Category Archives: Obama 44

As Glenn Greenwald continues to remind us, there is something inherently comical in the right wing’s insistent irrational fears about putting criminals in American jails. Nevertheless, other nations are not so afraid of justice. Bermuda and Palau apparently are taking in the Uighurs who have been in the Guantanamo for seven years. The U.S. government has known for years of their innocence, but has kept them in cells because it didn’t want to offend the Chinese (who finance our government and wars).

In another example of hypocritical journalism by the New York Times, Timothy Egan questions whether, due to local politics, the American student charged with murder in Italy will receive a fair trial. At least she gets a trial. Italy, like other nations, is even trying terrorist suspects, instead of locking them up in offshore torture shelters. Why? Because that’s what civilized nations do.

Numerous countries that aren’t the U.S. — including those targeted by Terrorist threats at least as serious as those faced by the U.S. — have routinely and repeatedly given what are called “trials” and “due process” to those it accuses not merely of harboring terrorist wishes, but also actually having carried out atrocious terrorist attacks.  During the Bush era, even the U.S. — when we were moved to do so — successfully did the same.

Giving real trials to people whom the state wants to imprison — even accused Terrorists — is what civilized, law-respecting countries do, by definition.  By contrast, lawless and tyrannical states — also by definition — invent theories and warped justifications for indefinite detention with no trials.  Before the U.S. starts talking again about “re-claiming” its so-called leadership role in the world, it probably should work first on catching up to the multiple countries far ahead of it when it comes to the most basic precepts of Western justice — beginning with what ought to be the most uncontroversial proposition that it will first give due process and trials to those it wants to imprison.  Shouldn’t the claim that the U.S. cannot and need not try Terrorist suspects be rather unconvincing when numerous other countries from various parts of the world — including those previously devastated by and currently targeted with terrorist attacks — have been doing exactly that quite successfully?

But best of all is the Obama Administration’s justification for covering up photos of torture under the umbrella of state secrecy, completely undermining the Freedom of Information Act. Once again, Mr. Greenwald:

Whether there is value in disclosing these specific torture photographs is a secondary issue here, at most [though in light of the ongoing debate in this country over torture and accountability, as well as the irreplaceable value of photographic evidence in documenting government abuses (see Abu Ghraib), the value of these sorts of photographs seems self-evident].  A much more critical issue here is whether the President should have the power to conceal evidence about the Government’s actions on the ground that what the Government did was so bad, so wrong, so inflammatory, so lawless, that to allow disclosure and transparency would reflect poorly on our country, thereby increase anti-American sentiment, and thus jeopardize The Troops.  Once you accept that rationale — the more extreme the Government’s abuses are, the more compelling is the need for suppression — then open government, one of the central planks of the Obama campaign and the linchpin of a healthy democracy, becomes an illusion.

Where does all of this leave us? In a land that is not of the free, not of the freed, and certainly not the brave.

I just finished watching Jeremy Scahill’s devastating indictment of the Obama Administration and the American war machine on the Bill Moyers Journal. In particular, Scahill describes the increase in troop deployment, defense contractors and misuse of defense contracts, extrajudicial detentions at Bagram Airforce base, and the continuous killings of innocent civilians along the way by the desanitized drones.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Absolutely no idea whatsoever. We’ve spent 190 million dollars. Excuse me, $190 billion on the war in Afghanistan. And some estimates say that, within a few short years, it could it could end up at a half a trillion dollars. The fact is that I think most Americans are not aware that their dollars being spent in Afghanistan are, in fact, going to for-profit corporations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These are companies that are simultaneously working for profit and for the U.S. government. That is the intricate linking of corporate profits to an escalation of war that President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address. We live in amidst the most radical privatization agenda in the history of our country. And it cuts across every aspect of our society.

BILL MOYERS: You recently wrote about how the Department of Defense paid the former Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install what proved to be very defective electrical wiring in Iraq. Senator Byron Dorgan himself, called that wiring in hearings, shoddy and unprofessional. So my question is why did the Pentagon pay for it when it was so inferior?

