Added material at the end - 5/15/09
Obama: "the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."
After bailing out the big banks and financial institutions to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and helping to drive deficits into the trillions, I guess the scores of people who directed and carried out torture, and the thousands who participated in making it possible, does seem like a small number.
Who heads this list of "a small number of individuals?"
President George W. Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, NSA Director Condolezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Attorneys Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Stephen Bradbury, Vice-President Cheney Chief of Staff David Addington, General Geoffrey Miller (dispatched from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib (to "Gitmoize" Abu Ghraib)...
Of course, after looking upon this list of a "small number of individuals" who ordered that torture be carried out, it really is a small matter that the highest levels of the US government directed and choreographed the torture of thousands of detainees, resulting in at least a hundred deaths by torture. The highest officials of the US government, after all, are not only small in number, but isolated from the rest of those under them. Their orders to those thousands of others under them and front-line soldiers, that is not relevant to this inquiry.
As for inflaming anti-American opinion and putting "our troops in greater danger," that had nothing to do with the fact that the above-listed small number of individuals lied us into these wars and ordered that our troops invade and occupy Afghanistan, Iraq and launch drone attacks upon Pakistan. They aren't in danger because of their being put into danger by this small number of individuals. And the escalation of the wars upon Afghanistan and Pakistan and ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have nothing to do whatsoever with inflaming anti-American opinion.
I'm so relieved that things are being handled so judiciously.
***
The people that Obama is mainly concerned about inflaming aren't outside the US. They're right here at home: the American people.
Obama's worried that they will be inflamed against the government that carried out these atrocities.
His plans to paper over these monstrosities will be buried in the fallout when more people see just how horrid our leaders have been.
Unlike Cheney who just says "fuck you," Obama's MO is to say "I'm very concerned" and then make a show of doing something, but then not really do anything.
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Pat Davis
Kate Flannery
Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall
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We have to work with these allies. The reset button won't change a thing if no one resets.
"What was the level of occurrence of these harsh techniques? Was it weekly?"
"Sometimes it was every day if it was a multi-interrogation plan on one individual. Sometimes we didn't have anybody to talk to for maybe a day or two."
"Was the colonel ever actually there to observe this?"
"Oh, yeah. He worked there. He had his desk there. They were working in a big room where the analysts, the report writers, the sergeant major, the colonel, some technical guys — they're all in that room."
To Garlasco, this is significant. This means that a full-bird colonel and all his support staff knew exactly what was going on at Camp Nama. "Do you know where the colonel was getting his orders from?" he asks.
Jeff answers quickly, perhaps a little defiantly. "I believe it was a two-star general. I believe his name was General McChrystal. I saw him there a couple of times."
Back when he was an intelligence analyst, Garlasco had briefed Stanley McChrystal once. He remembers him as a tall Irishman with a gentle manner. He was head of the Joint Special Operations Command, the logical person to oversee Task Force 121, and vice-director for operations for the Joint Chiefs. That put responsibility right in the heart of the Pentagon."
nothing will change until you change. you, and all the other whiners, have to get off your knees and establish democracy.
this may be impossible, because americans appear to be deeply conditioned to submit to authority, but you must try to transfer power to the electorate. it's not hard, physically or functionally.
it may be impossible, only due to psychological considerations. it seems to me, your ranting is not fundamentally political but rather arises from some personality disorder. you don't want change, just verbal expression of discontent, arising from premature weening.
Exposes about what Obama is actually up to don't constitute rants or whining due to premature weening from the breast or some sort of psychological disorder.
People are exposed to everyday the interpretive framings of the government and major interest groups such as the well-heeled right wing. What people do is based on what they understand about the world, what they know about what's going on, and how they interpret all of that. The reason I write what I write is because I recognize that this goes on and that it is important for people to have an alternative way of seeing what's going on. In the absence of strong enough and widely viewed dissenting views from the dominant one, we have, for example, the instance of the unjust and illegal invasion of Iraq being allowed to happen.
