Does President Obama's decision to restore military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay represent a climb-down from a key campaining pledge. Or is it simply a sensible dose of pragmatism in the ongoing process of unpicking the disaster of the George Bush foreign policy years? He's through his first hundred days, so we can expect some normalisation. But I really do hope this isn't the same old smashing of public expectations. Granted, those expectations were massively over-inflated. And obviously St Barack was bound to have a moment like this at some stage. But those words from his innauguration speech genuinely touched me. Here they are again:
“...the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope”.
Remember the "ethical foreign policy" touted by Tony Blair after the 1997 election - which eventually took the country into an illegal war? Trust in our politics is so damaged, I really hope this is not the case.
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