Miley cyrus porsche February 3, 2009
Posted by sophoristicallyspeaking in : Uncategorized , trackbackThe L.A. Times, Obama & renditions
(updated below - Update II)
Other commitments prevented me from writing today (in particular, I finalized the proposal and outline for my next book, an event that prompts great joyousness). But numerous people have emailed all day, and otherwise expressed concern, about this Los Angeles Times article from yesterday that claims — citing anonymous “current and former U.S. intelligence officials” — that the Obama administration has preserved and continued the Bush administration’s “rendition” program that created so much (justifiable) outrage around the world.
The L.A. Times article is wildly exaggerated and plainly inaccurate. Harper’s Scott Horton and The Washington Monthly’s Hilzoy have typically thorough explanations as to why that is the case. Anyone with any doubts should read both of their commentaries. Suffice to say, the objections to the Bush “extraordinary rendition” program were that “rendered” individuals were abducted and then either (a) sent to countries where they would likely be tortured and/or (b) disappeared into secret U.S. camps (”black sites”) or sent to Guantanamo and accorded no legal process of any kind. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Obama will continue any of that and, as Hilzoy documents, there is ample basis to believe he will not. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time today to dissect the Times‘ claims in detail, but Horton and Hilzoy both say virtually everything that should be said on the topic.
I do, though, want to add two brief points:
First, it is very important to keep in mind that there are numerous factions with a very compelling interest in claiming that the Obama administration is preserving and continuing the most extreme Bush ”counter-terrorism” policies, regardless of whether or not it’s true:
(1) Bush followers eager to claim that their leader has been vindicated because Obama is replicating his policies;
(2) People who have long argued that there is no difference between the parties, that “the system” is irrevocably corrupted, and that Obama will change nothing, who are eager to claim that their “no-difference” worldview has already been vindicated by the 11-day old administration (”See! After 11 days, it’s proven that Obama is no different than Bush, just as we’ve been saying”);
(3) Members of the intelligence community who do not want any new limits imposed on their activities and thus, hiding behind anonymity, use these leaks to pressure Obama not to impose them (”intelligence officials say that Obama is just pretending to change these policies in order to fool/placate the Left, but he knows and believes we urgently need these powers to keep the U.S. safe and he will therefore keep them in place”); and,
(4) Establishment media figures, eager to depict Obama as supportive of, rather than hostile to, prevailing policies, because they spent the last eight years supporting and enabling those policies as integral servants of the political establishment and do not want Obama’s election to be perceived as a repudiation of that establishment and its various behaviors.
I want to be clear: none of this is to say that Obama won’t continue many of the worst Bush policies. He very well might (even in the case of rendition) and, in other cases, he probably will. Vigilance in this regard is absolutely required. The point here is that there are all sorts of groups eager to claim that Obama has already decided to embrace Bush policies before there is any actual evidence that he has done so, or — as here — even when there is evidence that he hasn’t. For that reason, these reports about what Obama “intends” to do ought to be taken with a huge dose of skepticism, especially where, as here, it is fed to uninformed, gullible reporters by anonymous intelligence operatives.
As I find myself repeating quite often, it makes no sense to attack (or praise) Obama for predicted actions. It’s possible that the group I referenced in item (2) above may turn out to be right, or it’s possible that those who see Obama as some transcendent, transformative change agent will be. I doubt either of those two extremes will be vindicated, but what should determine one’s judgment on that question is what Obama actually does, not what anonymous reports claim he “intends” to do. Those who reflexively criticize every Obama action because they predicted long ago that he would be the same as Bush and want that prediction to b
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