obama ordered the release of several classified justice department documents regarding torture on al qaeda suspects. bush gladly signed his name on the instructions, and denied it was torture because "no lasting harm" could come, even though historically and internationally the treatments were indeed called TORTURE. obama at least has the human decency to call it what it was and has sworn no more.
according to the ny times:
officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in august 2002 against abu zubaydah, according to a 2005 justice department legal memorandum. abu zubaydah has been described as a qaeda operative. a former C.I.A. officer, john kiriakou, told abc news and other news media organizations in 2007 that abu zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.
he lied.
while jack bauer always cracks his subjects on "24", zubaydah revealed no new information after all his near-drowning.
the same memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in march 2003 against khalid shaikh mohammed, the self-described planner of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. mohammed had confessed his role long before being tortured. whether he really was the master mind or is just some schmuck taking the fall like many a mob minion, we don't know.
cheney and bush used opacity and public silence to subvert justice and pervert all that is good about this country -- all the grace and dignity for which the world once admired the united states.
1000's are running through my city's streets today, and many thousands more cheering them on to the finish. on this day we locally commemorate the bravery of a few determined to throw off the shackles of tyranny and live their own lives, free from a government grown too large, too voracious and too cruel.
from thomas jefferson:
experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
less than 24 hours after the twin towers fell, while firefighters, police, emt's and civilians clawed through the smoking toxic rubble for survivors, plans were being finalized in the white house to invade iraq. an illegitmate trump and total subversion of national sovereignty. everything moves more quickly than in jefferson's time. even evil.
also from jefferson:
all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
only one senator voted against the patriot act in 2001, and most admitted not reading much of it. they rolled over, kneejerked and yelled "yea" to stripping americans of many basic civil liberties.
i'm thankful to our new president and his committment to transparency. i'm only wishing somebody less beholden to the status quo would stand up and call out our former president for what he was: a tyrant guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, who has shamed us to the world. while i wait for that, i'll ride my unicorn through the cotton candy forest and watch the glittery smiley seahoses frolic in my personal sea.
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