No, it hasn’t. The CIA didn’t do this under Clinton because it’s a war crime, and Cold War Republicans prided themselves on saying we were better than e.g. the Viet Cong. The Bush cadre broke the U.S. law written just a few years before by their own party[1] by adopting techniques American forces were trained could be used against them if they were captured, not things which were previously sanctioned.
Obama’s greatest moral failing was not having war crimes trials. There is a direct line between the Bush-era embrace of torture abroad and the mistreatment we’re now seeing domestically.
Out of curiosity, do you know if these events get taught in history lessons in American schools? I'm by no means throwing shade here - I'm a Brit and our history lessons barely mentioned the unending list of atrocities Britain committed in the name of empire.
Yepper. Trail of Tears, German/Japanese internment are all primary education topics. Now interestingly, I don't think Bush has made it into the history books yet, but I don't have kids, so can't verify current day education materials.
What I find interesting is the bits we leave out. Like we touch on the Banana Republics, but the annex of Hawaii and how that was skulduggerously done is completely skimmed over.
There was, in fact, but the proportion of German (and Italian, also) nationals and citizens of German (and Italian) descent interned was far lower compared to the population of such foreign nationals and citizens than was the case for Japanese nationals and citizens of Japanese descent.
> White people got a pass.
Relatively speaking, yes, but there still were internments, including of US citizens based on German and Italian descent. (But with more individualized review before internment or eviction from coastal areas than was true of citizens of Japanese descent.)
A bit, but it varies some by state and most skip at least some things (do any cover labor struggles in the early 20th century?)
Ours stopped after (an extremely cursory coverage of) the ‘50s and ‘60 civil rights movement because there was no way to cover Vietnam and Nixon and such basically at all without greatly upsetting Republican parents. Anything newer than ~30 years (at the time) was treated as about as handsome-off as religion. Dunno if that’s changed.
