Untitled - the ultimate blog

On torture, hate radio, Arabic, free trade, education, the rich, Britain's
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Aug 13th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Barack Obama and torture
SIR – Your briefing about the debate on torture perpetuated an unfortunate myth: that Barack Obama has
dramatically altered the detention policies of his predecessor (“The dark pursuit of the truth”, August 1st).
The regrettable fact is that the policies implemented by Mr Obama are materially indistinguishable from
those of George Bush at the end of his second term. Moreover, the Obama administration has adopted no
measure that runs counter to the desires of the agencies ostensibly being regulated, including the CIA.
Support for the myth rests principally on three decisions: to close the CIA’s secret “black sites”, to end the
use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, and to shut Guantánamo. As for the black sites, these were
already empty and the CIA had long wanted to get out of the detention business. Nothing in the decision,
therefore, reforms practice. In fact, Mr Obama has continued to allow the CIA to hold prisoners
“temporarily” and conduct extraordinary renditions—transferring prisoners to third countries for
interrogation.
With respect to American interrogation practices, the Bush administration had already ended the most
loathsome abuses, including waterboarding, and the so-called “high-value” detainees, who had been
subjected to these methods, were no longer being interrogated at the end of Mr Bush’s second term.
What’s more, Mr Obama has directed American interrogators to follow guidelines in the Army Field
Manual. This was drafted by the Bush administration.
Finally, there is the much-heralded decision to close Guantánamo. Granting the symbolic significance of
the prison, reasonable minds would agree that what matters most is not where a prisoner is held but how.
And in that regard, Mr Obama’s decision to close Guantánamo is qualified in two respects. First, he has
endorsed preventive detention, a wretched and morally bankrupt practice familiar to most British (and
Irish) readers. Second, he has continued with the Bush-era approach that prisoners at Bagram air base in
Afghanistan may be held without judicial review and he defends this with many of the same arguments
that Mr Bush made about Guantánamo.
In the life of a nation, symbolic change is not meaningless. In fact, in the modern political climate, it may
be all one can reasonably expect. But it should never be confused with genuine reform.
Joseph Margulies
Northwestern University School of Law
Chicago
Defending the airwaves
SIR – It is true that instances of hate media are increasing, especially in fragile states (“Crackles of
hatred”, July 25th). But research by our charity, an independent body created by the BBC, suggests that
the use of radio during Kenya’s post-election crisis was rather different from the carefully orchestrated
propaganda observed during the Rwanda genocide, or in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.
In the Kenyan case, supply met demand. There was pent-up anger among people who felt economically
and politically marginalised and this found an outlet in newly created local-language radio. In these
circumstances, simply clamping down on new media could amount to putting the lid on a pressure cooker.
James Deane
BBC World Service Trust
London
-16-