StickWithANose

If anything, the political events that have unfolded over the past year should bring any rational person who roots for their favorite team in the “two party political game” to the point of questioning the utility of it all. It is true that elections have consequences, but it is equally true that there are only minimal differences between the jackass and the elephant. The education policies and reforms that I blog about provide ample evidence for this thesis. The roots of the policy reforms now advocated by Arne Duncan are much the same as those hawked by Rod Paige. However, this is not the only point of convergence. It is becoming increasingly clear that many of former President Bush’s most criminal policies are now the modis operandi of the Obama administration. From the WP:

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation…

During U.S. military commission hearings on his case, a judge found that Afghan interrogators threatened to kill Jawad and his family if he did not confess to playing a role in the attack. Jawad then admitted to participating in the attack, wrote the judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley…

In November, Henley found that the first set of statements were elicited through “physical intimidation and threats of death” and that Jawad’s fears “had not dissipated by the second confession.” He ruled that prosecutors could not use either of the confessions during military commission proceedings.

Despite Henley’s ruling, Hafetz said the Justice Department wants to use those very confessions to justify Jawad’s detention in the detainee’s lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle.