A Promise Kept

There's been a lot about this liberal Republican administration's economic and imperial policy that I have found hard to swallow, but credit where credit is due, they didn't promise to be any different, and in one important respect an important Democratic promise is being kept: CIA shuts down its secret prisons.

The US has stopped running its global network of secret prisons, CIA director Leon Panetta has announced.

“CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites,” Mr Panetta said in a letter to staff. Remaining sites would be decommissioned, he said.

The “black sites” were used to detain terrorism suspects, some of whom were subjected to interrogation methods described by many as torture.

Please don't tell me that the no-longer-very-secret secret prisons are going to be replaced by really secret prisons.

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7 Responses to A Promise Kept

  1. Michael L. Wagner says:

    Yeah, right!!!

    I’m still the target of a blatant murder conspiracy on the part of Govt. law enforcement and judicial officials!!!

    My most recent pertinent lawsuit was wrongly dismissed by Hon. Whyte–who I’d previously named as a defendant and who wrongly denied my Motion for Recusal!!!

    Furthermore, one of my DC District Court lawsuits was wrongly dismissed by a judge the suit named as a defendant!!! Then another such named judge wrongly denied my Motion for Reconsideration!!! Also, Hon. Urbina wrongly dismissed one of my lawsuits–citing an argument the cited Court explicitly decided against!!! Namely, “The Executive Branch has exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide whether to investigate or prosecute,” US v. Nixon.

  2. changer says:

    “they didn’t promise to be any different”

    Change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, change, and more change.

    Which election were you watching? I was promised change. Oh sorry, change and hope.

    I think you should go to change.gov and complain. But not too loudly, or else John Stewart will make a skit mocking you.

  3. wcw says:

    I call them “Eisenhower Republicans,” to distinguish the current crop of (D)s from the current crop of lunatic, loony-right (R)s.

    Compared to a loony-right administration that openly tortured, ran death squads, blew a hole in the budget and proudly served the interests of Paris Hilton and the Walton heirs above all others, Eisenhower Republicanism is change.

    Baby steps.

    FD: ‘loony right’ in my taxonomy is merely descriptive, not an insult. I happily consider my positions mostly loony-left.

  4. michael says:

    ‘Changer’– some of us looked past the commercials and read the position papers. We weren’t promised a 100% withdrawal from Iraq, just some. There wasn’t a promise to avoid bailouts either, that I can recall. We were promised an end to torture. And it looks like we’re getting it.

    One reason why Obama wasn’t my first choice in the primaries was that he’s actually pretty conservative on a lot of issues. He is though, doing a very creditable job of keeping promises. They just weren’t in all cases the promises I wanted.

    Unfortunately, a major reason why I preferred Obama to Clinton was what I thought were his more moderate views on Iraq, and militarism in foreign policy generally. Having her as Secretary of State doesn’t give much comfort there.

  5. changer says:

    “He is though, doing a very creditable job of keeping promises.”

    Do you mean the promise not to appoint lobbyists to positions in government?
    Do you mean the promise to refuse to sign porkbarrel bills?
    Do you mean the promise to use military force in Pakistan only when we have bin laden in our sights?

  6. michael says:

    Alas, I only recall the first of these promises. And compliance has been pretty good. Not perfect, certainly, but pretty good.

    While I don’t recall the second promise, I also don’t think there have been any really bad porkbarrel bills (yet). And yes that includes the stimulus, which has mostly good spending in it. I don’t equate earmarks with porkbarrel per se, as I don’t think there is in principle anything wrong with congress as apposed to some bureaucrat making spending decisions.

    And I’m pretty certain that the promise was to use force if we had OBL in our sights — not to refrain from doing so otherwise. More’s the pity.

  7. Rhodo Zeb says:

    I have tried to put Obama on the spot based on what he said on the campaign trail, and am so glad to see such pushback on these issues:

    Investigations Are Required

    To sum up Obama’s pre-election position:

    In April Obama said that if elected, he would have his attorney general initiate a prompt review of Bush-era action to distinguish between possible “genuine crimes” and “really bad policies.”

    “If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,” Obama told the Philadelphia Daily News. He added, however, that “I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.”

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