Obama Perpetuates Torture of Terrorists

Oh how sweet it is. Obama is now finding out just what a difficult job it is to deal with those who with America harm. Or as Bush famously noted: "It's hard work".

The libs screamed about the alleged abuses perpetrated by the evil Bush regime and turned all their hopes to BHO because he took a "courageous" stand against torturous tactics like waterboarding and playing the Barney song too loud.

Guess what libs, your man, Mr. Hope and Change (TM) is selling you out:

The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

But, but, but, President Bush used rendition and the left screamed like little girls. Now...I'm deafened by their silence.

Rendition is actually the worse method for dealing with terrorists short of assassination. We effectively give them to their home countries where they are tortured in much more barbaric ways then temperature changes and blaring Christina Aguilera music. The Obama EO effectively ensures that more torture, not less, will occur. Either that or they are released and continue jihad as happens so often in Yemen.

So how is it going to be liberals? Obama, by shutting down Gitmo is setting in motion a scenario whereby we'll see either more torture of suspected terrorists or less security for the US. You can't have it both ways; you either disagree with the president and say so--the intellectually honest choice. Or you remain silent while the president you elected continues to sanction torture world-wide. My guess is you'll select the latter over the former.

It's quite a conundrum, huh? I mean, here's the man who just by taking the oath was going to make the world all happy and sunny again and he seems to be overwhelmed in his first month. He's had to be pragmatic and realistic about the threats we face and in doing so has ditched everything you elected him for. In other words, he's shown that he's more like Bush in dealing with national defense the Jimmy Carter retread you hoped for. Hope y'all enjoy it.

I think I may finally go see the movie Rendition now that it's not only an anti-Bush flick but anti-Obama as well.

Please read Moe Lane at Redstate and at his own site, his take is excellent. Moe won't link to the libs who were most outspoken about renditions but I will:

Andrew Sullivan railed against the practice here. Notably, he wrote the following two weeks ago:

The rationale is not torturing for “intelligence” but protecting the public while evidence is searched for and doubt remains. Equally, some kind of rendition programme that follows the lines of Bill Clinton and the first President Bush — and that eschews any co-operation with regimes that torture — is a reasonable tool in the war against jihadist terror. It’s the Bush-Cheney innovation of “extraordinary renditions” and disappearances that has to end.

Emphasis mine. What nations would these men be sent to that don't use torture?

Nearly every captive at Gitmo is from the Mid-East; mainly Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria and Morocco. According to Human Rights Watch; Pakistan, Syria, Egypt and Morocco practice torture--real torture, not water boarding--while Amnesty International says that the Saudis and Yemenis use torture as well.

So tell me where you fall on this, Sully.

See also Ed Morrisey.