Me - FRACKING HYPOCRITES!!!
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Jonah Goldberg says: "I await the outrage. Oh, and for the record, this does sound quite outrageous given that the accused is, at worst, a white-collar criminal.
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In Case You Missed It ...
Greg Pollowitz
NRO's Media blog
There was a great article in the Los Angeles Times on President Obama's first use of rendition (and torture?). Not for a terrorist, but for a Lebanese man accused of bribery.
An excerpt:
<<< A Lebanese citizen being held in a detention center here was hooded, stripped naked for photographs and bundled onto an executive jet by FBI agents in Afghanistan in April, making him the first known target of a rendition during the Obama administration.
Unlike terrorism suspects who were secretly snatched by the CIA and harshly interrogated and imprisoned overseas during the George W. Bush administration, Raymond Azar was flown to this Washington suburb for a case involving inflated invoices.
Azar, 45, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to commit bribery, the only charge against him. He faces a maximum of five years in prison, but a sentence of 2 1/2 years or less is likely under federal guidelines.
Defense lawyers and prosecutors declined to comment on the case Friday.
But Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counter-terrorism director at Human Rights Watch, called the case "bizarre."
"He was treated like a high-security! terrorist instead of someone accused of a relatively minor white-collar crime," she said.
Justice Department lawyers have denied any misconduct in the case.
"The FBI followed standard operating procedures when transporting prisoners to the United States," Gina Talamona, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said Friday. She said restraints "were used with the sole purpose of ensuring the safety of the defendants and the agents."
As the Obama administration steps up efforts to curb fraud at military facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Army official said Azar's case "should serve as a warning" to other contractors.
In court papers, Azar said he was denied his eyeglasses, not given food for 30 hours and put in a freezing room after his arrest by "more than 10 men wearing flak jackets and carrying military style assault rifles."
Azar also said he was shackled and forced to wear a blindfold, dark hood and earphones for! up to 18 hours on a Gulfstream V jet that flew him from Bagra! m air base, outside Kabul, to Virginia.
Before the hood was put on, he said, one of his captors waved a photo of Azar's wife and four children and warned Azar that he would "never see them again" unless he confessed. >>>
If this last charge is accurate, then this meets the definition of torture used by the Left. Will Eric Holder and the likes of Andrew Sullivan call for an investigation of Obama's administration for this heinous crime? I'm not sure why the pictures Sullivan has posted of terrorists strapped naked and blindfolded to a board are any different than Obama's embezzler strapped naked and blindfolded to a board, other than the obvious that the guy in the Bush example is, you know, a killer.
media.nationalreview.com |
