Obama's Torture Cover Up?

charver

charver

You lookin' at my pint?
Yesterday, our Foreign Secretary met Hillary Clintons for a bit of a tête a tête about things. i don't blame you if you missed it, we pay little enough attention to the little turd. Anyway Hillary, the consummate political operator that she is, knew just the right words to make the British government roll over - she mentioned the mythical "special relationship". UK governments love this as, illusary as it is, it makes them feel important.

Toady the extent of this "special relationship" is clear for all to see.

A panel of British High Court judges, looking into allegations of British complicity in the torture of Guantanamo detainee, Binyamin Mohamed, have ruled that they cannot publish evidence because the United States has made clear that if this were to happen they would cease sharing intelligence with Britain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/guantanamo-torture

Is this what you were expecting when you elected Obama? Wasn't he supposed to be a new broom sweeping away the stain of Guantanamo? I think this may be the type of thing BAC is always talking about, lots of platitudes but no actual change.

Surely an administration seeking to 'set things right' would have no problem with disclosure of evidence relating to torture? And why does an Obama administration, with it's stated aims to engage once more with the world, seem to think bullying a British court and suppressing the truth is acceptable?

This could turn out to be quite an interesting story on both sides of the Atlantic.
 
Well I'm sure glad that there's a "special relationship" with Britain. Otherwise their beer would be even more expensive on this side of the pond.
 
Charver, it is not that we don't care, we have just been very busy with the superbowl and all that. We will get around to the torture thing.
 
I imagine this ruling rests on the position taken by the Bush Administration, not the Obama administration. Having said that, the Obama folks ought to work to permit the disclosure of the information and soon.
 
Dungheap said:
I imagine this ruling rests on the position taken by the Bush Administration, not the Obama administration. Having said that, the Obama folks ought to work to permit the disclosure of the information and soon.
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I would have thought this type of high level threat would have had to be signed off by the new incumbents of whichever department is in charge of threatening friendly governments.

However this slipped through the net, and it could possibly have been an oversight, they do need to change their minds pretty quickly because this story has the potential to be embarrassing for both governments if it's not resolved sharpish.
 
This thread is an example of why I bother reading this board. Sometimes it's fascinating.
 
charver said:
Yesterday, our Foreign Secretary met Hillary Clintons for a bit of a tête a tête about things. i don't blame you if you missed it, we pay little enough attention to the little turd. Anyway Hillary, the consummate political operator that she is, knew just the right words to make the British government roll over - she mentioned the mythical "special relationship". UK governments love this as, illusary as it is, it makes them feel important.

Toady the extent of this "special relationship" is clear for all to see.

A panel of British High Court judges, looking into allegations of British complicity in the torture of Guantanamo detainee, Binyamin Mohamed, have ruled that they cannot publish evidence because the United States has made clear that if this were to happen they would cease sharing intelligence with Britain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/guantanamo-torture

Is this what you were expecting when you elected Obama? Wasn't he supposed to be a new broom sweeping away the stain of Guantanamo? I think this may be the type of thing BAC is always talking about, lots of platitudes but no actual change.

Surely an administration seeking to 'set things right' would have no problem with disclosure of evidence relating to torture? And why does an Obama administration, with it's stated aims to engage once more with the world, seem to think bullying a British court and suppressing the truth is acceptable?

This could turn out to be quite an interesting story on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Don't get yur panties in a wad Charver. Think about it. Isn't the term "Sharing Intelligence" an oxymoron when applied to Americans?
 
charver said:
I would have thought this type of high level threat would have had to be signed off by the new incumbents of whichever department is in charge of threatening friendly governments.

However this slipped through the net, and it could possibly have been an oversight, they do need to change their minds pretty quickly because this story has the potential to be embarrassing for both governments if it's not resolved sharpish.
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Charver....don't mean to hurt your feelings...but in terms for foreign relations.....Offending the UK is about up their with offending Uruguay. :pke:
 
Damocles said:
Well I'm sure glad that there's a "special relationship" with Britain. Otherwise their beer would be even more expensive on this side of the pond.
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failings, virtues, drops...what have you been taking - i want some :clink:

actually, i prefer german beer


the specter of torture will raise its head eventually, right now there are more important things for bho to worry about...heck, it has not even been a month yet

or send your emails of concern...
 
