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LA Times 'Punked': Obama NOT Continuing Bush 'Extraordinary Rendition' Program
The BRAD BLOG —
From Scott Horton at Harper's...
In a breathless piece of reporting in the Sunday Los Angeles Times, we are told that Barack Obama “left intact” a “controversial counter-terrorism tool” called renditions. Moreover, the Times states, quoting ...
Interrogation Breakdown
Opinionator —
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported that while Barack Obama has announced significant changes to elements in the Bush terror war — shutting Guatanamo and C.I.A. black sites, ending the use of torture in interrogations — he has “left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.” “Under executive orders issued by Obama recently,” wrote reporter Greg Miller, “the C.I.A. still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.” The news story prompted a number of comments from righty blogs, all taking the president ...
Dear Moe Lane
Comments from Left Field —
FUCK yo couch!
hugs ‘n’ kisses,
The Online Left, who will be sleeping like babies tonight because most of us didn’t swallow the bullshit sammich served up yesterday by the LA Times.
The Rendition Canard, Ctd.
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
Scott Horton: In the course of the last week we’ve seen a steady stream of efforts designed to show that Obama is continuing the counterterrorism programs that he previously labeled as abusive and promised to shut down. These stories are regularly sourced to unnamed current or former CIA officials and have largely run in right-wing media outlets. However, now we see that even the Los Angeles Times can be taken for a ride. ...
Obama's No-Torture Order and CIA Secret Renditions
TalkLeft —
Last week I wrote that the Center for Constitutional Rights questioned President Barack Obama's January 22 orders on interrogation and closing Guantanamo, cautioning that while they in no uncertain terms stated the CIA must close its secret black hole prisons, they may have left a loophole for the CIA to resume them. A secret or extraordinary rendition refers to the practice of the CIA whereby it kidnaps suspects and flies them to a country where they are held in secret prisons and interrogated by non U.S. personnel, where the Red Cross has no access to them ...
Andrew Sullivan still can’t handle the truth on Obama renditions
Patterico's Pontifications —
Andrew Sullivan must have been miffed by the pantsing he took over his slavish defense of Pres. Obama’s expanded renditions policy, as he now resorts to quoting Scott Horton (someone who is almost as fond of conspiracy theories as Sully himself):
There are two fundamental distinctions between the (Clinton and Bush) programs. The extraordinary renditions program involved the operation of long-term detention facilities either by the CIA or by a cooperating host government together with the CIA, in which prisoners were held outside of the criminal justice system ...
Even though the years won't be kind
The Sideshow —
Scott Horton notes that The Los Angeles Times got it completely wrong about extraordinary renditions, apparently because they don't know the difference between (a) kidnapping people in order to bring them to trial in the civilian legal system and (b) kidnapping people and taking them to other countries to be tortured. Neither program should pass the smell test, it's true, but the act is that the first is something that started in the Reagan era, while the second is the one that George Walker Bush's administration started and Obama has committed to shut down. ...
LA Times: The Nation's Worst Newspaper
The Reality-Based Community —
... that those nurses have salaries, and spend money. If you use that money to make the health care system more efficient, then that frees up other resources for productive investment. If Head Start effectively prepares children for school, then that is long-term productivity growth as well. And who teaches in Head Start? Well, uh, maybe teachers, who earn salaries, and then spend the money. Haven't these guys ever heard of the WPA? We've learned over the last few days that the LA Times cannot do the simple job of distinguishing between "rendition" and "extraordinary rendition." ...
Mike's Blog Roundup
Crooks and Liars —
We are respectable negroes: Chauncey DeVega's World of Ghetto Nerds
Scott Horton: Renditions Bufoonery
Contextual Criticism: The human costs of Bush's invasion of Iraq
Intrepid Liberal Journal: America, it's time to say goodbye to Wall Street
Mondoweiss: Google map of Israeli settlements from leaked database
Gelf Magazine: Take the quiz! Are these headlines for real, or really from the Onion?
...
Salt Shaker, Please
Comments from Left Field —
I’m sorry, but this story from the Inter-Press Service (the what?) stinks like three-day-old fish left out on the counter in the middle of July:
CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.
But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn’t convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come ...
Not All Renditions Are the Same
The Moderate Voice —
On Sunday, the L.A. Times, certainly one of the more credible sources in American journalism, reported that Obama has authorized the CIA to continue to “carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.” Essentially, the report went, Obama was going to maintain the “controversial counter-terrorism tool” completely “intact”: “[T]he Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism that it could not ...
When asked whether extraordinary renditions will continue, Panetta answers without hestitation: ‘No.’
Think Progress —
Last week, the LA Times published a story asserting that President Obama “left intact” the CIA’s authority to carry out extraordinary renditions. (The unfounded claim was thoroughly debunked.) At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, Leon Panetta, Obama’s pick to head the CIA, declared decisively that the CIA would not carry out extraordinary renditions:
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Will the CIA continue the practice of extraordinary rendition by which the government will ...
Weekend Opinionator: Truth Commission or More Rendition?
Opinionator —
... — Scott Horton of Harper’s and Hilzoy, a.k.a. Hilary Bok, of Washington Monthly were quick to pounce. The former did so by making a clear distinction between what he felt Obama was likely to do and “extreme rendition,” which involves “the operation of long-term detention facilities either by the CIA or by a cooperating host government together with the CIA, in which prisoners were held outside of the criminal justice system and otherwise unaccountable under law for extended periods of time.” The latter by insisting that ...
