President Obama assured us that once in office we would henceforth take the "high road" in our treatment of terrorist detainees. Under his presidency, he promised, we would return to our "highest values," etc. Unfortunately, we're beginning to learn that what the President promises is often not quite what he does. Consider this example from the New York Times:
The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to current and former American government officials. The change represents a significant loosening of the reins for the United States, which has worked closely with allies to combat violent extremism since the 9/11 attacks but is now pushing that cooperation to new limits.
In the past 10 months, for example, about a half-dozen midlevel financiers and logistics experts working with Al Qaeda have been captured and are being held by intelligence services in four Middle Eastern countries after the United States provided information that led to their arrests by local security services, a former American counterterrorism official said.
In addition, Pakistan's intelligence and security services captured a Saudi suspect and a Yemeni suspect this year with the help of American intelligence and logistical support, Pakistani officials said. The two are the highest-ranking Qaeda operatives captured since President Obama took office, but they are still being held by Pakistan, which has shared information from their interrogations with the United States, the official said.
The current approach, which began in the last two years of the Bush administration and has gained momentum under Mr. Obama, is driven in part by court rulings and policy changes that have closed the secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency, and all but ended the transfer of prisoners from outside Iraq and Afghanistan to American military prisons.
When George Bush sent terrorists to other countries for interrogation the Left went orbital with outrage. President Obama assured us that he would not accept the "failed policies of the past," but how is what the Times reports any different than what Bush did? Instead of sending the prisoners to foreign countries to have their fingernails pulled out our people just tell their people where to find the bad guys and let their people make the arrest and take the terrorists home to be hooked up to the electrodes.
Further on in the article it mentions the difficulty Obama administration officials are struggling with trying to figure out where high level detainees will be kept now that the president has promised to close down Guantanamo. Of course, just because he promised to close Gitmo ...well, by now you probably get the picture.
Hot Air points out that this is the second Bush policy in the last three days for which the Left trashed Bush but which Obama appears to be continuing. The other one is to continue to hold detainees indefinitely without trial.
What a slickster. His modus operandi is to fire up the opposition to Bush, give everyone the impression that he's the antithesis of Bush, and then continue doing much the same things Bush did while his adoring supporters ooh and ahh over how he's purged us of the evil policies of the past and brought us "change." How long will it be before it dawns on those same supporters in the media and elsewhere that they've been conned pretty much like Paul Newman conned Robert Shaw in The Sting?
RLC