Hermann Goering’s descendants file wrongful conviction and wrongful death claims.
By Dennis Loo
At least, that is the way the headline should read, based on Thursday’s news.
From April 9, 2009’s McClatchy’s newspaper, “CIA to Close Secret Overseas Prisons, End Security Contracts:”
“The CIA is decommissioning the secret overseas prisons where top al Qaida suspects were subjected to interrogation methods, including simulated drowning, that Attorney General Eric Holder, allied governments, the Red Cross and numerous other experts consider torture, the agency said Thursday.
“In an e-mail to the agency’s work force outlining current interrogation and detention policies, CIA Director Leon Panetta also announced that agreements with the private security firms guarding the so-called black sites will be ‘promptly terminated,’ and contractors no longer will be used to conduct interrogations.
“Panetta, however, said that CIA officers who were involved in interrogations using ‘enhanced’ methods authorized by the Justice Department during the Bush administration ‘should not be investigated, let alone punished.’”
The Obama Team, you have to give it to them, are very skilled at PR.
They have announced that they are shutting down the infamous “black sites” in places such as Afghanistan, Jordan, Poland, Romania and Thailand where the CIA tortured and, in some cases, murdered detainees.
Now Sen. Dianne Feinstein can say: "I have long fought to ban the use of contractors in interrogations and detention operations. So, I am very pleased that Mr. Panetta has announced that contractors will no longer conduct interrogations."
They can all sound like they are ending the atrocities committed under Bush and Cheney. We can all breathe easier that things have changed.
Except, that they haven’t.
Obama and his team have said on the record that for high-value detainees, they reserve the right to go beyond the Army Field Manual for interrogations.
Obama has said on the record that he will continue to use rendition.
Obama’s DOJ has said on the record that the hundreds of detainees being held and tortured at Bagram have no right to challenge their indefinite detentions.
Panetta says that these CIA officers will not be “investigated, let alone punished” because they were following “legal orders.”
Team Obama, to be consistent here, should next announce that the Nuremberg Verdicts should be overturned. Nuremberg found that Nazis whose legal defense at Nuremberg was that they were only following orders were GUILTY FOR FOLLOWING THOSE ORDERS.
As Nazi leader Hermann Goering cynically stated while on trial at Nuremberg: the winners put the losers on trial.
According to our august leaders, it doesn’t matter what heinous acts a US representative commits as long as they were following the orders of their leaders. If they were following orders, then they are exempt from responsibility.
I do so admire the morality and legality being demonstrated by our leaders. They are setting world-standards for change and for hope.
Hitler must be turning over in his grave. An African American nazi? There’s a first time for eveything.
When are we going to impeach Obama? He has already commited at least two high crimes.