This article is part of the series: The other face of Barack Obama
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The Other face of Barack Obama - 3

This article contains of two parts. Also read part 1.

By Daan de Wit
Translated by Ben Kearney

An explanation for the opposition of Department of Defense and the CIA can be read in the New York Times: 'Officials say the importance of Bagram as a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq has risen under the Obama administration, which barred the Central Intelligence Agency from using its secret prisons for long-term detention and ordered the military prison at Guantanamo closed within a year'. Obama's change doesn't mean abolishing the system of secret and unlawful detention of prisoners that he inherited from the prior administration, but instead involves conveying a predominantly visual modification: Guantanamo will be shut down, and as a result, its function is being shifted to Bagram. Another reason to move to Bagram is that a number of prisoners at Guantanamo won the right under Bush to a fair trial, and almost all of them were found not guilty on the basis of a lack of evidence. At Bagram it seems as if the same rights were also awarded to prisoners, but according to a lawyer for one of the prisoners, the outside world is being fooled by the introduction of a limited measure. Jonathan Hafetz of the ACLU says: 'Guantanamo was the Bush administration's effort to do an end run around the Constitution, and the Obama administration is now essentially using Bagram as a way to do an end run around Guantanamo and the constitutional right of habeas corpus found to apply there'.

The U.S. Air Force base in the Afghan city of Bagram plays a key role in the documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, in which American prison guards tell how they abused prisoners there during the Bush Administration. Torture took place there, sometimes resulting in death. Nutrients were also forcibly administered to people who couldn't take it anymore and refused all food and drink. This from the book Oath Betrayed - America's Torture Doctors by Dr. Steven Miles. Force-feeding also took place in Guantanamo Bay. What's more, it continues to happen today, under the new president, Barack Obama. The ACLU is therefore demanding that: 'Obama Administration Must Abandon Force-Feeding at Gitmo'. It equates the practice of force-feeding with torture: 'At least since 2005, [military physicians] have used restraint chairs to put hundreds of prisoners in eight-point restraints (ie, both ankles, wrists, and shoulders, one lap belt, and one head restraint) before, during, and after the placement of a nasogastric tube so that the prisoners can be force-fed. The use of coercion, physical force, or physical restraints to force-feed competent individuals on hunger strike has been condemned by the World Medical Association as a form of "inhuman and degrading treatment" that is prohibited according to Common Article 3'. In addition to the forced administration of food, the Immediate Reaction Force is still being deployed in Guantanamo as well, which terrorizes prisoners by 'breaking bones, gouging eyes, squeezing testicles, and 'dousing' them with chemicals'.

Both in Taxi to the Dark Side as well as in the documentary Standard Operating Procedure (which explores the stories behind the torture photos), soldiers talk about how their prisoners were for the most part innocent civilians. Back in 2005 in a series on American torture practices, I wrote about how innocent people were disappearing behind bars for large bounties. In both documentaries and in my series, it's clear that the prisoners are mostly made up of regular citizens. Obama could denounce the torture of these people and thus publicly distance himself from the Bush policy with regard to human rights, or lack thereof. One of these people is Binyam Mohamed. In his case, the U.S. has threatened England with sanctions. The lawyer for the British Foreign Secretary confirms this: 'It is entirely right,' she said, 'there has been that explicit statement of consequences'. She is arguing for the suppression of evidence showing American involvement in the torture of Mohamed.

Obama sidestepped yet another opportunity to expose Bush's torture practices. He could have made the torture photos and videos from Iraq and Afghanistan public in the name of transparency. But instead Obama pledged his support to Senator Joe Lieberman, who sought to block their release. Very little transparency was exercised through this declaration of support. News of this cooperation was buried in a footnote in a 33-page petition. A journalist from The Public Record wrote with disappointment: 'Obama's decision to fight to conceal the photos to the Supreme Court marks an about-face on the open-government policies that he proclaimed during his first days in office'. The civil rights organization ACLU filed an official request to release the photos. 'The Justice Department initially agreed to release the photos shortly after the change of administrations, but the Obama administration has since changed its position, claiming the photos should not be released'.

What is also continuing to take place under Obama are the renditions, with the only difference being that the terrorist suspects who are carried off won't be tortured. But if that's true, then why are they still being shipped off to distant and dangerous lands? It is unlikely that these people won't be tortured. Amrit Singh, a lawyer for the ACLU, says: 'It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice of relying on diplomatic assurances, which have been proven completely ineffective in preventing torture'. The New York Times points out that Obama, in a 2007 article in Foreign Affairs, wrote: 'To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law'.

National Public Radio takes critical aim at Obama and writes: 'On a range of other issues, the Obama Administration's approach sounds very much like the prior administration's, only more of it'. Among other things, NPR takes aim at the so-called Fusion Centers, begun under Bush, where all kinds of data and information on terrorism is brought together. And with regard to the biometric and other information that travelers to the U.S. must provide: 'this, too, is an extension of the approach begun by the Bush Administration. [...] Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's big policy speech today at the Council on Foreign Relations [was] about educating the populace about how to be the eyes and ears of counter-terrorism'. Citizens were enlisted to be the eyes and ears for the authorities back during the Bush Administration. And when that isn't sufficient, Obama is making use of a more extreme measure, just like his predecessor: 'Obama's Military Is Spying on U.S. Peace Groups', reports Amy Goodman, the face of Democracy Now. 'Anti-war activists in Olympia, Wash., have exposed Army spying and infiltration of their groups, as well as intelligence gathering by the Air Force, the federal Capitol Police and the Coast Guard. [...] the spying in Olympia occurred well into the Obama administration (and may continue today)'. Goodman subtly added: 'President Barack Obama supports retroactive immunity for telecom companies involved in the wiretapping, and has maintained Bush-era reliance on the state secrets privilege'. Democracy Now points out in another article that Obama has also broken his promise to reconsider NAFTA: 'Obama's reversal on NAFTA has come under criticism from labor and human rights groups'.
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