A leading British newspaper recently published an interview with a former US General, disclosing that the Obama administration in US is seeking to suppress nearly 2000 photographs showing brutal rape, sodomy and the most depraved kind of sexual abuse by US soldiers on prisoners in Iraqi and Afghan prisons.

Obama is reported to have justified the suppression of these photographs with the claim that “the most direct consequence of releasing them...would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.” He has tried to dismiss this incriminating evidence by describing it as the work of a few errant soldiers against whom he claims "appropriate action" has been taken, thereby trying to cover up the fact that this kind of torture is part of the US administration's official policy. It is also reported that with intense pressure from top US army generals and officials of the Bush administration, including the former Vice President Dick Cheney, Obama has promised that he would block any investigation of the previous administration’s carefully crafted and controlled torture policies. Obama also reversed an earlier decision to not appeal against a judge’s ruling in response to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) freedom of information lawsuit launched in 2004, which demanded the release of dozens of the torture photos.

Legal memos and other documents recently released by the US Justice Department are reported to reveal that various forms of torture and humiliation have been approved by top White House and US Congress officials. A US Senate Armed Services Committee report issued in April 2009 reveals that Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary in the Bush regime, personally approved 15 “harsh interrogation” methods.

It has also come to light that Obama has chosen a notorious war criminal and psychopath, General McChrystal, to head the US and NATO military command in Afghanistan. McChrystal, who directed the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations (JSO) Command between September 2003 and August 2008, has earned notoreity for his role in directing special operations teams engaged in extra judicial assassinations, systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and search and destroy missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This clearly shows once again the utterly criminal nature of the US imperialists' war of aggression and occupation of Iraq (2003) and Afghanistan (2001). It confirms once more, what freedom loving people all over the world have unequivocally condemned, that the US wars of aggression and occupation, sought to be justified by the slogan of "war against terror", have only one real aim – to establish US imperialist control over strategically important regions of the world and to crush any resistance to its imperialist designs, through the most barbaric forms of violence and terror. The above facts also wipe out any illusions that were sought to be created by the imperialist bourgeoisie, that Obama coming to the head of the US administration would mean a reversal of the some of the worst features of the Bush regime. US imperialism has not changed its nature; it remains the most bloodthirsty imperialist power in the world, which will not hesitate to commit the worst crimes against humanity in pursuit of its imperialist aims. It remains the biggest threat to the independence and sovereignty of nations and peoples all over the world.