Months after President Obama frankly admitted that the United States had “tortured some folks” as part of the War on Terror, a new report submitted to the United Nations Committee Against Torture has been released that excoriates his administration for shielding the officials responsible from prosecution.
The report describes the post-9/11 torture program as “breathtaking in scope”, and indicts both the Bush and Obama administrations for complicity in it – the former through design and implementation, and the latter through its ongoing attempts to obstruct justice. Noting that the program caused grievous harm to countless individuals and in many cases went as far as murder, the report calls for the United States to “promptly and impartially prosecute senior military and civilian officials responsible for authorizing, acquiescing, or consenting in any way to acts of torture.”
In specifically naming former President George W. Bush, Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo and former CIA contractor James Mitchell, among many others, as individuals who sanctioned torture at the highest levels, the report highlights a gaping hole in President Obama’s promise to reassert America’s moral standing during his administration. Not only have the cited individuals not been charged with any crime for their role in the torture program, Obama has repeatedly reiterated his mantra of “looking forward, not backwards” to protect them from accountability.
Needless to say, you shouldn’t try that defense in court if you’re an ordinary American on trial for, say, a drug crime.
It’s also worth remembering that, horrific as it was, the torture regime described in the report was only a tiny part of the wide-ranging human rights abuses the United States committed after 9/11. It doesn’t even account for the network of prisons where hundreds of thousands of people were detained in Iraq and Afghanistan – many of whom suffered beatings, rape and murder at the hands of U.S. soldiers.
The environment that allowed such treatment was again authorized at the highest levels, but just as with the CIA program the only people to receive any legal sanction for these actions have been low-level soldiers who’ve essentially been used as scapegoats for the crimes of their superiors.
By refusing to prosecute Bush-era officials for their culpability in major human rights abuses such as the CIA program and Abu Ghraib, President Obama is not just failing to enforce justice but is essentially guaranteeing that such abuses will happen again in the future. His administration has demonstrated that even if government officials perpetrate the most heinous crimes imaginable, they will still be able to rely on their peers to conceal their wrongdoing and protect them from prosecution. This not only erodes the rule of law, it also helps create a culture of impunity that will inevitably give rise to such actions once again.
The UN report cites former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as describing the Bush administration’s legal definition of torture as, “so narrow that it would have exculpated Saddam Hussein.” To his credit Barack Obama has finally called a spade a spade and identified Bush officials actions for what they were: torture. Having done so, it’s now incumbent on him to stop protecting the officials who authorized this crime from legal scrutiny.
Photo: Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images
Unless indicted to The HAGUE; its Bullshit Walkers. InDeed!
Get calls from England and we’ll sue you in federal court glenn.
I downloaded the report and gave it a careful study prior to commenting here. It is a weak endeavor typical of an Amnesty International associated effort. Amnesty is an intelligence agency co-opted organization that serves to water down and misdirect these sort of reports. For more information on that score, use google search ‘francis boyles, amnesty international.’
What we have here is little more than ‘you’ve been naughty and we have to say so’ exchange of letters (ongoing for years.) There is no reference at all to the concealed organizational structure (international criminal syndicate) behind the perpetrators and their impunity:
http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/04/23/sociopaths-democracy/
And so long as the facts responsible for enabling the impunity remain concealed, nothing will be accomplished beyond these anemic exercises in futility
“it’s now incumbent on him [Barack Obama] to stop protecting the officials who authorized this crime from legal scrutiny.”
And he can make a start on that by putting on a leash the CIA and its attempts to over-redact the executive summary of that Senate committee report on torture. The very fact that he does not seem to be doing so would seem to say far more about his attitude to transparency and torture than any words he has thus far uttered on those subjects.
“Unbeknownst to most Americans the United States is presently under thirty presidential declared states of emergency. They confer vast powers on the Executive Branch including the ability to financially incapacitate any person or organization in the United States, seize control of the nation’s communications infrastructure, mobilize military forces, expand the permissible size of the military without congressional authorization, and extend tours of duty without consent from service personnel. Declared states of emergency may also activate Presidential Emergency Action Documents and other continuity-of-government procedures which confer powers on the President, such as the unilateral suspension of habeas corpus—that appear fundamentally opposed to the American constitutional order. Although the National Emergencies Act, by its plain language, requires the Congress to vote every six months on whether a declared national emergency should continue, Congress has done only once in the nearly forty year history of the Act.”
