Is Obama following the George W Bush foreign policy?

While I have been extremely disappointed in Obama's economic policies, I have, so far, been pleased by much of his management of foreign affairs. Candidate Obama never presented himself as the most pacifist and isolationist of the Democratic field of candidates. He was much more centrist than Dennis Kucinich or Bill Richardson, yet he was very critical of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and promised a change. We have seen some real change and some superficial change and much of the same.

Some Republicans have criticized Obama’s recent making nice with Hugo Chavez. I don't. Reagan made nice with Gorbachev. Nixon made nice with Mao. FDR made nice with Joseph Stalin. There is nothing wrong with being diplomatic and friendly with your enemies. It may be beneficial to be on a first name basis with the bastards. Sometimes if is even necessary to ally ourselves with the most ruthless and despicable of people, as was the case in World War II. I am not so sure that Hitler was a lot worse than Joseph Stalin, but Germany was a threat and Russia was our ally and FDR had to make nice with Joseph Stalin. While Chavez may be irritating tin-horn dictator, he is hardly a Mao or Stalin.

Obama has also been criticized for changing our policy toward Cuba. Again, I think he is pursuing the correct policy and that our isolation of Cuba has been a mistake. I am glad to see us move toward normalization with that nation.

I am pleased that we are escalating the war in Afghanistan. I think Bush made a big mistake in going to go to war in Iraq and failing to pursue victory in Afghanistan. We cannot allow the Taliban to reestablish their rule in that country. I am pleased that we are pressuring and prevailing in persuading Pakistan to take a more aggressive role in suppressing the Taliban in that country. I am pleased that Obama has only tweaked the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and seems committed to exiting that conflict in an orderly fashion that will preserve the peace and stability and leave behind a sizable American presence. .

In the war on terror, which we no long call the “War on Terror,” Obama is essentially continuing the Bush policies. While Obama uses less bellicose language and does not have the cowboy swagger that irritated so many, there is very little to distinguish Obama from Bush. He sounds more moderate but his policies are the same. It was Teddy Roosevelt who said “talk softly and carry a big stick.” I am not displeased with the more moderate tone. I have mixed feelings about the continuation of some of Bush policies.

When Bush was president and prominent national conservatives formed the American Freedom Agenda, I cheered. I was concerned that the Federal Government was amassing unchecked power. I did not approve of the government claiming the authority for warrantless searches of Internet communications. I do not approve of torture. I did not approve of special rendition. I thought George W. Bush was exceeding his constitutional authority.

Many of the same policies that were continued or initiated by Bush are being continued under Obama. Special rendition is a policy that started in peace time under Bill Clinton. It is the practice of kidnapping suspected enemies and turning them over to other countries where they can be tortured. We are speaking of real torture not a gray area that may or may not constitute torture. By letting a third country do the dirty work we can claim to have clean hands and not have engaged in torture ourselves. George Bush expanded the rendition policy and Obama has not ended the practice.
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One Obama proposal that should concern all civil libertarians is the Cyber-security Act of 2009, which is essentially the same as Bush’s Total Information Awareness but under a new name. It would grant the government authority to monitor and mine Internet traffic for patterns that indicate links to terrorist activity. My concern is that such authority will be misused. This seems to violate the constitutions prohibition against an unreasonalble search. The same people that were outraged about Total Awareness are very quite about Cyber Security.

Obama was very critical of the bush administration policy regarding prisoners held at Guantanamo. I do not think the issue of what to do with irregular forces captured on the field of battle is an easy riddle to solve, however I do not think that we should hold indefinitely people who may be innocent. Recently, when the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that non-Afghan detainees at the US Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, captured outside Afghanistan, had the same due process rights that the Supreme Court last year gave to prisoners at Guantánamo, the Obama administration argued they did not. Bagram is a less high profile prison than Guantanamo but the issue regarding Bagram is exactly the same as Guantanamo and the position of the Obama administration is exactly the same as the position of the Bush administration.

In a recent article in the Washington Post, columnist Charles Krathamer pointed out that on policy after policy the Obama administration is continuing the policy of the Bush administration. “The latest flip-flop,” writes Krathamer. “is the restoration of military tribunals. During the 2008 campaign, Obama denounced them repeatedly, calling them an ‘enormous failure.’ Obama suspended them upon his swearing in. Now they're back.”

