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06 Nov 2008 07:31 pm
Closing Gitmo, Ending Torture
Alex Massie:
...there will come a time, not immediately but sometime, when flesh needs to be put on those rhetorical bones. A time when promises must be followed by action. A time for cheques to be cashed. And that means action on Guantanamo Bay and Extraordinary Rendition.
Understandably, we haven't heard much about those sort of
things on the campaign trail. Certainly, there's not much mention of
these issues on Obama's website. Equally understandably, one
appreciates the domestic political concerns that make any immediate
action on these matters unlikely. To put it mildly, it's not a good
idea to begin your presidency with actions that can, however absurdly,
be misinterpreted as being "soft on terrorists".
Nonetheless, at some point something needs to be done. The Iraq War
was, for sure, unpopular across much of the world, but its Guantanamo
and rendition and secret CIA prisons around the world that have done
far more damage to the United States' reputation. And, I'm afraid,
rightly so...
If there's been no announcement on the future of Guantanamo and
rendition by, say, this time next year then, Washington, we're going to
have a problem...
I don't agree that Obama can wait nearly a year before doing something about torture.
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