Sadly, this seems correct: "Obama, rendition, and the decay of American democracy"

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/pers-a26.shtml


I found this article thoughtful, if depressing, reading.

Why, yes - now that you mention it - I am on the "left of the left" (and was saddened, though not shocked, when the president backed away from actual government guaranteed healthcare for All Americans).

:( And I really did have hope that this time, shit would change in our direction.
Sigh. Meet the new boss ...

some kind of fool, or has he been threatened, or what?

No! I am not nuts or a conspiracy theorist.

"Rendition under Obama will be the same as the practice as it existed during the Bush administration..."

Actually, no.

Rendition has been a policy going back many decades, and involves the transfer of a suspect from one country to another under several different circumstances.

"Extraordinary rendition" was the policy of the Bush administration, which has been terminated, and involved the US kidnapping people who had not been charged, indicted or convicted of any crime, without any habeas corpus hearing, and sending them to third countries for torture with US feeding the third party torturer the questions, or to CIA black sites for torture and indefinite detention without trial.

Last week, several sources reported the first "rendition" under the Obama administration. It involved a Lebanese national who had been indicted in federal court in the US. He was lured to Afghanistan, where he was detained by the FBI and other agencies and taken to New York, where he was given a hearing before a US District Court judge in accordance with habeas corpus rights.

Somewhere between the two is the question of whether the Obama administration will revive a Clinton administration form of rendition that involves cooperating with third party law enforcement and intelligence agencies, of detaining persons of interest to both countries, who have been indicted or convicted in absentia in that third party country's courts. But so far, there have been no reports of such Clinton era renditions -- only the rendition of a person indicted in US federal court from Afghanistan to New York.

So the article cited in the OP is wrong. WSWS has a consistent record of lying, as well as attacking and lying about any progressive party or movement -- European Social Democrats and Left-Greens, and US Democrats and the US labor movement (which they called a criminal conspiracy) -- that does not conform to their idiosyncratic Trotksyite tendencies.

but i agree with you

Other countries will not transfer any prisoners to any country in which torture is practiced.

The reason that we wish to, and do, transfer prisoners to such countries is .... ?

It would be nice if, instead of splitting hairs, our president, our government simply said that we will not torture prisoners, we will not transfer prisoners to other countries for torture, nor will we transfer prisoners to other countries where they may be tortured.

Or, we could all drink the Kool-Aide

"we will not torture prisoners, we will not transfer prisoners to other countries for torture, nor will we transfer prisoners to other countries where they may be tortured."

Before making pronouncements about what Obama hasn't done, you might want to actually check the regulations and policy statements that have been put in place.

For a century or more Wall Street funds the left wing opponents (even funded Stalin) but then murders the true socialists and social democrats (like Trotsky).

For this article to claim that Obama's promises have proven "worthless" are pure schlock.
This is right wing propaganda written FOR the left to divide us.

That said, just because the comments are rhetoric, that does not mean that Obama is not a supporter of Capitalism, is no socialist really (although we are essentially a socialist country in the sense that we ay taxes and have welfare but we are not TRULY socialized in an egalitarian way but in a totalitarian way - we pay welfare to the rich just as in Soviet Russia or China), the fact is that the WARS Obama continues are a danger.

Bt this is mostly alarmist claptrap.

It is no different than a Nader claiming there is not a dime's worth of differenc between Gore and Bush.

Bush et al are outright fascists.

Obama is more of a neoliberal pragmatist with leftish leanings but nevertheless a corporate promoter and hence he can and will ony do so much to change things.

But the idea that his presidency is some new danger of horrors brought by the ruling elite was clearly written for the left by some corporofascist who wants to undermine his support on the left.

What I do know is that they consistently target the center-left and left -- Democrats, unions, Greens, Social Democrats, etc.

there is plenty written on this.

Remember Hitler's pact with Stalin?

Wall street financed both Hitler AND Stalin.

Nader got most of his funding from the far right (ad never even became a Green Party member!).

Anthony Sutton wrote much on this stuff.

Controlling the opposition parties (as per the DLC) is a primary tactic of the extreme right..

If they focus on the sinking of Obama, they may end up with an actual opposition party to corporatism.

"Be careful what you as for", comes to mind. For me, I want corporatists out of the Democratic Party. I'll work at the nominating/primary level to get them out.