By Kenneth J. Theisen
The Democrat-led Congress has once again taken a step to continue the fascist trajectory begun by the Bush regime.
On October 15, 2009 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a homeland security appropriations bill with an amendment attached that would grant the Department of Defense (DOD) the authority to continue suppressing photos depicting the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody in hellhole prisons overseas. Previously released photos have caused world-wide outrage at the crimes of the U.S. government.
The amendment, which was introduced by Senator Joseph Lieberman, would allow DOD to exempt the photos from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The photos were previously ordered released by a federal appeals court as part of an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) FOIA lawsuit.
The ACLU has been seeking the release of the photos and other records related to detainee abuse through FOIA litigation initiated in 2004 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. That court ordered the release of the photos in a June 2005 ruling that was affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeal in September 2008. After initially indicating that it would not appeal the Second Circuit decision and would release the photos, the Obama administration abruptly reversed its position in May 2009 and asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal. The Supreme Court is expected to conference on whether it will hear the Obama administration appeal of the Second Circuit ruling on October 30, 2009.
Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project had this to say about the recent House action to cover up the crimes of the U.S. government, "We are deeply disappointed that the House voted to give the Defense Department the authority to hide evidence of its own misconduct, and we hope the Senate will not follow suit…The last administration’s decision to endorse torture undermined the United States’ moral authority and compromised its security. The failure of the current administration to fully confront the abuses of the last administration will only compound these harms."
But the Obama administration has repeatedly gone out of its way to cover up the abuses of the Bush regime. This has included the failure to pursue prosecutions, or even investigations, of the top criminals in the Bush regime for their numerous crimes. Over and over, Obama’s Department of Justice has gone to court to suppress the revelations of the crimes of the Bush administration. It has used arguments of “national security,” “state secrets,” and “executive privilege” to keep the dirty secrets of the regime from becoming public.
This amendment is just the latest attempt to hide the truth from the people of the world. Supporters of Obama should ask themselves why the Obama administration has deliberately taken its cover-up actions on so many occasions. Is this the change they expected when they voted for Obama?
To learn more about the ACLU’s activities to reveal the crimes of the Bush regime in its FOIA lawsuits, see http://www.aclu.org/accountability/.
Ok look, the reason our Congress wants to suppress these photos of past torture is because they are sick of torture being a publicity nightmare. The Obama administration has made it clear that they want torture by the US to stop. Granted, the Bush administration had many crimes against humanity by allowing and assisting torture thousands of POW’s. So yes, the American people were by that means complicit while torture was occuring. The Obama administration has made it abundantly clear that they don’t want torture to continue, but that they also want to move past the issue because it only serves to ignite further hate against the US and right now our country needs to focus on other issues like rebuilding our economy or how to proceed with our two wars. That’s why the photos are being with held. All he wants to do is stop the torture and move on so we can work on other issues at the moment.
Now, what I do not accept are the claims that either our war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq are criminal wars. We went into Afghanistan because they crashed passenger airliners into not one but three of our buildings and were responsible for crashing a fourth plane. Those acts killed thousands of US citizens. They hit first and we hit back. Right now our ttoops are in that country trying to allow their government to become strong enough to support itself without our help. As for Iraq, we went into that war with credible intelligence saying that Saddam had WMD’s, which by international treaties he was not allowed to have. And we didn’t enter the war alone either. We had Britain, Canada, and Spain backing us. Yes we were the majority force going into Iraq, but if you look at every UN or peace keeping force sent around the world by a number of “western” countries in the last 30 years, the US has had the majority force in every case. Now, we didn’t find any WMD’s in Iraq. That’s true. But we toppled Saddam’s government. If we had left the country at that point and come home, there would have been civil war for years in Iraq. And it would be far worse than the current situation there. Experience has shown that if you topple the government of a country as sectarian as Iraq and then leave, war and genocide proliferate the country (anybody remember Bosnia?). So if we had already turned tail and run from Iraq, we’d be getting blamed for the civil war and mass genocide that occurred once we left. And yes we tortured some people from that country, but to be fair, when they kidnapped or captured US citizens or military personnel, they would beat them, kneel down in front of a camera, and ask them if they had a wife or children, make them beg to see their families and beg to be released. Then one of the men would step forward and they would either deeply slit the person’s throat and sit there listening and watching as the individual gurggled and gasped to death, or they would cut so deeply with their big knife that they pulled the person’s head off. So to be fair, I’d rather have water-boarding going on then decapitations. I just think that it may be the lesser of two evils.
Concluding, yes, our country isn’t perfect. Yes, we went into Iraq and Afghanistan and we’re still there. Yes, we did psychologically torture some of the POW’s we captured. And Yes, I’m sure some innocent people were captured tortured wrongly. But our government is trying to stop and trying to move past it. So give them a chance and support them.