Jeremy Scahill, award-winning investigative journalist and author of the bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, recently wrote an article for AlterNet.org about the "Immediate Reaction Force," a sort of thug squad or riot squad that is currently deployed at Guantánamo Bay. The Immediate Reaction Force employs horrific torture and abuse methods to use on prisoners who attempt to resist restraint. The squad uses waterboarding, uses human waste and chemicals, gagging and hogtying, putting tubes down the nostrils, and several other agressive tactics that have been known to permanently harm detainees.
On Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman interviews Scahill, who calls out Obama on "cosmetic changes" and rhetoric.
Additionally, Scahill also published another article on RebelReports.com about another scandal: today Bill Clinton might be named the U.N. envoy to Haiti. The Washington Post has coverage from Reuters quoting U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying that Clinton could help stabilize Haiti. Scahill writes that such a move "would be humorous for its irony if the reality—and Clinton’s history in Haiti—wasn’t so deadly serious. The fact is that, as U.S. president, Clinton’s policies helped systematically destabilize Haiti." Amy Goodman talks with Scahill about this article as well, and Scahill says that the U.N.'s choice to name Clinton is "grotesque" and that he believes anyone who strives for justice and peace in Haiti "should rise up" to say Clinton has no business there.
I'll have to talk to my dad about this later tonight, and I'll try to update the post when I do. In other news, Obama may have been inspired by Star Trek as a child to invest in politics...I love what he says he's learned from the Republican Party during the past 115 days: "Right now they're sort of trapped in the pattern of having to appeal to the most ideologically pure wing of their party as opposed to thinking a little bit more practically."
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