Torture continues under Obama
Patrick Minder
Issue date: 5/29/09 Section: Opinions & Editorials
This month, President Obama broke his commitment to release photos showing the torture of prisoners at U.S. military and CIA jails. The Justice Department would not have blocked the release of these photos, yet Obama decided against it, choosing to protect Bush administration officials over protecting our civil liberties.
As for the ongoing Guantanamo debacle, Obama has not made any progress. His supposed intention to shut down the facility within a year has gained little traction, and he has not laid out a detailed plan for its closure. One of the new developments is Obama's proposal of a new military tribunal system for prosecuting Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Similar systems were struck down by the Supreme Court in the Bush years, and Obama previously opposed them, having voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Major David J. R. Frakt of the Air Force, a defense lawyer for a Guantanamo detainee, called Obama's modifications to the Bush tribunal system "minor cosmetic changes."
Frakt also noted that the tribunal system doesn't afford detainees enough choice: "The problem is they don't want military counsel at all, and this does nothing to address that."
Investigative journalist and best-selling author Jeremy Scahill published an article detailing the continued use of torture under President Obama May 15. A military force called the Immediate Reaction Force, which was operating in Guantanamo under Bush, is still operating there today.
The goal of the IRF is to provide discipline for prisoners that are deemed to be misbehaving. Examples of punishments include gang-beatings wherein five officers enter a cell and beat the prisoner, each having been assigned a body part. Just this February, while Obama was hard at work in the oval office on his "changes," a group of prisoners went on a hunger strike.
The IRF force-fed them, shoving tubes down their throats without anesthetics or painkillers. Further details are too graphic. According to Reuters, incidents that have taken place under Obama include, "beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper, and over-force feeding detainees who are on hunger strike."
As for the ongoing Guantanamo debacle, Obama has not made any progress. His supposed intention to shut down the facility within a year has gained little traction, and he has not laid out a detailed plan for its closure. One of the new developments is Obama's proposal of a new military tribunal system for prosecuting Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Similar systems were struck down by the Supreme Court in the Bush years, and Obama previously opposed them, having voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Major David J. R. Frakt of the Air Force, a defense lawyer for a Guantanamo detainee, called Obama's modifications to the Bush tribunal system "minor cosmetic changes."
Frakt also noted that the tribunal system doesn't afford detainees enough choice: "The problem is they don't want military counsel at all, and this does nothing to address that."
Investigative journalist and best-selling author Jeremy Scahill published an article detailing the continued use of torture under President Obama May 15. A military force called the Immediate Reaction Force, which was operating in Guantanamo under Bush, is still operating there today.
The goal of the IRF is to provide discipline for prisoners that are deemed to be misbehaving. Examples of punishments include gang-beatings wherein five officers enter a cell and beat the prisoner, each having been assigned a body part. Just this February, while Obama was hard at work in the oval office on his "changes," a group of prisoners went on a hunger strike.
The IRF force-fed them, shoving tubes down their throats without anesthetics or painkillers. Further details are too graphic. According to Reuters, incidents that have taken place under Obama include, "beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper, and over-force feeding detainees who are on hunger strike."
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