Word: bush
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...Under President Bush, the OLC memos regarding national security and detainee issues had been classified. Since these are legal documents, however, and not intelligence reports, they constituted a form of secret law under which the United States government operated for seven years. The Obama administration’s decision last Thursday to declassify and release four additional memos represents an important step toward transparency. For shedding light on some of the government’s worst abuses, President Obama deserves commendation...
...memos describe, in sterile, bureaucratic language that evokes Orwell’s 1984, the brutal treatment of “high value detainees” at the hands of American interrogators. In contrast to previous statements by Bush officials in which specific forms of interrogation were never discussed, these OLC memos specify particular techniques, ranging from facial slaps to waterboarding. Upon learning that one detainee had a fear of stinging insects—the OLC authorized confining him in a small box with insects–a technique that seems eerily reminiscent of Orwell’s Room...
...waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering.” As a result, one of the most iconic forms of torture—recognized as such since the Spanish Inquisition—was used by the Bush administration 183 times on a single prisoner over the course of a month. Ironically, the United States has long recognized these methods as torture, prosecuting and convicting Japanese soldiers for waterboarding after World...
...rapporteur on torture stated that the U.S. “is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court.” By refusing to investigate, the Obama administration risks complicity in the worst crimes of the Bush...
...Obama will live up to his campaign rhetoric and recommit the United States “to the rule of law, [rejecting] a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting [the legal system].” Investigating and prosecuting those responsible for the worst abuses of power under the Bush administration is a necessary step toward that restoration...