Obama, rendition, and the decay of American democracy

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Obama, rendition, and the decay of American democracy

26 August 2009

The Obama administration’s decision to carry on the practice of
rendition, by which “terror suspects” are spirited off to third-party
countries to face torture, testifies to the profound decay of American
democracy.

Rendition under Obama will be the same as the practice as it existed
during the Bush administration. An anonymous source close to the White
House’s Task Force on Interrogation and Transfer Policies, who leaked
the announcement to the New York Times, offered only vague assurances
that prisoners would not be “rendered” to nations known to practice
torture, and that diplomats would be allowed greater access.

The Bush administration made similar assurances. In fact, there is no
reason for rendition except to utilize the services of those nations
most hospitable to torture and impervious to public scrutiny.

The announcement comes after a week of revelations related to the
lawless and anti-democratic nature of the “war on terror,” which,
taken together, reflect the growing power of the military-intelligence
apparatus and the consolidation of the infrastructure for an American
police state.

* On August 20, it was revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) hired the private security firm then known as Blackwater
Associates for a program of “targeted killings” of alleged Al Qaeda
operatives. The CIA violated US law in failing to inform Congress of
this program.

* On August 21, a New York Times report revealed that the Obama
administration employs the same mercenary firm in the operation of the
CIA’s unmanned Predator drone assassination program in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.

* On August 22, Der Spiegel confirmed that the CIA hired Blackwater to
transport prisoners from Guantánamo Bay to secret prisons in Central
Asia, where they faced torture.

* On August 24, the White House made public a heavily redacted version
of a CIA inspector general’s report discussing cases of agency torture
and murder of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among other forms of
abuse, interrogators threatened inmates with death and warned that
their mothers and children would be arrested and raped. The report had
been suppressed since 2004 and was released in compliance with a court
order stemming from a Freedom of Information suit filed by the
American Civil Liberties Union.

Confronted with overwhelming evidence that its predecessor
systematically violated US and international law—as well as basic
human rights—the Obama administration has sought to contain the damage.

After releasing the CIA inspector general’s report, Attorney General
Eric Holder appointed a prosecutor to investigate a handful of torture
cases discussed in the document. The purview of the investigation will
be limited to “rogue” agents who supposedly went beyond the forms of
torture specifically endorsed by the Bush White House. In keeping with
administration policy, there will be no investigations of Bush
administration officials, including Bush and his vice president, Dick
Cheney, who formulated and oversaw the torture program.

Obama immediately distanced himself from even this half-measure. A
spokesman repeated Obama’s mantra that “we should be looking forward,
not backward,” while pinning responsibility for any investigation on
Holder, who “ultimately is going to make the decisions.”

The CIA’s open opposition to the report’s release and the appointment
of a prosecutor approached the level of insubordination. An agency
spokesman declared that the cases had already been investigated by the
Bush Justice Department.

“Justice has had the complete document since 2004, and their career
prosecutors have reviewed it carefully for legal accountability,” said
Paul Gimigliano. “That’s already been done.”

After the inspector general’s report was released, the CIA took the
unprecedented step of releasing two classified documents whose
publication had been demanded by Cheney. The former vice president
claimed the documents would demonstrate the necessity of “enhanced
interrogation techniques.”

Predictably, these documents made no specific reference to
intelligence secured through torture. Instead, they offered lurid and
unsubstantiated claims about terror plots disrupted through CIA
interrogations.

Cheney returned to the attack on Tuesday, criticizing the Justice
Department’s proposed investigation in the most ominous terms. It
raises “doubts about this administration’s ability to be responsible
for our nation’s security,” Cheney charged.

The terms of the “debate” that emerged after the publication of the
inspector general’s report was very much dictated by the
military-intelligence apparatus. It hinged on whether or not torture
“works.” This, it was claimed, is a matter for legitimate intellectual
discussion.

Current CIA Director Leon Panetta, an Obama appointee, echoed Cheney
in declaring that torture had disrupted attacks. Panetta suggested
that whether or not such methods are “the only way to obtain that
information will remain a legitimate area of dispute, with Americans
holding a range of views on the methods used.”

In this context, Obama’s declaration that rendition will continue was
a transparent bid to curry favor with the military-intelligence
apparatus. Even the Times noted that the announcement “seemed intended
in part to offset the impact” of the release of the inspector
general’s report.

Obama’s continuation of rendition is yet another repudiation of his
campaign promises. In an article in Foreign Affairs in 2007, Obama
said he would “eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we
outsource our torture to other countries.”

Many of those who voted for Obama did so out of revulsion over the
Bush administration’s use of torture and other illegal methods. But,
as with Obama’s anti-war posturing and his pledges to reverse the
pro-corporate agenda of Bush, the campaign promises of the apostle of
“change you can believe in” have proven worthless. On every essential
question, the Obama administration is continuing and deepening the
reactionary policies of his predecessor.

Obama’s endorsement of rendition demonstrates that the anti-democratic
methods of US imperialism—torture, kidnapping, assassination,
aggressive war—are not rooted in the personal characteristics of
politicians and cannot be overcome by replacing one party of American
imperialism by another.

The danger of a police state emerges inexorably from the turn by the
ruling elite as a whole to aggressive war and militarism as a means of
offsetting the deepening crisis of American capitalism. At the same
time, the crisis is being used to effect a vast restructuring of class
relations in the US to the benefit of the financial aristocracy which
controls both parties and all the levers of state power. The social
inequality that is being created is such that the brutal measures
currently employed in the “war on terror” will ultimately be unleashed
on the working class within the US.

Tom Eley

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/pers-a26.shtml

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