In mid-April, the Justice Department released memos that detailed the harsh interrogation techniques used by the C.I.A. under the Bush Administration. This has got to be one of the most obvious uses of distraction tactics that I have ever seen. With the country’s economy still in shambles and not giving any signs that it was getting any better, Obama and his administration knew that it would not be long before the media started giving him a hard time for not immediately turning things around. What’s a better way to take some of the pressure off yourself then by pointing out the failures of predecessor? Until the recent Swine Flu debacle the only thing the media had to talk about was the economy, so Obama had to go out of his way to give them something else.
There are two reasons why I’m completely convinced that this was nothing more than a diversionary device by the Obama Administration. First of all, these memos have not told the American public anything that they were not already well aware of. We’ve all known for the last two years or so that these interrogations went on. We all know that waterboarding and other techniques that could be considered “torture” were frequently used to get people to talk. This is old news, and Obama just wanted the media to start talking about it again. The second reason is that immediately after these memos were released, it was made clear that none of the people responsible for these interrogations would be prosecuted or reprimanded in any way. If the Obama Administration was really on a crusade to right the past wrongs of this country, wouldn’t they want to start by making some effort to punish those responsible? All signs point to the fact that these memos were released solely to give the press something to talk about for awhile.
There are two reasons why I’m completely convinced that this was nothing more than a diversionary device by the Obama Administration. First of all, these memos have not told the American public anything that they were not already well aware of. We’ve all known for the last two years or so that these interrogations went on. We all know that waterboarding and other techniques that could be considered “torture” were frequently used to get people to talk. This is old news, and Obama just wanted the media to start talking about it again. The second reason is that immediately after these memos were released, it was made clear that none of the people responsible for these interrogations would be prosecuted or reprimanded in any way. If the Obama Administration was really on a crusade to right the past wrongs of this country, wouldn’t they want to start by making some effort to punish those responsible? All signs point to the fact that these memos were released solely to give the press something to talk about for awhile.
Waterboarding
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