President Obama, it's not to late to condemn torture.

[rhett o rick]

Dear Pres Obama,

You don't have much time left in your presidency but before you go I am asking to to set something right. Condemn the torture that occurred under the Cheney Admin. To ignore it is to condone it.

During the Black Decade of Cheney rule, some Americans held out hope that we could get a progressive Democrat elected and undo some of the damage done by the Republicons while most Democratic Congress-Critters sat on their hands.

We tortured people. We all know we did. As many as 100 prisoners were tortured to death and many more harmed for life. We tortured these people, not to get information to save American lives but to show the terrorists we were tough. We used torture to terrorize the terrorists into, you got it, not terrorize. How sadly ironic.

Many of the victims of our torture were innocent. Picked up because we paid for tips on terrorists not caring who we tortured . Picked up because the Cheney Admin needed to show the American people that we were taking decisive actions. Picked up to try to get false confessions to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Those of us that grew up thinking how terrible the Nazis were to torture people and wonder how the German people allowed it to happen, now look at ourselves in the mirror and wonder how did we let this happen.

This is what we are fighting against.

To ignore this terrible blight is to condone and normalize it.

I am not asking that Cheney be thrown in jail, although I do fantasize about that, I am asking that you simply recognize it for what it was and condemn it.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Why not give this win to Sanders?

Wouldn't it be better if Sanders was the one to do it?

[Buzz Clik]

2. Why the silence, Obama? Excuse me? What was that?

He said that the CIA techniques, which were employed in the wake of September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, "were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests".

I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong - in the past

Barack Obama, US president

"One of the things that sets us apart from other countries is that when we make mistakes, we admit them," Obama told the Spanish-language television network Telemundo.

The US president said that releasing the information was an important step in the process of making sure that such a scenario is never repeated.

"I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong - in the past...," he said in a statement.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/12/obama-cia-torture-methods-brutal-wrong-2014121045120833682.html

[EdwardBernays]

3. Good luck

Obama has very little concern about innocent civilians.

Ask the millions in Yemen he's helping to starve.

[rhett o rick]

19. I hear you. nm

[tman]

4. Obama has condemned it.

..Numerous times infact.

[vdogg]

5. The man condemned it before he was even elected.

I don't know where the hellof these "democrats" are getting their talking points...

[hereforthevoting]

6. Guantanamo remains.

[bhikkhu]

9. That's up to congress

as they have made abundantly clear. Check out Obama's executive order 13492, two days after swearing in.

[rhett o rick]

15. He had two years to close it and he didnt even try. He waited until

the Republicons could stop him. It was an empty campaign promise.

[bhikkhu]

16. May 20, 2009: Funds to Close Guantanamo denied

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21detain.html?_r=0

"WASHINGTON — The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to cut from a war spending bill the $80 million requested by President Obama to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to bar the transfer of detainees to the United States and its territories.
The vote, which complicates Mr. Obama’s efforts to shutter the prison by his deadline of Jan. 22, 2010, was 90 to 6. Republicans voted unanimously in favor of cutting the money."

December 8, 2010: House Acts to Block Closure of Gaunatanamo. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/8/congress-deals-death-blow-gitmo-closure/?page=all

"The move to block the prison’s closure was written into a massive year-end spending bill that passed the House on Wednesday evening on a vote of 212-206, part of a last-minute legislative rush by Democrats to push through their priorities before ceding the House to Republican control in January."

January 20, 2011. Barack Obama abandons Guantánamo closure plan after Congress veto http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/20/barack-obama-guantanamo-congress-veto

...but he didn't really stop trying.

December 2, 2014. Congress Again Blocks White House Efforts to Close Guantanamo. http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/02/congress-again-blocks-white-house-efforts-to-close-guantanamo.html

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's 5-year-old campaign to close the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suffered a major setback as lawmakers finalizing the annual defense policy bill rejected steps toward shuttering the facility.

Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Monday that the final bill omits a provision giving the president the authority to transfer terror suspects to the United States if Congress signs off on a comprehensive plan to close the prison.

Levin had pushed for the authority and hailed it in May as creating "a path to close Guantanamo." With lawmakers rushing to complete the defense bill in this month's lame-duck session, Levin said proponents were unable to prevail.

January 13, 2015, Republican Senators Move to Keep Gitmo Open. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/republican-senators-guantanamo-114223

Novemebr 10, 2015 Senate Blocks One of the Last Pathways to Closing Gunatanamo. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-ndaa-closing-guantanamo_us_56421b7ee4b0307f2caf060e

etc, etc...I know the more recent news is no surprise, but its rewriting history to imagine that Obama had the support of the Democratic congress for his first two years. He didn't.

[bettyellen]

22. baloney. you don't know your history. he was denied over and over again and did condemn

torture as well.
Why are you trying to slime Democrats?

[Andy823]

27. Once an Obama hater

Always an Obama hater, of course they also hate Hillary, the party as a whole, anyone who doesn't agree with them, and a vast majority of them "claim" to support Bernie Sanders although I have my doubts about that too.!

[anigbrowl]

23. Bullshit

but that's par for the course from you.

[rhett o rick]

24. With a personal attack like that, I am going to go out on a limb and say

you support the Conservative Wing of our Party. You know the wing that thinks that huge profits for Goldman-Sachs is more important than feeding the 16 million children living in poverty. Why not go for 20 million, right?

[anigbrowl]

32. Yawn, typical personal attack from you

Can't win the argument about Guantanamo because the facts don't match up with your claims, so you switch to trying to give me a guilt trip over child poverty, which has exactly nothing to do with Guantanamo.

[rhett o rick]

33. I was responding to your attack and shame on me to sink to that level.

But that's your Clinton supporters for you. Mammon: The greedy pursuit of wealth or worship of such.

[anigbrowl]

34. Yes, shame on you

You claimed Obama made no attempt to close Guantanamo in the first two years of his Presidency, which is total bullshit. In fact, one of his earliest actions as President was taking steps to close the prison: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/guantanamo.order/index.html?eref=rss_us

Now you're just trying to distract people from your false claims by painting me as some sort of greed-head, which is also laughably far away from the truth. The bottom line is you're not enough of an adult to admit you were wrong.

[rhett o rick]

11. I would love to see where he condemned torture.

He tapped danced around it but never said "We were wrong to have tortured people." That's all I ask.

This is what I found. As you can see, there is no condemnation here.

“We know that oftentimes when someone is being subjected to these kinds of techniques they are willing to say anything to alleviate the pain and distress they are feeling. We have got better ways of doing things,” Obama added in the interview.

He also said it was impossible to imagine the pressures after 9/11 but that “does not excuse all of us from looking squarely at what happened and make sure that it doesn’t happen again”.

“It’s important for us not to paint any broad-brush [picture] about all the incredible dedicated professionals in our intelligence community based on some actions that were contrary to who we are, but it’s also important for us to face up to the fact that when countries are threatened often they act rashly in ways that in retrospect were wrong.”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/10/obamas-first-comments-torture-cia-accountability

[bhikkhu]

17. It is in legalese, but that was executive order 13491

Issued very shortly after he was sworn in. I remember reading it a day or two later and being very happy - things had changed.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/EnsuringLawfulInterrogations

[rhett o rick]

18. That's not at all what I am speaking of. He can say we will not torture from

now on. I want him to say to the American people and the World that we were wrong to torture people. We were and everyone knows it. By sweeping it under the rug we are condoning it.

[rhett o rick]

8. Well then it shouldn't be hard to give us a link.

He scoffed at it and brushed it off as "some folks may have been tortured".

Condemn: "To express strong disapproval of or to pronounce judgment against."

