ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the Cheney pointed an accusing finger to Obama administration's changes in policies on the detention and interrogation of detainees, which he argued would reduce intelligence gathering capabilities and make the country vulnerable to another terrorist attack. Some neoconservative critics suggested Obama's adoption of Bush era counterterrorism policies was a vindication of the previous administration's approach to the 'war on terror'. Perhaps, over the longer term, as Goldsmith noted, this discursive shift may come to signify a more substantive difference in Obama's counterterrorism policies and practices as well as their long-term effectiveness. The torture memos and Bradbury's efforts to revive harsh interrogation techniques however indicated that torture was a systematic component of the Bush administration's counterterrorism strategy. It ended the generalized link made by Bush and other neoconservative politicians between Islam and terrorismsuch as 'Islamic terrorism' and between twenty-first-century Islam and twentieth-century European fascism, as with 'Islamofascism The Obama administration's policy on political violence and terrorism is still unfolding.