The Bush administration never ended

[nancylebov]

Secret US prison in Afghanistan, prisoners tortured.

I voted for Obama because he seemed to care about civil liberties. He's still probably better than McCain. It's even conceivable that Obama's enough of a pragmatist that if there were significant public pressure for civil liberties and against torture, he'd accede to it, but there isn't.

Link thanks to google and the BBC. I can't remember if I started hearing about this last night or the night before, but there are only 15 news stories listed at google.

Comments

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

I've been reading stories about the Bagram torture cells since 2006 or so. The only actual new news here is that the Obama administration is providing the names of the people being held there to the Red Cross, as required by law, something the Bush administration hadn't done. This would be the same torture facility that Obama has been proposing, for at least a month now, to transfer the prisoners from Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay to.

At this point, the difference between George Bush and Barack Obama, on this issue, is that George Bush was ashamed enough of what he was doing that he tried to keep some of it secret. Barack Obama has been persuaded that it's nothing to be ashamed of.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It's even conceivable that Obama's enough of a pragmatist that if there were significant public pressure for civil liberties and against torture, he'd accede to it, but there isn't.

I (very sadly) think that you are perfectly correct in this - Obama comes from a (Chicago) political culture of compromise and deal-making, and given that the vast majority of the right is vehemently pro-torture and only the far left is actively against it, we get torture. From my PoV, Obama's scarier decisions are a symptom not a cause.

[subnumine.livejournal.com]

And then there's the other claim of the Obama administration: that they can execute an American citizen (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.html) by executive order.

Now it may well be that Awlaki has levied war against the United States; if they could provide the two witnesses to the same overt act, I would be willing to pretend that a trial in absentia before a secret court was "due process of law". But they haven't bothered to, just like Brad says.