I understand what Glenn Greenwald is arguing when he notes the absence of a human rights pitch in yesterday's Afghanistan pitch, but Obama certainly didn't mind fudging when it came to human rights at home:
Finally, we must draw on the strength of our values – for the challenges that we face may have changed, but the things that we believe in must not. That is why we must promote our values by living them at home – which is why I have prohibited torture and will close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. And we must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights, and tend to the light of freedom, and justice, and opportunity, and respect for the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are. That is the moral source of America's authority.
We've heard this before, and after adopting a policy of indefinite detention, suppressing evidence of torture, feeding amendments that would expand PATRIOT Act powers through his political enemies, and embracing a hybrid legal system for suspected terrorists based on the strength of the government's case rather than the nature of the crime, it's just impossible to believe. Maybe Obama wasn't being dishonest by avoiding making human rights in Afghanistan part of his pitch -- but he certainly didn't have any problem being dishonest about his commitment to human rights at home -- which does not begin and end with outlawing torture and closing Guantanamo Bay. Tell Mohammed Jawad he wasn't living under a "dark cloud of tyranny" for the eight years he spent in Gitmo without charge.
The president once said that "we reject the false choice between our security and our ideals." What are we to make of that now, and what it means for the "moral authority" Obama says is so essential?
-- A. Serwer
