Sunday, September 12, 2010

We can torture you with immunity, but you have to pay if you torture us

America the Exceptional - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
Excerpt:
So, to recap: the U.S. creates a worldwide regime of torture,
disappearances and lawless imprisonment. Then, the Bush administration,
the Obama administration, and the American federal judiciary all
collaborate to shield the guilty parties from all accountability (Look Forward, Not Backward!),
and worse, to ensure that not a single victim can even access American
courts to obtain a ruling as to the legality of what was done to them,
let alone receive compensation for their suffering, even while
recognizing that many of the victims were completely innocent and even
though other countries have provided the victims with compensation for their much more minor role in what happened. Our courts even ensure that Blackwater guards are shielded from prosecution for the cold-blooded murder of Iraqi citizens.




But we invade, occupy and destroy Iraq -- while severely abusing, torturing
and killing their citizens -- and then demand, as a condition for our
allowing the end of crippling sanctions, that they fork over hundreds of
millions of dollars in compensation to American torture victims, even
though it all happened 20 years ago, under an Iraqi regime that no
longer even exists. They hate us for our Freedoms.


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