor concluded that the people who joined all had a desire to be seen as "Social Activists" working towards a good cause and this particular "Cause" was something very easy to get on board with. He suggested they were rather "lazy" (I can not recall his exact words but I drew the conclusion lazy as this was a radio interview listened to while in the car) and there was a tendency for many people to allow OTHERS to do their thinking for them. They were more interested in being seen by the others in the group as socially aware and active then they were in drilling down to the TRUTH of what in fact was happening.
Thus even though the disclaimer was on the website and was being pointed to by the much smaller group that was aware of the TRUTH of the issue, those persons were ignored.
Sioux Rose
GW NORTH: Fascinating post. Makes you wonder if people evolved from the sheep, rather than the apes. Intellectually, a strong case could me made.
Sioux Rose
This is all the patent definition of cowardice. Anyone possessed of even slight integrity OWNS their actions. We expect leaders to be even more responsible since they serve as role models.
Can you imagine children old enough to see what's going on? On one hand they deal with an oppressive police state that mercilessly imposes and enforces its anti-drug machine should they so much as smoke a joint; but then pushes every manner of ill-conceived "cure" for maladies that are themselves fabricated in a media nexus that runs 24/7.
And now these kids see bankers get away with the loot and more added onto their illegal getaway bags, while those discovered to have demonstrated remarkable sadism in acts of torture are also being given a generic free pass. What it says is that our entire society has broken down, it is nothing more than the powerful making it up as they go. The rule of law is being taken for a quaint object, something one would find hung in a museum just for nostalgia's sake, an heirloom to be auctioned off on "The Antique Road Show." How sad that so much is about to come at this citizenry when probably 40% really are decent caring people.
I'm looking forward to the day when politicians are held accountable for their policies instead of hiding behind a propaganda ink screen.
Oregoncharles
Not going to happen unless we force it to happen. Electoral politics is not where it's at any longer - never was really. We need to find our power and use it!
Would a few million progressives stay home from work on three consecutive days? Would a few million of them immediately drop their extortion payments to the health care industry? People - in the US - have power but they're terrified to use it.
The Glue That Holds Chaos Together
If the "people" are not interested in torture, or prosecuting torturers, then they are unpatriotic, unamerican, and certainly not true Christians, Humanists, or decent people.
The Geneva Convention is protected by our Constitution, and it can not be broken without committing a Constitutional crime against our rule of law.
Even more disgusting, the fact that most, if not all, of the people tortured were innocent of any wrongdoing.
"Moving forward" implies that torture is over. We can't be sure of that. Consider Jeremy Scahill's article "Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo under Obama" published on Common Dreams on May 15. We should also be asking ourselves what is happening at Bagram. Let's investigate the present as well as the past, if we want "change we can believe in."
No. "Moving forward" means returning to torture under a different name at a different time at a different place.
Elections offer convenient propaganda features. One president after another can commit capital crimes, yet each new president can claim to surpass or transcend the previous gorilla.
Granted, Obama has a particularly low hurdle to surpass, having only to appear less savage than Bush. But the execs all have murder on their hands.
As various Nazis would have said while on trial at Nuremberg: "Nobody's interested in this sideshow. Let's move on."
"The American people are interested in looking forward"
Erica Williams, Center for American Progress
"We must move forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!"
Kang, The Simpsons, "Treehouse of Horror VII"
Did we really believe that electing Obama was all that was necessary to resuscitate the America that Bush-Cheney wingnuts flattened with such gusto? The Washington political and economic landscape they created still survives. Did we really think that all of this was just going to go away if Obama was elected?
How disappointing it is to see President Obama backpedalling from his approach to national security that were major planks of his campaign and his most often used criticisms of Bush-Cheney abuses of executive power. This current atmosphere in which the law is being subverted to political expedience is disgusting. What about the legacy of Nuremberg? At Nuremberg, Justice Jackson said "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our lips as well." The legacy of Nuremberg and Justice Jackson came under the assault of the Bush-Cheney administration, which embraced a disdain for the law and accountability in any form. Questions asked by the American prosecution team at Nuremberg are questions that Obama’s Justice Department should be asking today about the conduct of Bush-Cheney lawyers, who seriously wounded, if not destroyed, the Geneva Convention. But the Obama administration does not want to revisit this history any more than it wants to dwell on torture. In so doing it also embraces the Bush-Cheney disdain for the law and accountability.
No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the Bush-Cheney administration, he won’t be able to do so until there is true transparency and true accountability. If the Obama administration really wants to move on from the dark Bush era, it can’t “just keep walking.” It is not just the ACLU and Obama’s “left-wing base” that wants accountability. The spirit of Nuremberg lives on in the United States. Nuremberg has developed into principles which form the heart of the international legal order to shed light on where every body is buried. It is high time for those who disdained the law answer for it.
This is an excellent post Dakota. I have a problem with Obama: that being, I know he is a tool of empire, it's just so wonderful to have a SMART tool of empire for a change, one who can string words together and make a complete sentence, that I often forget he's beholden to the ones who brung him to the dance. And it ain't the voters.
We must stop depending upon one person to stop the carnage. It's imperative for us to understand that the two-party system is a facade. Even if Obama is Christ incarnate, it's going to take people ignoring the chaff that comes from both parties and demanding a house-cleaning.
More importantly, I believe, we must all somehow bridge this great divide that has been created by a very, very bad group of people. I'm not sure how this is going to be accomplished, but I think I can feel people becoming very tired of the hate-filled rhetoric. As Arundhati Roy said, "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
Guess you missed the 'real' Obama. Before the election, he voted for the corrupt FISA bill, and stated that he would escalate the war in Central Asia, e.g. Pakistan, increase the size of the military.
Mr. Obama lied over and over to you, and you took it all in.
Now you are surprised?
The sheeple never learn.
What a great argument for bank robbers to use:
"The people of this city right now are actually not interested in this sideshow and this discussion. The people are interested in looking forward -- nobody is concerned anymore with what I was doing and did. Me and my buddies argue that we were engaged in enhanced withdrawal techniques. Some people may or may not agree that what we did was good and legal. None of that matters at this point and time."
Wonderful!
And the 9/11 pilots were just using advanced landing techniques.
Rainborowe
You got it!
And Cheney was just using enhanced national security techniques!