The rule of law still exists in some parts of the world, less so in Obama’s government

By Steve Anderson

Unlike U.S. president Barack Obama, leaders in several European countries are taking their nations’ human rights laws and international treaty obligations seriously.

Investigations into CIA torture centers are going forward in Lithuania and Poland, Italy has prosecuted CIA torture enablers, and Great Britain is about to release crucial information detailing torture techniques signed off on by Bush-era criminals. These include former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Vice-President Dick Cheney, President George W. Bush himself, and a host of mid-level apparatchiks who wrote the legal memos giving cover of law to all the dirty work done in freedom’s name.

Last month, newly elected Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said she had “indirect suspicions” that reports that the CIA held and tortured suspect terrorists in her country are true and she urged a full investigation by parliament.

Valdas Adamkus, who was president when the CIA prison was reportedly in operation (2004 to 2005), said he had no personal knowledge of the covert program. But he raised the possibility that Lithuanian security officials could face prosecution if the reports are confirmed.

“If this actually did occur, and it is proved, we have to apologize to the international community that something like this went on in Lithuania,” Adamkus told the Baltic News Service. “And those who did it in my eyes are criminals.”

Dainius Zalimas, a legal adviser to the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, said the existence of a covert prison would violate both Lithuanian statutes and international human rights conventions the government signed.  If firm evidence is gathered by the parliament, he said, prosecutors would be obliged to open a case and could target both Lithuanian and U.S. officials.

“From a legal point of view, it would mean that Lithuania, along with the United States, was contributing to quite serious violations of human rights,” he said.

In the United States, of course, President Obama’s official policy on Bush-era torture and human rights violations is to “look forward” and forget about them. Worse, the Obama administration is aggressively blocking any war crimes investigations and concealing evidence, even modifying decades-old transparency laws to do so, when necessary.

Lithuania is not the only European country to directly address the legacy of Bush-era crimes.

In neighboring Poland, prosecutors in Warsaw have opened a criminal probe into reports that the CIA operated a prison for al-Qaeda suspects near a former military air base.

And last month, an Italian court convicted 22 CIA agents for kidnapping someone off their streets and sending him to Egypt to be tortured.

Additionally, the British High Court last week published its written opinion -- over the objections of British and American officials - ordering the release of details of British subject Binyam Mohamed's torture at the hands of U.S. agents.

Unfortunately (or quite in line with their role as chief apologist for the U.S. torture regime) the U.S. corporate media are helping to keep the lid on all the Bush-era lawlessness.

Credible sources say The Washington Post has secured but has refused to reveal the names of all the countries where the CIA maintained its secret prisons - information the newspaper has apparently had since 2005.

U.S. President Obama was in China last week, proudly boasting of the U.S. commitment to transparency and lamenting China’s lack of such values.

We certainly wish this were true in so far as the Bush-era human rights violations are concerned. More is expected in a democracy than lip service to high-minded values. Especially from a president who promised to bring real change.

SOURCE:  GLENN GREENWALD (www.salon.com)
By Steve Anderson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

 

Publisher and journalist Steve Anderson hails from Fayetteville, Arkansas – where he once served as a VISTA volunteer, taught school, practiced law and involved himself in community affairs as a JP on the local Quorum Court and then in national affairs as an aid to Arkansas Congressman Bill Alexamder (1st District). While busy making other plans, force majuere (she's gone but not forgotten) took him to Chile in 1987. He launched the Chile Information Project (CHIP) in 1990 as a hobby and a spin-off from a project that began while working at the Catholic Church's Vicaria of Solidarity. After stringing for various international mining and fruit export publications, he now is trying to make his hobby into a business - perfecting The Santiago Times and creating The Valparaiso Times and The Patagonia Times. When he can, he spends time at his farm outside of Puerto Montt - planting blueberries - or his Five-Acres-And-Independence parcela in Caleu, an hour from Santiago. And, of course, he is with his media naranja Maria Loreto and his son Ray, age 12, as much as possible.