A tortured Obama

14 mei 2009

What should have symbolised America's glorious re-entry into the human rights community was overshadowed by everyday muddy politics. The day after the United States joined the UN Human Rights Council, President Obama decided not to release the infamous 'torture photos.' The same week President Obama announced that he would retain the military commissions -with some human rights add-ons- to prosecute terror suspects after the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

'Bush-light?' President Obama was ordered by a US court to make public some 2000 photographs showing abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan by US soldiers. On grounds of national security, president Obama decided not to do so. Showing the images could "further inflame anti-American opinion" and endanger US troops abroad. The president has a point. The release of just a few photographs showing mistreatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 2004 caused an outcry in the Arab world. These photographs may reveal not just individual excesses but a pattern of abuse of detainees by US troops. Joining the UN Human Rights Council is not a quick-fix to boost the US image abroad. It means scrutiny, transparency and accountability for human rights violations. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, immediately called upon Obama to investigate and bring to justice interrogators who tortured detainees or terrorism suspects. Former president Bush did not want scrutiny of the US human rights record, at home or abroad. He vehemently opposed the International Criminal Court to shield American soldiers from being indicted for torture or war crimes while fighting the war on terror. He refused to join the UN Human Rights Council to avoid review of US human rights performance at home. He became infamous for rendition of terrorist suspects and authorising the use of torture.

President Obama wants change. But after 100 days in office, the president faces the dilemma of national security versus human rights. As commander-in-chief, Obama has to protect American troops embroiled in a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, as president he has to protect American citizens against new terrorist attacks and as candidate in the next presidential elections, Obama has to satisfy both Harvard law school graduates who want full disclosure of the truth as well as moms and dads of soldiers and simple country folk who are proud of 'our boys' and need to continue to believe that America is the good guy. The question is how to be a human rights hero while leading a superpower.

The UN Human Rights Council will not compel Obama to release those torture pictures. That is the president's sovereign prerogative. But it will publicly demand accountability for torture and other human rights abuses committed by US troops abroad and of those who authorised the use of torture as an interrogation tactic. In 2004, as a senator, Obama stated that We must do whatever it takes to track down and capture or kill terrorists but torture is not a part of the answer -it is a fundamental part of the problem... Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it. He promised that when he would be president, he would honor the laws and Constitution and be straight with the American people. International law prohibits torture. There is no exception to this rule.

A 'Bush-light' might just not be good enough.