World-News

The fatal thread

CounterPunch
by Chris Floyd

04/22/09

This is one reason why Barack Obama is so obviously reluctant to tug on the torture thread too hard. If you tear it out, with full-scale prosecutions and top officials locked up behind bars, the whole rotten skein would fall apart. Once you start genuinely subjecting government officials — including security apparatchiks and military brass — to the full extent of the law, there would be no end to the unraveling: senators, contractors, representatives, bureaucrats, generals, lobbyists, judges, corporate chiefs — the whole edifice of Establishment power would be shaken to the core as its leading lights went down, one after the other...

http://counterpunch.org/floyd04222009.html



Ten terrible truths about the CIA torture memos, part 1

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Andy Worthington

04/20/09

In their attempts to justify the use of torture by U.S. forces, Yoo and Bybee not only sought to redefine ’severe pain or suffering’ and ’severe mental pain or suffering;’ they also sought to nullify the concept of ’specific intent’ by providing a defense for anyone whose actions were undertaken ‘in good faith,’ and, in addition, noted, ‘Even if an interrogation method arguably were to violate Section 2340A, the statute would be unconstitutional if it impermissibly encroached on the President’s constitutional power to conduct a military campaign’...

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0904i.asp

part 2
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0904j.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Yoo
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bybee
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=interrogation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Chris+Floyd
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Andy+Worthington