U.S. Media Ignore Call for 'Criminal Investigation' of Bush Torture
01/22/2009 by Gabriel VoilesScott Horton of Harper's (1/21/09) tells us of some big news on "the German television program Frontal 21, on channel ZDF": In an interview there, "internationally renowned law professor" and "independent expert for the United Nations" Manfred Nowak, "the United Nations Rapporteur responsible for torture, stated that with George W. Bush's head of state immunity now terminated, the new government of Barack Obama was obligated by international law to commence a criminal investigation into Bush's torture practices." But, outside of one widely picked-up AP piece in which the professor is vaguely quoted stating that "justice also means to look into the past," Google News shows not a single U.S. outlet mention of Nowak on the matter.
Horton has more news on high-level accountability you won't get in the U.S.:
The ZDF piece also includes an interview with attorney Wolfgang Kaleck, who brought charges against Rumsfeld before German prosecutors. He states that the Obama administration is "off to a good beginning" with its explicit renunciation of torture, but it still has not shown how it will hold Bush, Rumsfeld and others to account for their crimes, nor has it demonstrated its legally obligated duty to provide compensation to torture victims.
But that subject has also been proven entirely verboten among corporate U.S. media. Listen to the FAIR radio program Counterspin: "Michael Ratner on Detainee Abuse Report" (12/19/08)
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February 2nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
[...] Scott Horton (Harpers.org, 1/30/09) is agog at the fact that, "in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, the indefatigable advocate of crushing the testicles of small children to extract actionable intelligence launches a full frontal attack on President Obama" for re-banning torture. Having "followed [George W. Bush legal torture architect] John Yoo and his writings with some care for a while now," Horton thinks he can "finally understand what this is about": "The likelihood that he will face a criminal probe and then possibly prosecution is growing." Horton writes that if we "look closely at the latest Yoo column," we see that he tenaciously defends and repeats arguments presented in his memo that even the Bush Justice Department agreed were ludicrous. He alludes to techniques used by our allies the United Kingdom and Israel which he claims now Obama rejects. What on earth is this about? If we recall his memo, one of its more bizarre passages involves a European human rights court decision in which five specific techniques used by the U.K. on suspected Irish terrorists during the "troubles" are classified as "cruel, inhuman and degrading" rather than torture. Thus, Yoo argues, these techniques have passed international muster and are fine. [...]
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:40 am
[...] http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/01/22/us-media-ignores-calls-for-criminal-investigation-of-bush-tortur... . [...]