obama on the war path

Anyone who expected the War on Terror to look different under an Obama administration is probably in for a rude awakening. Especially if they live in Afghanistan.

When Obama declared this week that he will be sending an additional 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan, it should have come as no surprise to folks who have been watching his administration's moves closely. After all, one of his first actions in office was to authorize a missile strike on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that killed a number of civilians, including 3 children. Since the beginning of Obama's term, at least four such "precision" strike have been launched, including one that killed 30 people.

And, while Obama signed an order to close the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay amidst great fanfare, he predictably left intact the Clinton-era policy of extraordinary rendition, assuring that the US can continue to carry out its practices of torture and indefinite detention without trial pretty much anywhere else in the world. Places such as Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, where the Obama adminstration recently upheld the Bush administration's claim that detainees have no legal rights to appeal their detention. Wait a minute...Bagram Air Force Base...wasn't the infamous US detention center there recently the subject of an award-winning documentary on the US's human rights abuses? Oh, yeah, it was.

Of course, Obama also pledged to conduct a review of conditions at Gitmo to ensure they met the standard of humane treatment outlined in the Geneva Conventions. This review was completed on Friday--a turnaround time of less than a month! If only all government functions were so speedy! The conclusion? Conditions at Guantanamo are COMPLETELY HUMANE, including the incredibly violent, invasive, and medically unnecessary practice of force-feeding hunger-striking detainees through a finger-sized tube inserted through the nose without anesthesia.

Incidentally, one of the prisoners subjected to the brutal force-feeding technique was this guy, who, after a SEVEN-YEAR nightmare tour of the US's global torture network, is returning to the UK...without a single charge being filed against him.