Why does the Obama administration back immunity for the author of Bush torture memos?
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
justgoodfolk asked:
In legal arguments before a federal court in San Francisco Friday, the Obama administration stepped in to defend one of most notorious figures in the Bush administration, John Yoo, author of legal memoranda used to justify torture and indefinite detention without trial as part of the “war on terror.”
The intervention makes clear that the Obama administration opposes any serious effort to shed light on the attacks against democratic rights carried out by its predecessor or to hold any officials of the previous administration accountable for their actions. Moreover, its court interventions amount to a defense of the Bush administration’s assertions of quasi-dictatorial presidential powers.
So clear is the continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in this area that the Wall Street Journal published an editorial Friday, headlined, “Obama Channels Cheney,” hailing the new administration’s stand on warrantless wiretapping. “The Obama Justice Department has adopted a legal stance identical to, if not more aggressive than, the Bush version,” the newspaper’s right-wing editorial board gloated.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/jyoo-m09.shtml
In Obama we trust. That’s false
http://www.amnestyusa.org/war-on-terror/reports-statements-and-issue-briefs/us-and-international-standards-against-torture/page.do?id=1031035
In legal arguments before a federal court in San Francisco Friday, the Obama administration stepped in to defend one of most notorious figures in the Bush administration, John Yoo, author of legal memoranda used to justify torture and indefinite detention without trial as part of the “war on terror.”
The intervention makes clear that the Obama administration opposes any serious effort to shed light on the attacks against democratic rights carried out by its predecessor or to hold any officials of the previous administration accountable for their actions. Moreover, its court interventions amount to a defense of the Bush administration’s assertions of quasi-dictatorial presidential powers.
So clear is the continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in this area that the Wall Street Journal published an editorial Friday, headlined, “Obama Channels Cheney,” hailing the new administration’s stand on warrantless wiretapping. “The Obama Justice Department has adopted a legal stance identical to, if not more aggressive than, the Bush version,” the newspaper’s right-wing editorial board gloated.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/jyoo-m09.shtml
In Obama we trust. That’s false
http://www.amnestyusa.org/war-on-terror/reports-statements-and-issue-briefs/us-and-international-standards-against-torture/page.do?id=1031035