Finally, some ‘change’!
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thabet
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thabet
Australia is the latest country to open a trial into the CIA’s ‘rendition’ (kidnapping) and torture of ‘terror suspects’ (which the Obama administration continues to cover-up). Scott Horton comments:
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shams
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thabet
We need a ‘like’ button on here.
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shams
then we must become One with the Faceborg.
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thabet
‘Islamic democrats’:
Turkey’s involvement in the controversial programme was revealed in a cable dated 8 June 2006, written by the then US ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson. The cable described Turkey as a crucial ally in the “global war on terror” and an important logistical base for the US-led war in Iraq.
“The Turkish military had allowed us to use Incirlik as a refuelling stop for Operation Fundamental Justice detainee movement operations since 2002, but revoked this permission in February of this year. We understand OSD [office of the secretary of defence] and JCS [joint chiefs of staff] have been discussing whether to approach Turkey to seek to reverse this decision,” the cable said.
“We recommend that you do not raise this issue with TGS [Turkish general staff] pending clarification from Washington on what approach state/OSD/JCS/NSC [national security council] wish to take.”
The cable contradicts statements made at the time by Turkish officials. On 14 June 2006, a spokesman for Turkey’s foreign ministry told reporters: “The Turkish government and state never played a part [in the secret transfers] … and never will.”
Turkey had just been named in a Council of Europe report among 14 European countries that colluded in or tolerated the covert transporting of prisoners.
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thabet
He Who Must Not Be Questioned really has no clothes:
Where Obama differs from Bush is that his renditions seem to be fewer and quieter. At least, we can infer they’re fewer because we aren’t hearing about them. It’s possible that he has rendered only a very small handful of people. On the other hand, Clinton rendered dozens of people so quietly that we heard almost nothing of them at the time, and we still know little about most of them. Another difference is that Obama shut down Bush’s black sites, so America has probably returned to the Clintonian practice of handing our captives to our Third World confederates more or less immediately. But it falls to future reporters and historians to discover whether Obama’s crimes against humanity are few or many, even if they don’t live up the impressive mark of his predecessor.
More change stuff here and here. (Incidentally the ruling discussed in the latter link reminds me of the wise words of David Hope.)
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thabet
Stark raving naked:
This is not new, of course. Here’s a detailed post from back in May by the Psychologists for Social Responsibility.
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thabet
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thabet
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thabet
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aziz
he blames Bush’s domestic policies, primarily economic and regulatory (lack thereof), not foreign policy or terror policy.
as far as afghanistan, he explicitly said he would send more troops than Bush had, which is what he has done. And he explicitly said he would wind down Iraq, which is what he is doing quite steadily.
coincidence that as troops in Iraq go down, theres been a “surge” in sectarian violence?
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thabet
More on New Labour’s involvement in Guantanamo, torture and ‘rendition’ (kidnapping):
Among the most damning documents are a series of interrogation reports from MI5 officers that betray their disregard for the suffering of a British resident whom they were questioning at a US airbase in Afghanistan. The documents also show that the officers were content to see the mistreatment continue.
The Graun has made the classified documents available on its website.
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thabet
Tony Blair supported Guantanamo Bay and blocked attempts by consular officials to help people kidnapped and incarcerated there:
The documents have emerged as part of a legal action by six men.
They claim the UK government, including MI5 and MI6, failed to stop their detention or were complicit in it.
The court has also heard claims that former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office frustrated attempts by consular officials to help a detainee who was facing transfer to Guantanamo, the US detention facility in Cuba.
Unsurprisingly David Cameron is no different, urging the six men not to pursue justice but go through ‘mediation talks’, using all the government’s might to get the courts to drop this case. Remember that next time you read some garbage about respecting the ‘rule of law’ from the new government too.
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thabet
Change!
Obama responded by siding with Israel, shielding it from direct condemnation by the UN Security Council. In doing so, analysts including Indyk said, Obama showed he embraces the core policy of predecessors Bill Clinton and George W. Bush: The U.S. will give Israel unwavering diplomatic and military support even as tensions test their relationship.
Change!
Change!
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shams
Get yer own damn change, limey boi.
Are you a fuckin’ cheerleader for America’s crazy ex-gf Israel dragging us ALL into nuclear war with Iran?
The world’s current horrorshows are largely due to souless rapacious British imperialism and colonialism.
Work in your own damn garden and quit meddling in ours.and……….goal!
