Other Countries Probing Bush-era Torture — Why Aren't We?

[depakid]

In June, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a Canadian man who contends that U.S. authorities mistook him for an al Qaida operative in 2002 and shipped him to a secret prison in Syria, where he was beaten with electrical cables and held in a grave-like cell for 10 months.

Four years earlier, however, the Canadian government had concluded an exhaustive inquiry and found that the former prisoner, Maher Arar, was telling the truth. Canada cleared Arar of all ties to terrorism and paid him $10 million in damages, and his lawyers say he's cooperating with an investigation into the role of U.S. and Syrian officials in his imprisonment and reported torture.

Arar's case illustrates what lawyers and human rights groups call a shameful trend: While U.S. courts and the Obama administration have been reluctant or unwilling to pursue the cases, countries that once backed former President George W. Bush's war on terrorism are carrying out their own investigations of the alleged U.S. torture program and the role that their governments played in it.

Judges in Great Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland and Lithuania are preparing to hear allegations that their governments helped the CIA run secret prisons on their soil or cooperated in illegal U.S. treatment of terrorism suspects. Spanish prosecutors also have filed criminal charges against six senior Bush administration officials who approved the harsh interrogation methods that detainees say were employed at U.S. military prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and other sites.

More: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/18-9

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[niceypoo]

2. The failure to hold Bush/Cheney to account will come back to haunt this country

Because nothing was done about their abuses, Bush/Cheney presidential behavior will be the baseline for future republican presidents. It guarantees that the next republican president will be worse. It institutionalizes their abuses.

[Lost4words]

5. I think we are seeing it already, the baseline has been lowered

thank you mr president, rahm and gang

[Lost4words]

3. Because the president is leading us forward, no time for past crimes

might upset the rabid right or cost support, I just assume all my crimes during that time will be excused also in order to move forward, plus I guess this admin doesn't think crimes of the Bush admin amount to much.

:banghead:
:banghead::banghead:
:banghead::banghead::banghead:
:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

[kenny blankenship]

4. Democrats announce upcoming official mascot change, retroactive to Jan. 2009

[G_j]

6. perfect

:-(

[napi21]

7. Back when Obama first tookoffice, I remember reading

somewhre that there is an unwritten agreement that no new admin. will delve into any possible crimes of a past admin. I can't recall where I read it but it was a reliable source. It even referenced that as the reason Clinton never persued the Iran Contra mess.

[The2ndWheel]

8. Because this is the US Government

Which, at this point in time, can do whatever it wants to do, wherever it wishes to do so, and there isn't another government or international body that can do anything to stop it. There's no need to probe, as nothing will come of it.

[gratuitous]

9. We're looking forward to the future!

We're not going to wallow in the mistakes (okay, crimes against humanity) of the past. Besides, when has that ever been a problem before? Except for that spot of unpleasantness after the Civil War. And the discomfort 20 years after that. And that smidgen of suppression after World War I and into the 1920s. Well, to be perfectly honest, the time after World War II wasn't all beer and skittles. And our failure to deal with that caused some unfortunate things to happen in the 1970s. Which sort of presaged the 1980s. Then that bit of folderol after 1992's midnight pardons. Which spawned the naughty bits of the 2000s.

But this time it will be totally different when we ignore the sins of the not-so-distant past.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. I believe it's now called 'enhanced interrogation', right Obama?

Sounds not as bad as TORTURE :silly:

[Aramchek]

11. when you say "we", don't you mean Australia??

[damntexdem]

12. Because we don't have a democratic government committed to international law.