Hey Catholic Left !! Is Obama Just Bush Lite On Torture?

The New Republic has a pretty good article on this. See The Cheney Fallacy

The whole thing is not about torture but the whole War On Terror shooting match.

A few parts:

7. Rendition
The Obama administration has said that it will continue renditions--the practice, dating back at least to the Clinton administration, of grabbing suspected terrorists in one country and bringing them to another. CIA director Panetta has said that the Obama administration will not render suspects for purposes of torture, and many have seen this position as a rejection of the Bush form of rendition. But despite this rhetoric, the Obama administration will continue to use the Bush-Clinton standard of foreign country assurances concerning torture, a standard that prohibited rendition only when it is "more likely than not"--that is, a greater than 50 percent chance--"that the suspect will be subjected to torture." Because the public knows little about the rendition practice, it is unclear how, if at all, the practice will change under Obama. But the core legal standard articulated by the new administration appears to be the same as its predecessor.

Surprise!!!

8. Secret Prisons
While the Obama administration has not rejected rendition to third countries, it has dismantled the Bush system of secret overseas prisons (so-called "black sites") and thus has eliminated rendition to and detention in these prisons. Although the Bush administration used these facilities little in recent years, this seems like a departure from the Bush era. But even here the Obama practice may be closer to the late Bush practice than meets the eye. President Obama's executive order barring the CIA from using "detention facilities" contained a loophole for "facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis." The degree to which the Obama policy is a true departure from the late Bush practice thus depends on the administration's (probably secret) interpretation of what it means to detain someone on a "short-term, transitory basis."

Why is there no harping on this from the usual suspects?

11. Interrogation
On his first day in office President Obama signed an executive order requiring the CIA to use only the relatively benign techniques approved by the military field manual. He later released and rejected Department of Justice legal interpretations of the Torture statute and related laws. This is a large change in announced policy from the Bush administration, and the change that the former Vice President seems to like least. But it is less of a departure from the late Bush practice than meets the eye. Several reports suggest that a 2006 Supreme Court ruling, legislation concerning interrogation that same year, and growing public opprobrium led the Bush team, by 2007, to narrow the range of CIA-approved interrogation techniques, especially as compared to 2002-2003. Moreover, the Obama executive order established a task force to study whether the CIA should be able to use different interrogation techniques than the military, and CIA Director Panetta supports tougher interrogation techniques for his agency in some circumstances. As a result, the jury is still out on the differences between CIA interrogation techniques used during the late Bush administration and those ultimately used by Obama's CIA.

I think his analysis is pretty good why Obama is getting away with this.

One reason the Obama practices are so close to the late Bush practices is that the late Bush practices were much different than the early ones. In 2001-2003, both fear of terrorism and Bush unilateralism were at their height. But in the last six years, the terror threat has appeared to fade (at least to the public), and Congress and the courts have engaged on terrorism issues, pushing back on some, approving others, and acquiescing in yet others.

I think this is very true. One gets a sense that as a general matter as to "torture" or enhancd intterogation that one could think th estuff that is cvontroversal has been going on as late as last year. Part of this was by design by the anti Bush forces in order rile up the left.

The main difference between the Obama and Bush administrations concerns not the substance of terrorism policy, but rather its packaging. The Bush administration shot itself in the foot time and time again, to the detriment of the legitimacy and efficacy of its policies, by indifference to process and presentation. The Obama administration, by contrast, is intensely focused on these issues.

I so so so agree with this. Bush fans and supporters often could not understand the PR operation at the White House. It was inept at times and hurt Bush. Obama on the other hand is Mr. PR!!!

Catholic people on the left that are so thrilled with Obama's reception at Notre Dame should prepare for this to bite them in the rear . Obama goes to Notre Dame throws out things like (I am for adoption) and every one goes Obama is reaching out. He will do the same thing I predict (and in fact is doing) as to the issues that these same Catholics have concerns about on this front. There is an irony to this.

At the end he states

If this analysis is right, then the former vice president is wrong to say that the new president is dismantling the Bush approach to terrorism. President Obama has not changed much of substance from the late Bush practices, and the changes he has made, including changes in presentation, are designed to fortify the bulk of the Bush program for the long-run. Viewed this way, President Obama is in the process of strengthening the presidency to fight terrorism.

So true. This is also helped by the fact that the majority of Americans approve all the above according to polling.

In fact it is already being set up. While the Enhanced Interrogation or torture techniques are talked about in some detail on the Catholic blogs and elsewhere this is not really happening in the media or public at large. Basically it all comes back to Waterboarding!!! A technique that has not been used for some times.

Just look at the Pelosi news conference. It was waterboarding waterboarding waterboarding. So Obama just has to say NO to waterboarding and then the whole issue pretty much goes away. Again like his Kmiec like comments on abortion it will be all style over substance.

In the end one wonders if many of these pro-Obama Catholics that used this issue will really care. Just give us National Health Care and we don't care what you do detainee x in secret prison y in undisclosed country z.

Still many do and I do feel sorry for them. However they made the choice to support Obama over a man that has up and close knowledge of torture. On the night McCain gave his acceptance speech at the Republican n Convention his most touching words that brought tears to my eyes were these:

Then I found myself falling toward the middle of a small lake in the city of Hanoi, with two broken arms, a broken leg and an angry crowd waiting to greet me. I was dumped in a dark cell and left to die. I didn't feel so tough anymore. When they discovered my father was an admiral, they took me to a hospital. They couldn't set my bones properly, so they just slapped a cast on me. When I didn't get better and was down to about a hundred pounds, they put me in a cell with two other Americans. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those men saved my life

I was in solitary confinement when my captors offered to release me. I knew why. If I went home, they would use it as propaganda to demoralize my fellow prisoners. Our Code said we could only go home in the order of our capture, and there were men who had been shot down before me. I thought about it, though. I wasn't in great shape, and I missed everything about America. But I turned it down. A lot of prisoners had it worse than I did. I'd been mistreated before, but not as badly as others. I always liked to strut a little after I'd been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before. For a long time. And they broke me.

Yet Obama was chosen over McCain.

In the end on this issue one wonders if many of the most vocal sincere Catholic Obama supporting folks forgot that Bush was not running for President. That Bush derangement syndrome clouded their judgment. I wonder that because it seems issues like Iraq for instance seem a hell of lot less urgent. In fact it is rarely discussed at all by these quarters now. The intensity level has decreased greatly. Even though Obama looks a lot like Bush/McCain on that issue.

I guess we shall see that answer in the months ahead.