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thabet
heh, why are you bringing up British imperialism and colonialism with me?
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thabet
Btw, one of the first things the new Lib-Con govt has ordered is an investigation into Britain’s complicity in the torture/rendition of terror suspects by the US. That’s actual change.
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aziz
you know, during teh campaign I predicted that there wouldnt be much meaningful foreign plicy change from Obama.
And “Change” was a slogan aimed squarely at the domestic scene. I know that its hip to hit Obama over the head with the word, but we in America dont elect dictators. They get appointe dby the Supremee Court! (ba dum dum)
seriously. Ninety percent of the change of Obama was a return to a limited Presidency with more (but not 100% – impossible) transparency and accountability. And then hes blamed for not doing things in an authoritarian fashion.
This is because our lefties are dumb, basically. Smarter than the righties, but dumbness grows while out of power and decreases while in power, so by the end of Obama’s second term I expect the situation to be well reversed.
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thabet
Actually, I agree about the “change” thing. It was obviously for domestic consumption.
I am mostly ribbing you Obama bots =) since I did not expect any great changes in US foreign policy either, other than an attempt at multilateralism and some general adherence to int’l norms.
However, the failure to do anything about foreigners kidnapped and tortured by the US (i.e. the US playing on other people’s “garden”) doesn’t look good at all. Why should they be denied redress and justice?
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aziz
they shouldnt. But I dont think its as easy as an executive order – the very gray nature of the whole internment thing means that its harder, not easier, to untangle.
Obama cant just wave his hands and make the prisoners disappear, short of doing it Soviet style.
The main issue is that the policy of detention has probably created threats out of these people who may not have been one before. This occured on Bush’s watch, but it is still Obama’s problem. He does have a responsibility to protect the US, and so bindly releasing everyone from Gitmo etc tomorrow would obvously be a dereliction of that duty.
Its not an easy problem to solve and I never believed it would be a oneyear process. I frankly beloieve that it will not happen until year 5. The political pressure must be taken into account after all.
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thabet
I am not even talking of releasing Gitmo prisoners.
I am talking of the Obama admin aggressively taking Bush talking points and doing its best to prevent people like Arar their day in court with the US authorities who kidnapped him and sent him off to be tortured. I am talking of the failure to bring anyone to account for torture. You talk of ‘Soviet style disappearance’: yet what about the global network of ‘black sites’ (yes with British support and complicity*)? Do we really know the extent of this? Do we know who was picked up? Shipped off? Tortured? ‘Disappeared’?
That’s before we even consider other situations where the US is “playing in other people’s gardens”. I mean, a leading US commander can say this:
“We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.”
and yet there is absolutely no outcry, no concern, no investigation…
Seriously, imagine if the Iranian regime had released such a statement. You don’t think HRC would have rushed to pass judgement?
*Yes, I want to see Jack Straw and Tony Blair brought to book too. More so than even Bush, et al. because these two did it in the supposed ‘defence’ of my country.
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thabet
Scott Horton and Chris Floyd with more on this.
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Abu Noor
Aziz, I don’t know if you do so out of ignorance or this misguided notion of what it means to be “serious” about security/foreign policy but it just does not square with the facts to argue that Obama is doing all he can but is hamstrung because he is not a dictator, blah blah blah. Did you read the opinion in the Odaini case? This is a man held for eight years at Guantanamo and it has been known by everyone since shortly after he arrived that there is no evidence against him. He has been cleared for release several times but was never released. The Obama administration did not even argue that we know he should be released but we can’t figure out how to do it, but they made comically ridiculous arguments in Federal Court that he is actually lawfully held. The Obama administration is engaging in absolute evil and once again I ask you if you would allow for yourself or one of your family members to be kidnapped and held captive and accept the argument that no we don’t have evidence to put them on trial but we are trying to figure out if they are a threat…and then if after years of this someone tries to argue like you that well, after we’ve held your family member hostage for eight years, they might now pose a security risk so we can’t release them…such arguments are absoutely immoral and evil and can only be sustained if one adopts the idea that these are standards that apply to “others” that are not “us” and they are for the protection of “us.”
Allaahul Musta’a'n.
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shams
what is Obama supposed to do here, Abu?
Challenge the judiciary?
