Maybe President Amabo would do it right?

See how wrong all those racists are? A black guy can be as lame as a white guy! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, these five guys were in countries other than America. They were literally snatched from the street, kidnapped, transported to other countries, by American intelligence agents, via aircraft owned by Boeing (Jeppesen is their parent) and then tortured in those countries. They're now suing Boeing but can't have their day in court because the USG is invoking the "State Secrets Act" to stop them. The theory is that in order for the five guys to sue, they need evidence from the government that proves Boeing allowed this to happen on their planes. Of course, the USG doesn't want to give up said evidence because, we assume, it will make them look pretty bad too, right?

Well, right or wrong, the Obama Administration is keeping the State Secrets Acts firmly invoked.

Salon.com's Gary Greenwald makes the point in a recent opinion piece: "What makes this particularly appalling and inexcusable is that Senate Democrats had long vehemently opposed the use of the "state secrets" privilege in exactly the way that the Bush administration used it in this case, even sponsoring legislation to limits its use and scope."

So, now, Obama is protecting the Bush 43 Administration by keeping this evidence secret (despite the fact we all know it happened). Why protect the Bush Admin? My only guess is so that the Obama Admin has the latitude to also use the Extraordinary Rendition program to randomly kidnap people off the streets of foreign countries and then spirit them away to countries where torture is legal. From there, the CIA can ask questions, but locals can do the torturing. Well done, Barry!

Geh... now why did I buy that Obama sweatshirt and that Obama T-shirt?

Oh yeah: I had hope.

Of course, I'm not surprised by this-like I said, all men are created equal-in good ways and bad.

Posted via email from thepete's posterous