Writing on timesunion.com veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas - in fact the acknowledged doyen of the press corp - rightly highlights that the Obama Administration, despite all the rhetoric, is ignoring the torture its CIA and others are perpetrating:
"Secrecy is endemic in all governments. It goes with the turf, especially if their leaders hope to hide illegal or immoral behavior, such as torture of foreign prisoners.
"Many Americans heaved a sigh of relief last January when President Barack Obama banned the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
It made the administration look more humane than the Bush-Cheney team. But that is not the whole story.
Obama left unaddressed the possibility of torture in secret foreign prisons under our control as in Abu Ghraib in Iraq or Bagram in Afghanistan, not to mention the 'black sites" sponsored by our foreign clients in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Thailand and other countries.
"The United States will not torture," Obama said in his directive. But he has been silent on the question of whether the U.S. would help others do the torturing."
Continue reading here.
"Secrecy is endemic in all governments. It goes with the turf, especially if their leaders hope to hide illegal or immoral behavior, such as torture of foreign prisoners.
"Many Americans heaved a sigh of relief last January when President Barack Obama banned the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
It made the administration look more humane than the Bush-Cheney team. But that is not the whole story.
Obama left unaddressed the possibility of torture in secret foreign prisons under our control as in Abu Ghraib in Iraq or Bagram in Afghanistan, not to mention the 'black sites" sponsored by our foreign clients in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Thailand and other countries.
"The United States will not torture," Obama said in his directive. But he has been silent on the question of whether the U.S. would help others do the torturing."
Continue reading here.
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