I have been fairly generous toward the Obama administration's actions in defending the CIA's "Extaordinary Rendition" policies. I was of the opinion that the president felt compelled to see these cases through the court system to resolve legitimate constitutional questions. I believed that he found the task distasteful but necessary to rebuild our reputation as a nation built on the rule of law.
I no longer believe that, and the dismissal of a lawsuit by torture victims against the Boeing subsidiary that arranged their flights to hell is the reason I no longer trust President Obama on this issue.
I believe the defending of torture by President Obama's administration is a self-serving continuation of a hand-shake agreement among U.S. presidents not to prosecute each other. And I'm disgusted.
I do not believe that revealing the details of torture would have a significant impact on our national security. Why else would the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismiss the plaintiff's lawsuit even though the plaintiffs agreed to use only publicly available evidence?
I believe President Obama knows, and has known all along, that the plaintiffs were deliberately and systematically tortured, and that the torture violated U.S. and international law. Why else would the court order the government to pay the legal bills of the plaintiffs, even though the plaintiffs lost and hadn't even requested their bills be paid by the government?
I believe the only thing being protected is the ability of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to spend their retirements in freedom, and believe that is the sole motivation of the court. Why else would the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit attempt to assuage their own guilt by:
urg(ing) the executive branch and Congress to grant reparations to victims of C.I.A. "misjudgments or mistakes" that violated their human rights if government records confirmed their accusations, even though the courthouse was closed to them.
This is not a judgment on his entire presidency, but my trust in President Obama to do the right thing on torture has been permanently altered.