I have been firmly in the camp of Obama sceptics, viewing the adulation with distaste and seeing little substance in his famed rhetoric. But in just 48 hours I fnd myself warming very considerably to the man. The priority he has given to reversing the worst excesses of the Bush regime in the “War on Terror” has been extraordinary. All the indications are that it is genuine. He is not just closing Guantanamo as a blind under which to continue the torture and extraordinary rendition, but is closing down the whole system.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/23/secret-prisons-closure-obama-cia
I cannot tell you how much emotion I feel that the US will no longer be flying people to Uzbekistan, to be tortured and often buried there. I lost my livelihood trying to stop it.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Telegram.pdf
This “Intelligence cooperation” continued after the US withdrew from K2 airbase in 2005, though recently at a much lower level of intensity.
Obama seems genuinely to understand that the major thrust of preventing political violence must be not to give people genuine cause to hate you. But it must go further. Obama’s moves to restore legality are an acknowledgement that what went before was illegal. There must be full openness and investigation. America’s reputation will not be restored until all of those who unleashed systematic kidnapping, torture and murder round the world are brought to justice.
“ad nauseam”
Nobby in accounts
Good one…
Wish I had thought off that…LOL.
Nobby in accounts
It’s called….”Maeror Tri – Multiple Personality Disorder”
eddie/Silverfish/Nazi hunter
Mr Dutton,
I’m just an accountant trying to have a personal conversation with Eddie, if you don’t mind.
As for the intricacies of public discussions of defending the indefensible, I leave that to Eddie since he’s so very good at it.
Good day to you.
George I must confess I am quaking in my boots. Don’t you realise my role here is Darwinian, to keep you and yours on your toes and to give you a hate figure to gang up on? It wouldn’t be much of a forum if you all agreed with each other would it? But you are right, the thing is dead, so I am off to saner pastures.
Eddie,
How perfectly correct you are. What would we do without you? Apart from exchange information, ideas, and ways of thinking? Perish the thought. Rather than do that, best we spend all day arguing about whatever it is that you think important.
Honestly, who could even contemplate a life not spent in perpetual conflict? Not you, that’s for sure. And obviously we should all be like you. Well, not like you, just in complete agreement with you – lesser celestial bodies orbiting around your self-regard.
Anyway as you swan off, I wish you luck in your attempts to trash harmony, bring about perpetual conflict, and otherwise cheer on that unlauded aspect of Darwin’s theory, the killing of all those who are not the fittest. May ‘you and yours’ be the only people left standing victorious on a mountain made from the corpses of the untermenschen. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that God is on your side.
Craig,
Here is an analysis by Chomsky re Obama and Palestine.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ah9zbwj429jj_150j7zp2hhd
“Thursday, January 29, 2009”
“Obama Order to Close Secret CIA Prisons Overseas Has a Big Loophole In It”…
http://tinyurl.com/dmagqd
February 1, 2009
“Obama to retain rendition for terrorists”…
http://tinyurl.com/aehnjh
February 1, 2009
“Afghanistan and Pakistan’s “Salvador Option” ”
“With a rightist insurgency raging on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, the United States is resorting to a tried-and-true method to stem the rising fundamentalist tide: direct military intervention and massive violence.”…
http://tinyurl.com/bvxodl