JEREMY SCAHILL:This is perhaps one of the greatest corporate scandals of the past decade. The fact that this Halliburton corporation, which was once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, was essentially given keys to the city of U.S. foreign policy. And allowed to do things that were dangerous for U.S. troops. Provide then with unclean drinking water. They were the premier company responsible for servicing the US military occupation of Iraq. In fact, they were deployed alongside the U.S. military in the build up to the war. This was a politically connected company that won its contracts because of its political connections. And the fact is that it was a behemoth that was there. It was it was the girl at the dance, and they danced with her.

. . . Because we’re killing innocent civilians regularly. When the United States goes in and bombs Farah province in Afghanistan, on May 4th, and kills civilians, according to the Red Cross and other sources, 13 members of one family, that has a ricochet impact. The relatives of those people are going to say maybe they did trust the United States. Maybe they viewed the United States as a beacon of freedom in the world. But you just took you just took that guy’s daughter. You just killed that guy’s wife. That’s one more person that’s going to line up and say, “We’re going to fight the United States.” We are indiscriminately killing civilians, according to the UN Human Rights Council. A report that was just released this week by the UN says that the United States is indiscriminately killing civilians in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world. That should be a collective shame that we feel in this society. And yet we have people calling it the good war.

. . .  Well, I think that what we have seen happen, as a result of this incredible reliance on private military contractors, is that the United States has created a new system for waging war. Where you no longer have to depend exclusively on your own citizens to sign up for the military and say, “I believe in this war, so I’m willing to sign up and risk my life for it.” You turn the entire world into your recruiting ground. You intricately link corporate profits to an escalation of warfare and make it profitable for companies to participate in your wars. In the process of doing that you undermine U.S. democratic processes. And you also violate the sovereignty of other nations, ’cause you’re making their citizens in combatants in a war to which their country is not a party. I feel that the end game of all of this could well be the disintegration of the nation state apparatus in the world. And it could be replaced by a scenario where you have corporations with their own private armies. To me, that would be a devastating development. But it’s on. It’s happening on a micro level. And I fear it will start to happen on a much bigger scale.

Definitely not good for the home team.

Rachel Maddow deconstructs Obama’s prolonged detention policy. Obama now owns the propaganda.

At least it is refreshing to see that some serious criticism is finally aired on a mainstream news outlet.

Liberal voices, especially Glen Grenwald, have criticized Obama for maintaining the majority of Bush’s anti-terrorism policies. Now on the other side of the spectrum, conservative columnist David Brooks is making very much the same argument. According to the recent Brooks’ article in the New York Times, Cheney is actually continuing the internal debate he had within the Bush White House — and lost — during Bush’s second term, and Obama is now only continuing, with some added rhetorical improvements, the Bush second term dismantling of Guantanamo, rendition, and torture.

In other words, both Obama and Cheney are both hoping to define the entire Bush administration as belonging to its first term, and not the second one where more moderate influences reigned in on Cheney. Obama does so because he only gains points by reminding people of the unpopular Bush. Cheney, on the other hand, has a much more concrete personal interest in the matter. To stay out of jail. Cheney’s speech about the threats of a nuclear armed terrorist on U.S. soil if we close Guantanamo are offensive to our intelligence — how does transferring the unarmed Guantanamo detainees to U.S. supermax prisons create the threat those same prisoners will access nuclear weapons along the way? And his claim that Obama, not the repeated conservative dominated Supreme Court decisions and the final Bush years, is the one making us unsafe is contrary to the record. Finally, were those measures necessary, wouldn’t it have been better to legalize them instead of creating an extra-judicial detention facility and secret interrogation policy with the specific purpose of circumventing the law?

The last few days I have been very critical of Obama’s waffling on issues of national security. I have also allowed myself to become incredibly frustrated by the ridiculous, absurd, preposterous and shameful arguments that have come out of the some members of the press, some Republicans, and especially Dick Cheney (who is doing everything in his power to stay out of jail). So with a great sigh of relief, I just finished reading the transcript of Obama’s national security speech. His speech was not perfect (he did everything possible not to admit that both Guantanamo and enhanced interrogation were, above all else, illegal), and there were some moments of pure political spin (in particular on Afghanistan and Pakistan). Nevertheless, his words do reinforce our supposed self-image as a national of the rule of law.

