Ominous signs on Obama torture policy
as published on www.americantorture.com 17 November 2008, 03:11PM
With Obama's win comes great promise on the anti-torture front. According to Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs the select Appropriations subcommittee that recommends intelligence funding:
While an executive order will not remove the need for legislation on the issue, it is a way for President-elect Obama to put an immediate halt to our government’s use of torture during interrogations and to prevent secret detentions. By exercising his authority and acting quickly, he will begin to restore our moral leadership on the issue and repair some of the harm that has been done to our international reputation.
Will Obama follow through on his August 2007 pledge to "close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions"? As post election euphoria fades, a picture has slowly emerged of what Obama's policies on torture will likely be. In a word: troubling.
Early warning signs came from AP reportage of plans for new, unneccesary "terror courts" and a NYT piece on "preventive detention of terrorism suspects". More ominous news came from the Wall Street Journal. According to a “current government official familiar with the transition" interviewed by that paper, "Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.”
Will Obama take the "centrist" approach and yield to more conservative factions demanding continuity of the torture regime? The speculative WSJ article, noted Glen Greenwald, is not "evidence of what Obama will do, but it is definitely compelling evidence that people close to him -- those whom he has chosen to be influential -- are pushing him in that direction."
Chief among these pushers are John Brennan-- former aide to CIA Director George Tenet, Obama's transition chief for intelligence policy, and the leading candidate to replace Mike McConnell as Obama's Director of National Intelligence. Jane Mayer last year labelled Brennan a "supporter" of "the CIA’s interrogation and detention program". Today Greenwald put Lexis-Nexis to good use and dug up the following views of Brennan on rendition and torture:
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, 5 December 2005:
MARGARET WARNER: So was Secretary Rice correct today when she called [rendition] a vital tool in combating terrorism? JOHN BRENNAN: I think it's an absolutely vital tool. I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition that the U.S. Government has been involved in. And I can say without a doubt that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives.
CBS News:
CBS NEWS: Despite [torture, rendition victim Maher] Arar's experience, this former counterterrorism official says "rendition" does have its place. Mr. JOHN BRENNAN (CBS News Terrorism Analyst, Former Director, National Counterterrorism Center): I think it allows us to have the option to move a person who is involved in terrorism or terrorism-related activities to a country where they can be effectively questioned or prosecuted.
CBS News, Novemeber 2007:
Mr. BRENNAN: Well, the CIA has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since 9/11, and about a third of them have been subjected to what the CIA refers to as enhanced interrogation tactics, and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures. SMITH: Right. And you say some of this has born fruit. Mr. BRENNAN: There have been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hard-core terrorists. It has saved lives. And let's not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the deaths of 3,000 innocents.
Given his history, it is likely Brennan will advise Obama to "stay the course" on torture-- publicly swear off its use, perhaps allow limited investigations into Bush torture policy, but ALSO allow for the CIA to continue to kidnap and use "enhanced" torture behind closed doors when the "need arises". Will Obama follow this path?
Amy Goodman is among the deafening chorus who hopes he does not. In her most recent column, she linked torture to its dark roots in US history and highlighted the deep significance of repudiating torture today. She concludes:
The executive orders he issues will set the tone of his presidency and could usher in a new era. Human-rights groups are calling for the closing of the Guantanamo prison camp and CIA “black sites,” where torture has been commonplace. Which brings us back to slavery. When Frederick Douglass, the renowned abolitionist, was young, he was enslaved on a plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore, called Mount Misery, owned by Edward Covey, a notorious “slave breaker.” There, physical and psychological torture were standard. That property, today, is owned by Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense who was one of the key architects of the U.S. military's program of torture and detention. With the stroke of a pen on Inauguration Day, President Obama could outlaw torture. It would be a tribute to those slaves who built his new home, the White House, a tribute to those slaves who built the U.S. Capitol Building, a tribute to those who were tortured at Mount Misery.
About the Author
Michael Otterman is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney and author of critically acclaimed American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (Pluto 2007). As a freelance journalist, he has covered crime and culture for an array of publications including New Matilda, Crikey!, Melbourne's Is Not magazine, the Sydney City Hub newspaper and Boston’s Weekly Dig. His website is www.americantorture.com.
This blog entry was created by Mike and does not necessarily represent the position or opinion of Amnesty International Australia.
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Jon Kamps
24 November 2008, 08:56PM
Well, I hear Obama is anti-torture. I sure as hell hope he is. McCain origionally was. I hope Obama delves deeply into the allegations of torture of suspects and he sticks it to those guilty of mis-treatment! I am still worried about his speach on creating a “National Defense Force” as well funded as the military. Obama, hate to break it to ya, we have a national guard and we already have police agencies and sheriff’s agencys through out the US. We don’t need armed “neo-brownshirts” made up of your supporters!
Jon Kamps
24 November 2008, 05:04PM
If they have no qualms torturing our enemies, they have no qualms torturing citizens they feel are their eneimies. Who are they?-the individuals in our government who think they rule over the US citizenry. Obama probably will target conservative Americans with his “national defense force” for torture. It is incrediblethat our gov.feels that “torture has a place in interogations.” What torture yields is never varifiable information. If torture does yield good info, it would only be a snippet of the amount of good info that could have been aquired by other means which much greater efficiency, in shorter time, and without stooping to the cowardess of torture! I am not suprised that Obama is as much pro-torture as our last regime! They are one and the same. Both political parties are corupt, cowardly, and no longer working for the freedom of the world. We need to re-install a true democratic government!
Frank Lee Speaking
18 November 2008, 08:10AM
The moral failure of the US is the paramount issue here. The standing of the US in the world community has plummeted due to its illegal actions in recent times. The US is supposed to be setting an example, not duplicating the Nazi regime that ruled in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.
The US has lost the battle for hearts and minds in the middle east and Asia through its self-serving foreign policies that will only lead to an increased risk of terrorist attacks on US interests world wide.
Let us hope that Obama will be able to take the US in a new positive direction so that the US will uphold international law, rather than breaching it.
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