...we'll stop sharing evidence of terrorist threats with you.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/12/obama/index.html

Read the whole article, but here's some choice excerpts:

Quote :

"As I wrote about in February, those threats from the U.S. caused the British High Court to reverse itself and rule that, in light of these threats from the U.S., it would keep seven paragraphs detailing Mohamed's torture concealed. From the British court's ruling: "The United States Government's position is that, if the redacted paragraphs are made public, then the United States will re-evaluate its intelligence-sharing relationship with the United Kingdom with the real risk that it would reduce the intelligence it provided (para. 62) . . . . [and] there is a real risk, if we restored the redacted paragraphs, the United States Government, by its review of the shared intelligence arrangements, could inflict on the citizens of the United Kingdom a very considerable increase in the dangers they face at a time when a serious terrorist threat still pertains (para. 106)." Just think how despicable that threat is: if your court describes the torture to which one of your residents was subjected while in U.S. custody, we will withhold information from you that could enable you to break up terrorist plots aimed at your citizens. In the aftermath of that ruling, there was some dispute about whether the Obama administration had really issued this threat to Britain or whether it was merely a residual threat from the Bush administration. But in the wake of a recent motion by Mohamed's lawyer to the British court for re-consideration of its ruling, in response to which the British government submitted the written threats from the Obama administration, there can now be no doubt not only that Obama made these threats to Britain, but did so in a remarkably extreme and heavy-handed manner."

Quote :

"That question about Obama's intentions -- along with Obama's decision last month to release the 4 OLC torture memos -- is what led Smith to make his motion for the British High Court to re-consider its ruling that it would not make the torture details public: namely, he wanted definitive evidence one way or the other as to whether Obama really was issuing these threats to the British government. That definitive evidence came, and it leaves no doubt that these threats to the British government are now being issued every bit as emphatically from Obama. I've obtained a copy of the letter excerpts submitted to the British court (.pdf - see pages 6-9), submitted by the British Government to prove that the U.S., under Obama, is continuing to make these threats. ... In other words: if you let your courts describe how we tortured Mohamed -- even if your laws compel such disclosure -- we may purposely leave your citizens vulnerable to future terrorist attacks by withholding information we obtain about terrorist plots. Smith re-iterated to Lake what he told me last month: that the Obama administration's actions in issuing these threats in order to hide evidence of torture is itself a criminal act"

Basically, the gist: a man in Britain who was taken under "extraordinary rendition" by U.S. contractors is suing said contractors for proof of what amounted to torture.

Please, Obamaphiles, defend this guy. I really could use a laugh today. Tell me why threatening to block information-sharing if Britain actually honors due process of law for a man who was tortured is just and right, or somehow represents that Hope 'n Change we were all told to expect.

[Edited on May 13, 2009 at 11:04 AM. Reason : .]

5/13/2009 11:03:39 AM

What makes you think anybody's going to defend Obama for this? It's reprehensible.

5/13/2009 11:17:34 AM

Because in three years we're going to hear about how none of this matters and we have to all rally to the support of Dear Leader. I'm simply saving us all a little time.

5/13/2009 11:18:54 AM

George Dub would probably be fueling the B-2's for an air strike on London, to teach those Brits a lesson, for disobeying the US if he were still in office.

5/13/2009 12:05:27 PM

^^ We're given two viable options every four years. This type of shit does matter, but what do you expect?

5/13/2009 12:14:12 PM

you're not going to find this obama-voter defending keeping evidence of prisoner torture under wraps.

5/13/2009 12:15:42 PM

Nor this one. Trying to figure out what DOCTOR STEVE CHAOS' point was.

5/13/2009 12:22:37 PM

some of the speculation in the update on that article says that likely the british gov't doesn't want this evidence released either because they would likely be implicated in allowing this to happen, so they asked the US gov't for an excuse to not release, thus the letter that you see in the article. seems like a reasonable explanation. it doesn't excuse hiding this evidence of wrongdoing on america's part though.

5/13/2009 12:24:28 PM

Very disappointing news. To a certain extent, I can understand wanting to keep these photos secret in order to prevent widespread assaults on US troops stationed in these sensitive regions. The important question is, just how long does Obama think he can keep these photos hidden from the public? Until all the troops come home and the threat of attacks on American troops dramatically decreases? That sounds rather unreasonable to me and perhaps even naive and at what cost to our relationship with Britain? Regardless of the strategy to prevent American bloodshed, resorting to blackmailing our closest ally is definitely not a course of action that I would have taken. I'm rather surprised actually.

[Edited on May 13, 2009 at 2:32 PM. Reason : -]

5/13/2009 2:18:57 PM

I can understand the need to remind our allies that they have to be discrete with the classified intelligence they receive from us. Otherwise we will stop sharing said intelligence.

5/13/2009 3:01:20 PM

Quote :

"you're not going to find this obama-voter defending keeping evidence of prisoner torture under wraps."

And we'll see how many excuses you have when you urge us all to hold our noses and pull the lever in three years time, no?

If the point isn't obvious by now, it never will be.

5/13/2009 4:32:12 PM

i'm not telling anyone to hold their noses and do anything. the next election is 3.5 years away. i'll consider the entirety of obama's policies and compare them to his opponents when the time comes. as for right now, i don't like that torturers (and their conspirators further up the chain) haven't been put on trial for their crimes. but i am still happy with my choice last november compared to my other chioces on the ballot i think obama's response (even to this issue) is likely better than mccain's would have been. mccain of course thinks we never should have released these memos to begin with.

5/13/2009 4:36:19 PM

Quote :

"i'm not telling anyone to hold their noses and do anything. the next election is 3.5 years away. i'll consider the entirety of obama's policies and compare them to his opponents when the time comes. as for right now, i don't like that torturers (and their conspirators further up the chain) haven't been put on trial for their crimes. but i am still happy with my choice last november compared to my other chioces on the ballot "

[/thread]

5/13/2009 5:24:03 PM

Quote :

"And we'll see how many excuses you have when you urge us all to hold our noses and pull the lever in three years time, no? If the point isn't obvious by now, it never will be. "

I'd rather hold my nose than have to wear a biosuit to vote for the opposition. The right seems to want to recognize torture as an official part of our policy. I'd take tacit approval (how i pretty much assumed it to always be... you don't think we've had CIA black sites going back to before Clinton? Do you think waterboarding is the worst we do?) over outright endorsement.

Hopefully though the public interest groups can apply enough pressure that OBama feels the need to do the right thing. He certainly isn't getting this pressure from the right.

[Edited on May 13, 2009 at 5:49 PM. Reason : ]

5/13/2009 5:48:57 PM

Stimwalt, are you sure you responded to the right thread?

5/13/2009 7:01:57 PM