I admit I am conflicted. On the one hand, Obama’s policies seem to vindicate the policies of George W. Bush. I could conclude that George W. Bush was right all along and when faced with the enormous responsibility of keeping this country safe, that Obama came to a realization that the only prudent course to follow was that that was set by his predecessor. When one does not have the responsibility for our country’s security it is easy to snipe from the sidelines. Obama put aside partisanship and campaign promises and did the right thing.

On the other hand, I could conclude that Obama is an opportunist who did a complete flip-flop. He would say anything to get elected but he is a power hungry opportunist who cannot turn down the occasion to amass more power. I don’t know which view is correct.

What I cannot understand is how civil libertarians and pacifist of the left, who loathed George W. Bush, are letting Obama get by with continuing the same policies they professed to hate. If these policies were wrong when enacted by George W. Bush, are they still not wrong?

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Bill Clinton’s rendition to torture

Rendition is the practice of turning terrorist suspects over to countries, such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia, where they can be tortured. We are not talking about enhanced interrogation techniques with well-defined limits that might cross a fine line and be considered torture; we are talking about real, no-limits, brutal torture. By using rendition, the U.S. can have suspects tortured without having to worry about violating Constitutional due process.

Many people find this practice abhorrent. So do I. The U.S. should not be in the business of shipping people off to where torture is practiced. President George W. Bush has been criticized for allowing rendition. But, where were the Bush critics of rendition when it started? President Clinton began the practice, during peacetime. A February 2005, New Yorker article, Out Sourcing Torture, confirms this:

Not long ago, [former CIA counter-terrorism expert Michael] Scheuer, who lives in northern Virginia, spoke openly for the first time about how he and several other top C.I.A. officials set up the program [rendition], in the mid-nineties. “It was begun in desperation, ” he told me. At the time, he was the head of the C.I.A.’s Islamic-militant unit, whose job was to “detect, disrupt, and dismantle” terrorist operations. His unit spent much of 1996 studying how Al Qaeda operated; by the next year, Scheuer said, its mission was to try to capture bin Laden and his associates. He recalled, “We went to the White House” – which was then occupied by the Clinton Administration – “and they said, ‘Do it.’ ” He added that Richard Clarke, who was in charge of counter-terrorism for the National Security Council, offered no advice. “He told me, ‘Figure it out by yourselves,’ ” Scheuer said. [full article]

Liberals activist organizations are pressuring the Obama administration and Congress to investigate the Bush administrations use of torture and other aspects of the War on Terror. They would like nothing better than to indict Bush for war crimes. If Bush is guilty of war crimes; Clinton is guilty and Clinton’s war crimes occurred in a time of peace. If we are going to start investigating America’s past sins, don’t stop at Bush.

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Pelosie shocked to discover waterboarding

What??

You mean the CIA was waterbording people??

I can’t believe it!!!

Why did not someone tell me??

CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of 'Enhanced Interrogations'

By Paul Kane, Washington Post, May 7, 2009; 7:29 PM ET

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.

In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [full article]

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Regarding Torture

When I was younger, I saw the world in much more vivid contrasts of black and white; now, I see so much of the world in shades of gray. I almost wish for the innocents of youth and the purity of ideas that saw a lot more black and white. I try to remind my self that because there are a lot of shades of gray that that does not mean that there is not a black and white.

Torture is wrong. I do not condone torture. On the other hand, we must have more tools at our disposal than simply asking politely when trying to get information from the bad guys. Anything between asking politely and absolute brutality with disregard for human life is a shade of gray. We know that intelligence activity involves lying and betrayal and deception and getting our hands dirty. In our everyday life, we do not condone these things.

As I have thought about the issue of the CIA’s roll in the use of what is generally considered torture, I think that the CIA was trying to draw a fine line somewhere along the scale of gray. There were complex rules that stated how many times waterbording could be used in any one 24 hour period and in any one month, and how long each session could last. I understand there were even requirements for the temperature of the water and a requirement that a doctor be present.

Were all of the rules governing waterboarding sufficient to keep the use of this “enhanced interrogation techniques” from crossing the gray scale from light gray to dark gray? I don’t know.

It is worth keeping in mind, that the CIA was not operating in a vacuum. This was not just George W. Bush and Dick Cheney acting independently or the CIA going it alone. There was Congressional oversight. Top legislators knew of interrogations. The CIA briefed Democrats and Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees more than 30 times about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. Congress could have stopped it. Congress did not object or withold funding.

