The Black Commentator - August 16, 2007 - Issue 242: "The conversation around whether Illinois Senator, Barack Obama was “black enough” to be considered a “black president,” reached a crescendo last week at the National Association of Black Journalist national convention. The question that has dogged this presidential election’s “black” (and most exciting) candidate for months had its origins in the black press. Obama finally had the chance to confront the source, but only after convention delegates decided to apply the same question to New York Senator, Hilary Clinton, that day before Obama’s appearance. No other candidate, to date, had been confronted with such a question. Richardson hasn’t been asked is he Hispanic enough, though many Latinos were hardly aware of his candidacy before recent efforts to publicize it, due to Richardson non-Latin surname. Nobody has used campaign time to ask Rudy Guiliani if he’s Italian enough, or Mitt Romney if he’s Mormon enough (though some have asked if he’s “too Mormon'). And of course, nobody has asked Hilary if she’s woman enough, despite obvious attempts to soften up her image. It’s Obama who has had to try to justify his presence among Blacks and Whites, as he has sought to define himself outside the preacher/politician construct of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton."
Evidence of torture used in Iraq | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics : "The Foreign Office says the 'government, including its intelligence and security agencies, never use torture for any purpose' ( MI5 and MI6 to be sued for first time over torture, September 12). The evidence in the public domain from the court martial into the death of Baha Mousa and the serious abuse of 10 other Iraqi civilians is clear in establishing this is not true. UK armed forces went into Iraq with a written policy that allowed hooding, and with a policy of training interrogators to use hooding, stressing and sleep deprivation to gain intelligence. Iraqi civilians were routinely hooded in up to three sandbags - and even old plastic cement bags. When Baha Mousa died in September 2003, partly as a result of abuse while hooded, common sense dictates that at least at that point those in positions of responsibility within the civil service and military would have acted to change the poli...
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