Grave Error

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 →