Obama administration adopts Bush language; political blackmail

[solarbird]

The Obama administration, like NPR, has suddenly stopped using the word "torture" to describe US torture, using instead the term the Bush administration, the Nazi SS, and the US backers of torture have long preferred, "enhanced interrogation techniques." It's all part of the nauseating "looking forward" meme, I suppose. The problem, of course, is that by "looking forward" here, you legitimise - you extend and become part of - that oh so problematic past you'd all like to forget.

Well, except for the "new executive powers" part. That part will be remembered just fine.

Oh, and suddenly, Rep. Jane Harman, a top Democratic supporter of the Bush and Obama administrations' warrantless wiretapping programmes, gets all huffy when she's wiretapped - particularly given that what she was caught saying was legally questionable at best. Even better, Attorney General Gonzalez intervened to prevent further investigation and prosecution against her as long as she kept up being a big pro-wiretapping activist in Congress. Blackmail opportunity for political purposes much? But hey, who the fuck needs laws, right? Ironically, they had a warrant for the wiretap in question. Now imagine how much more political abuse you'll get without 'em.

Not to mention that a few dozen "detainees" in American torture facilities overseas simply... disappeared. That's on top of the >100 acknowledged as violently killed, largely due to the torture programme.

And now Mr. Obama's administration is calling torture "enhanced interrogation," as the political media and the pro-torture right always has, and saying, as Mr. Bush did, that "we don't torture," even as new post-inauguration allegations of American torture are leaking out, and on the even of the election, warrantless mass wiretap powers were increased and retroactively legalised.

This is what happens when you reward an "opposition" party that does not actually oppose: you institutionalise everything.

Comments

Yes, all round.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

I should really take the next half hour to revise my hurried commentary from yesterday morning to make it more coherent.

& read the Greenwald "let us all take a moment to reflect on the plight of poor Jane Harman" piece last night -- *loved*.

Now to quickily revise things.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

No individual, once they have power, wants to give it back.

There's no reason to think a President would be any different.

That's why the Founding Fathers constructed a three branch system. Unfortunately, we encouraged them to allow the Executive to run amuck.

Now we have to deal with the consequences.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

That's one thing I don't get; who gives a rats if Obama says "we won't prosecute". I'm pretty sure that's not his call to make, he's deliberately seperated from that power.

[solarbird]

Presidents aren't supposed to be able to spend money without Congressional authorisation, either, but Mr. Bush did so specifically against Congressional law. Not to mention all the other powers he claimed that went unchallenged by Congress and law enforcement.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

Three words: Saturday Night Massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_night_massacre).

[solarbird]

Eh, it's not no individual. I can think of major exceptions. (E.g., George Washington, Nelson Mandela, to name two really obvious ones.) But it is certainly not the common case.

[wiredhound.livejournal.com]

Obama is bending over backwards to avoid upsetting the poor, demoralized CIA. Well, if they had followed the law and refused to torture, they wouldn't be feeling so threatened now!

After studying the genocides in Rwanda and Serbia, the Argentine "disappeared," and lesser international war crimes, it always felt ugly to learn about the inevitable political whitewashing that followed. The same pattern is playing out here and now.

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

I sympathize with your vitriol.

[oh6.livejournal.com]

From everything I've read, the CIA has been exporting their expertise in torture for half a century, but it's only been since 2003 that the public has become brutal enough that it no longer needs to be kept secret from us.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

Animated cartoon on conciliation (http://www.markfiore.com/political/fuzzy-conciliation-caterpillar)