Obama rolls back Bush’s excesses

Toronto StarHISTORY will recall George Bush’s presidency as much for its imperial manner as for its serial blunders. After the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, Bush claimed extraordinary executive powers as a ‘wartime’ leader, and his White House acted as if it were above the law, veiled in secrecy and unaccountable.Flouting the Geneva Conventions and inviting the Abu Ghraib scandal, Bush authorised the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to abuse terror suspects. He created a shameful military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, where 770 detainees were denied basic legal rights. That offended even the rightward-leaning US Supreme Court. And he allowed past presidents, vice-presidents and others to veto the release of executive archives that should be in the public domain.In much of the world’s eyes, the United States on Bush’s watch came to stand not for freedom and democracy, but for presidential abuse of power, indifference to human rights and due process, and scant regard for accountability. The nation’s highest office shrank in stature. But today Americans are celebrating a season of renewal, as President Barack Obama turns the page on a dismal era.In his first executive act this week, Obama made what he called a “clean break” from the imperial presidency, rolling it back to something the country’s founders would have recognised. “Transparency and rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” he said. And in a rebuke to Bush he vowed “the US will not torture.”Government will be held to a higher standard of accountability, Obama promised on Wednesday, as he scrapped Bush-era policies that cloaked presidential records in secrecy and made it easy for federal agencies to deny information requests. He also froze the salaries of staff making more than $100,000 a year, in a nod toward Americans who feel the economic pinch. And he tightened the rules for lobbyists….No less important is his bid to “renew American leadership” abroad with an “aggressive” push for Mideast peace, more thoughtful involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a fierce drive to reclaim the “moral high ground” against terror. To that end he has surrounded himself with a strong diplomatic team headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special Mideast and Afghan/Pakistan envoys George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke.On Thursday Obama ordered the CIA to shut down its secret prisons, told the military to close the Guantanamo Bay internment camp within a year, prohibited abusive interrogation of prisoners and ordered a review of the 245 still held in detention. This repudiation of the Bush era gulag, where public scrutiny was non-existent and abuse commonplace, is vital to restoring America’s international stature.Clearly, Obama gets it. He understands that the US is bigger than the ‘war on terror’, and does not need to sacrifice its soul to prevail….Tough challenges lie ahead for the 44th president. But if Obama stays true to his principles of accountable, open, lawful government, he will improve his nation’s standing in the world and strengthen its security at the same time. — (Jan 24)