{"id":185850,"date":"2014-08-03T08:17:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-03T13:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/08\/03\/barack-obama-just-admitting-to-covering-up-crimes-against-humanity-which-is-a-crime-against-humanity\/"},"modified":"2014-08-03T08:17:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-03T13:17:00","slug":"barack-obama-just-admitting-to-covering-up-crimes-against-humanity-which-is-a-crime-against-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/08\/03\/barack-obama-just-admitting-to-covering-up-crimes-against-humanity-which-is-a-crime-against-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama Just Admitting to Covering Up Crimes Against Humanity, Which is a Crime Against Humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barack Obama has blithely stated that, “We tortured some folks<\/a>,” but continues to insist that there will not be any sort of accountability for this:<\/p>\n

In startlingly blunt phrasing, President Obama on Friday acknowledged the CIA\u2019s use of brutal interrogation tactics in the years after the Sept. 11 attack, even as he defended the agency\u2019s top spy, who is a veteran of the era.<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cWe tortured some folks,\u201d Obama said to reporters during a news conference Friday. \u201cWe did some things that were contrary to our values.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span> He sought to put the interrogation program in context, recalling Americans\u2019 fear after the Sept. 11 attacks and the \u201cenormous pressure\u201d on law enforcement to prevent more attacks.<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cYou know, it is important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had,\u201d Obama said. \u201cAnd a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, they weren’t patriots, they were “Good Germans”.<\/p>\n

<\/a>He also further makes it clear that not only will there be no prosecution of torturers, there won’t even be a real investigation of who gave the orders.<\/p>\n

As Richard Nixon’s head in a jar might attest to, sometimes it’s the cover up that constitutes a crime, and Obama has thrown his lot in with the coverup.<\/p>\n

Whoever performed, authorized, or ordered torture, at a very minimum, should be stripped of their security clearances and fired.  (I would argue that the same should apply to those who did not report torture through the chain of command)<\/p>\n

He was forced to make this statement, since the Senate report on this<\/a> reveals that the torture was more common and more brutal than was reported to Congress of the public, as well as the fact that it never produced meaningful actionable intelligence.<\/p>\n

It is also important to note that many of the people tortured were guilty of nothing, and had just been swept up in a panic driven dragnet and bounty program.<\/p>\n

Finally, it should be noted that torture comes home<\/b>.  National guardsman who observe or participate in torture, and then come home to work in civilian law enforcement, are more likely to engage in torture themselves.<\/p>\n

Prosecution, and public shaming, are essential to stopping this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barack Obama has blithely stated that, “We tortured some folks,” but continues to insist that there will not be any sort of accountability for this: In startlingly blunt phrasing, President Obama on Friday acknowledged the CIA\u2019s use of brutal interrogation tactics in the years after the Sept. 11 attack, even as he defended the agency\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1207,1032,969,972,978,1168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-up","category-crimes-against-humanity","category-evil","category-justice","category-politics","category-torture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}