Friday, December 31, 2010

Barack Obama - impresario of torture

Every time I think of Pvt. Bradley Manning, who is convicted of nothing - awaiting trial -  in his solitary preventive detention cell in Virginia, alone for 23 hours a day for the past seven months, unable to sleep outside a permitted amount, or do much of anything else, being tortured into insanity by lack of basic human contact, I inevitably conjure the smiling image of our president, who is, after all, in charge. And I shudder. That is who Barack Obama really is - the head torturer of people who have been convicted of nothing. If he wanted to, of course Obama could put an end to Manning's torture, but he does nothing. As Chris Hedges has written, we're rapidly going from Huxley to Orwell, with a Democrat as our president. How any thinking, feeling human being can support Obama is beyond me. 2011 is shaping up as another in a long line of ominous years.

 UPDATE: Chris Floyd had the same thought, only he expressed it more elegantly and in much more detail.

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