by LR Swartz

Created on: February 13, 2009

President Obama may come out and say he is against torture. He has campaigned on this issue of torture. On the campaign trail, he has stated that Guantanamo Bay has overstepped its bounds in torture. He specifically targeted one technique throughout his campaign as being heinous, the use of water boarding. Although these techniques have captured or killed some of the top Al Qaeda operatives, President Obama stated that they were illegal and needed to be stopped.

In President Obama's first wave of executive orders, he issued the closing of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. In this same executive order he "halted" all proceeding, the upcoming trials. What many of us citizens do not realize is that he did not wiped torture completely out. President Obama is actually contradicting himself on the topic of torture. So where does he stand on torture?

We really do not know where he stands on torture. He has really never come out with a policy in his brief political career. He has not taken any actions in the Senate about this topic. As a US Senator, when a vote on torture came to the floor, he had his office "tally votes on whether or not he should stand up against torture." So while in the Senate, he had no clear thoughts about this hot topic he just went with the flow or with public opinion. So, those who shouted the loudest had their voices heard.

Therefore, it should not be a surprise to find President Obama split on this decision as well. What has not been widely published is that his administration realizes that some form of punishment or way to get information from prisoners/terrorists needs to be preserved. He has kept in place a controversial program. This program has been condemned by many of the developed world and our allies. The program that will stay intact is rendition as well as the short detaining of prisoners.

What is rendition? Rendition is the abduction of persons as well as the transferring of political prisoners already in our care to other countries. These other countries would then torture these prisoners to obtain the information we need to fight the war on terror. The CIA has been in charge of this program and under President Obama's administration, it will expand.

So while he touts publicly that he will eliminate Guantanamo Detention Center, he quietly allows rendition to stay. While he touts publicly that he will eliminate torture, his administration has quietly stated that the CIA can still detain persons of interest and interrogate them. The difference here is that they will not be kept for long periods of time. So tell me, what is the difference?

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