re: #458 Walter L. Newton

Why… why do you find that morally repugnant? He said that he is going to make sure that the other countries do not engage in torture with any of these characters who are rendered.

WASHINGTON — 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.

You’re not making any sense.

I am making perfect sense. What is the point of rendering suspects and turning them over to a foreign government for interrogation if they are going to treat them exactly how we would have? It makes no sense.

There are two plausible explanations for this in my mind. One, is that Obama felt political pressure to keep the renditions program because he didn’t want to open himself up to GOP “weak on terror” political attacks. So he says we are ending torture, but not ending the renditions program. He gets to cover himself from both the right and the left.

The other explanation is that yes, we still are authorizing the torture of prisoners we captured at the hands of foreign governments. And that Obama simply is lying about it.

What the truth is, I don’t know. And unfortunately I doubt that we’ll find out any time soon.