Is President Obama – after actual contact with the day to day realities of the the White House – making pragmatic decisions with regard to the issues of terrorism and torture? Or as his critics charge, is he just a political opportunist, flip-flopping on some of the most central promises of his election campaign and becoming what one might call ‘Bush Light’?
Fidelius Schmid of the Financial Times Deutschland is somewhat sympathetic to Obama’s plight, but writes that allowing a continuance of the military tribunals, ‘isn’t a belated insight, but the pathetic faltering of a man forced to confront a disastrous legacy.’
“The decision of the U.S. President to retain military tribunals for prisoners at Guantánamo may be a matter of domestic politics and considered tactically correct. But morally and legally, it’s a disaster. … The tribunals Bush launched are a scandal in themselves. They restrict the rights to legal representation of the accused, accept rumours as evidence and classify statements extracted under torture as confessions. No one who defends these institutions ought to criticise Islam’s Sharia courts. ”
“Contrary to every established Western legal principle, Obama even wants to resurrect the military tribunals that the Bush Administration wanted to use to convict terror suspects. … Isn’t it complicated, and doesn’t it take a long time to sentence someone in a proper court? Isn’t it true that one cannot be convicted without proof of guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt? Some culprit could inadvertently get off? Yes, that’s true. And yes, it’s impractical. But those are the rules – and they are the best that the U.S. and all Western democracies have come up with. They differentiate Western democracies from dictatorships, sham democracies and theocracies.”
By Fidelius Schmid
Translated By Helene Hill
May 20, 2009
Germany – Financial Times Deutschland – Original Article (German)
The decision of the U.S. President to retain military tribunals for prisoners at Guantánamo may be a matter of domestic politics and considered tactically correct. But morally and legally, it’s a disaster.
There are hundreds of reasons why the Americans and the rest of the world found Barack Obama so fantastic. He is rhetorically brilliant, good looking, and above all he promised one thing: change. What to some sounded like a hollow phrase reflected in a single word a global wish: someone had to come to break with the eight terrible years of George W. Bush as President of the United States and commander-in-chief of the world’s strongest military machine. And radically, to be sure.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
Founder and Managing Editor of Worldmeets.US