Here are two excerpts from Obama’s speech that serve as additional arguments on why the problem is Guantanamo, not Obama’s policy to close it.

For over seven years, we have detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo. During that time, the system of Military Commissions at Guantanamo succeeded in convicting a grand total of three suspected terrorists. Let me repeat that: three convictions in over seven years. Instead of bringing terrorists to justice, efforts at prosecution met setbacks, cases lingered on, and in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system. Meanwhile, over five hundred and twenty-five detainees were released from Guantanamo under the Bush Administration. Let me repeat that: two-thirds of the detainees were released before I took office and ordered the closure of Guantanamo.

. . . Indeed, the legal challenges that have sparked so much debate in recent weeks in Washington would be taking place whether or not I decided to close Guantanamo. For example, the court order to release seventeen Uighur detainees took place last fall – when George Bush was President. The Supreme Court that invalidated the system of prosecution at Guantanamo in 2006 was overwhelmingly appointed by Republican Presidents. In other words, the problem of what to do with Guantanamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility; the problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place.

The president is definitely more articulate than I am on the issue.

The New York Times has just published a “news” story that once again shamefully manipulates the facts towards the absurd proposition that Guantanamo keeps us safe by failing in one in seven cases.

According to the Times, one in seven of the 534 Guantanamo prisoners already released have returned to the terrorist activities. Right off the bat, this claim is misleading. First the words “rejoin”, “return” and “recidivism”, all used in the article, give the false impression that the detainees were previously terrorists and captured on the battlefield. This is simply contrary to fact. One of the principle reasons they were released was because there was either no evidence or not sufficient evidence to convict them of any wrongdoing.

Next, the fact that one in seven Guantanamo detainees now engages in terrorism does not show that Guantanamo makes us safer. Quite the contrary. It is Guantanamo, a prison system that allows for the illegal detention of persons without sufficient evidence to convict them, that has produced this one in seven number; not the closing of the prison. So how does Guantanamo failing in one in seven cases due to it own inherent defects make us safer than an American supermax prison? Rather, wouldn’t those same defects continue to produce similar numbers?

Finally, the article completely ignores the mirror side of the same statistic: only one in seven of those 534 Guantanamo prisoners have proven to be potentially dangerous. That means that six in seven of those detainees were deprived of basic human rights for half a decade, subjected to Cheney’s enhanced interrogation program, yet pose no threat to the U.S. How does an 86% prisoner innocence rate make us more safe?

If anything, the statistics demonstrate how Guantanamo has failed in both making us safer and bringing terrorists to justice. Perpetuating Guantanamo only reinforces those failures. These same statistics in the American criminal justice system would be scandalous. Can you imagine a prosecutor repeatedly failing to try or convict criminal defendants held in detention for years — one in seven of which were dangerous, six of seven innocent — and politicians arguing that the prosecutor is the solution not the problem?

Many Republicans are celebrating with the old “I told you so” as Obama appears to be reversing some of his campaign promises and sticking to many Bush era national security policies. But don’t be confused. It’s not that Obama suddenly saw the light upon entering the White House. In fact, maintaining Bush’s policies do not make the country safer, but they do help keep the president in office. In other words, Obama’s decisions on everything from Guantanamo to Afghanistan are purely about political survival and have little to do with security, proving that even Obama caves under pressure. Continue reading →

They say that the criminal always returns to the seen of the crime. That’s exactly what Dick Cheney is doing as he tours the airwaves in an attempt to distort the conversation about breaking the law and to ultimately stay out of jail.

While many in the press debate about Just-Trust-Me Dick’s motives – save the former administration’s historical legacy, reclaim the voice of the GOP, or tarnish the new administration and the Democrats – I think his goal is pretty clear: to stay out of jail. The facts are crystal clear, no matter how you look at them. The Bush administration through its enhanced interrogation program (and other similar anti-terrorism measures like the Rendition program) blatantly and flagrantly violated the law and committed crimes.

That Nancy Pelosi or anyone else in Congress knew about it, that the press coddled the administration, that the American people wanted vengeance, and that the Obama administration is selling-out are irrelevant. There are no mitigating factors in torture, kidnapping and false imprisonment. There is no self-defense defense. Continue reading →

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