What is your problem with people speaking to and raising consciousness about what's going on?
As for whether "democracy" as you say is so very easy, the realities of how power is exercised in our country are not so easily or well understood among the people, including by you. The notion that we have the public policies that we have because of the "people" and that if they just used initiative or referenda then everything will be better overlooks the fact that a) power isn't exercised principally through voting or the lack of voting, and b) for things to change, people need to really understand what's going on and they need to act in public ways - for example, through contributing to building a powerful and influential social movement.
In the 1960s was the last time that this happened in a big way in the US. For a time, because the government was widely believed to be lying to the people (the "credibility gap") movement leaders and the SDS in particular were able to influence very broad numbers of people and change the direction of history.
Good post. But I do think that the people who were culpable here were legion. Not a small group at all. The whole program was way too big to involve just a small group of people.
Monte
Now the torturers will not have to face their crimes in a humiliating public display. Some folks on the “other side,” will make sure that someone pays for it, however. This will NOT make us safer, Obama has made a horrible error in judgment.
I thought that we claimed to be a Christian country? Maybe I am an idealist, but what a novel idea it would be for a leader to simply say, “We were very wrong. Here is the evidence of our mistakes. What can we do to make things right?” This would make us safer because we made ourselves humble before the world and we would make amends for our CRIMES. Then fewer would feel the need to punish us.
Now, the claim that it will inflame is true. It's just not an excuse. And in the long run, transparency wins out.
Norwonk: Thanks for the added torturer's name.
Hannu: Always a good contribution.
Y Heron: You're so right that this is exactly the most counter-productive way of handling this.
Monte: But of course, the people involved in this number in the thousands. It was and is, as Dave points out, an extensive operation to rendition people, incarcerate them, torture them, etc.
RickyB: Yes, the GOP will run a troglodyte in all probability, but the fundamental difference between the Dems and the GOP isn't their approach, the fundamental difference between them is what social base they're trying most to appeal to. Their goals are much nearer to each other than they are different. Consider Obama's stand on national security and foreign policy. If anything, he's more right wing on this than Bush and Cheney were. Probably smarter than them and a better sense of strategy and tactics, but his goals are the same as theirs: protect and expand the empire.
Jane: Yes, as you say: "that would raise the world's view of america, and not by a small amount. it is not the pictures that will arouse anti-american sentiment. it is the accompanying, 'so, yes, we know full well what happened, and are working hard to protect the perpetrators' that will raise the anti-american sentiment."
Tonight on NPR I heard the most unbelievable Op-Ed piece by conservative columnist, radio personality, Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow and for eight years, Newt Gingrich's Press Secretary, Tony Blankley. Commenting on the CIA's destruction of its videotapes of waterboarding torture, he proudly declared that "Finally, the CIA did something right" by preventing the inflammatory videotapes from falling into the hands of YouTube or Al Jazeera. He went on to say what an "incubus" of a PR disaster its general distribution would have been because it would harm "our" efforts to "win the hearts and minds" of the Muslim world.
I could not believe my ears. No words of dismay or outrage about the fact that the CIA has been torturing people from Mr. Blankley. No, in today's America, according to the mouths of reactionaries such as he, the good thing is that the video evidence of these heinous acts has been destroyed. And NPR had the temerity to run such monstrous talk.
Is this the ultimate in spin? It doesn't matter, according to Mr. B, that our government has been torturing people. No, what matters is that the most inflammatory evidence of said acts, the most dramatic proof and footage of their existence, has been eliminated. The Muslim world won't know the difference, or so Mr. B thinks. What contempt for truth. What contempt for the Muslim world - that they wouldn't be offended and inflamed by the knowledge - a fact that the Muslim world has known for years already - that the U.S. government and military torture people. What contempt for Americans that he thinks such twisted logic can convince Americans not to rise up against this regime and send it to the Hague!