Monday, January 12, 2009

Obama on Investigating Bush Crimes: "Need to Look Forward."



Although he doesn't rule out investigations - and appears to be passing the baton to his Attorney General - it's hard listening to Obama talking of "looking forward" and not to conclude that he's going to pass on this.

However, the rest of the planet will not forgive or forget what the Bush regime engaged in: Torture.

Nor has Bush shown the slightest regret for his actions. Indeed, he recently argued that Obama must use the same techniques as he did:



Bush says two things here which are important. He claims that he checked the legality of his actions, which is simply laughable. What he actually did was engage John Yoo to tell him that these actions were legal, despite the fact that the US has previously prosecuted people for the very actions Bush indulged in.

The second important thing he says is that members of Congress were consulted. This more than anything else accounts for Pelosi and others scrambling to give immunity to the telecoms. There are people in the Democratic party who were consulted and, I suspect, are up to their eyeballs in this.

And that, as much as anything else, might be why Obama is reluctant to pursue this issue.

UPDATE:



Cheney chips in with his personal definition of torture; it's pulling people's toenails out. Drowning people simply doesn't meet the Cheney definition of torture.

It's astonishing to witness an American Vice President advocating torture on national television, whilst insisting that it's not what we think it is.

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