Ethics

The Story Behind Obama's Torture Ban

By Ed Brayton

One of the highly dishonest ways that many on the right frame the torture issue is to present it as weak-kneed liberals who care about the rights of bad guys vs realistic patriots from the military and intelligence community who know what it really takes to protect the nation. The New Yorker has a blog post that demolishes that frame and tells the history of how Obama's executive order banning torture came about as a result of a group of military officers approaching him about the need to do so. The article describes a meeting that took place between Obama and this group of officers in Iowa during the primaries:

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on January 29, 2009 (boomark / email).