12/28/10
Obama's War on Terror Is Not 'Bush Lite' David Cole
It is difficult, in these partisan times, to find any common ground in the debate over U.S. counterterrorism policy. But, on one matter, there seems to be almost uniform agreement: that President Obama has largely continued President Bush’s security policies. With the exception of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who faults Obama for suggesting that trying terrorists as criminals may be more appropriate than waterboarding them, everyone from the ACLU to John Bolton appears to agree that Obama has preserved the main features of Bush’s approach to the “war on terror.”In July 2010, an ACLU report warned that the Obama administration could “enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during the Bush administration.” Liberal pundits and human rights activists frequently echo this message.
