NYT: Obama parrots Bush on rendition

[Cylinder]

Obama Backs Off a Reversal on Secrets (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/10torture.html?hp)


n a closely watched case involving rendition and torture, a lawyer for the Obama administration seemed to surprise a panel of federal appeals judges on Monday by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration.

During the campaign, Mr. Obama harshly criticized the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees, and he has broken with that administration on questions like whether to keep open the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But a government lawyer, Douglas N. Letter, made the same state-secrets argument on Monday, startling several judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“Is there anything material that has happened” that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.

“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied.

Judge Schroeder asked, “The change in administration has no bearing?”

Once more, he said, “No, Your Honor.” The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.

[BPSCG]

Link (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iNqjrsQ96LSw38bHitcinz_SQAWgD966663O1)
The United States will continue to hand foreign detainees over to other countries for questioning, but only with assurances they will not be tortured, Leon Panetta told a Senate committee considering his confirmation as CIA director.This is change we can believe in, right?

Not exactly.
That has long been U.S. policy,but some former prisoners subjected to the process — known as extraordinary rendition_ during the Bush administration's anti-terror war say they were tortured.

So I guess what this means is that we're going to demand stronger assurances that the foreign government won't torture, right?

Not exactly.
"I will seek the same kind of assurances that they will not be treated inhumanely," Panetta said Friday in his second day before the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I intend to use the State Department to be sure those assurances are implemented and stood by, by those countries."

Well, at least we will stop sending prisoners to other countries for the express purpose of having them tortured.

Not exactly.
Panetta formally retracted a statement he made Thursday that the Bush administration transferred prisoners for the purpose of torture.
"I am not aware of the validity of those claims," he said.So Panetta is saying, "It seems we never started beating our wife in the first place."

[WildCat]

“Is there anything material that has happened” that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.

“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied.

Judge Schroeder asked, “The change in administration has no bearing?”

Once more, he said, “No, Your Honor.” The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.
I expected as much. Many of those in Obama's cabinet were also in Clinton's cabinet, and Clinton's rendition policy was the same as Bush's. Bush sure as hell didn't invent it, much as his detractors wanted that to be true..