Posted on 09/02/2009 7:37:06 AM PDT by Titus-Maximus
GEORGE BUSH’S “war on terror” left America with a scarred reputation and many disturbing questions. Barack Obama has said that he wants to move forward, rather than look back. That is understandable. The new president has an ambitious agenda. Prising open the lid on previous mistakes might unleash a political hornet-swarm. But this week, with Mr Obama bunkered on Martha’s Vineyard, an ugly past roared into the present.
On August 24th the Department of Justice released a report on the CIA’s interrogation of detainees abroad, written by the agency’s internal watchdog in 2004. More important, Eric Holder, the attorney-general, directed a prosecutor to review whether interrogators may have broken the law. The announcement is part of a growing push to address past wrongdoing, by both the government and private firms. On August 28th a federal judge will consider a suit charging Blackwater, a security contractor, with war crimes. Mr Holder’s announcement may even herald a new era of accountability. Those hoping for speedy reckonings, however, will probably be disappointed.
For some, the question is not why Mr Holder named a special prosecutor, but why no one did so earlier. The CIA’s watchdog gave the report to the Justice Department in 2004. At the time the department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) was revisiting laws to support new “enhanced” methods of interrogation, such as waterboarding, which induces a sensation of drowning. The OLC’s guidelines included attempts at moderation, which would be comic if they were not so ghastly. If interrogators shoved a detainee against a wall, his neck was to be supported “with a rolled towel to prevent whiplash”.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
A lot of fake outrage in this political witch hunt as they disassociate attention from the staggering mismanagement of this economy by staging this Stalinst mock trial.
Shoving people against a wall is now called torture! Give me a break.
Obama is dreadfully endangering America. This is akin to Clinton, Kerry and Tenet dismantling the CIA in the 90's and not recruiting an agent for 5 years. Then they wonder why we were attacked on 9/11. Obama is doing the exact same thing.
If this is torture, then thousands if not millions of people are tortured every year.
When I initiate people into the Clampers ... I blow cigar smoke into the candidates face. It's an old American indian tradition. What a load of wussified crap
What about all the smoke that Obama is blowing up the collective ass of the American people?
Are we being tortured?
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