1. New book by John Farmer:
“John Farmer served as Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, … he also served as attorney general of New Jersey (1999-2002), as chief counsel to Governor Whitman, and as a federal prosecutor.
…
Ultimately Farmer builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version not only is almost entirely untrue but serves to create a false impression of order and security.
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Farmer himself states that “at some level of the government, at some point in time … there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/16/732116/-Official-story-of-9-11-almost-entirely-untrue
2. “Release the torture photos
Photographs are part of the historical record. Think of these images: black men hanging from trees in the American South; emaciated concentration camp survivors; prisoners shackled into cramped “tiger cages” in South Vietnam. Would this be a better world without those photos?
Trying to cover up atrocities because someone might be angry isn’t right and won’t work. Instead, the Pentagon should release the photos while making it clear that the U.S. repudiates such barbaric behavior and is committed to dismantling the culture that allowed it to occur.”
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/thatseemsfair/latimes0169.html
3. “2006 Australian Documentary on Torture Photos
I have located a 2006 documentary from the Australian television show Dateline. which discusses and may provide context to the newly-rediscovered torture pictures which are making the rounds (judge for yourself whether or not you believe the government’s explanation for the photos).
Before I provide the link for the video, let me remind you that a top expert on terrorism, security and war says that releasing the photos will cause less harm to American troops then continuing to hold the detainees without trial, and that prosecuting those who ordered torture will REDUCE attacks against the U.S. and against American troops
And that Attorney General Holder has admitted that torture is a crime, at least if it results in death.
You can view the movie by:
Clicking here
Warning: Graphic and disturbing images. Do not view if these would upset you.
If the above site goes down, you can locate another version of the documentary by clicking here.
See also this.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/2006-australian-documentary-on-torture.html
4. “The NYT sums up Obama’s civil liberties record in one paragraph
Among progressives, Democrats, liberals, Obama supporters and the like, there seems to be some debate about the extent to which Obama deserves criticisms for what he has done thus far in the realm of civil liberties, restoration of Constitutional principles, and reversing the severe imbalance between “security” and liberties — major planks of his two-year-long campaign and among the most frequent weapons used to criticize the Bush presidency.
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Both articles quote the hardest-core Bush supporters as heaping praise on Obama for what he has done in the area of “national security,” terrorism and civil liberties (“Pete Wehner, a member of Karl Rove’s staff in the Bush White House [and a current National Review writer] applauded several of Mr. Obama’s decisions this week”). Indeed, all week long, and even before that, the greatest enthusiasm for Obama’s decisions on so-called “terrorism policies” and civil liberties (with some important exceptions) has been found in the pages of The Weekly Standard and National Review.
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It’s not the fault of civil libertarians that Obama did all of those things, just in this week alone. These are the very policies — along with things like the claimed power to abduct and imprison people indefinitely with no charges of any kind and the use of the “state secrets privilege” to deny torture and spying victims a day in court — that caused such extreme anger and criticisms toward the Bush presidency.
What would it say about a person who spent the last seven years vehemently criticizing those policies to suddenly decide that the same policies were perfectly fine or not particularly bothersome when Obama adopts them? How could that be justified? What should one say about a person who vehemently objected to X when Bush did it, but then suddenly found ways to defend or mitigate X when Obama does it? Just re-read that first paragraph from the NYT article today. What should a rational person say in response to what it describes?
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Nobody who spent the last many years devoting themselves to opposing Bush/Cheney abuses of executive power and civil liberties wanted to have to do the same in an Obama presidency. If you doubt that, just look at how intense was the celebratory praise directed at Obama from those factions in the first week. But unless the opposition of the last eight years was really just a cynical means for opportunistically weakening and demonizing Republican opponents rather than opposing policies that one genuinely found dangerous and wrong, then the actions of Obama are leaving no other choice but to object and object strenuously. As the first paragraph of today’s NYT article put it, this week alone provided “the most graphic examples yet of how [Obama] has backtracked, in substantial if often nuanced ways, from the approach to national security that he preached as a candidate, and even from his first days in the Oval Office.” If nothing else, refraining from objecting will ensure that this continues further and further.“
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
