Abu Ghraib torture video of 2004
Next month el Presidente Obama must send a delegation to Geneva [1] to appear before the "Committee Against Torture", a United Nations panel that monitors compliance with the U.N, treaty banning "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment".
It's unclear why the administration has to make a presentation at this time, as it has never done so in the almost six years of Obama's presidency.
Be that as it may, this upcoming appearance has apparently created a firestorm within the Obama mobs inner sanctum.
According to "unnamed officials" [2] , State Department lawyers want to reaffirm Obama's 2009 executive order forbidding torture anywhere while intelligence and military lawyers are supposedly opposed to the U.N. treaty imposing legal obligations on US actions abroad. The latter apparently fearing some of their former torture victims may sue them in court, but not so "miraculously" all US courts have repeatedly tossed out lawsuits brought by detainees held as suspects without charges as part of the US global war on terrorism.
Remember it was "Dubya" Bush who issued a signing statement in 2005 claiming his powers as commander in chief overrode the statute Congress approved against "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment"-which of course he signed into law.
But with his signing statement it was another perfect example of Congress being dismissed out of hand by the executive as nothing more than a mere obstacle to be ignored even as it deigned to exercise its authority under the Constitution. The "law' was whatever the executive says it was-something we first heard during the Nixon years i.e. "If the president says it, it's legal".
So despite this administration's "internal deliberations" on what to present in Geneva next month it's just a smokescreen; draw up some "legalisms" to make it appear the US is still complying with the UN treaty but with reservations on some points, as in it doesn't apply to territory outside the US.
C'mon, it's all a charade. Is there anyone, anywhere who still believes the US doesn't torture, that the CIA has abandoned its practice of extraordinary rendition, secretly sending whomever they nab anywhere in the world to some undisclosed "black site" or have one of their proxy foreign intelligence honchos do it for them.
The torture the US committed at Abu Ghraib in Iraq in 2004 was secret until videos of the abomination appeared on the Web revealing to everyone the US had in fact descended to the depths committing the unspeakable. Funny; where was the UN "Committee Against Torture" during that time; at some "undisclosed location" yucking it up with VP Dick Cheney?
So now, any dissembling before the UN Committee can erase the stain the US obviously committed torture.
Also remember it was Mr. "Let's move forward and not look back" Obama who refused to have his Justice Department prosecute those who authorized the torture and have never been held accountable.
Do we have to wonder why?
[1] "Obama Could Reaffirm A Bush-Era Reading Of a Treaty on Torture", by Charlie Savage, "The New York Times", October 19,2014
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