The United States committed war crimes when they tortured prisoners of war and Iraqi civilian internees.
Although it is common knowledge around the world and in America, it was President Obama who admitted at a press conference that America tortured detainees after 9/11.
The President’s remarks came ahead of a soon-to-be-declassified Senate report about the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program”, a nicer way of saying “torture”.
In speaking about the CIA, the President said, “We tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values. A lot of those folks were working hard and under enormous pressure, and are real patriots. But having said all that, we did some things that were wrong.”
Why are these torturers not being prosecuted? Torture is a war crime; it does not matter if people were patriotic, afraid, angry, or following orders, torture remains a criminal offence.
Former vice-president and convicted war criminal Dick Cheney’s daughter does not think torture is a violation of international law, and is furious at President Obama.
Ms. Cheney has asserted that President Obama’s statement about the Bush-Cheney torture program “was an amazing and stunning display of a president, a leader, a Commander in Chief who seems to take no responsibility for anything that’s happened on his watch.”
Cheney is angry because her father’s culpability in ordering torture will be officially exposed in the upcoming Senate report. For the record, George W. Bush was president from 2001-2009. In 2002 Barack Obama served as an Illinois State Senator until 2005 when he was elected to the US Senate.
President Obama included his own administration when he told a press conference a while ago that “we” tortured detainees.
According to Liz Cheney, “This president is an utter disgrace. He’s expending more time, more energy, more passion, more aggressive activity in targeting and going after patriots, heroes. CIA officers and others who kept is safe after 9/11. He’s lying about what they did, he’s slandering them, he went to Cairo and did it in 2009. Today he did it from the podium of the Oval Office. It’s a disgrace. It’s despicable.”
Another report, incidentally, concluded the Bush/Cheney authorization of so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ of detainees in the wake of the 9/11 attacks was ineffective and yielded no critical intelligence. It might actually be the best indication yet that these detainees had nothing to do with 9/11.
President Obama admitted indirectly that America tortured detainees in 2011 when he told reporters that despite Republican presidential candidates praising war criminals who tortured prisoners, he believed, like international humanitarian agencies and the world court, that water boarding is torture.
In 2010 Dick Cheney admitted to authorizing torture, and just last March he told a sold-out crowd at American University he had no regrets and bragged that “If I would have to do it all over again, I would. The results speak for themselves.”
Cheney was lying, of course, and the Senate report will indeed say that the CIA torture was “ineffective and yielded no credible intelligence.”
Liz Cheney, a proud lesbian, nevertheless insists on calling her father a “hero”.
Cheney also said that despite being convicted of war crimes with Bush, Rumsfeld, and company, “the accusations he’s a war criminal for using torture are not true.”
The Obama administration has failed to prosecute anyone associated with the torture program, even though war crimes were prosecuted with extreme prejudice after World War II by the United States.
During war crime tribunals after World War II at The Hague, it was established that following orders was not a justification for torture.
America lost whatever standing it had in the world after Bush launched a regime-changing war against Iraq which left the country in ruins.
By throwing Bush, Cheney, and company under the bus, Obama and Democrats possibly hope to gain some of their lost moral standing and popularity after the Iraq disaster.
A large body of Democrats believe that while the Bush-Cheney cabal have already been convicted of war crimes in absentia, and they need to be arrested, sent to The Hague, and prosecuted for war crimes.