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When some of your oldest friends think you're denying the President his rightful honeymoon on foreign policy...

... there's only one thing to do.

Go find some whacko, right-wing, talking-points source to back up your worries:

WASHINGTON — Even as it pulls back from harsh interrogations and other sharply debated aspects of George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism,” the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda.

In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently, Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.’s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.

The administration has also embraced the Bush legal team’s arguments that a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees should be shut down based on the “state secrets” doctrine. It has also left the door open to resuming military commission trials.

And earlier this month, after a British court cited pressure by the United States in declining to release information about the alleged torture of a detainee in American custody, the Obama administration issued a statement thanking the British government “for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information.”

These and other signs suggest that the administration’s changes may turn out to be less sweeping than many had hoped or feared — prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies.


I'd tell you to read the whole thing, but then Libertarian-leaning rags like The New York Times should probably better be ignored, right?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Although I am opposed to renditions of any kind, it is wrong to portray this as being the same as the Bush Administration's policy of extraordinary renditions. Again, Scott Horton (NY human rights attorney) offers a bit of illumination:

Scott Horton, "Renditions Buffoonery", Harpers Magazine, February 2, 2009
Scott Horton, "More on the Renditions Hoopla", Harpers Magazine, February 2, 2009

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