— Patrick Thronson, Michigan Journal of Law (2013, Vol 46).
And continues this article by John Stanton, “Modern Day America: One Step Away from the Third Reich”:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40109.htm
After living through the JFK assassination (I was 13….what a way to “come of age”…), up until now, living life for me is like a giant game of dot to dot that never fully makes a clear picture. This attached article plus the current one here on torture by Mr. Hussain, is making the picture come into focus. It is very ugly and unsettling to say the least.
Actually, the US still tortures as a matter of written policy and executive order via the auspices of the Army Field Manual (AFM), not to mention the use of proxy torturers under CIA or Special Operations supervision (which is how things long used to be before 9/11). Jeremy Scahill, now of The Intercept, has written about the latter, while I’ve written about the former. You can easily find my latest writings on torture within the Army Field Manual — a position by which I am in accordance with multiple human rights, legal and medical groups — at The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/25/obama-administration-military-torture-army-field-manual) or The Dissenter (http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/04/20/dod-directive-used-duplicity-to-hide-current-use-of-sere-torture-techniques-in-interrogations/).
The second link, which refers to how the Department of Defense uses legal stratagems and subterfuge to hide its use of torture, has more information on torture than anything published by The Intercept thus far. TI has my permission to repost it, if they wish.
Didn’t Obama say ‘WE tortured some folks’?
Like Clark, I think he did, and, I think Clark gives a good exegesis of his speech.
He did not say ‘The United States tortured some folks’, as Hussain writes.
I could be wrong.
I’ve stopped using ‘some folks’ in other, milder contexts.
Obama obliterated that phrase from my vocabulary,
except in mocking terms, when it applies to torture.
The US is still torturing people in Cuba.
It has tortured people in Benghazi and Sudan and Somalia.
The US is, by proxy, involved in torture in the Middle East.
This has taken place while Obama is still the president.
‘Looking forward’, there is still Egypt, Saudi Arabia—
endless amounts of torture, all paid for by US taxes.
Obama didn’t prosecute US torture, despite that international law permits no discretion in the matter. (Nor did he prosecute Wall Street executives for the massive fraud leading up to the 2008 credit crisis.) But, Obama has also continued the US torture regime in several critical ways. One of those ways is the forced feeding program at Guantanamo prison. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/opinion/joe-nocera-the-guantanamo-tapes.html?ref=opinion
Seriously…what can be expected when the commander in chief , expected to set an example..says “I’m getting good at this” or John Yoo who was the legal mouthpiece for the doctrine of sovereign borders are no barrier to punitive actions and US policy on Libya..in fact any country that exercised disagreement with the grand hegemony and which spoke out..was called a destabilizing influence..and its leader could soon expect to hear the all too familiar phrase..you have lost all legitimacy…and punished militarily..either directly or from within…or both…Under Repubs…covertly Under Dems openly, unabashedly and with pride..
“…the report calls for the United States to “promptly and impartially prosecute senior military and civilian officials responsible for authorizing, acquiescing, or consenting in any way to acts of torture.”
I voted for Obama in ’08, expecting him to do just that. By 2010, it was obvious that would not happen on his watch. I’m not expecting any change just because the UN called him out. None of the viable presidential candidates of 2016 will, either.
Justice will more likely come via the World Court and economic sanctions, plus the threat of arrest if they leave the Homeland (Heil!).
Obama should be stripped of the Nobel Peace Prize that he never earned and never deserved
I know that had a lot of people scratching their heads in disbelief(the nobel prize thing). I’m almost bald because of it.
There was so much “hope and change” surrounding the election of Obama. The Nobel committee was lost in the election of an African American President who had opposed the Iraq war as a state Senator. Did they really believe that Obama (by himself) was going to turn the American foreign policy ship in reverse? This was an unrealistic for a single individual. There are simply too many hands on the rudder for one person to drastically turn US foreign policy in only eight years. He made some changes – some good and some bad – but the policies of Obama have been more or less a continuation of Bush – Bush lite maybe.
