Obama Targets Iran for Human Rights Violations and Shields Bush Officials for Engaging in Same Abuses

Jason Leopold @ Truthout - This week, in a burst of stunning hypocrisy, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that imposes sanctions on Iran for human rights abuses and targets eight Iranian government and military officials who are blamed for the torture, abuse and murder of citizens who protested Iran’s 2009 presidential election.

“The United States is strongly committed to the promotion of human rights around the world, including in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the White House said in an accompanying news release. “As the President noted in his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, human rights are a matter of moral and pragmatic necessity for the United States.”

A State Department fact sheet added, “protesters [in Iran] were detained without formal charges brought against them and during this detention detainees were subjected to beatings, solitary confinement, and a denial of due process rights at the hands of intelligence officers under the direction of [Iran’s then-Minister of Military Intelligence Qolam] Mohseni-Ejei.

“In addition, political figures were coerced into making false confessions under unbearable interrogations, which included torture, abuse, blackmail, and the threatening of family members,” the State Department said.

Yet, President Obama has taken no action against US officials who under the direction of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld imprisoned without charge “war on terror” detainees at secret black sites and at Guantanamo Bay.

These prisoners also were subjected to beatings, solitary confinement and a denial of due process. They, too, were coerced into making false confessions under unbearable interrogations, which included torture, abuse, blackmail, and the threatening of family members. Read more.