Cloudy with occasional rain-showers this early Thursday on California’s north coast, a preview forecast for us the next few days.
An additional ugly, slightly-nauseous mug in the news recently has belonged to George Jr., who’s been floating about the airwaves hawking a book and soft-clowning for the news media.
In all those interviews, never once was the boy asked about some bad historical shit that took place under his watch, and even bald-faced lied about it: “We do not torture.”
(Illustration found here).
Yet yesterday during testimony before the UN Committee Against Torture, ‘responsible for reviewing the records of all 156 U.N. member countries that have ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which also prohibits all “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,”‘ US officials danced around George Jr.’s lie and then confirmed it. The United States signed onto the treaty in 1988 and ratified it in 1994.
From AFP (via Yahoo):
‘The United States insisted Wednesday it did not condone torture under any circumstances, but acknowledged to a UN anti-torture watchdog it had “crossed the line” following the September 11 attacks.’
“The US is proud of its record as a leader in respecting, promoting and defending human rights and the rule of law, both at home and around the world,” acting US legal advisor Mary McLeod told the 10-member UN Committee against Torture.
“But in the wake of 9/11 attacks, we regrettably did not always live up to our own values,” she said.
“We crossed the line and we take responsibility for that,” she said, quoting US President Barack Obama.
…
At the opening of the committee’s first US review since Obama came to power, several delegates acknowledged abuses had occurred during the so-called “War on Terror” under the previous administration of George W. Bush.
But they insisted that Washington since the power shift had been busy working to right past wrongs, and purging a system that under Bush authorised the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” like waterboarding.
“We have cleaned up those policies,” said one US official, who asked not to be identified, pointing out that most of the criticism since 2009 centred around ensuring accountability for past abuses.
WTF about this ‘accountability’ bullshit?
On Tuesday, the UN panel heard private testimony from the parents of 18-year-old Michael Brown, killed last summer by a police officer in Ferguson, MO — Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr. supposedly discussed ways/means to “end racial profiling and police brutality against people of color.”
Ferguson is gearing up for the grand jury report expected anytime now on the shooting — the African-American community expects an indictment against policeman Darren Wilson, charged with shooting young Brown. The narrative is well-known, but the end is still not in sight.
Bad blood to get worse.
Torturous landscape…
(Illustration out front found here).