Dear Readers:Newly-inaugurated U.S. President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Order to abolish the secret prisons, detention centers and other "hold, interrogate and torture" facilities for suspected terrorists or enemy combatants that had been an arrogant obsession with former president Bush. This is indeed a pivotal event, and for several reasons:
1. It ends an internationally-perceived hypocrisy in American politics where we spoke loudly of freedom, respect for the law and Human Rights, while obstreperously engaging in many of the tactics associated by the people we so often called terrorists. People neither like nor trust hypocrites. Nations and leaders who are seen to be hypocrites undermine their credibility, and engender contempt from the International Community.
2. It shows that a politician can actually honor a promise made to his own people, and to his own country. It flies in the face of the notion of the stereotypical "corrupt politician." It elevates his status from that of a politician to that of a statesman. It rekindles faith in the idea that power can be used to achieve good ends, instead of the standard menu of Actonian avarice, partisan patronage, domination and destruction.
3. It sends a powerful message to those countries which have distanced themselves from the United States because of our unwillingness to hear them or to deal fairly with them, because of our unaccountability and inaccessibility to them, because of our inflexible and bullying nature toward any object sitting between us and our agenda, that we can be reasoned with. This is truly a breakthrough. The United States, after a long period of narrow-mindedness, xenophobia, shameless militancy and unapproachability might once again be a viable trading partner and a member of the Global Society.
These are good things for every American citizen as well as for every advocate of Internationalism.
Good work, Mr. Obama. Good work so far.
Faithfully,
Douglas Castle
p.s. Read about this in an article published in the NEW YORK TIMES by clicking on:
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