Backflip on terrorism policy has price | The Australian

Backflip on terrorism policy has price | The Australian: "HOW are those legions of young, idealistic and first-time voters feeling about Barack Obama's promise of 'change we can believe in' now that the new President has decided to reconvene George W. Bush's military commissions and is looking for ways to detain some terror suspects indefinitely without trial?

Are they angry? Do they feel betrayed? A bit foolish perhaps? Well, pockets of resentment are building but so far there is nothing that could be called a backlash.

Out among the masses, the new President remains hugely popular and, helped by his wife who is proving to be a superstar First Lady, seemingly can do no wrong.

But backflipping does come at a price, and Obama has done it so often on terrorism-related national security issues that the Bush presidency is starting to be seen in much more gentle light.

There is a growing sense that many of the criticisms levelled at Bush on terrorism policy were misconceived, and that Bush himself couldn't have been all that bad if Obama is so keen on following his lead.

Since coming to office, Obama has adopted the Bush administration's arguments to continue warrantless wiretapping and for refusing to release pictures of the US mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Obama has also embraced the same "state secrets" doctrine used by the Bush administration to shut down a lawsuit brought by two Guantanamo Bay detainees, who say they were tortured under the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

When the appeal case came before judge Mary Schroeder of the Ninth Circuit in February, she was shocked to find the Department of Justice running the same arguments.

Schroeder: The change of administration has no bearing?

DoJ: No, your honour.

Schroeder: The Government's position is the same?

DoJ: Exactly, your honour. The positions that I'm arguing (have been) thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration, and these are the authorised position ...

Schroeder: So you're conveying the views of the present Justice Department?

DoJ: Exactly, your honour.

In a bid to quell discontent over the resurrected military commissions, Obama has promised to exclude some hearsay evidence and all evidence obtained by torture.

But hearsay is a complex area of law and Obama has given no detail about where the line will be drawn. Likewise, his pledge to exclude all statements resulting from interrogation methods that were "cruel, inhuman and degrading".

While it sounds a solid promise, Obama is silent on the Bush claim that the constitutional ban against such methods doesn't apply outside US territory.

It leaves Obama in a nice if cynical position. The President can continue to dine out on his anti-torture credentials while leaving his reworked military commissions free to use information obtained at CIA black sites in Poland or Morocco or central Asia.

Obama wouldn't want to travel that road.

He would much rather stay true to his election campaign promise to protect the US people and American values by bringing "swift and sure justice to terrorists" through the courts and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

But what choice will there be if he can't find a way to indefinitely detain seriously dangerous 9/11 plotters and other al-Qa'ida figures - men who might be looking at acquittal if the only evidence against them was obtained under duress.

David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics and president of Evangelicals for Human Rights, probably said it best when he recently likened torture to a bone caught in the throat.

"We can't swallow it," he said, "and we can't spit it out."

"