Executive Speechwriting: Corporate, Weddings, Retirement

Sunday, March 13, 2011

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigns: Obama Supports Humiliation of Inmates

Apparently, strangely, President Obama supports cruel treatment of military prisoners. Aware of the public outcry, and aware of the statements by P.J. Crowley of seeming abuse of soldier imprisoned on charges of leaking U.S. government documents posted on the WikiLeaks website:

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigns
[Pfc. Bradley] Manning was forced to sleep naked for several days under military rules intended to keep maximum-security prisoners who may be suicidal from injuring themselves. Manning's lawyers say he also had been made to stand at attention naked, and that there was no justification for his treatment in custody.

President Obama defended the Pentagon at a news conference Friday, when ABC television reporter Jake Tapper pressed him about Crowley's comments. Obama said he had been assured that Manning's treatment was "appropriate and was meeting our standards."
I'm not sure what to make of this. Amid controversial treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and the horrid abuse at  Abu Ghraib, plus concerns about waterboarding, I would have expected our president to take leadership against torture and humiliation, but, instead, he supports it as a standard of the US military.

Looks like this Commander in Chief is like the last Commander in Chief. The difference is, President Bush was direct about what he supported.

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters

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