Obama has a kingly view of subject rights
I say that based on this story from the Associated Press, which I found via Ed Brayton’s post on the story. The story begins:
A federal judge reacted skeptically Tuesday to the Obama administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit by an American citizen who says he was held in Africa for four months and allegedly interrogated more than 30 times by U.S. officials.At a two-hour hearing in Washington, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan repeatedly said he was required to accept as true at this early phase of the case the allegations by Amir Mohamed Meshal.
Meshal says that U.S. officials threatened him with torture, forced disappearance and other serious harm unless he confessed to ties with al-Qaida in Somalia. . .
Continue reading. This is our country doing these things, and Obama is at the head of it. Look how vigorously he protects the things being done: because if they are laid bare and investigated as war crimes, it implicates Obama. He is now protecting himself. He in fact has already broken the law (the Convention Against Torture, a signed and ratified treaty, which requires investigation of credible allegations of torture, which we have aplenty included documented and published accounts of prisoners—excuse me, detainees—being tortured to death by US forces acting under orders from the highest levels, aka the President) and by now could be considered an accomplice (as accessory after the fact). If he were acting in accordance with the law (that once governed presidents even as you and I), the allegations Meshal is making would trigger an investigation—a broad-ranging, thorough, and open investigation—into the entire US torture regime (not a phrase that I thought could ever be used). Instead of obeying the law and heeding the allegations, Obama has unleashed the dogs of the Department of Justice in his defense. (“Dogs” used advisedly.)
I am not a lawyer, but it seems very much as if President Obama is using the US government in extraordinary efforts (and arguing morally repellent cases) to protect himself. It’s not for the good of the country, that’s for sure.
UPDATE: It wasn’t until I wrote this post that I realized how clear-cut is the case against him, how public the evidence, how clear the law. It seems as if I, like most, had averted my gaze, but when I looked at it directly, I saw that it is, in the immortal words of George Tenet, a “slam dunk.”
UPDATE 2: It just struck me that a gang of torturers have taken over the US government to the extent that they directed torture and are continuing to use the power of the government to protect themselves from any investigation. Argentina, here we come!
