"What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer"
--Bertrand Russell
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On Torture and War, Obama is Sounding Increasingly,
and Disturbingly, Like Bush
by Dave Lindorff
(Read Full Article) (Comment on the Blog)
Torture was a major part of the Bush/Cheney so-called "War" on Terror, and was being conducted on an industrial scale, with White House lawyers providing legal cover, the Secretary of Defense sending memos urging every more aggressive techniques, and government doctors and psychologists working assiduously to make them more "effective."
The illogic of Obama's position on these photos is stunning. Since we know the photos exist, the refusal to make them public can only feed a sense that they must be worse than the horrific photos of torture at Abu Ghraib Prison which were already released.
Nobody is going to assume that the photos in the White House's possession are less offensive than what has already been discovered and made public--for why would the administration be worried about that?
The truth is always better than a cover-up, and what we now have the president advocating is a cover-up of American torture.
But that's only part of the president's slide into Cheneyism. We have the president now calling for the possible indefinite detention of terror suspects--an idea that only insures that there will always be an incentive for recruiting more terrorists (to avenge those in captivity)--and that makes a joke of our own Constitution, which guarantees everyone--not just citizens--the right to a trial, the right to a presumption of innocence, and protection from "cruel and unusual punishment," which indefinite detention certainly is
.
(Read Full Article) (Comment on the Blog)
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