Obama's Sneaky Repackaging of Bush Era Policies of Torture And War

Larry Jones writes on the ‘World Can’t Wait’ website that President Obama is only making cosmetic changes and is repackaging Bush’s Program of Torture and War to make them more palatable to gullible Americans. Conservatives have also been quick to point out Obama’s clever tricks. The New York Times published an op-ed saying that there has not been a dramatic shift in the substance of American war and torture policies. Instead there has been a marked shift in the public credibility of that policy. Obama is a slick orator and more skillful than Bush the bumbler was for effective packaging Bush-era policies. Bush’s Deputy Attorney General Jack Goldsmith, wrote recently that: “[T]he premise that the Obama administration has reversed Bush-era policies is largely wrong. The truth is closer to the opposite: The new administration has copied most of the Bush program, has expanded some of it, and has narrowed only a bit. Almost all of the Obama changes have been at the level of packaging, argumentation, symbol, and rhetoric.” Obama stated he would restore Habeas Corpus but he has established a policy to completely deny the provision to have a right to challenge one’s detention for prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and has limitations for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay. Obama has called for military commissions kangaroo courts. And a shocker that even Bush didn’t dare propose was Obama’s authorizing of preventive detention. Neither the Constitution nor the original Bill of rights allows preventive detention. Obama is continuing the practice of rendition torture flights but has chosen the Clinton era standard of rendition sites which prohibits kidnapping flights only when the authorities determine “more likely than not”—that it is a greater than 50% chance “that the suspect will be subjected to torture.” Obama issued an executive order that requires the CIA to stick to Army Field Manual regulations instead of “harsh interrogation techniques” but there are loopholes large enough to drive a tank through and decent people must reject the whole framework. The current director of the CIA is on record favoring the use of “harsh techniques” in “some circumstances.” Obama refuses to release some 2000 torture photos from the Bush era that he had promised to make public. Not only is he against prosecuting Bush regime figures for war crimes,  President Obama wants to shove all these horrors under the rug. Meanwhile in places like Gunatanamo Bay prison guards are routinely breaking prisoners bones, gouging eyes, squeezing testicles and ‘dousing’ detainees with chemicals. This situation is crying for a movement of mass resistance not relying on the Republicans or Democrats, which are competing elites attempting to preserve their empire.

You can read Larry Jones article ‘Obama Repackages Bush Program of Torture, War’ by clicking on this link:

Obama Repackages Bush Program of Torture, War

–Bill Gibbons

“I’m a truth addict, aw shit, I got a head rush.” –Rage Against the Machine