It's nice to see that the serious newspapers in the UK are running with the story today. Hopefully this will cause the vermin we call our elected government to tie themselves in knots as they seek to explain their position. Of course, we all know that British intelligence were complicit in torture at Guantanamo, and elsewhere, but watching the government trying not to admit it and trying to keep Obama sweet is a fascinating spectator sport.

It looks like Obama has missed a trick though. What they should have done was to blame everything on Bush but instead they issued this statement saying the US -

"thanks the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information and preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens."
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/UK_US_will_cut_off_shared_0204.html

A damning indictment torture there. I love the smell of "change" in the morning.
 
charver said:
It's nice to see that the serious newspapers in the UK are running with the story today. Hopefully this will cause the vermin we call our elected government to tie themselves in knots as they seek to explain their position. Of course, we all know that British intelligence were complicit in torture at Guantanamo, and elsewhere, but watching the government trying not to admit it and trying to keep Obama sweet is a fascinating spectator sport.

It looks like Obama has missed a trick though. What they should have done was to blame everything on Bush but instead they issued this statement saying the US -

"thanks the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information and preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens."
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/UK_US_will_cut_off_shared_0204.html

A damning indictment torture there. I love the smell of "change" in the morning.
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Yes, change, it is a heady bouquet...
 
Obama has only been president about 3 weeks. I am willing to give him some time on this, but it should be disclosed.
 
Jarod said:
Obama has only been president about 3 weeks. I am willing to give him some time on this, but it should be disclosed.
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It doesn't appear that they are moving in that direction, Jarod. The statements issued all point to the continued urging of this Administration to keep that under wraps.
 
Damocles said:
It doesn't appear that they are moving in that direction, Jarod. The statements issued all point to the continued urging of this Administration to keep that under wraps.
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I am against that. I belive it is a mistake on the part of the Obama Admin.
 
I believe we don't know everything, and he may be helping out their leaders and creating more goodwill by doing what he is doing. I don't necessarily think that everything is as it appears when dealing with intelligence information. It appears as if it is the perfect opportunity to "blame Bush" and to pass the buck. I'm glad that isn't his first reaction.
 
Well, a couple of months have rolled by and the wheels of the English justice system have been grinding particularly slowly but this very case is back, back, BACK!

It now appears that our weasel of a Foreign Secretary is seeking to blame the whole thing on Hillary Clintons. She's not as nice as that lovely Mr Obamas, don't you know?

From the Guardian

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/29/binyam-mohamed-cia-torture
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Although please don't have nightmares as neither the UK government nor the US government condones, involves themselves in, or has even heard of the word 'torture' before.
 
While i'm here.

Those of you who are actually interested in this stuff will be aware of the case, in the US, involving Jepperson, who are accused of hiring planes to the CIA for use in transporting detainees around the globe so they could be tortured in new and exciting ways by cultured foreign gentlemen with a whole host of exotic moustache arrangements.

Well, the courts over here have been trying to winkle out information from one of Jepperson's subsidiary companies, Jepperson UK. Until now, Jepperson UK have been fighting tooth and, indeed, nail to prevent any of their murky activities becoming public. That was until last week, when they dropped their fight to have the case against them thrown out of court.

Who knows what documents (which a cynic may say remain unshredded) will be made public and feed into the larger case underway in the USA?

It am here if anyone's interested.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/cia-rendition-guantanamo

Now, if you'll excuse me, i must get back to the serious bidness of dogs in hats and men who look like old lesbians. Tantalising, eh?
 
charver said:
Well, a couple of months have rolled by and the wheels of the English justice system have been grinding particularly slowly but this very case is back, back, BACK!

It now appears that our weasel of a Foreign Secretary is seeking to blame the whole thing on Hillary Clintons. She's not as nice as that lovely Mr Obamas, don't you know?



Although please don't have nightmares as neither the UK government nor the US government condones, involves themselves in, or has even heard of the word 'torture' before.
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I just don't understand why this adminstration is going to these lengths to cover-up what the bush adminstration did that was illegal.

At this point, I believe that Obama took ownership of this. And that has been the biggest disappointment I have had in him thus far.
 
Darla said:
I just don't understand why this adminstration is going to these lengths to cover-up what the bush adminstration did that was illegal.

At this point, I believe that Obama took ownership of this. And that has been the biggest disappointment I have had in him thus far.
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Sometimes it is just rather unpleasant to have your suspicions proved right about people.

Never mind though, it's all about healthcare and the economy now. In fact it would probably be better for everybody if this torture stuff just went away and was never talked about again.
 
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