Opt Back In To the International System Part I: Counterterrorism

By 2007, there is bipartisan as well as international recognition that U.S. leadership globally has been severely damaged by the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies. The rhetoric about the “global war on terror” coupled with the policies of extraordinary rendition away from justice, secret prisons, extralegal interrogation practices, indefinite detention as well as the stripping of the ancient writ of habeas corpus have led our closest allies as well as our enemies to conclude that the United States is a country that disregards its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law. The practices adopted by the Bush administration have amounted to a new legal framework, adopted unilaterally and without public discussion or Congressional oversight. The practices have greatly harmed a principal source of U.S. soft power: our reputation as a generator of legal norms and practices.