Among those who were briefed and tacitly approved the techniques were many of the same Democrates, including Nacy Pelosi, who now want to prosecute George W. Bush. We should keep in mind, that these techniques occurred in the aftermath of 9/11 when everyone thought that another attack was eminent. If I would I have been one of the congressmen who sat in on the CIA briefing, would I have objected and publicly condemned it? I don’t think I would have. Maybe later I would regretted that I did not, but at the time, I would have probably acted no differently than the congressmen who sat in on those briefings. If Bush is prosecuted for approving the use of torture, so should Nancy Pelosi and every congressman who acquiesced and did not publicly object and try to stop it at the time. That is all of them.

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Restoring my faith in America

Senate Panel Condemns Torture, Blames Rumsfeld

Last week, The Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report that blames Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush Administration officials for torturing suspected terrorists at Guantanamo and the detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The 25-member Senate panel, without one dissent among the 12 Republican members, unanimously approved the resolution.

The Committee Reported: "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

The Bush Administration had insisted the torture of prisoners in the war on terror was the fault of a "few bad apples," and that the U.S did not engage in torture. At the same time however, Bush defended harsh interrogation techniques and redefined what had generally been considered torture as not constituting torture.

The controversial interrogation practices condemned in the report including forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and the use of dogs. "These policies are wrong and must never be repeated," Senator John McCain said in a statement.

The United States has long been on record as opposing torture. Numerous laws, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and various treaties clearly prohibit it. The US was instrumental in drafting the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which bans all forms of torture. In 1990 Congress ratified the UN’s Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. We have had a record of which we could be proud.

With the start of the war in Iraq, the United States began redefining and equivocating on US policies that prohibit torture. Waterbording which had long been considered torture was redefined as not being torture. In 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of 24 specific interrogation techniques for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In court filings, FBI agents reported that detainees at Guantanamo Bay were chained in a fetal position to the floor for up to 18 hours without breaks and had to lay in their own waste, were subjected to extremes of temperature, were gagged, held in stress positions while shackled, and subjected to loud music and flashing lights. Senior administration officials denied that these techniques were torture.

In 2004 the Abu Ghraib story broke and told of sadistic humiliation of prisoners and accounts of abuse, torture, sodomy and even the death of prisoners while being interrogated. Some military personnel were punished for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but it became clear that Abu Ghraib was not simply a case of an isolated incident of individuals violating established rules but a case of there being a climate that tolerated, condoned, or ignored torture.

In 2005 in response to the outcry over the Abu Ghraib scandal, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act which banned all cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and required that all military interrogations comply with the Army Field Manual. From 2006 to 2008, in military appropriation bills and other legislation, Congress further defined and outlawed torture.
In 2006 the military issued updated field manuals and reiterated that "no person in the custody or under the control of DOD, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with and as defined in US law." Specific techniques which were listed as prohibited including waterbording and many of the techniques used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Torture should not be practiced by the United States. Torture is counterproductive. It elicits false confessions and it turns the people we are trying to help against us. Abu Ghriab was a recruiting opportunity for Al Qaeda in Iraq. By the U.S. actions at Abu Ghriab we created our own enemies. After seeing the pictures from Abu Ghriab, I can understand how a neutral Iraqi would join the forces fighting the United States.

Torture is not only wrong because it is a counterproductive means of interrogation and wrong because it turns people against us. It is simply wrong. It violates standards of human decency.

I am not naïve. We live in a mean, harsh world. I don’t believe in turning the other cheek. I accept that innocent people die in battle. I accept that under the pressure of war people do things they would not normally do. I am not a pacifist, nor do I believe that if we are only nice enough our enemies will learn to love us. However, we must treat people with basic human dignity. To commit acts of cruelty and torture robs us of our own humanity. It makes us no better than our enemies.

I do not want America to be the kind of nation that tortures people. That is not who we are. That is not the United States that I know and love. I want to be proud of the United States of America and proud of our men and women in uniform. In the past, Americans could say with a clear conscious that American does not condone torture. We could say it is not American policy to treat people inhumanly. However, for a while, we could not say that.

President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld brought shame upon our county. I am glad that the US Congress and the military have put the U.S. back on record as unequivocally not engaging in torture and cruelty. My faith in my country is being restored.

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U.N. says waterboarding should be prosecuted as torture

Fri Feb 8, 2008 11:04pm GMT
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding and used by the United States qualifies as torture, the U.N. human rights chief said on Friday.

"I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, told a news conference in Mexico City. (To continue: UN says... )

Comment: The United States should not be an outlaw nation. We should stop denying that waterboarding is torture, we should disavow the practice, and we should declare that from now on the United States will not engage in the practice. We should also declare that we will not practice torture by proxy by sending prisoner to friendly countries so they can be tortured. John McCain has unequivocally called the practice of waterboarding torture. I assume the Democratic nominees for President also condemn the practice. Whoever is the next President will likely prohibit it. President Bush should act now and not wait until the next election to restore America's honor.

