The story of how the Bush-Cheney administration rushed to make torture an instrument of national policy in its "war on terror," and of how it created an international gulag in which to abuse prisoners, is well known. Less remarked on — for reasons that do nobody credit — is the fact that President Obama and his administration have embraced the secrecy and usurpations of power that made possible the Bush-Cheney betrayal of American values.
Obama campaigned on the promise to end torture and shut down the gulag, but the infamous prison camp at Guantanamo remains, trials for accused terrorists have yet to be conducted and the "extraordinary renditions" reportedly continue. (We don't know for sure because they're done in secret.) Equally troubling, the White House reportedly has authorized U.S. intelligence agencies to kill Anwar Awlaki, an Islamic clergyman turned jihadist who was born and raised in the U.S. and is now hiding in Yemen. The summary execution of a U.S. citizen is something not even Bush and Cheney authorized.
As former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told the Washington Times this week, differences between the Bush-Cheney White House for which he worked and the Obama administration on these issues essentially are minor.
"You've got state secrets, targeted killings, indefinite detention, renditions, the opposition to extending the right of habeas corpus to prisoners," Hayden said. "Although it is slightly different, Obama has been as aggressive as Bush in defending prerogatives about who he has to inform in Congress for executive covert action."
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/11/opinion/la-oe-0911-rutten-20100911
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