The United Nations has released a new report on human rights that has found the record of the United states to be “deplorable.” With the continuing refusal of the Obama Administration to investigate war crimes and to support the Bush policies in court, we have lost an opportunity to show the country has committed itself to change these policies and demand accountability for those who implemented them.
The May 26, 2009, report by Australian law professor Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, states that “there have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practice and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings — including possible war crimes — in the United States’ international operations.”
“credible reports” of at least five deaths caused by torture at the hands of the CIA. Yet, Attorney General Eric Holder continues to block any investigation into such cases or the torture program as a whole. This was not missed by the United Nation report, which states “U.S. prosecutors have failed to use the laws on the books to investigate and prosecute (contractors) and civilian agents for wrongful deaths, including, in some cases, deaths credibly alleged to have resulted from torture and abuse.”
For the story, click here.
I am amused by some of the reactions on this thread. Whenever the United Nations issues any criticism of the United States, there are those whose immediate response is to demand that we renounce our membership and boot the headquarters out of New York. Of course, those same persons generally have a psychological inability to countenance any criticism whatsoever of this country.
In this instance, it is not the substance of the report that is troubling, but the fact that we have permitted our government to join the ranks of outlaw nations. There are far too many people like mary who are prepared to abandon the founding ideals of this country in a benighted belief that evil is the best weapon against evil. They have forgotten the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the Constitution and have become fearful and timid in the defense of our freedoms.
Unless our government begins to take the necessary actions to restore the rule of law in our own conduct, the criticism will only become louder. The good will accompanying the election of Pres. Obama has a limited shelf life. If we lose our remaining moral authority in the world, our ability to influence events beyond our own borders may be irretrievably lost.
None. Many of today’s posts show powerful people who were able to commit horrible abuses of one form or another because no one stood in their way. The abuses only ended when a victim said no and was able to escape, either on their own or with the help of others.
Lesson–powerful people will take as much power as they can until someone stands up to them. This includes Obama. He has a clear and extremely disturbing pattern of amassing power and doing so under cover of secrecy. He also uses an excellent PR campaign to fool people into thinking he is doing the opposite of what he is actually doing. This pattern is clear despite his best efforts to obscure it.
We have a federal govt. to take back. We must get moving. Free societies have gone down when the form of lawfulness is used to enact laws that are actually anti-Constitutional. I don’t think we should believe America is any different than the many other countries who suffered the same fate. When Bush did this it was wrong. Now that Obama is doing it. it is wrong. People used to fight back when bush did it. Time to fight back again.
Just exactly how much more patience are We the People supposed to have?
Here’s the latest news via Glenn Greenwald on what may happen, both with these pictures and all the others that show criminal acts of our govt. This is dangerous territory for any govt and a disaster in a supposed democracy. We have to ask ourselves why this is being requested and why citizens should allow this to go forward.
“Obama wants Congress to change FOIA by retroactively narrowing its disclosure requirements, prevent a legal ruling by the courts, and vest himself with brand new secrecy powers under the law which, just as a factual matter, not even George Bush sought for himself.
The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman — called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 — that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.” As long as the Defense Secretary certifies — with no review possible — that disclosure would “endanger” American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.”
AY,
It’s okay in my case. I’m more like Groucho had a love child with Carlin and Siddhartha with a dash of Alien Love Juice that was blessed by Bill Hicks. I’m perfectly content to let Mike Be Their Leader (as is Homer’s glorious notation that “Moe is their leader.”) and mespo does the Walter Brennan Crazy Old Prospector Dance better than most. In short, old lone eagle didn’t stand a chance.
I’d like to say I really like the clown car idea. You can fit a lot of Neocon trolls into one vehicle – very fuel efficient GM so pay attention. Just be sure to lock lone eagle in the trunk for transport so he’ll be comfortable in his splendid isolation.
lone eagle 1, May 31, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Three stooges of the turley blog:
Spindell; Anonymously; Rcampbell; and [but]sic we must not forget their sidekick tag along Mespo.
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What a wonderful accomplishment. lol But I fear you left out Buddha, Jill, FFLEO, rafflaw and many other deserving souls. But I realize that in your world everyone is but a sole, your purpose for walking over them.
Trolls are a wonderful way of telegraphing the fears of their masters. I’m glad they’re scared of war crimes invetigations. Thank you for showing up on this site and letting us know they don’t think they have it all sewn up.
