Eerder schreef ik dat Obama niet Bush is. Maar op het gebied van veiligheid en mensenrechten lijkt hij er wel akelig veel op.

“President Obama has essentially continued almost every major Bush security policy, either by default or design. State secrets, targeted killings, renditions and indefinite detention, opposing the right of habeas corpus, preventing victims of admitted torture from seeking judicial redress, expanding the Afghan war while moving – however gingerly – to secure a long-term presence in Iraq; all these must surely be making Bush, and especially Cheney, happy and wealthier men.”

“As Michael Hayden, Bush’s last CIA Director, put it in a recent interview, “Obama has been as aggressive as Bush” in defending executive prerogatives and powers that have enabled and sustained the ‘war on terror.’”

Lees het uitstekende opiniestuk bij Al Jazeera: Obama edges to the dark side

Nog een mooi punt: “What neither Attorney General Eric Holder nor the President seems to understand is that there can be no contradiction between human rights and national security, since the absence of human rights can never but lead to a lack of security.”

Waar je mensenrechten schendt, voed je kweekvijvers voor terrorisme. Zoals de schrijver van het opiniestuk Mark LeVine stelt: je zou toch denken dat ook Obama dat begrijpt.