The committee really got that one wrong though – really fucked up what is a “noble” idea.
>”This was an unrealistic for a single individual.”
Bullshit … Mr. Summers.
Have you noticed that Obama is simply not wanted (by Democrats) at important campaign rallies for the coming midterms? Obama is beholden to a party – and party politics continues long after the President finishes his one or two terms. However, there is a difference between a bad President and a suicidal President when it comes to party politics.
Thanks.
America’s refusal to learn from ongoing human right abuses at the hands of Americans at Guantanamo only exacerbates tensions between America and these extremist groups and will only encourage more “terrorist” acts against America. If America had only tried to learn something from 9-11 perhaps we would have seen a de-escalation of tensions. “Terrorism” is evil, but so are human rights abuses. 9-11 can be interpreted retaliation for American “military action” (bombing of Mosques and schools), but there is no excuse for either. If a church or school in America were bombed it would be called “terrorism”, but when America “accidentally” bombs a mosque, hospital, or school in the mid-east it is called collateral damage. We in the West have to hold ourselves to the same standards as we hold our “enemies”.
Its sad that we all can’t just get along.
News(?) report from The White House.
Early this morning, as President Obammmma was taking a stroll around the White House grounds, an overly tame squirrel ran up the inside of his trouser leg. All efforts to dislodge the squirrel failed.
The squirrel was later FOUND DEAD OF STARVATION!
But Obama didn’t lie, he really is looking forward to using torture again.
Forgive me, but does anyone know why commenting was closed for the “delayed torture report”?
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/23/white-house-waiting-gop-senate-kill-feinsteins-torture-report/
Commentating on the articles is limited to approximately 7 days. Aloha.
Thank you.
Mr. Hussain
This is an old issue which has little public interest. Thus, the allegations of torture committed by the Bush Administration will never be prosecuted. Indeed, many people believe that torture is justified under certain circumstances – like the ticking time bomb scenario (KSM waterboarding). In addition, President Obama is probably not too interested in taking a former President to the Hague since he might be subject to prosecution for crimes he might be committing as President which could be prosecuted in the future – like the legality of drone warfare, or bombing the ISIS in a sovereign nation (Syria). He might be also opening up a can of worms for a succession of Presidential decisions which might be prosecuted – like rendering of prisoners to third world countries (Bush, Clinton and Reagan(?)).
Presidents are forced to make difficult decisions simply because they are responsible for the lives on Americans at home and abroad. Bush (and all Presidents) make decisions based on that premise. It’s easy to criticize when you are not in a position that carries such enormous responsibility, but there is simply no way that Obama is going to prosecute George W, Bush. No way – ever.
I always get a kick out of the idea that there is a point somewhere between right and wrong, black and white, the so called “grey area”…
That position is the refuge of the weak, those who for whatever reason, find it convenient to not do the right thing, at all times.
The truth wins out, however long it takes, it’s like the first flower of Spring, the Crocus, pushing up through the snow, demanding to be seen, letting us all know there is a new beginning at hand…
Thanks for your reply Mel.
“……The truth wins out, however long it takes, it’s like the first flower of Spring, the Crocus, pushing up through the snow, demanding to be seen, letting us all know there is a new beginning at hand…….”
I can remember back to my youth when a couple of people representing the Jehovah’s Witness religion came to my house. They gave me a copy of the Watchtower which had on the front cover a drawing depicting a lion and a lamb lying down next to each other. This was, of course, heaven – a Utopian dream of peace and goodwill.
No such place exist on earth. Despite the world being more peaceful than at any other time in world history, there is no new beginning at hand. Greed and the thirst for power still dominates. You would think that something as simple as democracy – one man, one vote – would be a (God-given) right for all people. Indeed, the freedom to own property, the freedom to express displeasure with your government, the freedom to practice whatever religion you wanted would be so ingrained in each individual and culture that something as terrible as torture (or war) wouldn’t even be a remote possibility. Unfortunately, that’s not the case – and it never will be. The lion will never sleep with the lamb on this earth.
