[Peace-discuss] More Obama misepresentations

[C. G. Estabrook]

...Obama certainly didn't mind fudging when it came to human rights at home:

   "Finally, we must draw on the strength of our values – for the challenges 
that we face may have changed, but the things that we believe in must not. That 
is why we must promote our values by living them at home – which is why I have 
prohibited torture and will close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. And we must make 
it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark 
cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights, 
and tend to the light of freedom, and justice, and opportunity, and respect for 
the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are. That is the moral source of 
America’s authority."

We've heard this before, and after adopting a policy of indefinite detention, 
suppressing evidence of torture, feeding amendments that would expand PATRIOT 
Act powers through his political enemies, and embracing a hybrid legal system 
for suspected terrorists based on the strength of the government's case rather 
than the nature of the crime, it's just impossible to believe. Maybe Obama 
wasn't being dishonest by avoiding making human rights in Afghanistan part of 
his pitch -- but he certainly didn't have any problem being dishonest about his 
commitment to human rights at home -- which does not begin and end with 
outlawing torture and closing Guantanamo Bay. Tell Mohammed Jawad he wasn't 
living under a "dark cloud of tyranny" for the eight years he spent in Gitmo 
without charge...  --A. Serwer