Greg Miller is guilty of one of two things: a) he is functionally illiterate; or, b) he's baiting the wingnuts. Of course it could be a combination of the two. Here's what he wrote in today's L.A. Times:
Reporting from Washington -- The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.
But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.
While he breathlessly and somewhat gloatingly trumpets this bit of news as a some sort of vindication of the Bush administrations, he fails to mention that per President Obama's executive order, the CIA or any other clandestine U.S. operatives will no longer have carte blanche to engage in such activities. And the difference between this version of "renditions" and the Bush's administration si even more striking when the order states unequivocally the following:
clipped from www.whitehouse.gov
EXECUTIVE ORDER -- ENSURING LAWFUL INTERROGATIONS
(ii) to study and evaluate the practices of transferring individuals to other nations in order to ensure that such practices comply with the domestic laws, international obligations, and policies of the United States and do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture or otherwise for the purpose, or with the effect, of undermining or circumventing the commitments or obligations of the United States to ensure the humane treatment of individuals in its custody or control.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 22, 2009
Mr. Miller seems to be oblivious to this crucial distinction.