[malaise]

10. + one million n/t

[malthaussen]

7. I think that "condemnation" is meaningless...

... if it is not followed up by action. But Mr Obama has already stated that he has no intention of allowing anyone to be prosecuted for war crimes. So we are left with a no-apology apology, an acknowledgement that "mistakes were made" while doing nothing to rectify the mistakes. Rhetoric, in other words, of which Mr Obama is a master.

As for Guantanamo, Mr Obama realistically can't do much about that unilaterally. So he is in the position of making sure his administration violates American principles as little as he deems expedient, while bowing to the fact that many things he might like are impossible without the consent and cooperation of Congress and the states.

-- Mal

[rhett o rick]

12. I understand that he doesn't have the fortitude to prosecute for war crimes.

I don't agree but I understand. He has committed war crimes himself.

All I ask is that he state that we were wrong. Apologize to the American people and the world on behalf of the government.

By not condemning it he condones it and normalizes it.

[malthaussen]

13. Sure, but once he confesses to wrong-doing...

... the pressure immediately rises for prosecution. By offering worthless platitudes, he puts off the reckoning by a further step. I'm assuming, for the nonce, that he does believe that the government (and by extension, the President and his advisors) did wrongly. I'm not wholly convinced of that (IMO, he makes too much of a thing about our crimes "not working," which might lead one to think that expediency is the only thing that matters); certainly he is not one to downplay the power of the executive office (I refer not to his executive orders, which are trivial compared to his predecessors, but to his position on the AUMF, the Patriot Act, and other "national security" questions which fall on his desk). But the very fact that he might lean towards maintaining a strong executive would militate against him taking any action, or offering any but the most bland criticism, of previous administrations.

-- Mal

[rhett o rick]

14. I hear you. I also believe that the NSA/CIA Dark State wield tremendous power and they

want him to keep his mouth shut.

[ScreamingMeemie]

20. Why our Democratic president and congresscritters can't stand up and be hard on this

is beyond me.

[rhett o rick]

21. I believe it's a matter of cowardice. Congress-Critters don't want to condemn

something that they should have condemned years before. They are keeping their heads down, like the president, hoping the American people and the world will forget that we fucking tortured people and no one did anything about it.

[Rex]

25. I gave up on that after he called the Bush Era torturers heroes and patriots.

So we know now, American politicians are soft on banning or punishing those that use torture...if they are Americans working for the government. Not one of his best moments and I agree, he should turn that one around and make them face the music before he leaves office.

[rhett o rick]

29. I have given up hope that we will prosecute anyone for war crimes. But the least I expect from Pres

Obama is that he condemn the torture. I want him to say we were wrong to allow torture. It is not what we stand for and we are ashamed that it happened.

I think Pres Obama is a good guy and probably would love to condemn torture. However, I don't think he has the last word. The NSA/CIA Dark State has unbelievable power. They existed before he came into office and haven't changed a bit since. I think they tell him what to do in these cases. They don't want any of their hired psychopaths to be chastised.

[Dont call me Shirley]

26. I refuse to accept the "we" part of we tortured. I did not consent to torture. A smal group of

Rogue Americans tortured and ordered torture!

Please, President Obama, Condemn the Torture that was done under the orders of Bush and Cheney.

[Andy823]

28. All I can say is

Manny would be so proud of you, carrying on the Obama hate for him and all. You were a fine pupil grasshopper.

[rhett o rick]

35. The Progressive Wing of our party hold our elected representatives accountable in lieu

of pure adulation.

But I understand why conservatives blindly follow authoritarian leaders, it's sooo much easier. Doesn't require any thought.

Those that think that Obama has never made a mistake, are not creditable.

As far as Manny goes, he was a great poster here but the conservatives didn't like his honesty. Ban all that don't toe the conservative line.

[VOX]

30. Yeah, let's trash Obama, since that won't get this thread...

moved to GD-Primaries. Feeling the Bern? Yes, I am...but I'm also feeling pretty Democratic, too. Never voted otherwise, and never will.

[rhett o rick]

31. If you have a point, I missed it. nm