The Obama Administration and torture accountability

by Jay McDonough

It's hard not to notice Barack Obama is taking some major heat these days.  The right, of course, is in a state of perpetual, almost comical, "the sky is falling" hysteria over the guy and now a good portion of the left is pissed at him as well: He wasn't involved enough in the health care reform debate (debacle?), he choose a bunch of big bank/Wall Street lackeys as his economic team, he's chosen to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

Some of the criticism from the left is, for me anyway, over the top and undeserved.  It's arguable how much some presidential strong arming would have changed the health care debate and the shock at his Afghanistan strategy is misplaced. Barack Obama has been advocating more U.S. military force in Afghanistan since 2003.  It's fair to argue with the policy, but suggesting Obama has sold out just means one wasn't paying attention before.

But there is an area of criticism that, as far as I'm concerned, is completely warranted; the Obama Administrations take on the detention and treatment of terror prisoners and their seeming commitment to protect the Bush Administration from, at best, embarrassment and, at worse, prosecution.

Sadly, there are lots of examples.  Just last week, the Obama Justice Department argued that Bush lawyer John Yoo should be provided immunity from any prosecution for giving the Bush folks the green light to pretty much do whatever they wanted to detainees.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court, at the urging of the Obama Justice Department, declined to review a lower court decision that prevented former detainees from suing Bush Administration Pentagon figures for torture and religious abuse.

The Obama Justice Department urged the court not to hear the appeal, claiming the lower court got it right when it determined, among other things, that Guantanamo detainees were not "persons" for purposes of American law and that "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military's detention of suspected enemy combatants."  (Link)

As if the notion that "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military's detention" isn't alarming enough, Dahlia Lithwick's essay at Slate proposes AG Holder's decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York trial will forever justify torture for Americans.  Lithwick argues that if there's anyone that Americans will feel deserves to get the holy shit kicked out of him, it's Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. 

While the Obama Administration has gone out of their way to talk the talk, they've sadly chosen not to walk the walk.

Comments

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I don't know... I've been trying to give Obama as much benefit of doubt as I could but I am over the edge and much like you... this torture issue was the last straw. It just drives home the point that no one in America should have allegiance to a party or a candidate but rather we should devote our loyalty to the bill of rights and the constitution. And any deviation from these two sacred ideals should be stopped. And the bottom line is... the US does not torture.

definition of torture