Thursday 15 January 2009

Waterboarding is torture. Well, duh.

The nominee for the US general attorney has said that waterboarding is torture.

I am encouraged by this and Barack Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo. I'm not sure if the AG has the same role in the US as over here ( I'm thinking of Lord Goldsmith and his opinion which helped legitimise the Iraq war) but every little helps!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good GRIEF - they've finally noticed, though whether Obama will hold to his promise to close Guantanamo remains to be seen - he has already said that such closure will not happen in his first HUNDRED days of office.
Having said that, there is yet hope - and if there IS hope, Does this mean that the rationale underpinning the Thesis Monster is about to be completely undone?!?! ( *covers ears of Thesis Monster*)

Mel said...

It's a toughie isn't it - on the one hand you want the end of human rights abuses.

On the other, when it affects an argument you've been trying to make... (!)

I missed the 100 days thing. I wonder why?

Anonymous said...

Hi Mel,

I think its not likely to happen in the first hundred days because of a need for in depth security consultation, as well as to determine what should happen to the detainees from a legal point of view.
I do hope he'll close the wretched place as promised, particularly since a judge involved in the "trials" ( and I use that term loosely) of Gitmo detainees admitted that some of the evidence set out against them was actually obtained by Torture. Wow. Like We're Tooootally surprised about THAT one -NOT.

Anyway, heres a link, if you're interested:
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Economy/story?id=6619291

Mel said...

Agreed - and thanks for the link.

Mel said...

And a link for you:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/16/barack-obama-amnesty-international-ad

Minx said...

Cheers Mel - Useful!