A liberal fondness for kidnapping

To make a long story short: Obama signed an executive order about "ensuring lawful interrogations," after which the L.A. Times pointed out that he's nonetheless retaining the use of rendition (i.e. kidnapping), leading a bevy of prominent liberals to attack the Times and leap to Obama's defense—in particular Glenn Greenwald, saying that the Times article was the "wildly exaggerated" output of an "uninformed, gullible reporter" and citing arguments by Scott Horton and Hilary Bok in support of that thesis.  Are you with me now?

There's a lot that could be said about this, but out of mercy for you I'll try to keep that short also.  The things that bothered me the most here were 1) the eagerness to attack the Times report and defend the Obama administration, 2) the lack of skepticism (verging on credulity) in the face of official claims, and 3) the apparent support of U.S.-initiated kidnapping.  My own take is that the Times article contained a few arguable characterizations and statements that might be misconstrued, but no more or less than you'd see in any other article, and the central premise of the article is almost certainly correct and also very important.

A few specific observations:

— Horton entirely misses the point, accusing the Times of confusing renditions (kidnapping only) with extraordinary renditions (kidnapping plus detention in secret prisons and/or torture).  This despite the fact that the article clearly states—in the first paragraph, no less—that Obama is pledging to close the CIA's secret prisons and end the use of torture, and only then follows it up by saying that rendition will still be performed, thus making the distinction quite clear.

— Greenwald turns in a disappointing performance, taking cheap shots at the Times journalist (noted above) and then veering into the realm of ad hominem and (mild) conspiracy theory, implying that there's been some collusion here between "members of the intelligence community who do not want any new limits imposed on their activities" and "establishment media figures, eager to depict Obama as supportive of, rather than hostile to, prevailing policies, because they spent the last eight years supporting and enabling those policies"—all of this resulting in this "wildly exaggerated" article.  He then goes on to defend kidnapping by deploying a modified (but equally contrived) version of Alan Dershowitz's favorite ticking time-bomb thought experiment.  And along the way he takes time out to thrash the straw man of "people who have long argued that there is no difference between the parties," asserting dismissively that these people "reflexively criticize every Obama action because they predicted long ago that he would be the same as Bush"—a shoddy tune I fear we may be hearing a lot from him over the next four years.

— Bok notes that Obama's executive order references the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits the extradition of a person to a state where it's believed he might be tortured, and seems content that this means the administration won't pursue third-party torture.  I'm sure it's unnecessary to review here any of the long list of international laws and covenants the United States has paid lip service to while also blithely violating, but Bok acts as though she's unaware of that history.

She also says that "nothing the Obama administration has done to date suggests to me that they would engage in the kinds of creative reading of legal documents that would allow them, say, to disregard Egypt's long record of torture in making this determination."  I have to imagine she's aware that Obama personally ordered the killing of twenty people in Pakistan, however, and so I can't understand why she'd think that a President who's already demonstrated his willingness to carry out extrajudicial executions, in flagrant violation of international law, would shy away from "creative reading of legal documents."

— Finally, setting aside their eagerness to attack anti-Obama reporting and their willingness to give generous readings to lofty official proclamations, why are these defenders of human rights acting as though kidnapping is no big deal?  Do they really think Khaled El-Masri would have been ok with just being kidnapped by the CIA so long as he wasn't tortured as well?

Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights took up this point in a debate with Scott Horton (who I should note was much more reasonable than he had been in his original response to the Times):

MICHAEL RATNER: I don’t think you can justify rendition of any sort, whether it’s Eichmann or anybody else, because it opens a door, a slippery slope to renditions all over the world. And it opens them not for Cuba; it opens them for big power countries or for countries that are protected by big power countries. If Cuba came in here and snatched Posada, that would be, I mean, probably the end of Cuba. It wouldn’t be the end of the United States if they went in and snatched Vesco when he was alive in Cuba or Assata Shakur. It would be outrageous. It would be illegal. But it wouldn’t be the end. So the problem with opening a hole for rendition is you’re once again opening a hole that big countries will use, or countries that are protected by big countries.

