PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network.
I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore.
When President Obama was elected, a lot of people had high expectations that America's
human rights record and practices would change.
Did they?
And how much difference is there between the Democratic Party in power and the Republicans
when it comes to human rights?
Now joining us to discuss all this is Michael Ratner.
He's the president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and
chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin.
Thanks for joining us, Michael.
MICHAEL RATNER: Good to be with you, Paul.
JAY: And I should mention Michael's on the board of the Real News Network.
So what do you make of this question?
You've been a very harsh critic of President Obama's human rights record.
Tell us a bit about why.
And then, do you think there's any difference between the two parties when it comes to human
rights?
RATNER: I remain a harsh critic of President Obama and the Obama administration on fundamental
issues of human rights.
I was a likewise critic, obviously, of the Bush administration.
I think there's no significant difference between the two.
In some way we can argue that certain issues are worse under Obama.
And particularly for me the idea that the Democrats have gone along with the depredations
of the Bush administration now basically makes the policies both-party policies, and in that
sense they've become embedded as part of our American legal system and our American culture.
So that's terrible.
[I think that] the one that I was most concerned by, which the Center for Constitutional Rights
began, it's the Guantanamo cases.
We started those cases ten years ago, 2002, in January.
Today, as we speak, Paul, there are still 167 people left at Guantanamo.
I would say 168, except that last week someone died at Guantanamo, a man named Abdul Latif.
And it was a tragic death, and it's one that really says a lot about the Obama administration.
It's a thirty-some-year-old man from Yemen, mentally ill for sure.
A federal court actually ordered him freed.
The Obama administration appealed that order.
The appeals court, which is terrible, reversed the court.
He remained in Guantanamo.
Even the task force of the Obama administration said he should be freed.
He was not freed.
And now he's dead.
Yesterday it was 168 people in Guantanamo.
Today it's 167.
And I put that right at the feet of Obama, who within three days of taking office, as
I'm sure we all remember, with all the pomposity of a president sat in his office signing an
executive order saying Guantanamo is to be closed within one year.
Here we are four years later.
Not only is it not closed, but even people never charged with a crime, kept there indefinitely,
are still there.
And it's 168 people.
JAY: So President Obama's defenders would say that at least he ended torture and he
ended some of this extraordinary rendition and secret prison system around the world.
I mean, is that true?
And is thatóyou know, people would say the Republicans probably wouldn't have done that.
RATNER: Torture was pretty much over in the most dramatic way within a couple of years
before Obama was elected.
There was no more waterboarding, at least that we know of.
Some of the worst forms of the Rumsfeld techniques were finished.
There still may be some of that going on that we're just not aware of.
Where Obama failed on that, where he really failed, is essentially in giving the torturers
a free pass.
And just a couple of weeks ago the administration gave a free pass to some of the worst possible
tortures, the murders of two people, and gave the CIA people a free pass on that.
Now, let's look at what Obama did there.
He first forgave the CIA for everything, from waterboarding and everything, saying, look
it, that was within the guidelines; even though there were illegal guidelines, that was within
the guidelines of the Justice Department, etc.
Then he said, well, I'm going to appoint a special prosecutor and we're going to investigate
people who went beyond the guidelines.
And then what do we get last week on a three-year investigation was a dismissal of even those
cases.
Now, if you look at it from a non-legal point of view, what was going on was totally political.
He appointed the prosecutor to sort of make it look like he's doing something, and then
just before the election, because he doesn't want to make people angry that he's looking
at the CIA, he dumps those cases so he then looks good on, quote, "national security".
So I don't consider what he's done on torture to be incredibly good.
In fact, what he's done is give a green light to torture in the future, because in my view
by not holding people accountable for torture in the past, which is the way it happens for
torture, you're essentially saying, if we need to do it againóquote, "need" to do itóit's
not illegal, we can do it again.
So on torture, yes, he issued an order saying we're not going to torture in the same way
as we did oró.
But he basically said it'sóif we'd need to do it again, I'm not going to prosecute people,
not if we need to do it again.
JAY: And what did you make of the Obama role in the NDAA, this issue of military detention
without trial?
At the very end, when he signed it, apparently he added something to it, I think, that he
wouldn't include American citizens.
