tagged w/ Extreme Rendition
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects Thursday, even as his administration released Bush-era memos graphically detailing — and authorizing — such grim tactics as slamming detainees against walls, waterboarding them and keeping them naked and cold for long periods.
Human rights groups and many Obama officials have condemned such methods as torture. Bush officials have vigorously disagreed.
In releasing the documents, the most comprehensive accounting yet of interrogation methods that were among the Bush administrations most closely guarded secrets, Obama said he wanted to move beyond "a dark and painful chapter in our history."
Past and present CIA officials had unsuccessfully pressed for more parts of the four legal memos to be kept secret, and some critics argued the release would make the United States less safe.
Michael Hayden, who led the CIA under George W. Bush, said CIA officers will now be more timid and allies will be more reluctant to share sensitive intelligence.
"If you want an intelligence service to work for you, they always work on the edge. That's just where they work," Hayden said. Now, he argued, foreign partners will be less likely to cooperate with the CIA because the release shows they "can't keep anything secret."
On the other side, human rights advocates argued that Obama should not have assured the CIA that officers who conducted interrogations would not be prosecuted if they used methods authorized by Bush lawyers in the memos.
Obama disagreed, saying in a statement, "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for... more
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asherp
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added this
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2 years ago
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It's gonna be swell on January 20th, won't it? Democracy will be restored, peace will prevail, and cars will run on rainbows and the sweet peal of children's laughter.
Not so fast there, Sparky. There's still that whole suspension of the Bill of Rights thing, plus oodles of other affronts committed in the name of the War on Terror.
Naomi Wolf sees it as the rise of an American fascism, and has cataloged the perils in her book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. She's now back with a film based on that book, directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg (The Trials of Darryl Hunt; The Devil Came on Horseback).
I was able to sit down with Wolf to discuss what havoc Dubya hath wreaked, and what needs to be done to put things right.It's gonna be swell on January 20th, won't it? Democracy will be restored,... more
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