[Peace-discuss] Obama: secrecy and torture

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Wed 11 Feb 2009
	Shock Absorbers: Progressives Stunned by Obama Non-Surprises			
	WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD	

There is certainly a great deal of slack-jawed shock going around these days, 
especially in progressive circles, where pundits, commentators, analysts and 
kibitzers continually find themselves reeling from yet another "inexplicable" 
move by the Obama Administration to uphold the core principles of their 
predecessors: enriching the rich, extending the empire, and enhancing the 
authoritarian power of a thoroughly militarized state.

For example, Glenn Greenwald and Scott Horton at Harper's (among many others) 
are deeply shocked by Team Obama's draconian maneuvers to quash a court case 
based on clear, abundant and credible evidence that American security forces -- 
and their corporate accomplices -- colluded to inflict horrendous tortures on a 
gulag captive (whose only "crime," it turns out, was reading a satirical 
magazine article). While Horton struggles to find some small justification for 
what he sees as an unwise decision, Greenwald is scathing and detailed in 
denouncing Obama's action, in which the new president seeks to uphold -- and to 
seize for himself -- some of the most egregious claims of arbitrary, tyrannical 
power once advanced by George "Unitary Executive" Bush.

It is good to see these worthy gentlemen -- lawyers both -- give us chapter and 
verse on this act of evil, yet one still must ask: why all the surprise? From 
the beginning of his presidential campaign to this very day, Obama has always 
made it perfectly clear -- as another great unitary executive used to say -- 
that he has no intention whatsoever of dismantling the unbridled powers of the 
"imperial presidency." He has also made it clear that he would not prosecute 
Bush and other top government officials who created and supervised blatantly 
illegal systems of torture, warrantless surveillance and indefinite detention of 
kidnapped captives, including U.S. citizens, arbitrarily designated "enemy 
combatants" by -- who else? -- the unitary executive.

(Bush also had many people arbitrarily murdered; but although he openly bragged 
about this before Congress, on national television, this is a subject that is 
never, ever raised, anywhere, in any form, however meekly, in the American media 
and political establishments. Obviously this is a power which our elites believe 
a president should have, and use, at his own divine discretion. And now Obama 
can use it too -- but only for noble, progressive ends, of course. )

Since taking office, the torture question has been raised, meekly, with the new 
president now and again -- but curiously enough, only in the context of possible 
prosecutions of lower-ranking interrogators, those on the front line of the 
Bush-Cheney torture regimen. On this issue, Obama and his mouthpieces have made 
it clear that they don't believe government operatives should have to "look over 
their shoulders" while carrying out noble national security work ordered by 
their superiors. The president doesn't think it would be fruitful to pursue such 
cases -- even though his own attorney general has declared some of the practices 
used by Bush-Cheney operatives to be torture under U.S. law. Instead, Obama has 
adopted the "Nuremberg defense" for the Bush-Cheney torturers (who are, of 
course, Obama's torturers now): they were only "following orders," and so should 
not be punished. Strangely enough, this logic has never applied to, say, Nazi 
concentration camp guards -- even if they are as gorgeous as Kate Winslet. But 
for America's torturers, Hitlerite excuses are good enough.

Well, all right. Even though none of the Bush-Cheney torturers were forced to 
carry out these crimes -- all were volunteers, including the CIA agents, none 
were drafted or impressed into this service, and even those under military 
command were not obliged to obey criminal orders, and thus all of them should be 
held fully and legally responsible for their actions -- let us grant this 
pernicious argument for the moment. Let us say, with Obama, that the low-hanging 
fruit should be absolved of their crimes. We are still left with what the new 
administration itself says are clear acts of torture, committed at the order of 
the leadership of the previous administration. Why then should we not prosecute 
those who gave the criminal orders? Yet this consideration does not enter into 
the national "debate" at all. It is beyond the pale, relegated to the same limbo 
that cloaks other unmentionable matters -- such as Israel's nuclear arsenal, 
which Obama cravenly declined to comment upon in his recent press conference. 
The result of this little two-step dance -- forgive the grunts, ignore the 
bosses -- means that no one will be held responsible for clear acts of war 
crimes committed at the order of the United States government.


Instead of prosecuting the instigators of these capital crimes, Obama has 
praised the torturer-in-chief, Bush, for "his service to our country." He has 
retained the services of many Bush minions, including some who are in charge of 
the unconstitutional kangaroo court system of "military commissions" for 
tortured captives held in the American gulag. He has made a great show of 
"banning torture" -- the same kind of great show that Bush periodically made -- 
while continuing the practice of "harsh interrogation techniques" countenanced 
by the Pentagon: a series of layered "techniques" of physical torment and 
psychological persecution that are themselves a system of torture. And his 
designated CIA chief, Leon Panetta, has testified, under oath, that he will "not 
hesitate" to urge Obama to go beyond the Pentagon tortures if necessary, while 
also retaining the practice of kidnapping people and depositing them in the 
torture chambers of foreign countries without any charges or legal processes 
whatsoever.

So again, we ask: what is "shocking" in Obama's intervention to kill a torture 
case in both an American and a British court? By his own words and deeds, Obama 
has made clear that not only will he not prosecute his predecessors for their 
egregious abuse of power, he intends to retain full rights to use those abusive 
powers himself.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/