Quote of the Day: Sullivan on Obama

Andrew Sullivan is one of the few persons who has constantly and unequivocally condemned Republicans and Democrats, under the Bush junta and the Obama administration, of condoning and actively participating in the torture and murder of war on terrorism detainees.  In a blog entry that addresses the Machiavellian undercurrent to American politics, he condemns Mr. Obama for his recent cowardliness in preventing those who have been wrongly "extraordinary renditioned" and tortured by American forces to seek redress in court.

Aggressively trying to prevent torture victims from having their day in court merely using unclassified evidence is active complicity in the war crimes of the past. And such complicity is itself a war crime. Either we live under the rule of law and the Geneva Conventions, or we don't. And when Obama says we don't - as he unmistakably is - the precedent he is setting all but ensures that torture will come again, that there will never be consequences for it, and that the national security state can cloak itself in such a way that the citizenry has no way of penetrating its power. Bush and Cheney remain the real culprits here; but watching Obama essentially surrendering to their trap is a betrayal of a core rationale for his candidacy.