May 12, 2010

This is a disheartening and disturbing allegation

President Obama Must Investigate Reports of Detainee Abuse at Bagram Air Base - Yahoo! News.

I admit it. I want Obama to succeed and have supported him in most areas. I have, however, been discouraged to see him continue some of the bad Bush policies. If he has allowed torture to continue in Afghanistan, that must stop and that must stop now.

5 comments:

Noah said...

I have, however, been discouraged to see him continue some of the bad Bush policies.

I don't know if I'd rush right in and point to Obama on this one; these are policies that take time to undo, and the Prez and his staff have to first know it's going on before they stop it.

So I personally will jump towards the "disappointed to see him continue Bush's policies" when and if there either isn't an investigation or some sort of public cease-and-desist" sort of thing. But for now, I'll assume this has his attention, and the ball is in his court. The timer starts now. Tick-tick-tick-tick...

Streak said...

Absolutely fair enough, Smitty. Good advice, and I think that describes me too. I do not, however, want to be a liberal who looks the other way when their pick for President does bad stuff. I watched the right do that for 8 years. Hell, we all did.

Monk-in-Training said...

I don't know about this one, I am pretty unsatisfied that at least, Pres. Obama hasn't at least SAID he wanted to end these policies and is WORKING toward it...

Perhaps he has and I have missed it?

leighton said...

This was a pretty interesting article arguing that Obama's pick of Kagan for SCOTUS indicates that issues like this will probably not be a priority for him in the near future.

He has two and a half (and hopefully six and a half) years to rectify this, but the way things are trending, but I am thinking that history may characterize his presidency as strong in domestic policy and mediocre in foreign policy. (Not that he isn't fantastic abroad compared to Bush, but my housemate's overweight Himalayan would be too, if cats were eligible for executive office.)

steves said...

Maybe I am naive, but I would like to think that certain policies that are complex because they deal with laws, regulations, treaties, and other obligations may be difficult to change quickly, most of the ones that deal with how we treat detainees and POWS are mostly under the Executive Branch and seem like they could be changed.

Obama just hasn't shown much interest in making changes in this area, nor has Holder, who has said on more than one occasion that we can hold detainees indefinitely even if they are found not guilty by a court or tribunal.