Obama's Popularity Helping US Interests Abroad?

A new Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, conducted May 18 to June 16, found that "the image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama." The poll even found that in Germany, Obama enjoys greater confidence than Chancellor Angela Merkel and French citizens are more confident in Obama than they are in President Nicolas Sarkozy. The Pew report found that the United States' image has not only improved dramatically in Western Europe, but "opinions of America have also become more positive in key countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, as well." Even countries with a Muslim majority, Indonesia in particular, where the United States was incredibly unpopular during the Bush Administration, have seen an increase in favorable American sentiment since Obama was elected.

"However for the most part, opinions of the U.S. among Muslims in the Middle East remain largely unfavorable, despite some positive movement in the numbers in Jordan and Egypt. Animosity toward the U.S., however, continues to run deep and unabated in Turkey, the Palestinian territories and Pakistan." At the same time, Pew's survey also "confirms a drop in confidence in the United States among Israelis." Immediately after Obama's Cairo speech, Israeli confidence in him to do the right thing slipped from 60 percent before the speech to 49 percent. On policies, Obama's personal popularity doesn't always translate. For example, Obama's plan to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan "is the only Obama policy tested that does not engender broad global support. In fact, majorities in most countries oppose the added deployments."

America's Torture Disgrace. Destroyed US Reputation, Did Not garner Intel.

Finally, the incompetent, disingenuous leadership of the Bush administration is being called to account for its abysmal record on Human Rights.

These Human Rights abuses have not only damaged the US reputation around the world, the methods employed did not yield good intelligence.



In a recent interview with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that, in the period after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration embraced a policy of torturing suspected al Qaeda detainees. Cheney did not refer to the Bush administration's practices as "torture." In fact, he insisted that "we don't do torture. We never have." He did admit, however, that he had supported the waterboarding of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. Waterboarding -- a technique in which water is poured over a prisoner's face to simulate drowning -- is considered torture under international law and has been prosecuted as a war crime by the United States. According to Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism expert and former instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school, waterboarding "is torture, without doubt."

Torture Doesn't Work: In a recent story in Vanity Fair, journalist David Rose reports that the conclusion of numerous counterterrorist officials he spoke to is "unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts."

The use of torture has made Americans less safe. Former Air Force interrogator and author of How to Break a Terrorist Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym) recently wrote that "the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked [to Iraq] to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo." Alexander, who used non-violent methods of interrogation to obtain information on the whereabouts of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, argued, "Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda. ... Torture and abuse cost American lives."

Torture Is A Violation Of Our Laws And Values: Arguments about the practical utility of torture distract from the more important point that torture is a violation of U.S. law, and its use represents a significant abdication of the U.S. commitment to human rights. The U.S. federal anti-torture statute, formally known as Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C of the U.S. Code, "defines the crime of torture and prescribes harsh punishments for anyone who commits an act of torture outside of the United States." Alexander wrote "there's no doubt in my mind" that the tactics allowed by the Bush administration "are illegal." The U.N. Committee Against Torture has been very clear in demanding that the U.S. "should rescind any interrogation technique...that constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, in all places of detention under its de facto effective control, in order to comply with its obligations" under the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Holding Perpetrators Accountable: The Bush administration's embrace of torture marks a significant reversal of decades of U.S. policy. Back in 2006, then-senator Barack Obama said that torture "is not how a serious Administration would approach the problem of terrorism," and declared the use of torture to be "a betrayal of American values." While Vice President-elect Biden didn't rule out future prosecution of Bush administration officials involved in torture, he made clear yesterday that "President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We're focusing on the future." Whatever legal course is chosen by the new administration to deal with recent abuses, the damage done to America's reputation by the use of torture -- making a mockery of U.S. claims to uphold human rights -- has been incalculable.

