Statement by President Barack Obama on United Nations International Day in Support of Torture Victims
Twenty-five years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention Against Torture, and twenty-two years ago this very day, the Convention entered into force. The United States' leading role in the negotiation of the Convention and its subsequent ratification and implementation enjoyed strong bipartisan support. Today, we join the international community in reaffirming unequivocally the principles behind that Convention, including the core principle that torture is never justified.
Torture violates United States and international law as well as human dignity. Torture is contrary to the founding documents of our country, and the fundamental values of our people. It diminishes the security of those who carry it out, and surrenders the moral authority that must form the basis for just leadership. That is why the United States must never engage in torture, and must stand against torture wherever it takes place.
My administration is committed to taking concrete actions against torture and to address the needs of its victims. On my third day in office, I issued an executive order that prohibits torture by the United States. My budget request for fiscal year 2010 includes continued support for international and domestic groups working to rehabilitate torture victims.
The United States will continue to cooperate with governments and civil society organizations throughout the international community in the fight to end torture. To this end, I have requested today that the Department of State solicit information from all of our diplomatic missions around the world about effective policies and programs for stopping torture and assisting its victims so that we and our civil society partners can learn from what others have done. I applaud the courage, compassion and commitment of the many people and organizations doing this vitally important work.
THAT incredibly hypocritical statement....
Combined with the fact that as far as we know....
The Obama DOJ is not 'building a case' against the torturers secretly and surreptitiously so as not to let on to the bad guys that they are under investigation...or some other naive supposition.....
.
It is coming on time to start talking about collusion and cover-up.
.
At some point, this meme must be introduced into the public sphere. It is the only effective means of public pressure left, since the Obama Admin has done such a bang up job of completely ignoring the eight hundred pound Cheney in the national living room.
Needless to say...this will not be popular in some circles.
Therefore WE need to "build a case" in order to make this a credible charge and for it to be taken seriously and not be easily dismissed by the "Conventional Wisdom" and "Defend Obama" crowds.
We need good links to what the Obama Administration has done, and we need precedents and examples of past cover-ups to cite. We need to formulate a good definition of what a cover-up is and what collusion involves.
From a casual glance at Wikipedia:
A cover-upis an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information. The expression is usually applied to people in authority who abuse their power to avoid or silence criticism. Those who cover up may be those responsible for a misdeed or their allies, or simply people with an interest in silencing criticism.
....
Cover-ups do not necessarily require the active manipulation of facts or circumstances. Arguably the most common form of cover-up is one of non-action. It is the conscious failure to release incriminating information by a third party. This "passive cover-up" is often justified by the motive of not wanting to embarrass the culprit or expose them to criminal prosecution or even the belief that the cover-up is justified by protecting the greater community from scandal. Yet, because of the passive cover-up, the misdeed often goes undiscovered and results in harm to others ensuing from its failure to be discovered. (In Catholic Moral Theology this would be considered the Sin of omission and a Mortal sin)
HUGELY IMPORTANT CAVEAT!!!
While this is intended as a political action, to apply political pressure on the Obama Administration (and Congress, tangentially) to step up their efforts on persecuting the torturers....
It is in essence, depending on the all important framing and presentation, accusing Obama of a crime.
Accusing a popular sitting President of a crime is not to be taken lightly. There will be massive pushback, emotional outbursts and intense efforts to dismiss, deride, discredit and disparage not only whatever case we build, but all those involved in the project.
So we need an airtight, professionally presented, and easily defended set of facts to put forth. On a level easily understood by "The Average Blogger."
Framing is key, good sources are key, solid, easily defended arguments are key.
All of which will be at least slightly tough to come up with....since we ARE being at least slightly premature, as far as public sentiment is concerned. But this WILL need to be done eventually. Imo, until public pressure builds, they will continue to skate on the edge of a cover-up. And as I say above, this is about the last piece of public pressure we have.
On July 20th, Obama will have been in office for six months. That will mark six months of inaction, to say the least, of active suppression of evidence, of flirting with collusion and cover-up. That seems like a good time by which to have all of our ducks in a row...and a time at which the "he has only been in office for______ months" meme to have lost some of its luster.
So if you are into it, let's put our thinking caps and work clothes on and dig in!
I will post on this periodically to see where we are at, but don't be shy about posting essays and ideas on the subject. Iow, don't just wait for me!
Tally HO! |
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
