This an $5 will get you a Cup of Coffee

Here's a NY Times article about an Obama pledge -- hand over heart, cross his fingers, hope to die -- that it won't torture prisoners, well, not torture them as much as Bush did.

While Obama is promising a "kinder, gentler" version of Bush, he will stick to flying "suspects" to third world countries that specialize in specialized "interrogation" techniques, you know, like Kazakstan that boils its interrogees alive in oil in order to extract "actionable" intelligence or Syria which buries you alive in a casket-sized hole for years with only brief breaks where they drag you out and beat you to within an inch of your life...

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse.

“It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice of relying on diplomatic assurances, which have been proven completely ineffective in preventing torture,” said Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who tracked rendition cases under President George W. Bush.

...

Though the Obama administration previously signaled that it would continue the use of renditions, some civil liberties groups were disappointed because, as a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama had strongly suggested he might end the practice. In an article in Foreign Affairs in the summer of 2007, Mr. Obama wrote, “To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people.”

Mr. Obama continued, “This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.” In January, the president ordered secret prisons run by the C.I.A. to be shut down.

So much for the political slogan of Change You Can Believe In. What I've come to believe is that politicians are all alive: say what it takes to get elected, the stick a thumb in the eye of the electorate.