Senate Acts To Conceal Future Torture By US Military
Ten days ago, I asked whether any member of the U.S. Senate would confront President Obama about his actions to conceal photographs of torture by the U.S. military. Today, I can answer the question without equivocation: No.
Yesterday, the Senate passed S. Amdt. 1157 to H.R. 2346, a bill that provides supplementary military spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Amendment 1157, informally entitled the Censorship of Photographs of Future Torture Amendment, creates a loophole in the Freedom of Information Act. With this loophole, the Secretary of Defense is granted the power to conceal photographs of any torture of prisoners of the U.S. military – whether those photographs were taken in the past, or will be taken in the future.
With this legislation, the United States Senate facilitated future torture by the U.S. military by reassuring military personnel that if they conduct acts of torture, photographs of their crimes will never become public.
It’s worth particular note that as senators Lieberman and Lindsey Graham argued in favor of amendment 1157, they justified its coverup of torture by saying that nothing would be achieved by revealing photographs of past torture, because the existence of this torture was already known. All the while, they knew full well that amendment 1157 legalizes the coverup of photographs of U.S. military torture that hasn’t even taken place yet. How could they possibly argue that there would be no value in revealing the existence of new torture programs in the future?
The passage of this amendment suggests that the U.S. Senate expects and accepts that the U.S. military will be practicing torture in the future. It should lead any critical thinker to question President Obama’s assertions that all U.S. government torture has ended. George W. Bush made similar assertions that no torture was going on, after all. There is no need for amendment 1157’s protection of future torture photographs if the torture has truly come to an end.
Saddest of all is the fact that this amendment was approved unanimously. Not one member of the United States Senate had the courage to oppose the censorship of future acts of torture. To citizens who have the intellegence to pay attention, this legislation marks the end of the Democrats’ credible claim of opposition to torture.
[...] law, amendment 1157 to H.R. 2346, has no name, although some are calling it the Censorship of Photographs of Future Torture Amendment. That’s a bit long-winded. Perhaps [...]
[...] law, amendment 1157 to H.R. 2346, has no name, although some are calling it the Censorship of Photographs of Future Torture Amendment. That’s a bit long-winded. Perhaps we [...]