Tell me what you would have Obama do, explicitly and legally. -
Abu Noor
In the specific case I referred to, the Obama Administration argued that they had the right to hold this brother despite the fact that it has been known for years that he is innocent. They should release him immediately, as they were planning to do before the Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab incident and which the Judge in the case ordered them to do. Of course, despite Aziz’s protestations that he is not a dictator, Presidents in the U.S. nowadays think they have a choice whether to obey court rulings or not.
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aziz
the Odaini case is a terrible one. The ultimate way to get him released is through a court order, because clealry the establishment at the USDOJ is determined to stay in CYA mode.
Again, you subscribe to the Obama dictator fallacy. Obama doesnt – and *shouldnt*, ever! – be able to simply call up DOJ and dictate cases.
Yes, the DOJ submitted a favorable brief in hte case. Travesty upon travesty! but this is the fiunction of the DOJ. It is not subject to Obama’s direct control.
However, Obama surely could have pressured DOJ to some extent, and he has not done that. This suggests to me that Obama continues to buy into the meme that he must appear “tough” on terror and therefore is playing it safe politically by not daring to contradict the DOJ on tehse cases. The two times he tried to overrule policy, a. in creating the federal prison for gitmos detainees, and b. in trying KSM in New York, he faced such intense pushback from both the GOP and *within his own DOJ* that he flipflopped fast enough to make John McCain blush.
Basically, Obama is a political coward when it comes to national defense. He’s a visionary on teh domestic front and wisely pushed hard for HIR, finreg, etc. It remains to be seen how much mettle he has for climate change. But on the defense front, he just wont put his political capital on the line.
I suppose the proper Obamabot thing to say would be to argue that by preserving political capital on teh foreign/natl defense side, he has it to spend o the domestic front. And I am sympathetic if that is indeed the strategy, because under Bush we were doubly wrong. This is half wrong, so an improvement of 100% at least.
Still, its disappointing. I think Obama fails to understand the limitations imposed by his lack of broad based courage. His Cairo speech is full of values he prolly genuinely believes, but his mistake is trying to have his visionary cake and eat it politically, too.
Bottom line is that the Right Thing takes political risk. Obama is not a risk taker.
I am rfoundly disappointed in prety much his entire rights/foreign sphere. But its still better than Bush. Which should tell you something about how bad it was!
pressure from teh left is key. you wont find me arguing , Abu Noor, that your critiques are harmful. I think the are critical. without them he might move further rightwards. Theres a lot of flex in teh center. too much.
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shams
Still, its disappointing. I think Obama fails to understand the limitations imposed by his lack of broad based courage.
it is not like that. Obama is the president of all americans, and he is only part of a triumvirate of political power. Like Rumi’s teaching story of Issa and the Secret Name, the will of the people must be respected, even if it destroys them in the end.
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shams
And yes, the VERY BEST thing to do is to pressure him.
Express your will.
That is how civil rights passed, even though the majority of americans preferred the status quo.
Your realized will gives Obama weapons.
But whinging about why doesn’t he do this, why doesn’t he do that is not helpful. -
Abu Noor
Shams, I do not whine “why doesn’t he do this or that” at all. A person who believed in the system or believed in Obama would do that. I know who Obama is, and he, like all people in power, deserve to be criticized for the evil they do. And it is especially important to do so to people who fall into the trap of looking up to, admiring, and supporting those who do evil, all of which is dangerous to their eternal souls.
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shams
my soul is safe, Abu.
Obama is not an evil doer, any more than Issa was when he gave the people the Secret Name in Jalaludin Rumi’s story.
He is a servant who serves at the will of the people.
Do you know the will of the people, ALL the people?
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shams
Ninety percent of the change of Obama was a return to a limited Presidency
NO!
The change is that we elected a black man and a public intellectual. THAT is why the teabaggers are having hissy fits.
Obama is HUGE as far as change goes….the earth moved! -
thabet
I agree his election was very important and symbolic for the US. I don’t deny that was a genuine shift for the US as a whole to make.
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aziz
sorry, i dont buy that. yes it was symbolic, but it wasnt the change he himself was advocatig. he ran from racial issues and symbolism during the campaign, and wisely, too.
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shams
Here’s your change aziz…..these people are going batshit insane.
They were complacent happy campers under Bush….now they are going cuckoo-bananas.
Old white racist america is feeling the change alright.
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thabet
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johnpi
shams and 
thabet are discussing. 
aziz is discussing. 
Abu Noor, and 1 other are discussing. 
good!
i approve this message.