Rendition and the Shifting Sands of Morality

So Barack Obama does see wisdom in some of the horrific tools that George W. Bush has used to protect the country from Islamic terrorism:

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States. Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

Remember that the European Parliament condemned renditions as "an illegal instrument used by the United States". Didn't Obama vow to make our "former allies" love us again? If so, why would he explicity keep in place the policy of rendition, which has enraged both the Euro-Left and the Hollywood elite?

Here a clue for ya, Jack...the notoriously anti-American, anti-semitic Human Rights Watch held the previous standard on renditions during the Bush Administration:

Repudiate the use of rendition to torture as a counterterrorism tactic and permanently discontinue the CIA's rendition program...

Now, under the Obama regime:

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured -- but that designing that system is going to take some time.

An identical act goes from immoral and illegal to understandable and legal, depending not on the circumstances it was committed but by the person committing the act. It's an extension of the Middle East morality test - If the Palestianians target civilians, it is OK, but if Israelis accidentally harm civilians in an act of self-defense, it is a war crime.

Morality doesn't work that way, of course. Morality is making a decision to stand by what is right and good regardless of the consequences and regardless of the opposition. Human Rights Watch's ugly flip-flop here - changing what had been a once-sacred position in order to provide cover for Barack Obama - neutralizes whatever claim they might have to morality in the future.

But isn't this typical of the liberal double-standard? You and I cheat on our taxes, we are immoral and unpatriotic (to use Joe Biden's phrase) and off to the hoosegow we go. Tom Daschle does it, and he gets rewarded with a cabinet post.

Beware of a government that redefines morality in a way that benefits them, to your detriment. It's a way to maintain power, by keeping them above the law while keeping you in fear. How will the sands settle tomorrow in a scoiety where morality changes upon leadership, and upon whims? One does not know, but you can be sure that if those in power can use your morality against you, they will...