Excellent NYT editorial on Obama's efforts to keep Bush/Cheney crimes from disclosure

[ohiodemocratic]

NYT (2-15-10):

"At issue in the British court were seven paragraphs derived from American intelligence documents. The Bush administration claimed the material contained top-secret information and threatened to cut off intelligence sharing with Britain if it was released. Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton repeated those threats, despite President Obama’s campaign promises of openness and the rule of law in his detainee policy.

The paragraphs contained no real secrets. Mainly, the document — a summary of information that American intelligence provided to Britain’s security service, MI5 — echoes previous disclosures by the C.I.A. and Mr. Mohamed’s harrowing account of his ordeal.

But what it does contain is the assessment by British intelligence that his treatment violated legal prohibitions against torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners.

A spokesman for President Obama expressed “deep disappointment” in the court’s decision, which might have been shocking except that Mr. Obama has refused to support any real investigation of Mr. Bush’s lawless detention policies. His lawyers have tried to shut down court cases filed by victims of those policies, with the same extravagant claims of state secrets and executive power that Mr. Bush made."

My emphasis: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/opinion/15mon1.html?ref=opinion

[vegiegals]

1. move forward is his motto for this issue!!

[leeroysphitz]

2. This is tiresome. Why can't we get some honest fucking government for a change?

[dysfunctional press]

5. how can you expect the government to be any more honest than the electorate?

this country gets exactly the kind of government that it deserves.

[Winterblues]

9. I caught my grandson in a Lie the other day and called him on it

His answer was "everyone Lies". I said no that wasn't the case but then I really started to think about it and I do believe he is correct. In America it is expected that everyone will Lie..

[Don Caballero]

3. As much as I abhor the previous administration and their crimes against humanity

I understand why President Obama is moving on instead of pursuing charges. Our country is broken and the President rightly sees the need to mend it. Going after Shrub and his cohorts will only further divide the country and waste precious resources.

[dysfunctional press]

6. and will allow for the same thing to happen over and over again.

if bill clinton would have supported an honest investigation into iran-contra, dumbya would have NEVER been placed into the oval orifice.

ignoring high crimes by government leaders is no way to run a country.

[jtrockville]

8. No, it won't be the same. Each time the violations get much worse.

[heli]

10. Did the GOP say "move on" after Clinton apologized for the BJ?

Heck no.

[Don Caballero]

11. We are much more reasonable than the GOP

We understand that we must look forward in order for progress and change to take hold.

[heli]

12. You don't keep covering up for your sworn enemies' crimes

[dysfunctional press]

14. "we must look forward in order for progress and change to take hold. "

and just how well did 'looking forward' and 'moving on' instead of investigating iran-contra work out for us as a country?

[annabanana]

15. How could it "waste precious resources" to cleanse the wound?

That administration decided to torture people, and hired "lawyers" to give them cover. How can our national reputation recover from that without holding them accountable?

[choie]

19. it's just amazing

how countries like South Africa can have a Truth and Reconciliation process, but a "strong democracy" like the United States is too fragile to bring its war criminals to justice.

[Xipe Totec]

4. Where was the New York Times when these crimes were being comitted?

Oh yea, I remember now.

They were helping the Bush Administration justify waterboarding.

[cali]

13. could you please post an editorial where the NYT justified waterboarding.

I never saw one.

[Xipe Totec]

17. Here

Justified torture by the mealy mothed use of the term "enhanced interrogation techniques"




Robert Ofsevit of Oakland, Calif., asked, “Why can’t The New York Times call torture by its proper name?” He added, “Please find more backbone and fulfill your journalistic responsibilities by describing these immoral and illegal practices for what they were.” Theodore Murray of Cambridge, Mass., said that if The Times fails to adopt the word torture, “you perpetuate the fantasy that calling a thing by something other than its name will change the thing itself.”

The Times should strive to tell readers exactly what a given interrogation technique entails, as Shane does with waterboarding. But that is not always practical, as in a headline. When the paper needs a short description, the word brutal is accurate and appropriate, whether you think the acts were justified or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26pubed.html

Here is the Etymology of the word, where credit is given to the New York Times for first use:

While the technique has been used in various forms for centuries, the term waterboarding dates from 2004. First appearance of the term in the mass media was in a New York Times article on May 13, 2004:

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11 , 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as 'water boarding', in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown. The U.S. attorney Alan Dershowitz is reported to have shortened the term to a single word in a Boston Globe article two days later: "After all, the administration did approve rough interrogation methods for some high valued detainees. These included waterboarding, in which a detainee is pushed under water and made to believe he will drown unless he provides information, as well as sensory deprivation, painful stress positions, and simulated dog attacks". He later told the New York Times columnist William Safire that, "when I first used the word, nobody knew what it meant."

Techniques using forcible drowning to extract information had hitherto been referred to as "water torture," "water treatment," "water cure" or simply "torture." A UPI article in 1976 used the term 'water board' torture: "(U.S. Navy trainees) were strapped down and water poured into their mouths and noses until they lost consciousness... A Navy spokesman admitted use of the 'water board' torture... to 'convince each trainee that he won't be able to physically resist what an enemy would do to him.'"

Professor Darius Rejali of Reed College, author of Torture and Democracy (2007), speculates that the term waterboarding probably has its origin in the need for a euphemism. "There is a special vocabulary for torture. When people use tortures that are old, they rename them and alter them a wee bit. They invent slightly new words to mask the similarities. This creates an inside club, especially important in work where secrecy matters. Waterboarding is clearly a jailhouse joke. It refers to surfboarding"– a word found as early as 1929– "they are attaching somebody to a board and helping them surf. Torturers create names that are funny to them".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

[hvn_nbr_2]

18. Please post an editorial where the NYT referred to "extravagant claims...

"of state secrets and executive power that Mr. Bush made," that the NYT published during the Bush administration. I'm not necessarily claiming that it didn't happen, but I certainly don't remember any such thing from any MSM then. I seem to recall them all carrying water for Cheney-Bush and either ignoring or ridiculing anyone who mentioned such "extravagant claims...of power".

[ipaint]

7. Spitting on the rule of law.

Wealthy criminals running around free are the reason we are in this hell hole today. Not investigating, prosecuting and punishing them will never fix anything.

[Echo In Light]

16. Institutional collusion in a fascist empire, & their phony WoT is a REAL war on you

[troubledamerican]

20. In defense of Obama: Facing a military coup, with 100% of GOP & 75% of Democrats

compromised or captured, the only strategy is to try to divide and conquer:

Divide Cheney's sleeper cells from the Shadow President.

You'll recall that last month, Lugar & other key Republicans were defending Obama against Cheney's charges.

If Obama knows more than we do about the fascist Republican coup d'etat that is clearly underway, and is facing a military coup (Google Robert Gates + Seven Days In May), then he cannot simply "go after" all lawbreakers, because the MAJORITY of Congress have broken the law (including many key Democrats).

Divide the Shadow President from his Flying Monkeys and there's a ghost of a chance that USAF planes WON'T crash into the Capitol Dome and wipe out the entire government in one swoop.