Obama Preserves the Right to Torture?!?

Just 12 days after President Obama's inauguration, one controversial tactic, implemented by President Bush, will allow renditions to continue as part of a "war on terror" tactic, thanks to a Executive Order signed by Obama on January 22. For those of you who don't know what "Rendition" is, it is the act of secretly capturing a person of interest, even if that person has committed no crime, who is then transported and detained in a foreign prison by countries that cooperate with the U.S. While I applaud President Obama for banning harsh interrogation techniques that have been termed "torture" by many at these secret CIA prisons and places like Guantanamo. The reality is that we are still condoning torture by allowing these prisoners to be handed over to foreign prisons. for once you hand them over to another country...you lose control.

Whether one performs the act themselves or ask someone else to do the act for them, they are as guilty as the one performing the act. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure renditions can be a useful tool if done properly, but allowing prisoners to be tortured and pretending like it is not our responsibility, because we handed them over to another Government is absurd. Now maybe President Obama believes that once we hand them over they will be treated with respect, but how can we really know? When prisoners are in U.S. hands there is a system of checks and balances to ensure that the law is not broken, but in a foreign prison, we lose that checks and balance.

The reality is torture only encourages prisoners to lie, so as to convince the interrogators to stop torturing them. It is these kinds of lies that were the result of the stories that led up to the claim of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the eventual invasion of Iraq. Are these the kinds of sources we want to base our foreign policy on? When there are far better ways to gain intelligence without resorting to torture. To return to the old tactics of the Bush Administration, in my opinion, is a mistake.

(Artwork: Matt Groller / Rolling Stone)