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Torture? For God's Sake, Shout "al-Libi" from the Rooftops and End the Debate

by Don Williams, truth-to-power
Thursday, 09 August 2007
(I am reprinting in its entirety this recent blog entry from my brother Don Williams. I agree and can not say it better. Torture is not only morally reprehensible;it does not work. rod)

Is there no lesson to be learned from how we based the war in Iraq on lies told by a tortured man....If you're undecided about the use of torture, research the name Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi.If you already oppose torture, then shout this name from the rooftop until everyone knows it:Al-Libi. Al-Libi. Al-Libi.

It isn't hard to say, so we all should speak it and write it--to our representatives, our media, our neighbors. This name should be the end of the debate on torture, for al-Libi is living proof that torture and other degrading practices backfire so badly they've led to maybe the worst foreign policy blunder ever made by this country. George W. Bush and company bombed and invaded Iraq based in large part on lies told under extreme duress by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. Why are opponents of torture and kidnapping so slow to make this point?

Sometimes I think I must be crazy, because even people who question, criticize and publicly oppose torture are slow to bring al-Libi into the debate. Can someone tell me why?For instance, a new article by Jane Mayer in last week's New Yorker offers lots of insight into "The Black Sites," places where suspected terrorists are routinely held, questioned and tortured.I heard Mayer earlier this week on PBS's "Fresh Air" program discussing how 90 percent of the information from tortured prisoners has proven unreliable. Nary a word was mentioned, however, about how just how badly torture backfired in the case of al-Libi.

Why are Congressmen and others so slow to invoke al-Libi's name? Is it because they were taken in by his lies and would rather gloss over that sad fact of history than to make it part of their argument against the President's torture policies? Is it because they've become fearful of being called disloyal or soft on terrorism? Whatever fig leaf they're hiding behind, the record is clear that al-Libi was under custody of U.S. secret forces in 2001 when the CIA blindfolded him, duct-taped him, loaded him onto an airplane, told him they planned to rape his mother while he was away, then flew him off to Egypt. Interrogators in a secret hell-hole prison there asked al-Libi none too gently to “admit” that Saddam Hussein was teaching al-Qaeda to make chemical and biological weapons.

According to articles in The New Yorker , The New York Times, Newsweek and others, Al-Libi gave them what they wanted. Later he recanted, and said he told the lies to end the pain of torture. A Republican dominated Senate Intelligence committee long ago confirmed that no formal ties existed between Saddam and al-Qaeda, and further reported that, far from working together to attack U.S. interests, Saddam and bin Laden regarded each other as enemies. Still, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and others in “the Iraq group”--a team set up inside the White House in 2002 to sell America on the idea of invading Iraq--made al-Libi's lies a centerpiece of their case.

Just how aware Bush was that he based his war on a pack of lies should long ago have been exposed. In February, 2003, Colin Powell repeated al-Libi's torture-induced lies to the United Nations. Maybe that's why a repentant Powell later said we risk losing the moral high ground in our so-called war on terror. Hundreds of thousands have died in Iraq at least in part as a result of lies our government forced al-Libi to tell. Now we're stuck In Iraq like a wasp in a spider web. We've blown hundreds of billions of dollars that might've done much good. Yes, many loudly parrot unproven claims based on “classified information” that we've disrupted terrorist plots through use of “aggressive interrogation techniques.” Some even point to the Battle of Algiers, in the late 1950s, which France was loosing badly until it employed torture, mass bombing and other counter-terrorism techniques. What proponents of such a model often leave out is how a disgusted and angry populace rose up across Algeria and turned their French leash-holders out of the country by 1962.

In simple human terms, what the French failed to do, and what Bush long ago forgot, is to honor the logic and moral force behind the Golden Rule. When you think about it, that simple rule, “Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you,” is at the heart of the Geneva Accords. They honor standards of prisoner treatment that take into account how we'd want our own troops to be treated if captured by the enemy. So, unless you want torture to become and remain the law of the land, you'd best plan on spending lots of time telling anyone who'll listen—maybe your congressmen, senators, media and more—that there's a price to pay for Congress's public support for Bush's plans for continued torture and unlawful imprisonment. It could be your neighbor's son or daughter who gets captured in the next war. For God's sake, remind them of "al-Libi."

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