Ratner also makes the single most critical point about all of this (and vindicates all the good things I've said about CCR over the years):

MICHAEL RATNER: I think what’s really crucial here is that, yes, there’s executive orders and, yes, there’s a lot of wiggle room, but I think the role of citizens, of all of us as human rights people, particularly, is to focus on the wiggle room and make sure that that wiggle room is not used to violate fundamental rights.

Bingo.  And this is exactly where Greenwald, Horton, and Bok fell down entirely: their first reaction to this Times article was to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt and to pounce on the messenger, rather than approaching official pronouncements with the same skepticism they did under Bush.  This isn't exactly a surprise, of course, but it's a disappointment nonetheless, and I can only hope they'll take some time to think about it and seriously reconsider what their role as "human rights people" should be for the next four years.

Comments

[KDelphi]

I keep hearing that there is a difference between renditon and EXTRAORDINARY rendition--I dont buy it...Sorry , but (e) (2) seems to cover both Bush and Obama's asses.(Clintons--both--too) I am not a legal scholar, but, it sounds FULL of loopholes, such as "must know" and "probably WILL (be tortured)". Also, what is all this crap about the "Senate"? How can that be allowed in an intl legal document?

Here are the uS objections to the Convention to which Obama refers:

9. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, New York, 10 December 1984

Declaration:

"The Government of the United States of America reserves the right to communicate, upon ratification, such reservations, interpretive understandings, or declarations as are deemed necessary."

Upon ratification :

Reservations:

"I. The Senate's advice and consent is subject to the following reservations:

(1) That the United States considers itself bound by the obligation under article 16 to prevent `cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment', only insofar as the term `cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment' means the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

(2) That pursuant to article 30 (2) the United States declares that it does not consider itself bound by Article 30 (1), but reserves the right specifically to agree to follow this or any other procedure for arbitration in a particular case.

II. The Senate's advice and consent is subject to the following understandings, which shall apply to the obligations of the United States under this Convention:

(1) (a) That with reference to article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.

(b) That the United States understands that the definition of torture in article 1 is intended to apply only to acts directed against persons in the offender's custody or physical control.

(c) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the United States understands that `sanctions' includes judicially-imposed sanctions and other enforcement actions authorized by United States law or by judicial interpretation of such law. Nonetheless, the United States understands that a State Party could not through its domestic sanctions defeat the object and purpose of the Convention to prohibit torture.

(d) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the United States understands that the term `acquiescence' requires that the public official, prior to the activity constituting torture, have awareness of such activity and thereafter breach his legal responsibility to intervene to prevent such activity.

(e) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the Unites States understands that noncompliance with applicable legal procedural standards does not per se constitute torture.

(2) That the United States understands the phrase, `where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture,' as used in article 3 of the Convention, to mean `if it is more likely than not that he would be tortured.

John--I just followed your link--

[SteveB]

Yes, it was disappointing to see Greenwald be so dismissive of concerns that Bush's rendition policies might continue under Obama. But he's been willing to criticize Obama on other issues (including the missile strike you mention) so I don't see it as a general tendency on his part.

And I do think there's a tendency on the part of some on the left to pounce on Bush-like behavior by Obama, with a "See? I told you so!", while ignoring Obama administration actions that undo Bush policies.

I'm not saying every criticism has to be accompanied by an, "On the other hand...", but I think we all know there's a human tendency to filter out information that doesn't conform to our prejudices, and we should all try to resist that.

That's why I was glad to see you link to the Dave Sirota article yesterday, because I know that you have concerns (to put it mildly) that online libs will fall into lockstep behind Obama, and you were nevertheless able to note when that wasn't happening.

[Donald Johnson]

One can disagree with Greenwald on some issues, but I don't doubt his basic sincerity--look at what he just posted

Link

There's no mistaking him for a deluded liberal Obamaphile.

[John Caruso]

I don't doubt his basic sincerity either, but it doesn't redeem his abysmal performance here. And there's no way he'd have given Bush the benefit of the doubt as he did with Obama in this case—so even though he's willing to call Obama on many of his offenses (to his credit), he's clearly employing a different standard now. Hopefully that will change as the evidence continues coming in.