Obama and torture

During his electoral campaign, Barack Obama raised the hopes of many progressives around the world that his foreign policy would be less immoral than Bush’s. But after a few months in office, many are disappointed-and rightly so. His policies on torture are a case in point, dangerously resembling those of his predecessor.

The “torture memos” recently released by the White House give details on how the Bush administration authorized torture by CIA agents in order to find links between al-Qaeda and Iraq to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Those links were non-existent, but that was irrelevant.

But after the release of the memos, Obama toed the Bush line in several instances. His administration made several declarations that amounted to “effectively conferring impunity for acts of torture,” as Amnesty International noted.

For instance, Obama said that “the men and women of the CIA” who had followed the memos’ guidelines would not be prosecuted, and that anyway, “This is a time for reflection, not retribution… Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

Up to this day, Obama opposes the creation of a “Truth Commission” that would shed light on the torture-related crimes of the Bush administration.

On a related front, Obama has also fought against the release of some 2,000 photographs depicting acts of abuse of detainees.

Obama also disappoints on his policies toward the prisoners held in the prisons at Guantanamo (Cuba) and Bagram (Afghanistan). There are 240 detainees at Guantanamo and 600 at Bagram.

In June 2008, the US Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional the Bush administration claim that prisoners in Guantanamo are not entitled to the right of habeas corpus (the right to challenge one’s detention). This was an important step against Bush policies.

But Bush wanted to ship abducted people to Bagram instead and argue that there the Supreme Court ruling did not apply. Believe it or not, Obama has adopted the Bush position, arguing that detainees can be imprisoned indefinitely with no rights-as long as they are kept in Bagram rather than Guantanamo. A US judge has ruled against Obama, but his administration is appealing.

Obama had also promised to close Guantanamo, but now hesitates to do so.

Moreover, he is backtracking on his promise to shut down Bush’s “military commission” to try detainees, and now plans to revive them. Obama’s commissions offer some improvements over Bush’s, but they still fall far short of providing the due process guarantees found in US federal (civil) courts.

There is much discussion about whether torture has been effective in extracting information from detainees-as if its effectiveness could justify it. This is a misplaced debate, as torture is never legal nor justified under international law, whether or not it is effective.

But in any case, there is growing evidence that torture is counterproductive in that it leads to killing more Americans by “creating terrorists” who are outraged by the abuses-nothing very surprising here when one thinks about it.

This is what a US Major declared after overseeing more than 1,000 interrogations and conducting more than 300 personally in Iraq.

“Torture does not save lives,” he said in a recent interview. “And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse… literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.”

So even out of self-interest, Obama would have a good reason to reverse his Bushite policies on torture. If moral reasons are included as well, the case becomes even stronger.