Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Anatomy of Bush's Torture 'Paradigm'

By Ray McGovern
April 14, 2009

The prose of the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on torture seems colorless. It is at the same time obscene — almost pornographic.

Read on.
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2 comments:

Cliff Gieseke said...

The Bush administration's torture had some historical background factors that may have inspired them -- the awful policies pursued in Central America under Ronald Reagan in the 80s, for ex., involved supporting military regimes that made widespread use of torture, murder, etc. The U.S. trained Central American military personnel in torture techniques at the School of the Americas. We were very much complicit in the crimes committed. Some of the policy makers from that Reagan era were given key positions in the Bush administration and spoke of using the Salvador option, which had "gone over to the dark side."

Tue Apr 14, 03:15:00 PM 2009
J. Milton Stout, Ph.D., Th.D. said...

BUSH'S TORTURE RESURRECTION

President Obama, of whom I am a supporter "for now," seems intent on resurrecting procedures that many thought were dead with Obama's election. At least, Obama promised as much several times on the campaign trail. Yet,his Justice Department has fought in federal courts to resurrect the Bush arguments for secret arrest and unlimited confinement of "anyone," some of whom are being held in Afganistan prisons and other prisons around the world that we know nothing about. Bush's dirty little secret, according to many foreign news media, is that more than 48,000 people in America and other countries may have been abducted off the streets and no one knows where they are or what happen to them, especially whether they are still alive. What is worse, Obama's Justice Department has argued against constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights for these prisoners. DOJ has also argued for the continuation of unrestricted and unsupervised electronic surveillance with absolutely no legal redress in the courts. This is not only change Americans cannot believe in, it is also something they must not tolerate. The U.S. Constitution and the laws of the land are more important than an Obama presidency. If this is the price we have to pay for electing him, then in 2012 we can do without him. I have written a letter to Obama reporting the same sentiment with 12,683 signatures form members of the faculties of more than 100 major universities. So let us stop deploring Bush's attacks on the Constitution, while we remain silent about the Obama's resurrection of torture, unlawful confinement and unlimited and unsupervised electronic invasion of Americans' privacy. enough is enough, for God's sake!

Tue Apr 14, 04:59:00 PM 2009

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