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J_J_

(1,213 posts) Tue Dec 23, 2014, 12:30 PM Dec 2014

Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses By THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD

Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an official government program conceived and carried out in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.'s destruction of videotapes of torture sessions and those who may have gone beyond the torture techniques authorized by President George W. Bush. But the investigation did not lead to any charges being filed, or even any accounting of why they were not filed.

Mr. Obama has said multiple times that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” as though the two were incompatible. They are not. The nation cannot move forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally, with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels of government on down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html?_r=1

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Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses By THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD (Original Post) J_J_ Dec 2014 OP

It would be nice if the NY Times editors were on the same page as the editorialists. True Blue Door Dec 2014 #1

We need to keep looking forward. Vox Moi Dec 2014 #2

True Blue Door

(2,969 posts)

1. It would be nice if the NY Times editors were on the same page as the editorialists.

Reply to J_J_ (Original post)

Tue Dec 23, 2014, 12:37 PM

Dec 2014

Because when these crimes were being smirkingly committed, they were forcing their front-page authors to use Orwellian euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation" and pretend it was a debatable question of tactics rather than a bald-faced war crime.

Vox Moi

(546 posts)

2. We need to keep looking forward.

Reply to J_J_ (Original post)

Tue Dec 23, 2014, 01:58 PM

Dec 2014

This phrase is generally uttered by people in lieu of an excuse, an apology, a mea culpa or submitting to an indictment. This Orwellian bit of Newspeak is more of a reference to the Memory Hole than an appeal to positive thinking. Erase the past, be blinded to experience, ignore historical context.

I hate this phrase. Instead, i suggest:

- We cannot allow the future be held hostage to the past.
- A rear-view mirror only blocks the view of the road ahead.
- All futures are possible to those who ignore history.

- If we don't keep looking forward, the past will hit us in the butt.

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