Shinseki Gets the Call

Yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama named ret. Army Gen. Eric Shinseki as his Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), promising "the kind of VA that will serve our veterans as well as they have served us." Shinseki will face one of the country's most daunting tasks: managing an institution already plagued by backlogs, scandals, and inadequate resources, and is increasingly taxed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the press conference, Shinseki spoke directly to veterans: "If confirmed, I will work each and every day to ensure that we are serving you as well as you have served us. We will pursue a 21st-century VA that serves your needs." The nomination of the first Asian-American to the post -- Shinseki, a Japanese-American, grew up in Hawaii -- carried extra poignancy coming on the 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks. Military officials and some veterans organizations immediately praised Obama's announcement. Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell called Shinseki "an inspired selection." "He is a man that has always put patriotism ahead of politics, and is held in high regard by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan," read a statement by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.



Shinseki is most famous for publicly contradicting Bush administration officials' overly optimistic predictions about the war in Iraq. In 2003, then serving as the Army's chief of staff, he told Congress that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to secure Iraq. The Bush administration's failure to heed Shinseki's warnings led to a decimation of the U.S. military -- underequipped forces, an over-reliance on the National Guard and Reserves, a dangerous stop-loss policy, and an increasing number troops coming home with mental and physical problems. As University of Michigan professor Juan Cole told the Washington Post, "If Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and [former undersecretary for defense Douglas J.] Feith had listened to Shinseki, there wouldn't be as many wounded veterans to take care of." Shinseki served two combat tours in Vietnam, receiving two Purple Hearts and four Bronze Stars. He has frequently worked with wounded veterans and visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center, referring to it as a "members-only section" since he, too, is an amputee.

Downtrodden by Bush administration. In 2002 and 2003, Bush administration officials tried to sell the public on an Iraq invasion by arguing that the costs to the United States would be almost nonexistent. "Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits," said then-White House adviser Lawrence Lindsey. Bush administration officials not only completely miscalculated the billions the United States would have to spend on combat and reconstruction but also failed to plan for the cost of caring for wounded troops after the war. The Iraq war has seen an unprecedented number of troops who "have been wounded or injured and survived," according to economists Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes. The ratio for Iraq and Afghanistan has been seven injuries for every fatality -- by far the largest in U.S. history -- compared to 2.6 and 2.8 for the Vietnam and Korean wars, respectively. The result of this lack of preparation has been a badly neglected VA, with the appalling conditions at Walter Reed as only the tip of the iceberg. In July 2007, Jim Nicholson resigned as VA Secretary in disgrace, leaving a tenure during which he stood by and even supported the Bush administration's slashing of the agency. President Bush has, in fact, repeatedly objected to large increases in the budget for veterans' medical care. However, Nicholson's departure hasn't cleared up all the problems. Under new secretary James Peake, VA officials have been trying to cover up data on the troubling rise in suicides among veterans.

Challenges. Veterans are suffering the consequences of the Bush administration's neglect. Last year, a Harvard Medical School study found that one in eight veterans younger than 65 is uninsured. Military retirees who are insured are often paying more for medical care than other retirees. Despite the Bush administration's promises to reform the veterans' care system after the Walter Reed scandal, a Government Accountability Office report last year found that delays for disability payments "still average 177 days -- nearly six months -- with no indication that dramatic improvement is in the offing." One of Shinseki's most pressing challenges will be modernizing the VA to deal with the increasing number of mental health troubles faced by soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 20 percent of returning veterans have post-traumatic stress disorder, but only about half of them seek treatment. Another area where the VA has fallen short is in its treatment of women veterans. As the AP has reported, "Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma." Roughly 180,000 women have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and last year, the VA) "treated more than 255,000 female veterans. The number is expected to double within five years."

Obama Will End Torture To Regain US's Moral Stature

Recently, the Wall Street Journal wrote, "President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies," including torture. Last night, Obama put those concerns to rest, in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes. CBS's Steve Kroft asked if Obama planned "to take early action" on changing interrogation methods and shutting the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. "Yes," Obama replied unambiguously, "I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture, and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world." Recently, CIA senior deputy general counsel John Rizzo, who had been a strong advocate for torture under the Bush administration, said that the CIA detention and interrogation program must be "dealt with immediately." "We do not have the luxury to wait and muddle through," Rizzo added.