Returning to Integrity
The New York Times:
President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, people briefed by Obama transition officials said Monday.
…Obama transition officials have consulted with a variety of authorities on legal and human rights and with military experts. Several of those experts said the officials had expressed great interest in alternatives to the military commission system, like trying detainees in federal courts, and appeared to have grown hostile to proposals like an indefinite detention law.
Politico.com:
Feingold said he thinks Obama is likely to issue executive orders rapidly reversing Bush policies, and others have indicated that those will likely cover the interrogation and detention of terror suspects, and keeping the records of past president’s secrets.
The Associated Press reported Monday that transition advisers said Obama could sign an executive order in his first week ordering the closure of Guantanamo Bay, although shuttering the prison and transferring the prisoners somewhere else would take time.
As something of a Bible student, I find it confounding that the GOP – that party of Pharisees so concerned with invoking God amid their rhetoric, even if done so irreverently, so vocal about preserving marriage sanctity, so bold in their assertions that we should mold our national laws around God’s laws – has the temerity and shamelessness to actually defend torture.
When did Christ order his apostles to waterboard those who plotted against His life in the name of security? When did Paul torture Roman guards or Jewish zealots to learn of the next attempt on his life? Not a single New Testament writer advocates a get them before they get us mindset.
Oh, wait. I take that back. Paul did … before he was converted.
Hypocritical posturing on topics like this should send signals that the Republican Party is in no way the godlier choice. They say the right things on a couple of emotionally charged issues, but that is the extent of it. They hold others to standards they themselves are unwilling to meet. They show more concern for ideology and fiscal philosophies than they do for the people their policies impact. The party of Lincoln has fallen a long way with no sign of recovery.
I am not blinded to Obama’s flaws, but I do have hope that his presidency will be more concerned about serving his citizenry more than his agenda, that human lives will mean more to him than blanket statistics and veiled threats, that his government will be more concerned about the weightier matters – mercy, justice, and faithfulness to those whose lives depend on him. Closing Guantanamo is a start.
Perhaps I’ll end up disappointed in four years, but I doubt he could disappoint me any more than the last president I helped vote into office.