Hykleriske Obama og Krigen mod Terror

Man får jo næsten lyst til at slå en højlydt “Hvad sagde jeg”-latter op, når man læser Glenn Greenwalds kommentar om præsident Barack Obamas udmeldinger om Guantanamo-fangerne og tilfangetagnes rettigheder generelt. Men det ville selvfølgelig være upassende.

Jeg vil ikke her tage stilling til, om Obamas uldne retoriske udmeldinger er berettigede, men bare konstatere, at Idealet Obama er hastigt i gang med at møde en lille ting, vi kalder for Virkeligheden. Når man er i opposition, så er det nemt at gøre alle de “rigtige” ting, og alle der ikke gør det rigtige, er onde og skumle. Når man så selv får magten, så er problemerne pludselig mere komplekse.

Greenwald konstaterer:

Ultimately, what I find most harmful about his embrace of things like preventive detention, concealment of torture evidence, opposition to investigations and the like is that these policies are now no longer just right-wing dogma but also the ideas that defenders of his — Democrats, liberals, progressives — will defend as well. The more Obama embraces core Bush terrorism policies and assumptions — we’re fighting a “war on terror”; Presidents have the power to indefinitely and “preventatively” imprison people with no charges; we can create new due-process-abridging tribunals when it suits us; the “Battlefield” is everywhere; we should conceal evidence when it will make us look bad — the more those premises are transformed from right-wing dogma into the prongs of bipartisan consensus, no longer just advocated by Bush followers but by many Obama defenders as well. The fact that it’s all wrapped up in eloquent rhetoric about the rule of law, our Constitution and our “timeless values” — and his understanding of those values is more evident than his predecessors’ — only heightens the concern.

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