Thursday, January 22, 2009

If they can blow up the Trib. . . .


Journalists: Enemies of the state.

Obviously, George W. Bush and the National Security Agency figured the ink-stained wretches would do to the "homeland" what they've managed to do to newspapers.

The effectiveness of journalists' demolition training is demonstrated by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann -- and not the Times or the Post or the Tribune -- being the one to ferret out allegations that reporters were the target of America's super-secret spy agency . . . right along with al Qaida.


MEANWHILE, there's this floating around out there, as reported by the Telegraph in London:

Manfred Nowak, the UN's special rapporteur on torture, called on the US authorities to pursue the former president and his former defence secretary for the treatment of prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba.

"Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation," he told German television.

He said that the US had ratified the UN convention on torture which requires "all means, particularly penal law" to be used to bring proceedings against those violating it.

"We have all these documents that are now publicly available that prove that these methods of interrogation were intentionally ordered by Rumsfeld," Mr Nowak claimed.

"But obviously the highest authorities in the United States were aware of this."

Mr Bush left office on Tuesday as Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States at his inauguration ceremony in Washington.

Asked about the prospects of legal action being brought against Mr Bush and Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Nowak said: "In principle yes. I think the evidence is on the table."

At issue, however, is whether "American law will recognise these forms of torture", he added.

A bipartisan Senate report released last month found Mr Rumsfeld and other senior Bush administration officials responsible for the abuse of Guantanamo detainees.

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