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Title: Obama advisers: Bush era war criminals will walk
Source:
Rawstory
URL Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama ... t_prosecure_Bush_war_1117.html
Published: Nov 18, 2008
Author: Stephen C. Webster
Post Date: 2008-11-18 01:06:51 by Jhoffa_
Keywords: None
Views: 252
Comments: 17
Obama advisers: Bush era war criminals will walk Even as President-elect Obama vowed "to regain America's moral stature in the world" during Sunday's 60 Minutes appearance, two of his senior advisers confessed there is no intent to pursue those in the Bush administration who engaged in torture, a war crime. Speaking on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press, the advisers said that the plan is to put a stop to current interrogation methods and to "look forward" as opposed to focusing on prior transgressions. The Obama campaign did not offer a response before the report was published. Human Rights Watch, a non-profit watchdog group, is lobbying the President-elect for fast action on the abuses of the Bush era. "For far too long, the United States has undermined its ability to fight terror by adopting short-sighted policies that allowed torture and indefinite detention without charge," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, in a Sunday release. "The United States urgently needs President-elect Obama to live up to his commitment to right the wrongs of the last seven years, and to regain the moral high ground in the fight against terrorism." The group is pushing for Obama to bring Guantanamo detainees into the United States court system, and admit released prisoners into the country if it is feared they may be subject to torture upon returning home. They are also calling for an executive order to require the CIA to follow the US military's interrogation rules, and the establishment of an investigatory "truth commission" with subpoena power to enforce standing laws against US war criminals. However, if the top candidate for Obama's Central Intelligence Agency is any indication, the activists may soon be disappointed. The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, citing a report by Mark Ambinder that Obama is close to appointing John Brennon, who served under former CIA Director George Tenet, Sullivan decried it as, "change we cannot believe in." "Appointing Brennan to the CIA does not mean change from Bush," he wrote. "That was absolutely a critical part of Obama's message. With Brennan, we get the taint of a Bush and two-facedness of a Clinton. We need to say goodbye to all that, not perpetuate its double-speak." Tenet was director of the agency when it was admitted that several prisoners were subjected to waterboarding: a form of torture that simulates the experience of drowning. "[Obama believes] torture not be allowed in any form or fashion in any part of the federal government, and he would make sure that was the case," said Brennan to CQ Politics. "Whether the Army field manual is comprehensive enough to cover all those tactics and techniques, that’s something I think he’d look to his national security advisers for." Blogger and filmmaker Glenn Greenwald is skeptical too. "Brennan has been and continues to be an extremely important adviser for Obama on intelligence issues," he wrote. "His views on past administration conduct are, in many important instances, clearly disturbing and bear watching." Alleged 9/11 'mastermind' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one such prisoner that was admittedly tortured. The American Civil Liberties Union warned Monday that Bush may try to "sabotage" Obama by "ramming through" the Mohammed tribunal. On Saturday it was also revealed that senior intelligence officials are lobbying President Bush to preemptively pardon intelligence agents who committed war crimes: an unprecedented act. Nevertheless, one campaign meme -- "hope" -- has yet to flicker out for human rights activists. "We are confident that consistent with his message of change, his actions and his criticism, he is going to repudiate the abusive counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration," Joanne Mariner with Human Rights Watch told IPS News.
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#1. To: Jhoffa_ (#0)
I wouldn't expect ANY action following the precedent set during the Clinton administration. From Human Rights Watch 1999: "Let me turn to our evaluation of U.S. policy on human rights. The Clinton administration's efforts to promote human rights around the world were subject to large blind spots. Major parts of the globe never made it onto the administration's human rights agenda. The administration did best with the pariah countries -- Burma, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Sudan. It also performed well on some more pivotal countries, such as Croatia, Malaysia, Algeria, and Indonesia. In some countries, the administration's record was mixed. It waited far too long as Yugoslav forces battered ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo. But then, it brought NATO military pressure to bear until Yugoslav President Milosevic agreed, at least for the time being, to stop the attacks, withdraw some troops, and permit international monitoring. In Bosnia, U.S. troops helped NATO to arrest lesser war crimes suspects but, to our continuing disappointment, not the leaders of the genocide. In Colombia, the administration openly acknowledged the close working relationship between the army and murderous paramilitary forces. But the new U.S. ambassador has been silent on human rights. And the administration implemented half-heartedly and with no transparency the Leahy Amendment which requires it to withhold assistance from forces involved in abuse until they bring those responsible to justice. In Cuba, while ostensibly concerned about human rights, the U.S. government pursued an embargo that itself violated the rights to freedom of expression and movement. Moreover, by adopting an all-or-nothing approach to President Fidel Castro's continuing rule, Washington provided little incentive for him to ease repression of civil society. In China, the administration helped to enhance dialogue about human rights; to convince the government to sign a key human rights treaty; to secure the release of a handful of prisoners; and to gain permission for President Clinton, during his visit to the country, to speak to the public about human rights. It also pushed, albeit unsuccessfully, for more systematic changes. But the administration had no plan, other than waiting for China to change on its own, for helping to move beyond promises and dialogue to systematic change. Washington gave up two powerful sources of leverage--human rights preconditions to President Clinton's much-sought trip to China, and efforts to secure a resolution critical of China before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights-- without developing any alternative way to keep the pressure on. We've seen the results of China's empty promises to respect human rights in its arrest this week of Xu Wenli and his allies for trying to form an independent political party. Vast swaths of the globe were largely exempt from U.S. pressure on human rights. These included most of Central Asia and the Middle East, where oil interests stood in the way of strong human rights advocacy. In Africa, the United States favored strategic alliances with new leaders to paying attention to their human rights problems. The administration remained publicly silent about severe government abuses in Rwanda and the Congo as well as abuses by the Sudan People's Liberation Army. And President Clinton seemed to lower the bar in assessing Uganda's and Nigeria's lack of democracy. This inconsistency in U.S. support for human rights, and the frequent subordination of human rights to so many other interests, threatens to weaken what should be a strong voice for the human rights cause. The Clinton administration also continued to refuse to accept an unconditional ban on anti-personnel landmines. And it continued to obstruct efforts to ban the use of children under 18 years of age as soldiers." Source: www.hrw.org/en/node/68527
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest...his senior advisers confessed there is no intent to pursue those in the Bush administration who engaged in torture, a war crime.
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