Closing Gitmo, Ending Torture

Alex Massie:

...there will come a time, not immediately but sometime, when flesh needs to be put on those rhetorical bones. A time when promises must be followed by action. A time for cheques to be cashed. And that means action on Guantanamo Bay and Extraordinary Rendition.

Understandably, we haven't heard much about those sort of things on the campaign trail. Certainly, there's not much mention of these issues on Obama's website. Equally understandably, one appreciates the domestic political concerns that make any immediate action on these matters unlikely. To put it mildly, it's not a good idea to begin your presidency with actions that can, however absurdly, be misinterpreted as being "soft on terrorists".

Nonetheless, at some point something needs to be done. The Iraq War was, for sure, unpopular across much of the world, but its Guantanamo and rendition and secret CIA prisons around the world that have done far more damage to the United States' reputation. And, I'm afraid, rightly so...

If there's been no announcement on the future of Guantanamo and rendition by, say, this time next year then, Washington, we're going to have a problem...

I  don't agree that Obama can wait nearly a year before doing something about torture.