But the basic law passed which does include American citizens, if I have it correctly.
Do I?
RATNER: I read it correctly as saying that Obama signed an order allowing the indefinite
detention, the capture and indefinite detention of anyone anywhere in the world, including
American citizens.
That's certainly the way the federal court took it when they decided the law was unconstitutional.
Now, I want to say one thing about that law.
We've been operating under that NDAA, but not as the NDAA, since right after 9/11.
The law that Bush passedóit wasn't a law; it was an executive orderóbasically said
people could be picked up anywhere in the world (it was applied to noncitizens, eventually
citizens) and held as enemy combatants.
Obama continued that.
What the NDAA did was actually put it into real law and said, it's law, and Obama signed
that.
Now, people are very upset about the American citizen provisions.
Well, of course you should be upset about that.
But what's amazing to me is you should also be upset about the fact that any person anywhere
in the world, if they're not an American citizen, can be detained forever without a trial.
And Obama is continuing to do that.
That's why Abdul Latif died in prison at Guantanamo, because he was there as a, quote, "enemy combatant",
never convicted of a crime.
And the only way that those 167 remaining, I fear, will be getting out of Guantanamo
is in caskets, so that we haveóthe powers that Bush took after 9/11 are being continued
by ObamaóGuantanamo, indefinite detention.
Military trials are going on at Guantanamo.
There are still prisons that we don't know about.
He did leave an opening for the, quote, "secret" prisons when he signed those executive orders
when he took office.
He said temporarily people could be held there.
What that means we don't know.
[incompr.]
saw recently that the, quote, "handover" of the prison in Afghanistan includes essentially
a provision for secret prisoners.
There are 60 prisoners that we did not hand over to Afghanistan.
Those people [inaud.]
essentially a Guantanamo in Afghanistan.
And then there's 300 new prisoners that we didn't hand over either.
So now that we can't really take people to Guantanamo because there's lawyers all over
Guantanamo, like my office and others, they're keeping them in Afghanistan.
JAY: So on the issue of human rights, you don't think there's much difference who wins
this election.
RATNER: Well, I think on those issues that we've talked about there's literally no difference.
I mean, the torture issue would be the one that you could point to, but it'sóin my view
it's so narrow compared to the other things he's doing right now, and the fact that he
failed to prosecute on the torture issue, that I wouldn't say there's any difference
at all, and that if you look at the differences on other issues domesticallyó.
Remember, when Obama was a senator, he said, well, I stand against warrantless wiretapping
of American citizens; and then, by the end, after he was running and still in the Senate,
then he voted for legislation that included warrantless wiretapping of Americans, basically
legalizingóquote, "legalizing"ówhat Bush had done illegally.
And just this week, of course, the House of Representatives passed a continuation of the
warrantless wiretapping provision, which will be duly enacted, and Obama will sign it.
So if we look at that domesticallyóI'm not just talking about Guantanamo and Bagram;
I'm talking about domesticallyósurveillance of American citizens [unintel.]
warrantless wiretapping.
You have the unleashing completely of the FBI.
The guidelines that keep the FBI under control, that prevent them from infiltrating groups,
etc., were completely eviscerated, first by Ashcroft, the first attorney general under
Bush, then by Mukasey, the final attorney general, and those guidelines have been kept
in place by Obama.
So the FBI now has free rein to infiltrate groups, to stand across from your house, Paul,
or your office, look, see who goes in and out, to go into mosques, which they've done
all over the country.
There are something like 15,000 paid informants working for the FBI now, 100,000 nonpaidóa
massive, massive surveillance system.
So we're not just talking about what Obama and Bush did abroad; we're talking about what
they have done at home.
And I could go on and on [incompr.]
talk about the demonstration policing, which I know you've covered in the Canadian context
and you've covered with me in the American contextónot just not better, but probably
worse.
So we're not talking about really any significant differences, in my view, between Obama and
Bush.
Now, that being said, look it, for me, for the issues I work onóGuantanamo, military
commissions, getting torturers prosecuted, surveillance, Muslim entrapment, I work on
those issues, along with the Senate, consistently, no matter who's president, because neither
president makes any difference on either of those issues.
JAY: Alright.
Thanks for much for joining us, Michael.
RATNER: Thank you, Paul.
JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.