Obama to punish torturers — but NOT Americans who torture...!!

Update (November 2, 2010): Former President George W. Bush (see story at top of page) again admits he ordered water boarding, which is torture. Still we look the other way and take no steps for justice.

Update (November 11, 2010) to the the story that follows: Pressure rises on Obama to investigate Bush torture policies.

Excellent story and source of information therein with good links [here] to track this issue along with what I have compiled at this site.

We cannot become "a country of men, not laws..."

The Original Story Starts Here: Background from the NY Times here, and supplemented by a very good analysis by Glenn Greenwald [Salon.com] here.

Highlights:

1. The Obama administration has placed eight Iranian officials on a U.S. financial blacklist, saying they were responsible for beatings, killings and torture following Iran's disputed presidential election last year.

Okay, fair enough - sounds good, right? Then ...

2. Numerous detainees in American custody were also beaten, tortured and killed. The photos Obama caused to be suppressed -- even after two federal courts ordered them disclosed -- depicted multiple acts of detainee rape. Thousands were arbitrarily arrested and detained by the U.S. without due process, and continue to be. None of that resulted in a smidgen of accountability for the high-level government officials responsible for all of that, because the Obama administration (and the Bush administration before that) formally took the position that they should be immunized.

3. Also note how freely the Associated Press uses the word "torture" to describe what the Iranians did, in contrast to the overall American media's refusal to use that term for what Americans did.

My Views: Remember how our government officials and many others referred to our definition of torture as "enhanced interrogation techniques?" Any skilled and trained and experienced Interrogator knows that means torture, or at pretty least harsh punishment and treatment.

This issue should concern every one of us because it impacts directly on our values as a people and as nation who professes to believe in "right and wrong/law and order and international law."

However, the events and actions of the past and some that Mr. Obama is sustaining only show, ironically, how we want the world to see us (the kind of country we say we are) vs. the kind of country we really are!!

By these current actions - some of which are carried over from the Bush years - might be called hypocrisy by some: they would be right.