Obama can't keep torture under wraps

[Turborama]

Withholding photos of prisoner abuse won't end the torture debate. We need a formal investigation of Bush's policies


Ken Gude

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 May 2009 16.00 BST

No matter how badly the Obama administration wants it to, torture is not going to go away. News just continues to roll out, from a front line interrogator dismissing torture as the tool of the ignorant to the return of one of the architects of the Bush administration torture regime. Still only half over, the Obama administration supplied the big news this week by reversing its earlier decision to accept a court ruling and release photographs depicting torture and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Torture will continue to be the distraction the Obama administration hopes to avoid until we get a formal investigation to take torture out of the inside-the-Beltway political battle of the day.


=snip=

Photographic evidence is what made Abu Ghraib. We have had a dozen similar revelations, but nothing has broken through to that level because no TV-ready images accompanied the detailed depictions of torture and abuse. The White House lost control of the story on the torture memos, and it was only pushed off the front pages two weeks later by the swine flu. I'm sure it doesn't want to go through that again, and this time it will be a month or more.

But the Obama administration set the expectations by agreeing to release the photos in the first place, and it faces an uphill battle to now convince the court that this material should be properly withheld from public disclosure when only a month ago it had said the opposite.

All of this is just more evidence that we need to stop the constant drip of news and channel it into an authoritative, non-partisan, non-adversarial investigation into the Bush administration's torture policies. Congress and the Obama administration are going to be dogged by questions and allegations about each new revelation unless there is a formal process to examine them that is at least one step removed from the political debate of the day. Mr President, we need an investigation.


Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/14/obama-torture-photos-soufan-zelikow-yoo

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“A statement from the president of the United States that the security of U.S. forces is at stake would be taken very seriously by the courts,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. But Mr. Aftergood added that courts might question why the material had not previously been classified in years of litigation under the Bush administration.

“It might lead a court to view the national security claim as flimsy and opportunistic,” he said.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15legal.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

[azul]

1. Which would be the intelligent road to peace and security?

To continue on with hiding and rationalizing criminal behavior, and maintaining over 730 military bases around the world with arrogant and brutal authority?

Or, fess up to law breaking, punish the offenders, and pull back on the US empire ambitions that are bankrupting us financially and morally.



Assure the world that we have an alternative plan to that of commandeering their resources because ours are expended. Lead the way in developing a stable population and sustainable energy.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. K&R