Jill, you need stay informed. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba said a couple of days ago he never said any such things about these photographs and called them brazen lies:
May 30, 2009 | Retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba denied reports that he has seen the prisoner-abuse photos that President Obama is fighting to keep secret, in an exclusive interview with Salon Friday night.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/30/taguba/
JILL, YOU REALLY HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO STOP POSTING LIES but since you are a liberal lies are the only thing you have left.
lone eagle:
”
THree stooges of the turley blog:
Spindell
Anonymously
Rcampbell
but we must not forget their sidekick tag along Mespo”
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I can’t think of any better companions, and well I do like Gabby Hayes and Walter Brennan. After all, what’s a hero without a sidekick? You, on the other hand, seem to manage quite consistently without a friend in the world. Float on oh island unto yourself.
This should be read. We need to know the truth:
“The Telegraph of London broke the news — because the U.S. press is in a drugged stupor – — that the photos President Barack Obama is refusing to release of detainee abuse depict, among other sexual tortures, an American soldier raping a female detainee and a male translator raping a male prisoner.
The paper claims the photos also show anal rape of prisoners with foreign objects such as wires and lightsticks. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba calls the images “horrific” and “indecent” (but absurdly agrees that Obama should not release them — proving once again that the definition of hypocrisy is the assertion that the truth is in poor taste).
Predictably, a few hours later, the Pentagon issues a formal denial.
It is very likely that the Pentagon lying. This is probably exactly what the photos show, because it happened. Precisely these exact sex crimes — these exact images and these very objects – — are familiar and well-documented to those of us who follow closely rights organizations reports of what has already been confirmed.
As I wrote last year in my piece on sex crimes against detainees, “Sex Crimes in the White House,” highly perverse, systematic sexual torture and sexual humiliation was, original documents reveal, directed from the top:
* President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were present in meetings where sexual humiliation was discussed as policy.
* The Defense Authorization Act of 2007 was written specifically to allow certain kinds of sexual abuse, such as forced nakedness, which is illegal and understood by domestic and international law to be a form of sexual assault.
* Rumsfeld is in print and on the record consulting with subordinates about the policy and practice of sexual humiliation, in a collection of documents obtained by the ACLU by a Freedom of Information Act filing compiled in Jameel Jaffer’s important book The Torture Administration…”
http://www.alternet.org/world/140357/why_the_pentagon_is_probably_lying_about_its_supressed_sodomy_and_rape_photos/
THree stooges of the turley blog:
Spindell
Anonymously
Rcampbell
but we must not forget their sidekick tag along Mespo
jelly,
Can you bed used in more than one way including as a lubricant?
Spindell, blow it out your arse.
Jelly,
I think that name is a description of the state of your brain matter.
LottaK this is how a lot of them are taught to think,
Think? If you do, you sir, will never amount to nothing, I am every thinking you’ll ever need. So you just go on, back to that kitchen and I call ya when I need something. Shoes, what you need shoes for, ya ain’t going no where. I tell you something else if I ever catch you trying to read and educate yourself, I’ll tan ya ass. Thats for them people that need it and what you gonna be doing ya don’t need none that book learnen. Its just wasted on ya, I tell ya.
so so as I say and pester them turley folks.
mespo727272
When single payer comes, I’ll drive you to the psychiatrist, ok?
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It looks like single payer is not being given serious consideration in the Senate so this blog is probably stuck with him for awhile. Anybody know where I can get one of those cool new keyboards that only types caps? Having to change case is so distracting; I, like GMSucks and Mary, also hate to think while I post. 🙂
mary 1, May 31, 2009 at 10:46 am
THE CORRUPT ILLEGITIMATE UNELECTED UNITED NATIONS RUN BY CRONIES OF THE THIRD WORLD THUGS & FULL OF THIEVES LIKE KOFFI ANNAN AND HIS SON, TELLING THE UNITED STATES WE ARE SOOO BAD!
UNBELIEVABLE, BUT ONLY AT A LIBERAL BLOG WOULD WE SEE THE UNITED NATIONS HELD UP AS SOME KIND OF WORTHY INSTITUTION!
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Humm, Think about Wilson and the League of Nations. Wilson was a good president but then you had Coolidge and then Hoover that nearly wiped out like Bush the financial markets. What ya think.
Rasmussen finds today that by a 67 percent to 21 percent margin, voters “oppose a plan for the federal government to give General Motors an additional $50 billion to buy 70% of the company.”
Only 18 percent say the government will do a good job of running GM and it would be interesting to know how many of those 18 percent are union members.
Mespo and rafflaw,
I vote for the Clown Car.
rafflaw:
Let’s get that circus van to take him.