Obama to investigate Bush’s use of torture
Steps In The Right Direction, No.12: This.
*Update* I just read this by Glenn Greenwald (via Andrew Sullivan):
“It’s just a fact that there are all sorts of people close to Obama who have enabled those Bush policies and who are mobilizing now and attempting to ensure that nothing meaningful occurs in these areas. It simply is noteworthy of comment and cause for concern — though far from conclusive about what Obama will do — that Obama’s transition chief for intelligence policy, John Brennan, was an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity. It would be foolish in the extreme to ignore that and to just adopt the attitude that we should all wait quietly with our hands politely folded for the new President to unveil his decisions before deciding that we should speak up or do anything.”
As Greenwald points out in his article, rather worryingly – although not altogether unsurprisingly – Obama is surrounding himself with an awful lot of Democrats who let George Bush get away with murder (and torture and wiretapping and…) over the past eight years. This is probably pragmatic, sensible and to be expected – some of these Steps In The Right Direction may turn out to be baby steps, after all. But it’s also all the more reason why we lefties need to hold him accountable.
Tags: barack obama, george w bush, glenn greenwald, salon, torture