Posted on 12/10/2014 2:50:30 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
... As far back as 2004, notes Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations, the CIA began moving away from capturing and detaining suspected terrorists in favor of killing them via drone strikes.
Zenko's own tally, based on reporting from non-governmental research organizations, puts the rough death toll at around 3,500 people. These include an unknown number of civilian casualties believed by independent researchers to number at least in the hundreds; the Obama administration reportedly counts "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants," which produces lower estimates of civilian casualties. Tuesday's report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, meanwhile, lists 119 terror suspects known to have been detained by the CIA, of whom "at least 39 were subject to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques." Twenty-six of the total number of detainees, the report continues, should not have been detained in the first place.
But despite the vast disparity in the numbers of people abused through the CIA's detention program versus killed by drones, there has been no official accounting of the latter program on par with the torture report released this week. "[T]hose normally interested in upholding human rights ideals and promoting transparency (generally Democrats) simply will not investigate their own," Zenko explained. "And as I've pointed out in every public opinion poll ... Americans are more comfortable killing suspected terrorists than torturing them."
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Note the America-hatred in the article title (which pretty accurately encapsulates the contempt for Americans which permeates Kathy Gilsinan's article). Yet Obama mostly gets a free pass.
Why not a title like, "Obama Trades Torture for Drones"?
Or even the somewhat more accurate, "International War-Criminal Obama Trades Harsh Treatment of Over 100 Prisoners for Illegal and Deadly Drone Strikes that Killed Thousands"?
(Rhetorical question only - I fully understand why movement leftists continue to shield Obama from meaningful criticism.)
Obama is the only US president to grant immunity from prosecution torture.
Obama prosecuted the whistle blower , John Kiriakou.
Bush granted no immunity for such practices.
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