[url]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/suit-challenging-drone-strikes-that-killed-americans-16-year-old-boy-is-tossed/[/url]

[url]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/obama-court-nominee-wrote-memos-authorizing-drone-attacks-on-americans/[/url]

[url]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/killer-drone-report-downplays-playstation-mentality-of-pilots/[/url]

More questions surface over the use of Diego Garcia atoll for secret CIA flights to 'black sites'
[QUOTE]Diego Garcia, a British overseas territory leased as a military base to the US since 1966, may as well be on the moon for all it means to most Britons. But each month fresh evidence emerges of the key role the Indian Ocean atoll played in extraordinary rendition, the ghosting of terrorist suspects to CIA interrogation black sites around the world.
The toxic question for the [British} government is to what extent it knew the practice was happening. The answer has ramifications not just for the UK's relationship with the US but also the future of its nuclear weapons programme.
[/QUOTE]
Full press article: [URL]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/13/diego-garcia-secret-cia-flights[/URL]

This leaves aside the forced depopulation of Diego Garcia, which included maneuvers such as preventing the return of residents who had traveled for medical care, etc. While it is not at the same level as the activities of the "Black Site", I still count as a act of brutality.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia#Deportation_of_1971[/url]

Absolutely. Diego Garcia may, however, disappear beneath the waves within the next century or two.

[url]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/grandma-repeatedly-protested-drones-at-base-now-faces-a-year-in-prison/[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;378066][URL]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/grandma-repeatedly-protested-drones-at-base-now-faces-a-year-in-prison/[/URL][/QUOTE]

I have a hard time responding to these stories. I feel like such a keyboard activist compared to the people who go out and actually protest ethical and Constitutional violations.

[B]Poland broke human rights convention on al-Qaida suspects held by the CIA[/B]

The European court of human rights has ruled that Poland violated the European convention on human rights by allowing the CIA to detain two al-Qaida suspects on its territory.

Press article:
[URL]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/poland-breach-human-rights-convention-al-qaida-suspects-cia[/URL]

[url]http://thehill.com/policy/international/214159-sen-king-cia-torture-was-unjustifiable[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;379615][url]http://thehill.com/policy/international/214159-sen-king-cia-torture-was-unjustifiable[/url][/QUOTE]

I was about to post the links/comments below about the latest admissions, saw your link, which contains similar mealy-mouthed weasel wording - 'unjustifiable' in place of 'clearly illegal' - as the liar-in-chief used in his phony-folksy "aw, shucks, y'all, we done treated some folks kinda harsh-like" comments.

====================

[url=http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/01/4267197/obama-adds-fuel-to-cia-controversy.html]Obama adds fuel to CIA controversy by saying agency tortured terror suspects McClatchy[/url]

"We tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values."

Three points:

o Phony affectations of "folksiness" are entirely inappropriate - and ring almost ghoulishly self-distancing, even more so than the mealy-mouthed "mistakes were made" - in such a context.

o "Torturing folks" is not only "contrary to our values" - in fact I dispute that, since U.S. actions have historically been extremely "flexible" with respect to these supposedly-hallowed and much-ballyhooed values - but more crucially (and far less flexibly) it is *illegal* under multiple international treaties the U.S. is signatory to. (But obviously U.S. administrations use those kinds of treaties strictly as something to bully other nations with when it suits their ends.)

o So, from the careful use of both past tense and self-distancing verbiage, we should conclude that no such offenses have occurred during Mr. Obama`s presidency? Because that certainly appears to be the implication.

Several NC readers [url=http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/links-8214.html]add good comments[/url]:
[quote]
timotheus August 2, 2014 at 7:13 am

Couldn’t agree more with the grating sound of “tortured some folks.” What is this, The Andy Griffith Show? Maybe he should have accompanied himself on the banjo.


Carolinian August 2, 2014 at 7:52 am

It’s Obama’s favorite word. Later in the press conference
[i]
And even though the sentence itself implies that Obama believes torture is wrong, his comments later appeared to defend the practice, insisting that 9/11 put a lot of pressure on the CIA and “it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had.”
[/i]
[url]http://news.antiwar.com/2014/08/01/we-tortured-some-folks-obamas-glib-admission/[/url]

Up next: we droned some folks.
[/quote]
(More comments in this discussion at the above NC link.)

And as for one of our key partners in these crimes: [url=www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/02/britain-diego-garcia-faces-exposure-over-links-to-cia-torture-flights]Britain 'attempts to censor' US report on torture sites[/url]

It appears that we cannot even expect so much as a "some chaps were, alas, treated less than sportingly by certain rogue elements within my predecessors` government" from the UK faction of the conspiracy.