Obama Administration Failed This One

Sometime before the election, I asked a friend what he was doing about Obama's campaign. His answer caught me up short: "I'm preparing myself for the first time he disappoints." It struck me as an odd answer -- but today, I know how he feels. Because today, the Obama administration took a firm stand ... in FAVOR of torture.

I knew Obama would be a centrist. I knew there would be some policies I would not agree with. I knew that his very personae was focused on bi-partisanship and consensus. Even so, I thought that the one thing I could absolutely count on was that he would stop the state-sponsored torture. Apparently, I was wrong.

For anyone who may have missed it, the basics are simple: Five men have sued a subsidiary of Boeing, claiming that Boeing and its subsidiary knowingly participated in the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. The details are gruesome, and there seems little doubt that the Boeing people knew what was going on.

The Bush administration asked that the suit be thrown out, using as their reason the all-purpose "state secret" argument. When a lower court did just that, the men appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court. That court today asked the Obama administration what their stance on the question was, and the Obama attorney said that their position was exactly the same as the Bush administration. In other words, given the opportunity to allow the suit to proceed and to expose the extraordinary rendition program to the light of day, the Obama DOJ stood up for secrecy and the continuation of torture.

The ACLU's exec director, Anthony Romero, tells it straight:

"Eric Holder's Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same. Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long and arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again."

There is simply no excuse for this that I can see at the present time. (And yes, I'm using that convoluted syntax because I desperately hope that this is a tactical act, as some have suggested, that will be reversed at some time in the future.) This president said in no uncertain terms that the United States would stop using torture. Perhaps some can twist their morality around the escape clause that says that extraordinary rendition isn't US torture because the torture is actually done by others ... but I can't. Our people captured these men, our planes flew them to the other countries, and we knew all along what was going to happen.

I intend to visit the White House web site and make my feelings known, very loudly. I urge anyone reading this to do the same. We simply have to let this administration know:  maintaining the practice of torture, and using the "state secrets" policy to cover it up, is not "Change We Can Believe In."

Instead, it looks to me like Evil We Thought We Got Rid Of.

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More info --

-- ABC News story

-- ACLU press release

-- Glenn Greenwald at Salon:"Obama fails his first test on civil liberties and accountability -- resoundingly and disgracefully."

-- DailyKos diary with many more details and links, including background on the case

Comments

[Samuel]

I wish I had the forethought of your friend. When this and related issues happened I felt a great sense of loss, sadness, even betrayal, and finally anger. It is a well written piece, Bruce.

[Bruce]

Thanks -- it wasn't enjoyable to write, but it's a topic I'm passionate about. I keep hoping that Obama and his people will actually live up to their rhetoric on this. We'll keep pushing.