I’m not claiming the moral high ground, but I view the world from a different perspective than you. I like your perspective better, I just don’t think it’s realistic.
Thanks.
Well, Craig. Let me count the ways. Just a couple of points. The lion will lie down with the lamb after the second coming when evil is done away with. A person should be able to own property. True, but whose property are nearly all Americans claiming ownership to which they are not entitled. There were already people here when the Europeans arrived. The USA is supposed to be something different than mob rule which makes the common man cringe at the thought of torturing people who have already been subdued in battle. It does go against the grain and if it is something to be forgiven as a necessary evil than it should be done in the light, out in the open, not in a corner of the uncivilized world like Uzbekistan, or in Guantanamo. You alluded to the unfortunate apathetic state of our citizenry and the lack of interest that creates, and in that I agree with you. If our corporate owned media(television specifically) would do their FCC mandated job of public service in a responsible manner, we would possibly be in a different situation. That is not the case which leaves the job to those of us who ARE motivated to demand change. According to you, we should just give up, shut up, and go home and sulk. I can’t do that so I will cajole , admonish, support, and do whatever it takes to wake up as many people as I can, and to encourage them and not discourage. If you are in the dark it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
“……According to you, we should just give up, shut up, and go home and sulk. I can’t do that so I will cajole…..”
I simply do not support prosecuting Bush for taking steps to protect Americans – and no acting President is going to prosecute Bush because they might be in the same boat some day.
“……A person should be able to own property. True, but whose property are nearly all Americans claiming ownership to which they are not entitled. There were already people here when the Europeans arrived…..”
This is completely irrelevant to what I said (IMO). But since you brought it up. land has been changing hands since the time before man evolved into man. How far do you want to go back? As a white Anglo Saxon protestant, I fully believe I have every right to own land in America.
Thanks Jim
Yes it’s all a out sprouting new beginnings!!! We just need to raise our kids with better human rights values. You know you should read this adorable book called Little Star Weed. She gets stuck in so many situations she doesn’t want to be in and it’s unprecedented!!! But in the end she leaves to a pasture more suitable to her health and lifestyle where she can grow free!!! Any pastures in Afghanistan growing free for little girl weeds?
I agree with you that Obama will never prosecute Bush. The Obama administration has no appetite for creating a precedent of prosecuting war crimes of former presidents because Obama will one day be a former president. The Obama administration murdered an American citizen (Anwar al-Aulaqi) without even bothering to indict him and I doubt they want their actions scrutinized, even if that means obstructing justice for countless thousands of victims of US war crimes.
A lawyer once told me: “We don’t have a justice system, we have a legal system. Any overlap is coincidental.”
The underlying premise upon which your comment is based is a corruption.
According to the supposed constitution of the USA, the Executive branch of government is there to implement the laws
which are created (supposedly) by the Congress. You imply that this is a bothersome little antiquated detail.
Your acceptance of the notion that the executive branch can determine what is a legal policy and then implement such actions
and then have control over any possibility of examination of such policies is a description of tyranny.
The beliefs and acceptance you have stated may indeed be an accurate description of events, but
they are also proof of how the corporate control of life is degenerate and the source of disintegration.
In this case, you sound as if that is not only perfectly acceptable to you, but that you see the concerns of
others as bothersome and unrealistic.
You are being as “pragmatic” as Obama and Bush.
Yeah…little Mr. Shiklgruber was in a war and had a hard time with them Joos…
Are you channeling Benito, or just practicing for going trick-or-treating as Col. Jessup on Halloween?
quote”This is an old issue which has little public interest. “unquote
Speak for yourself, schmuck. Btw, don’t you ever get tired of playing posterchild for We Love Evil-R-Us?
“…..Speak for yourself, schmuck…..”
That’s Craig……CraigSummers.
“……Btw, don’t you ever get tired of playing posterchild for We Love Evil-R-Us?…..”
