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Related: About this forumWhy is Obama withholding secret torture report from Americans?
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/why_is_obama_withholding_secret_torture_report_from_americans/?source=newsletterA massive report on torture reveals it's far less effective than reported. But the CIA refuses to declassify it
Why is Obama withholding secret torture report from Americans?
By Marcy Wheeler
Monday, May 6, 2013 02:08 PM EDT
Much of what youve been told (or seen in movies) about George W. Bushs supposedly effective torture program is false and overhyped. At least, thats one of the conclusions of the 6,000-page review of the program the Senate Intelligence Committee completed last year.
~snip~
Before the end of the Bush administration, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. then the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee started investigating the torture program. When Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., took over as chairwoman of the committee in 2009, she intensified the investigation and negotiated with the CIA to get access to its files. After almost four more years of work and reviewing 6 million pages of documents, the committee voted out the report in December on a mostly party line vote.
~snip~
In short, the report rebuts claims that torture worked and specifically the claim made by torture boosters from Dick Cheney to former Counterterrorism Center head Jose Rodriguez that it helped to find Osama bin Laden.
Accounts of the reports findings are not limited to whether torture worked. According to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., it shows the CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information about its interrogation program to the White House, the Justice Department, and Congress.
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)if he has sat on this report then he owns it.
PDJane
(10,103 posts)The US history taught in your schools and promoted to the public is one long myth.
The general feeling seems to be that if the truth were told, the American people would revolt. So you are taught a whitewashed version of history and protected from upset. It does a disservice to the people....and to the truth.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)How long was the 'residential school' crap an ongoing abuse of children and human rights? 1876-1996 Canada operated such schools. You know what they were. Canadian culture still likes to pretend none of that happened, even as you continue to divide the oil, gas and mineral rights among settlers....
PDJane
(10,103 posts)My son did learn about the residential schools in high school; I didn't until university. I also learned about mineral rights and the pollution of things like mining and paper mills in my teens, and my son was, again, taught in high school.
We still treat the First Nations peoples abominably, and have a slap from the UN to prove it. Idle no More is gaining public support, but the whole thing is unlikely to change until Harper is out of office. We have our own home-grown religious right neo-cons, and one managed to get into office.