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Michael Otterman is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, as well as an award-winning journalist and filmmaker.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Want to End Torture? Call Obama!
A new initiative, "No Torture-No Exceptions", has been launched to inject anti-torture planks into all three leading candidate's platforms. This is needed today more than ever as all three candidates have largely shied away from addressing this issue directly. Yes, all three candidates have made boiler-plate statements about how torture is wrong, but McCain, Obama and Clinton have also sent mixed messages-- to say the least-- on this vital issue of national importance:
McCain infamously sponsored "compromise" anti-torture legislation bearing his name that allowed torture to continue unchecked, and most recently voted against legislation that sought to ban the CIA's "enhanced" tortures like waterboarding, 40 hours+ standing and hypothermia.
Clinton has flip-flopped on this issue. First she pledged to allow torture "within very, very limited circumstances", but has more recently noted "as a matter of policy it cannot be American policy, period". She was not present when Congress voted in February to ban CIA torture.
Obama has spoken out against torture, but his record is most troubling. Like Clinton, he was not in Washington during the February CIA torture vote. But that's not all. Below is a revealing post by Guantanamo lawyer, Candace Gorman, whose client I've discussed here. A few months back, she posted "A Word About Obama". She wrote:
This is why the new "No Torture-No Exceptions" campaign, spearheaded by Harper's Scott Horton, is so important. The initiative advocates six policy positions that all candidates should take on:
McCain infamously sponsored "compromise" anti-torture legislation bearing his name that allowed torture to continue unchecked, and most recently voted against legislation that sought to ban the CIA's "enhanced" tortures like waterboarding, 40 hours+ standing and hypothermia.
Clinton has flip-flopped on this issue. First she pledged to allow torture "within very, very limited circumstances", but has more recently noted "as a matter of policy it cannot be American policy, period". She was not present when Congress voted in February to ban CIA torture.
Obama has spoken out against torture, but his record is most troubling. Like Clinton, he was not in Washington during the February CIA torture vote. But that's not all. Below is a revealing post by Guantanamo lawyer, Candace Gorman, whose client I've discussed here. A few months back, she posted "A Word About Obama". She wrote:
Obama has potential and of course I will vote for him if he is the democratic candidate but Obama is NOT the poster child for doing the right thing for the men at Guantanamo. Let me start out by saying that I am from Illinois and when he ran for senate I worked on his behalf… it was exciting when he won that hotly contested senate seat… and then he went to the senate...If that doesn't deflate Obama as an anti-torture candidate-- I don't know what does.
His very first vote was for Condi Rice and it went down hill from there… He later voted for either Roberts or Alito (for the Supreme Court) and the outcry from his constituents seemed to give him pause on the other ….
Most importantly he voted for the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA)…. That was the first attempt by congress to do away with habeas corpus...
The list goes on. His official mentor was Liebermann….until Liebermann lost the democratic nomination for his own senate seat.
I met up with Obama at a luncheon/fundraiser in Chicago in the late spring of 2006 (before he decided to run for president) I asked him if he heard a deep sigh coming from the people of Illinois every time he voted… He looked at me in surprise and I started ticking off the things he voted for… and against…. that were very disappointing… (I remembered many of them at that time..)
When I got to the DTA I said to him “I can’t believe that you, as a civil rights attorney yourself, would vote to take away the writ of habeas corpus”and his unfortunate response was “it was going to pass anyway”… I was quite shocked that he made that statement and asked him if that was his "new standard" ... anyway the conversation went downhill from there (ok maybe it wasn’t exactly uphill at any point…)
We all vote need to vote our conscience …. Or, if nothing else... pragmatically….
But Obama should not be held up to what he isn’t and he should not be portrayed as some kind of hero for the gitmo detainees…
by the way Obama did not even bother to show up for the ban on waterboarding a week ago…. [emphasis added]
This is why the new "No Torture-No Exceptions" campaign, spearheaded by Harper's Scott Horton, is so important. The initiative advocates six policy positions that all candidates should take on:
- reaffirming America's commitment to existing federal laws and international treaties that ban torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under all circumstances.
- renouncing all legal interpretations and executive orders that redefine torture and permit such acts as sensory and sleep deprivation, stress positions, sexual humiliation, and mock executions.
- enforcing full transparency of information about how America treats any and all detainees held by our personnel and those in our employ anywhere in the world.
- rejecting and abolishing the practice of rendering detainees abroad.
- establishing a single standard of interrogation procedures to apply to all persons held in U.S. custody or by those under U.S. control, whether C.I.A., military, or civilian.
- treating our detainees as we would have others treat detained Americans.