“We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks.”
A shocking statement both for its content and for the casual delivery, President Obama declared this during today’s press conference, in what may well be the most direct admission of torture by the US government that he or any other president is liable to offer.
The admission of torture came in the context of the ever-growing scandal surrounding the Senate’s report on CIA torture during the Bush years, and evidence that the CIA has been spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee during the compilation of that report.
The CIA has been engaged in a very public campaign to discredit the report, alongside with the clandestine, and very illegal, efforts to undermine the Senate committee in the report’s creation.
Despite Obama’s admission to the torture by the CIA, his comments at the press conference centered almost exclusively on praising CIA Director John Brennan, who lied to the Senate about the spying and yesterday offered a private apology to the committee.
And even though the sentence itself implies that Obama believes torture is wrong, his comments later appeared to defend the practice, insisting that 9/11 put a lot of pressure on the CIA and “it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had.”
Yup, we're Barbarians and proud of it!! How 'bout some blood wine?
Ahem, the usa has been torturing some folks nonstop since the native Americans.
"Folks" ? Is that anything like rubes, schmucks,hayseeds, yokels, chumps,"suspects" ? I hate being called a folk. So "folk you!" obama, warmonger extraordinaire.
"We tortured some folks" Godfather said. That's a war crime ! Those who ordered and those who did it must go to prison. The US is a rogue state.
Geez, don't you say. Years of a Harvard "education" and you end up talking like that? This and his sorry attempt to sell "stuff" to the Chinese and one has to wonder about this guy's alleged smarts.
You have to feel sorry for the guy (not really), but the job of the US president has been reduced to making excuses for the rogue government's abuses on a daily basis.
I agree. I can imagine Obama now wears a "short timer's chain" – it was what we wore in the service when our enlistment was getting short. It was a chain of paper clips wore around your neck; every day we removed a link, making the chain shorter. The "chain" kind of symbolized a slavery. I can imagine the self-disgust that comes with having to apologize and putting a happy face on this garbage, enabling a genocide, kissing Bibi's nasty hairy butt, etc., etc., etc.
Harvard can't make idiots smart, though it can make smarties smarter, even when unindicted characters such as Larry Summers were running the show.
Little Barack is just saying his lines, waiting for his pension and "quality time" with the family.
However, the torture was rife during the Vietnam War, which I recall was well before 9/11. But then I'm not a Harvard Man.
“A shocking statement both for its content and for the casual delivery, President Obama declared this during today’s brief press conference, in what may well be the most direct admission of torture by the US government that he or any other president is liable to offer.”
What’s a little torture to a man who has the power of life and death over everyone on Earth and is not accountable to anyone for the murders that he orders?
Yes apparatus of the U.S. government tortured with approval up to the U.S. president and they still do. And let's not pretend it's a gray area whether or not they still torture. The full methods currently in use may not be entirely known. But force feeding at Gitmo IS TORTURE. Therefore the Obama administration oversees torture without the shadow of a doubt.
And yea I'll feel sanctimonious compared to pieces of @#$# who torture other people. Afterall who wouldn't? You might as well tell us: "people are condemning the latest serial killer entirely too harshly"
This is the nature of all dictatorial, militarism, fascism of all kind including religious. Because these regimes are hired/working for vulture capitalism of all kind, modernized, civilized or otherwise.
Its been asserted that Obama was the best choice the ruling class could have made for President in the last two election cycles and from the evidence that assertion would be hard to oppose. Clearly, one thing that service to the ruling class requires is a certain obtuseness lest the job bring into relief the moral revulsion a spiritually healthy person might otherwise experience from its day-to-day carrying out. But here Obama excels, to wit, this beneath contempt trivialization of our nation's sordid record as a torturer! By just being who he is, Obama soils the memory of every veteran that ever envisioned military service against fascism as having been honorable. With a leader this debased, who can follow?
Well simple if you (the United States) tortured folks, well prosecute those that did the torture and Ordered the Torture, Include those that said such torture was LEGAL, remember this Mr. President article 131 of the third schedule of the Geneva Conventions (POW) and Article 148 of the 4th Schedule of Geneva,
No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.
That means those Laws that Bush pushed through the House and Senate are what is known as Ultra Vires or Unconstitutional! The advice given by YOO and Bybee are Ultra Vires and Unconstitutional, and the failure by the United States Government to fail to Prosecute is also a War Crime in fact it is what is known as a Grave War Crime.
I imagine it won't be long before Darth Cheney or his daughter Darthette to waddle to the podium to condemn Obama for throwing Bushco (and the Office of the President) under the bus.
And if DiFi is really interested in getting the report released, instead of waiting for the WH to finish redacting 98% she should just allow it to be "leaked" otherwise the 138th Congress will be in session before it happens. The current Congress is the 113th…
Of course Obama defends the Brennan, the American Himmler. Everything Brennan has done has been ordered by Obama. He may be a murderer, torturer, and surveiller, but he is Obama's guy. Brennan the man, and the institution of the intelligence communities are simply tools in the toolbox of the out of control and renegade institution of the US presidency. This president needs a Himmler type of guy to run them to get what he needs out of them. If Brennan is Himmler, what does that make Obama? Think about it.
He is yet to make an excuse for the mass murder in the Gaza strip….waiting in pregnant anticipation for that one.
How "folksy". Well, they just had some different "values", and that is that. Laws? Justice? Who cares.
It's just sort of laid back and folksy to say we tortured some folks, instead of we grabbed people and bound up human beings, and used various implements to drive them out of their minds with pain and fear………………
Despite admitting that the country committed criminal acts, nothing will happen, no one will be prosecuted or even reprimanded. In fact Brennan was even publicly praised by the president when his lawbreaking became public knowledge. This country has lost its soul.
Torture is a war crime. Bush/Obama have turned the US into a rogue state. Even if it may never happen, we must insist that those ordering torture and doing the torture be tried in court. The US is worse than the Nazis: In Iraq they kidnapped small boys and their mothers, then they raped the boys and forced their mothers to watch while it was filmed by a female soldier. SS and Gestapo couldn't have done it. The US is worse. We must never accept their crimes.
If people like Brennan, Bush and Obama are allowed to get away with torture and murder, what is to stop the next despot from doing the same with American citizens on American soil?