I demand we stop Pampering these terrorists

You may recall a Los Angeles Times article from February which reported that Obama planned to continue Bush's renditions program in largely-unchanged form:

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.

This led to the sorry spectacle of prominent liberals attacking the Times for publishing such a "wildly exaggerated" article.  Scott Horton dismissed this "breathless piece of reporting" as "buffoonery", and Glenn Greenwald wrote that "these reports about what Obama 'intends' to do ought to be taken with a huge dose of skepticism, especially where, as here, it is fed to uninformed, gullible reporters by anonymous intelligence operatives."

So what's the latest word on this breathless, wildly-exaggerated bit of buffoonery fed to an uninformed, gullible reporter, which we ought to take with a huge dose of skepticism?

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture.

Yeah, sure, but what do they know?  And anyway, the Obama administration says they'll get diplomatic assurances that there'll be no torture (and if you can't take the word of a Syrian diplomat, I don't know who you can trust).  Isn't that enough?

"It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice of relying on diplomatic assurances, which have been proven completely ineffective in preventing torture," said Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who tracked rendition cases under President George W. Bush.

Yes, but the Obama administration is also vowing to "closely monitor" the treatment of the people they kidnap and deliver to foreign governments that make a regular practice of torture, right?  Isn't that enough?

Ms. Singh cited the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian sent in 2002 by the United States to Syria, where he was beaten with electrical cable despite assurances against torture. [...] The task force has proposed a more vigorous monitoring of the treatment of prisoners sent to other countries, but Ms. Singh said the usual method of such monitoring — visits from American or allied consular officials — had been ineffective. A Canadian consular official visited Mr. Arar several times, but the prisoner was too frightened to tell him about the torture, a Canadian investigation found.

Ok, maybe not.

So it looks like the sum total of the "hope" and "change" we're going to see with Obama with regard to rendition is that the innocent people the U.S. kidnaps can hope their torturers will change the diapers they're forced to wear during their torture sessions, so the U.S. official sent to "closely monitor" their treatment (wink, wink) won't gag on the stench of their 3-day-old shit.  It's just sad that there are a few Obama-haters out there who won't admit this is progress.

Comments

[Harold M]

Prolonged Diapering Liberalism can take a proud "nanny state" stand alongside Cruise Missile Liberalism. It's a psychotic "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" nanny state, but we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[John Caruso]

"Nanny state"? Good one.

[Harold M]

Digressing a little, if you just count the money, the state sector (federal, state and local) is roughly 32% of the national economy. If you count employment too, direct and contracted, it's roughly 55%. I include employment, even though it's a subset of the money, because of the control it gives government over daily life. Given the size of our GDP and overall workforce, that's one hell of a nanny state. What we have is a perverse form of state capitalism in service to lemon socialist elites and imperialism; the ultimate form of nanny state, albeit a murderous, sadistic kleptocratic nanny.

I actually have no objection in principle to a state sector that's even bigger, provided none of the economic activity involves "prolonged diapering" or supports the disgusting infrastructure for it.

[SteveB]

What's my position on prolonged diapering?

Depends.

[John Caruso]

I always thought that was a questionable product name. You can just imagine a prospective customer asking, do these things really work? And that is not the answer they want to hear.

[No One of Consequence]

Since a good chunk of that state-sector spending goes straight back up to corporations in the form of welfare, the "nanny state" characterization of the U.S. isn't merely pathetically laughable, but an anti-democratic lie. As soon as our leaders get a chance to hand out rents to buddies capable of tossing a bribe in their direction, they become redder communists than any found in Russia and gleefully kick taxpayer money up to their friends and masters. When a chance to actually reduce state spending comes along that undermines the giveaways, they rally and fight their own constituents.

Yeah, the state that's still shooting and electrocuting innocents on the street is a "nanny state."