The cases that have been documented at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib (Iraq), Bagram (Afghanistan), and secret CIA prisons all constitute "war crimes." At Abu Ghraib and Bagram the blame was focused on low ranking privates in the army, giving them dishonorable discharges and small prison sentences. Yet the high ranking officials who came up with the new methods of interrogation, aka torture, have gotten off scott-free.
More than 83,000 people have been abducted or captured and sent to Guantanamo without ever having their crime dictated to them, or ever having the chance of seeing a lawyer. To make matters worse the inmates are then tortured. It has been documented that innocent men have been abducted and tortured, and sometimes even killed. For more info about this watch the 2007 Academy Award winning documentary: Taxi to the Dark Side. Matthew's grade: B
Obama has recently passed legislation outlawing torture within the military, banning secret CIA prisons, and setting a time-line for closing Guantanamo, along with giving it's inmates habeas corpus. For this we can applaud him. However, he has turned soft when it comes to prosecuting the people who started this whole mess in the first place. 62% of Americans believe that Bush officials should be tried in court for alleged "war crimes." However, Obama has stated he does not support investigating any further, and has given the stale statement that we need to "move forward." Obama has even gone as far as supplying John Yoo, a mastermind on torture within the Bush administration, with a lawyer from the Obama Justice Department to fend off a lawsuit from a torture victim.
Obama's stance on this is an outrage. He is letting terrorist-suspects (from the Bush administration) get off free, without even bringing them into a court room. These men have been responsible for abducting, torturing, and killing innocent men, and they will never see a trial. Most importantly they have broke International Law and US Law. This is just another reason why Obama's campaign promised hope, but his presidency has ringed hollow.
I hope Obama can realize soon that he doesn't need to give in to the pressures of "the man" but rather be "the man" and act out on his campaign promises.
ReplyDeleteI still am proud of voting for Obama though.
ditto. Although there have been many short steps in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteThis same topic (well not the same, but close enough) is the thing that has made me the most mad at Obama as well, though for different reasons. He decided to release a bunch of top secret memos detailing the interrogation of terrorist suspects. I have a feeling they were top secret for a reason. How does spelling out exactly what happens when someone is taken into custody help protect anyone? Worst of all, he released these memos, but the only thing blacked out was what these sessions actually prevented. Some people have decided that anything beyond just asking questions is torture, which is ridiculous. There is a middle ground, there need to be other options besides just asking nicely if a terrorist attack is going to happen. The only reason things like waterboarding or sleep deprivation were put into practice were because they were necessary and they worked. I heard someone else say this, it doesn't matter whether we torture or not (though we shouldn't), our enemies should think we do. The unknown is a powerful tool in these kind of situations.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Taxi to the Dark Side sounds like it could be the name of an awesome sci fi movie.
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ReplyDeleteSarah: Those finger puppets are awesome!
ReplyDeleteBill: Thanks for giving my blog a balanced perspective. However I will have to argue that torture tactics, like sleep deprivation and water boarding, do not work. IN fact it was precisely these tactics used on a detainee that lead to the false information that there was a strong relationship between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, which has been proven false.
Also it is widely known in the Arab/Muslim world that America's torture habits instigate extremism rather than deterring it. This may be subject matter for another blog. Anyways thanks for your challenges, they are always welcome.
What a great post! I agree with Sarah, and I don't regret voting for Obama. BUT it's very disturbing that he's willing to let these guys off the hook. Torture is wrong under all circumstances, and people who commit such crimes should be held accountable.
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