Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us...er=rss&emc=rss
About 20th on the list of reasons why I voted for Obama: the Ds of the land need to see their leader using whatever tools are necessary to get the job done. When Bush did it they screamed bloody murder. Prosecute him, they screamed. What will they scream now?
And I always figured Obama's approach would change after he started getting the national intelligence reports. "Mr. President? Here is a list of the bad people out there, and here is what they want to do." "OK, let me change my underwear, and then let's do whatever we need to do to prevent this."
The ending of Guantanamo Bay as a resource for dealing with the assholes of the world makes rendition the only option. We can't take them to Cuba. We can't take them to the US. Fine, we'll take them to Egypt, and the public won't know a thing about it.
And if we get the wrong guy, well shit happens. And if Egypt tortures after they told us they wouldn't, well shit happens.
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I'm not that surprised by the Obama DoJ's action. I never expected, nor would I want, Obama to abandon all national security measures or make them all more transparent.
The two "safeguards" that are clearly articulated in Obama's EO on
Ensuring Lawful Interrogations of Detainees:
abide by US law and international treaty obligations and NOT by the Bush DoJ memo's interpretation of such
the creation of a Special Interagency Task Force on Interrogation and Transfer Policies that provides some level of oversight of the CIAs rendition activities
But then again, who oversees the overseers when it all remains classified.
To abandon some national security measures completely would be irresponsible....to provide oversight is nearly impossible...so there we are.
We're left with it being a matter of trust that they will be conducted legally until that trust is broken.