No, but it’s that label of “evil” which needs to be sorted out, Chronicle. Evil applies to the USSR, Syria under Assad and Saddam Hussein – not America. But trying to convince you would be as likely as converting Bin Laden to Catholicism……when he was alive (that is).
Thanks.
Justified under certain circumstances? Then bank robbery or drug possession, or even murder would have to be justified under certain circumstances because all are considered illegal according to US law (well, maybe not murder depending on one’s skin color.) And ticking time bomb scenario? That doesn’t even make sense.
“……Justified under certain circumstances?…..”
That is exactly what I’m saying. Look up ticking time bomb scenario, avelna. My feeling is that after 911, water-boarding KSM was legitimate (not 186 times however).
Thanks
As another post indicated, Obama is a “hack”, first, foremost, and forever, simply a “hack”.
My disappointment with him is complete.
He has failed all of us, and indeed has failed all of humanity; everyone saw him as the genuine article, impatiently waiting to make change occur…
And his attempt to lighten the impact of the American torture program, with statements such as “We tortured some folks”, is so offensive from the so called leader of of the free world, I sometimes conclude that he and his handlers believe “we the people”, are entirely gullible.
The United States has entered a time of great danger, to itself, from its own government.
Over a year since the Snowden revelations, with not one indication, other than lip service, that the administration will permit any weakening of the rapid drive to totalitarianism, and we are still standing idly by, letting them have free rein.
The Bush administration felt that you could just rename “torture” as “Enhanced Interrogation” and then it isn’t torture. In much the same way they defined what is “abuse” with the surveillance program and they are not “abusing” executive surveillance powers in the same way that they weren’t engaging in “torture”.
President Obama should man up and allow the facts about how the Bush administration permitted torture to be public. Then he should man up and admit the abuse that has occurred in the surveillance programs.
Me thinks Obama might have a few things he’s hiding about his time in office. Illegal Enemy Combatants was the moniker used to deftly(not in my opinion) sidestep the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of POWs. The word “Imminent” has been stretched so far out of shape as to be unidentifiable. “Insurgents” has been defined by this regime(administration) as any male over a certain age in an area under surveiloloance. Does a male have to be Afghani, Pakistani, Yemeni, USAi, Iraqi, or perhaps it means whatever a secret court or committee or president says it does. Tyranny is not some theoretical abstract that might happen. It is here. I never thought our country could come to where it is. Speak up people and wake up your neighbor.
The point made in the final paragraph of the article is an especially important one that I wholeheartedly agree with. The people who enabled torture in the Bush/Cheney administration should be put on trial and, if found guilty, punished.
It’s great that we can address the issue with the Bush/Cheney administration and how the Obama administration reacted to those atrocities. But, why is it you so often avoid torture among adversaries of the U.S. and, more generally, NATO?
Why is that The Intercept never talks about torture by Russia, China, IS or other terrorist organizations?
What you’re asking is why aren’t the people at TI more like the U.S. government conveniently ignoring a plank in it’s own eye – for splinters in those of others.
Let’s begin with a sense of integrity, fairness and justice that surpasses the government’s – and apparently yours, also. Glass houses & stones…
“…..But, why is it you so often avoid torture among adversaries of the U.S……”
Jesus, Jerry. That’s whataboutery at its worst. Indeed, are you suggesting that the Intercept should hold ALL governments responsible for torture? The mission statement of the Intercept specifically states,
“…..We believe the prime value of journalism is its power to impose transparency, and thus accountability, on the most powerful [US and Israel] governmental and corporate bodies,……” My addition to the “mission statement” of the Intercept.
That’s certainly what the mission statement was intended to look like. I’m sure it was just an oversight on their part.
In answer to your last question? Watch Fox News.
The Intercept is an English-language news site predominantly staffed by English-speaking citizens of Western countries. It is always going to be much more difficult for them to access, interpret and translate material providing evidence of torture and wrongdoing by non-English speaking countries, especially those where it is more difficult for Western journalists to gain access.
