Torture and Hypocrisy

Dear Friends,

The torture conducted by the United States, in our names, was not only illegal and morally despicable, it has demonstrated the incredible hypocrisy of the United States.  Two items in The New York Times this morning clearly demonstrate this hypocrisy.

The first was an article entitled "Obama Favors Sanctions for Abuse of Venezuela Protestors" by William Neuman (here).  

President Obama plans to sign into law a bill that would impose sanctions on Venezuelan government officials responsible for human rights violations or violence against protesters who took part in antigovernment demonstrations here this year, a White House spokesman said in Washington on Thursday.

How hypocritical is it for President Obama to refuse to prosecute important and powerful people who tortured while sanctioning other countries for their human rights violations?

The second is a letter to the editor.

To the Editor:Is it not incumbent upon President Obama, now that the torture report has at last been released, to pardon the heroic C.I.A. officer who refused to participate in torture and instead revealed its use?
The officer, John C. Kiriakou, was sentenced last year to 30 months for leaking information to the news media. He remains in prison and was stripped of all that he had earned in a distinguished career at the C.I.A., while those who dishonored the agency and the nation continue to be seen on the Sunday talk shows defending the indefensible — torture.
BEATRICE WILLIAMS-RUDE
New York, Dec. 10, 2014

President Obama is willing to jail people who bring to light torture but not the people who condoned, ordered and carried out torture.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Torture

Dear Friends,

International and domestic law contain absolute bans on torture.  Any civilized and moral society must ban all torture - no exceptions.

United States law defines torture as follows:

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;

There can be no doubt under this definition that waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques used by the United States are torture.

Under International law, it is clear that the "just following orders" defense is invalid.  That rule was clearly established in the Nuremberg trials.

Vice President Cheney has admitted that he either ordered or condoned waterboarding and is therefore guilty of violating United States and International law and should be prosecuted along with all the others that condoned torture, ordered torture and carried out torture.

Failure to prosecute and hold torturers accountable for their action will reduce the moral authority of the United States, put us in the category of regimes that torture and be a clear signal to future Presidents and CIA Directors that torture is ok and will not be punished.

CIA Director John Brennan in his speech yesterday defending the CIA when questioned about the future indicated that the future use of torture is left to policy makers.  He was very clear that the CIA will carry out torture if directed to do so by the policy makers.  President Obama should immediately remove him from his position, clearly repudiate torture and prosecute all who ordered, condoned and engaged in torture.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Bravo President Obama!!!

Dear Friends,

President Obama made an incredible appearance on The Colbert Report on December 8th.  He did "The Word" segment in true Colbert style while making a great case for Obamacare.  It was the kind of appearance that he needs to make to be sure that people understand the accomplishments of his Presidency and what the incredible differences are between the Republican and Democratic parties.  Now that he is taking actions without concerns about his own reelection or any midterm elections, he seems to be doing better.

I tried to upload the videos but I was unsuccessful so here is a link The Colbert Report's website where you can watch the videos.  You have not seen it, watch it.  You will enjoy it.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton and the XL Pipeline

Dear Friends,

It is well established that Hillary Clinton refuses to say what her position is on the Keystone XL Pipeline.  I find her reluctance to disclose her position a really bad sign and support for my position that she is a opportunist and not someone with strongly held views that she will support.  A little research turns up some interesting stories.  Here are some in chronological order.

There was an article in The Daily Beast just about two years ago entitled "Clinton's Environmental Failure" (here).  I found this paragraph from that article particularly interesting:

But the rumor is that Clinton’s State Department is nonetheless about to recommend approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which the top climate scientists in the nation have unanimously called a terrible idea. As far as I know, though, Clinton’s subordinates haven’t reached out to ask them why. For more than a year now, it’s been one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets that Clinton wants the pipeline approved. And why not? Its builder, TransCanada, hired her old deputy campaign manager as its chief lobbyist and gave lobbying contracts to several of her big bundlers. Leaked emails show embassy officials rooting on the project; it’s classic D.C. insiderism. (And, weirdly, her rumored successor is just as involved—Susan Rice has millions in stock in TransCanada and other Canadian energy companies.)

The next is an article in Politifact.com from March 5, 2014 entitled "Do Bill Clinton and George Bush Support the Keystone XL Pipeline" (here).  Apparently the American Petroleum Institute ran an ad in several states indicating that while there is gridlock in Washington, the Keystone XL Pipeline was an issue that had bipartisan support and specifically indicated that Bill Clinton and George Bush both supported it.  The article traces Bill Clinton's support to a speech he gave that appears to support the pipeline and indicates that Bill Clinton has never indicated that he does not support the pipeline.  Since I approach both Bill and Hillary Clinton with a rather cynical attitude that they are both opportunists and do not want to take positions, the language used in the speech is ambiguous.  I suspect Bill Clinton is trying to sit on the fence and be able to say he supported it or he did not depending on how the wind blows in the future.

There are two very recent articles about a speech that Secretary Clinton gave to the League of Conservation Voters, a group that is strongly opposed to the Keystone XL Pipeline.  The CBS news article (here) focused on Secretary Clinton's refusal to comment on the pipeline and the fact that just before that dinner she had attended a fundraiser for Senator Landrieu who is a very vocal proponent of the Keystone XL Pipeline.  In fact her entire strategy for winning re-election (which did not work) was to show how supportive she was of the pipeline.  The Think Progress article (here) in addition to talking about Secretary Clinton's refusal to take a position of the Keystone XL Pipeline focused on her references to fracking.  She did not use the work fracking and her words were at best platitudes about the potential problems with extraction of shale gas.  There was no outright condemnation of fracking.

I am forced to conclude that on two issues that I feel are critical to the future of the world, Secretary Clinton is failing to take a strong pro-environment stance and failing to be the leader that we need.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton

Dear Friends,

The front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune this morning had an article on Senator Amy Klobuchar and her political ambitions entitled "Sen. Amy Klobuchar quietly climbs Washington ranks" (here).  Senator Klobuchar is one of my two Senators, and I have always supported her.  She is, however, not a liberal.  She is a centrist who champions issues that are important but not often controversial.  She is in my view way to establishment and cautious.  I suspect it is for these reasons that she has risen within the Democratic establishment.

I then turned to The New York Times and read an op-ed piece by Frank Bruni entitled "Hillary 2.0 Would Be Hillary XX" (here).  The thesis of the piece is that Hillary is running in 2016 as a woman unlike 2008 when she could not decide whether to push the fact that she was a woman and how groundbreaking it would be to have a woman President.  These two articles made it clear to me that no matter how much I wanted to avoid thinking about the 2016 Presidential election, I was going to be forced to think about it.

I had been thinking of writing about the 2016 Presidential race with a particular focus on Hillary Clinton.  I would love to be able to enthusiastically support Hillary, but at the moment I cannot.  I have a clear bias about her.  I view her as an opportunist, at best a centrist, a hawk and a sellout to the establishment.  However, I feel that I need to actually do the research to see if my view is justified.  As a result over the next few months, I will be looking at what Secretary Clinton's views actually are and what positions she actually has and is taking.  I will try to be open to having my mind changed.

Please give me your feedback and propose issues that I should research.

Thank you for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal