The Bush white house reasoning in the matter of torture is simply bizarre . First they claim that the techniques they use in interrogations are not torture even though these techniques have been for a number of years if not centuries been defined as acts of torture. The next problem is that Bush claims torture works in giving good intel but all the experts outside the Bush Regime claim that torture almost never gives on good intel. The next stage is Bush claims that the people held as " detainees " are known to be guilty which is far from the truth. We know that rewards were given to people in Iraq or Afghanistan for turning in so called " terrorists " so sometimes inorder to make money or because of a personal grievance etc. individuals turned over someone to the Americans with little or no evidence. The Americans or their proxies tortured the individuals who often then confessed to a crime which they didn't commit inorder to put a stop to the torture. These detainees would also give a list of names of susposed " terrorists" again to put a stop to the torutre . So then these lists of names were used to continue detaining those who were already in custody. And new names which were added to these lists were used as evidence to pick these people up who would then confess under torture and on and on...
Rachel Maddow Show: War Crimes
Will Obama take steps to stop the torturing and abuse of detainees which is still going on or is this a subject which is too hot for him. It may be that he thinks torture is wrong but if most Americans don't really care then what are his options.
"You Betcha" - Bush claims " We Don't Torture"
Bush & friends define what is and what is not torture. International Laws do not aplly to the US . Condoleeza Rice called the Geneva Conventions " Quaint ".
Condoleeza Rice lied to the American public and under oath at congressional hearings about what she knew about " detainees " being tortured. So Condoleeza Rice should be facing public disgrace and a possible prison term if America was the just society that it claims to be but don't hold your breath. Instead she will go onto a lucrative career working as a consultant or being permitted to teach her twisted form of ethics and morality at some Ivy-league Law School where they turn out immoral and unethical lawyers like a sausage factory.
Condoleeza Rice Caught Lying About Torture
Killings by Private Contractors American Press and others think that the Killing Sprees of Private Contractors are just Damned Funny.Is this really how Americans think about these things in general that is " really though, Who cares if a few thosand Iraqi civilians are killed just for the fun of it. Not being American citizens these Iraqis just don't count as one soldierd put it while in Iraq he referred to Iraqis kids as " speed bumps ".
Is Bush here making this claim that he doesn't know the legal position of Private Contractors just in case it all goes wrong. Is he shrewder than we think. Is he in this instance as in others over the years making the legal case that he was not ultimately responsible for decisions he claims were made without his full knowledge. Is he pleading ignorance, stupidity or ineptness as Commander in Chief. Will he claim that if " torture " took place he either did not know about it or was misinformed that these practices were not torture.
How long can Obama bide his time over issues of principle such as remnouncing torture and detainees held without proper legal counsel or the right to a speedy & timely fair trial. Obama must shut down Guantanamo and investigate American and Iraqi run prisons in Iraq . if as many have come to believe that US Forces in Iraq have been using torture as policy In Iraq then this must be stopped and offenders brought to justice or will Obam to placate conservatives the military , the Pentagon and CIA just ignor this issue. Will Obama have little or no chance of investigating the US military's disregard for the lives of civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan. Will the military be able to just carry on doing whatever they please in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will the military not be chastised in public, at the least, for its genocidal racist type policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Will Obama do a full investigation into the activities of the Private contractors such as Black Water In Iraq. Besides the fact that these Private Contractors killed innocent civilians with impunity there is also the matter of how much money they defrauded the US Treasury. Or is this another issue that Americans don't want to think about and want passed over in silence. Are most Americans even now not interested inthe deaths of non-Americans because as Non-Americans they just don't count & are of little or no importance.
Will Obama for instance insist on getting non-partisan report on the numbers of Iraqi civilians killed during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Is this another issue which is of no importance to most American citizens since like Bush and ultra-conservatives they believe that the more dead Muslims or Arabs the better. Most Americans I fear see the blood-letting in Iraq as a justified part of their need for revenge against Al Qaeda and Muslims in general for the attacks on 9/11.
Will Obama have the power and political and moral will to bring to justice the War Profiteers or are his hands tied on this matter as well.
Will he Impeach or imprison Bush and the gang or do they get off scot free taking their billions in plunder with them. During the past eight years the Executive had been taken over by a " cult " or "cabal " or more simply put a bunch of Bandits or Pirates who believed it was their God-given Right to plunder and pillage the US Treasury.
Will Obama just end up in favor of carrying on with the status-quo and business as usual.
Can Barack Obama Undo Bush's Tangled Legal
Legacy? Friday 07 November 2008
by: Marisa Taylor and Michael Doyle, McClatchy Newspapers
Washington - When Barack Obama becomes president in January, he'll confront the controversial legal legacy of the Bush administration.
From expansive executive privilege to hard-line tactics in the war on terrorism, Obama must decide what he'll undo and what he'll embrace.
The stakes couldn't be higher.
...These are some of the legal issues confronting him:
• How does he close the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba? He's pledged to shutter it, but how quickly can he do so when it holds some detainees whom no administration would want to release?
• Obama has declared coercive interrogation methods such as waterboarding unconstitutional and illegal, but will his Justice Department investigate or prosecute Bush administration officials who ordered or condoned such techniques?
• Will the new administration press to learn the full extent of the Bush administration's electronic eavesdropping and data-mining activities, and will it curtail or halt some of them?
• The Bush administration exerted tight control over the Justice Department by hiring more Republican-leaning political appointees and ousting those who were viewed as disloyal. Will Obama give the department more ideological independence?
and further:
President Elect Obama: Denounce and Renounce Harry Shearer November 6, 2008 Huffington Post
...Vice President Cheney created a secret cabal inside the Executive Branch. That cabal, co-headed by Cheney's ultra-pugnacious in-house lawyer David Addington, proceeded to eviscerate laws and treaties, paving them over with a series of (in some cases, still-secret) legal opinions binding on the Executive Branch, whose power Cheney (though publicly disavowing his membership in that branch) was determined to increase.--------
Those members of the government with legislative or constitutional responsibilities to weigh in on these matters, but whom the Cheney team didn't trust, simply weren't "read in" on the new policies. So State Department experts on the law of war, Defense Department JAGS, even Condi Rice and Colin Powell, all found out about these new policies--involving, at a minimum, detention, rendition, and interrogation methods that were designed to shock the conscience--in the press, as a fait accompli, if they found out about them at all.
...So, the question needs to be asked of the President-elect: do you plan to denounce and renounce these extra-Constitutional ways of doing business, and the illegal policies that resulted, before you take office? Because, one is entitled to fear that, if you don't, one day, when things get tough (as they will), you will look at this secret little tool chest, and it will appear all too tempting.
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