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This is America, Then and Now
by James Glaser April 23, 2009 President Obama says that we don't torture. Of course President Bush said the same thing. President Obama said he would close down our prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but he hasn't done that. Washington always tells us that things can't be done quickly. So, the people we put in wire cages down there eight years ago are still sitting there. It has been reported that when we do shut down our Cuban prison, many of those prisoners will be sent to a prison we have had for years at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. If you think about it, you might remember that is the prison where we have tortured people to death Of course, every American, and probably everyone else in the world, remembers how we treated Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison we ran in Iraq. Now, the world also knows we water-boarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attack on this country 183 times in one month. Of course after 183 times being water-boarded, anyone would claim whatever you wanted to hear. One torture expert said last night on "Hardball" that anyone water-boarded 183 times has to be pretty much brain dead. Also in the same report released by the White House, another suspect was water-boarded 83 times. The world knows that we and Great Britain have executed people in the past for the War Crime of water-boarding. The world knows that we torture. The world knows that we kidnap people all over the world and either torture them ourselves, or we have some poor third world country do it for us. President Barack Obama would like the world to believe that America does not torture. President Obama would like the world to believe that he thinks torture is a War Crime, but you know what? The world is not about to buy either one of those thoughts. The world and most Americans can still remember the pictures from Abu Ghraib. Many people still remember that there were other pictures that were so horrible the Senate stopped their publication. Many Senators who saw those photographs said it was like looking into hell. Nobody is kidding anybody. America tortures, and America will continue to torture. Barack Obama wants us to believe that torture is behind us, but the torturers and the people who ordered the torture are still here in America. One of them is a federal judge, many of them still work for the CIA, and still others are high ranking military officers. Of course the two top people in this whole War Crime are retired. That would be George Bush and Dick Cheney. The reason that we and the world know that America will continue torturing people is because President Obama refuses to treat torture as a crime. Nobody that tortured people to death is even being charged with a crime. If you can torture a person to death, and the President of the United States refuses to think that is a crime, well you know it will happen again. You know it, I know it, the world knows it, and really, Barack Obama knows it, too. |
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