s you celebrate the New Year and anticipate the glorious unknowns of 2015, take time to think about the men rotting away at American concentration camps, none of them charged in court, many of them innocent, for 13 years.
Happy Gitmo Year
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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And when I think of them, I will place the blame where it actually belongs- on the Republicans, as no one has made a compelling (hell, or even a convincing) that there’s a damn thing Obama can do about it that wont be completely and utterly blocked by the Republicans- and a few turncoat Dems- in Congress.
Well, he did pledge not to pursue prosecutions of torturers…
That aside, none of this is legal. They’re just making rules up as they go. Obama is just as justified saying he does have the power to close it unilaterally. He already does many things unilaterally…
I really hate the “We need to look forward, not backward” argument. How well would it work for a defendant in a criminal trial? H-m-m-m-m-m?
Obama has out-Bush’d Bush in the war-crimes department! When the putrid Dems are in power (as they were during BarryHO’s first and a half terms), they allow themselves to be blocked. When they’re not “in power,” well, they have suck-ass apologists like you to beat the “It’s-not-my-fault” drum.
Once you realize that they are the “POWERFUL” and we are not, then you really will know who’s long-term survival that you’ve been paying for in taxes all your life … and it ain’t you and yours.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. Global corporatism and the WDC crowd are the wolves, we are the sheep. They’re coming to dinner, and we are the entree.
Get a clue.
DanD
Coming from the chief conspiracy theorist on this site, I take that as a compliment. In 2015, you might want to loosen your tinfoil hat a bit- its obviously cutting off circulation to what’s left of your brain.
The majority of Americans know, we are the ‘good guys’ and everyone who opposes America are ‘bad guys’. It’s that simple. If some anti-American causes pain to an agent of the US government, that is torture, a capital offense (and the US has hanged those who committed such heinous crimes).
If the US causes pain to someone, that’s Justice, it’s NEVER torture, and it’s perfectly legal!
Besides, all those imprisoned by the US are clearly guilty. Under ‘enhanced interrogation’ they confessed (in an obscure dialect of Pashtun that few understand),
لطفا متوقف شود. من می تواند درد را تحمل کنم. لطفا متوقف شود. من می گویند هر آنچه شما می خواهید. من می تواند درد را تحمل کنم. لطفا’ متوقف شود.’
which means, ‘I was responsible for 9/11/’01. I killed all the people in the World Trade Center, and many in the Pentagon. I was the shooter on the grassy knoll. I sank the USS Maine. I killed the young women in Whitechapel. I killed the princes in the tower. And I was the arsonist who interrupted an Imperial lyre concert in Rome.’
Have to admit that I find it intriguing to read such apologist balderdash as that peddled here – no doubt on a whim – by signature «Whimsical» :
«And when I think of them, I will place the blame where it actually belongs- on the Republicans, as no one has made a compelling (hell, or even a convincing) that there’s a damn thing Obama can do about it that wont be completely and utterly blocked by the Republicans- and a few turncoat Dems- in Congress.»
Indeed, why «place the blame» on anybody ? Why not «look forward» ? Otherwise, you know, people may take up such uncomfortable topics as the War Crimes Tribunal in Nürnberg, and those famous lines from US Prosecutor Robert Houghwout Justice Jackson’s opening address :
«We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.»
Skål !
Henri
Hans Frank: “Law either exists or it does not. Where there is no system of justice, the state sinks into a pit of darkness and horror.” (June, 1942, to the Academy of German Law)
And when people like Hans Frank are allowed to make the laws, one gets the horrors of Nazi Germany. But people like Hans Frank are not found exclusively in Nazi Germany, but everywhere. Thus we all must be vigilant as to whom we allow to make our laws….
Henri
He eventually became the personal legal advisor to Adolf Hitler. Do you think perhaps John Yoo is a reincarnated Hans Frank? 🙁
Alas, the world is full of John Choon Yoos and Hans Franks ; reincarnations or no, they won’t be lacking in our future – that is, so long as we have a future…. 🙁
Henri