Furthermore, I imagine The Intercept’s readership is mostly comprised of English-speaking citizens of Western democracies, who can only realistically hope to influence the decision-making of the governments of their own countries and possibly their allies. The disapproval of ordinary Westerners is going to be of next to zero consequence to the leadership of undemocratic regimes such as China or Russia. Of course we need to hear about the misdeeds of these countries too, but most of us have even less ability to influence their actions than we do over the governments of our own countries, so it makes more sense to focus on the problems we can do something about.
The Obama Legacy:
How during 8 years in office a constitutional lawyer-president single-handedly tore asunder the U.S. Constitution constructed by 39 brilliant champions of a constitutional republic and whose tenets had once secured civil liberties for Americans spanning its first 213* years of splendor.
(Mr. Obama pledged to and had the power to right the wrongs of the Bush Administration’s constitutional abuses; however, by his illegal actions and inaction to remedy wrongs, he dealt the most severe damage to the U.S. Constitution of all presidents before him combined. *The Constitution became 227-years-old on Sept. 17, 2014. I subtracted the last approximately 14 years of the Bush & Obama Administrations combined from the 227 years (= 213) since the initial covert constitutional abuses began with Mr. Bush and continued/worsened under Mr. Obama)
A fact of all humankind’s’ constructs; whether structural, empirical, theoretical, political, or legal–and regardless of how noble or ignoble those may be–nothing, at all, lasts in perpetuity–not even the once-magnificent U.S. Constitution.
I stopped reading after that factual inaccuracy.
39 champions of…slavery. The US Constitution even exceeds the Magna Carta, as the most over rated piece of paper in history.
The illusion of choice. The illusion of differing parties. Appendages of the same entity.
You hit ’em high, I hit ’em low, and while the populace bickers about which party is responsible, they’re getting their asses kicked.
Obama’s statement on torture was dismissive and meant to reinforce the dismissiveness of the Bush administration.
Obama’s quote – “WE tortured some folks” – (emphasis added)
implies “we” are all guilty and that Bush and Co. were only doing what “we” needed them to do.
Obama’s use of the word “folks” implies that these were common people – part of our family – and that torture is
just something that families do to each other.
Obama’s “Look forward, Not backwards” implies that if you take the time to REFLECT on the past that you
are backwards.
Obama has shown that he can look back and seek retribution against people who expose corruption,
but he won’t look back when it is powerful people who have promulgated horror and corruption.
While I focus on Obama here, it is not meant to imply that he is any worse than his cabinet and his party.
The notion of the democrats and republicans as oppositional to each other SHOULD by now be seen as the lie that it is.
I also noticed, during Obama’s NSA speech last spring, how he became Bush in Blackface by referring to torture as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, which I have no doubt whatsoever that his frat-boy chums at the CIA still employ.
Amen, Clark.
It amazes me that a population of over 300,000,000 can be cleaved in two parts, with one half holding one checklist of beliefs, and the other half the opposite beliefs. It’s absurd that we should expect a two party system with such insane membership requirements to steal our democratic republic. They are just two sides of the same coin. Our two party system is NOT doing any good and we should stop expecting it to.
For what it’s worth, I also call bullshit on Obama’s “look forward not backward” cowardice.
There once was a twit named Barack
Who said “Look forward not back.”
He posed as a savior
But all his behavior
Reveals him as simply a hack.
haha. Love your poetry. Its hot.
Now that made me laugh – thank you indeed.
The greatest wrongs in history were overcome only after long and hard struggle. I reflect for inspiration on William Wilberforce campaigned most of his life for the abolition of slavery; he was no less right for all the setbacks and criticism along the way. But in the end his victory was so complete that he was given a state funeral! Much the same goes for Nelson Mandela vs. apartheid. These are our true heroes, not the “hacks” who betray every highest ideal we should be standing up for.
Love a good limerick and that was one of the better ones I’ve heard lately.
Thank you Murtaza for this article. We cannot move forward while letting these injustices stand and yet that is the apparent plan. Speak up people. Even if you disagree, speak up. The USA has a long track record starting before it was a nation of justice denied. There is no indication that without the people forcing the government to bring charges where due that anything more than admission will happen. “We tortured some folks”. That makes it sound like we used the wrong fork for our salad. If I could scream this from a tall building, but alas, I live in a forest.
Bush Obama and their enablers will walk the earth as free men until the end of their days. The Bush family of course is already worth billions but Obama like Clinton will leave office with a few million and after a few years like Clinton will have a fortune in the 100s of millions. I personally expect Obama to be the first billionaire ex-president.
As far as I know there is no reason to believe that torture murder and many other illegal acts continue to be committed by US Imperial operatives under Obama. I don’t take his word for it that’s for sure.
Obama, as Barry Eisler points out, has merely but effectively rendered torture a ‘policy choice,’ and (aside from the fact that Obama could still in fact be permitting it) any of the next presidents would have nothing stopping them from reauthorizing torture officially if they choose:
*Don’t Cheer Obama’s ‘Ban’ on Torture*
“…only if you’re willing to accept the false and noxious notion that torture is merely a policy choice that one president can prohibit by executive order and another can permit, and that torture is primarily a bad policy choice because of its “high costs.” But take a step back, and a slightly more effective way of preventing torture’s recrudescence becomes clear: how about acknowledging that torture is criminal… by prosecuting people who committed the crimes? Does it even need to be said? What’s more of a deterrent to a future president: that torture is unpopular because the public understands it offers poor cost/benefit returns… or that your predecessor is currently doing time in federal prison after being convicted of violating America’s clear laws against torture?” (Barry Eisler)
https://freedom.press/blog/2014/08/dont-cheer-obamas-ban-torture
We live in a corrupt and violent empire managed by war criminals.
Murtaza, your article title’s mentioning of the UN, along with the hyperlink to the story (“…un-report-slams-obama-…”) and later mentioning that “‘The UN Report’ cites former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh…” might confuse people to think this is a UN report, when it is actually a “shadow report” drafted by the Advocates for U.S. Torture prosecutions and submitted TO the UN. A Shadow report is apparently usually from a non-governmental organization and is sent to the UN to discuss topics of importance. [http://www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org/us_compliance_with_international_treaties_shadow_reporting]. Just saying…
Anyways, the report asks two questions:
1. Why has the U.S. not prosecuted senior officials for authorizing conduct it admits was torture?
2. Were the following people ever criminally investigated for their role in torture, and why have they not been prosecuted: (a) George W. Bush, (b) Former Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the DOJ lawyer John Yoo, and (3) Former CIA contractor Dr. James Mitchell?
Obama ran his 2008 election as someone who claimed he would transcend politics, listen to both sides, gain consensus and unite Americans. While going after those guilty of torture would have been the morally pure thing to do, he no doubt was aware of the firestorm it would cause and the risk that it would derail his goals. However, the Republican House obstructed him at every turn anyways so I wonder if he regrets that decision now. And is it too late to take action now? It will be interesting to see the public reaction after the release of the CIA internal report Exec Sum.
In it’s simplest terms Obama broke his oath of office by not having the top 10 members of bushco taken into custody, gw and cheney right there on dais for treason. It’s possibly the most blatant public example of a president breaking the only oath he swears.
“Having done so, it’s now incumbent on him to stop protecting the officials who authorized this crime from legal scrutiny.”
The likelihood of that is zero. We’ll just have to be content with hoping that he doesn’t pardon them in his last days in office (with an eye to his own pardon in future).
Pardon them for what? Wouldn’t they have to be convicted or indicted first? And wouldn’t that require that they be prosecuted, which is precisely what Obama refuses to do?
Who is going to protect Obama when the analysis of his presidency is done? Maybe he’s looking forward to that.
“His administration has demonstrated that even if government officials perpetrate the most heinous crimes imaginable, they will still be able to rely on their peers to conceal their wrongdoing and protect them from prosecution.”
This statement brings to mind, among other things, the notion of “professional courtesy”…
And maybe this might be indicative of a mindset inspired by thinking like this (among other things): “We’re all professionals here, just doing our jobs. Sure, sometimes things go awry a bit, but it’s unprofessional to talk badly about another professional or your business or institution”.
And maybe a bit of the more general “we’re just doing our jobs” thinking sprinkled in for good measure?
Noting?