Broken Promises and Hypocrisy - Guantanamo

via Democratic Underground

Guantánamo and Guns - What's Going On?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal's web site JSonline.com, published an interesting article, which examines the question of why can't the Democratic Administration get things done.

Frustrated liberals are asking why a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House can't manage to close the Guantánamo prison or keep new gun-rights laws from passing.

After all, President Barack Obama pledged to shut down the military detention center on Cuba for suspected terrorists. And Democratic control of the government would suggest that any gun legislation leads to tighter controls on weapons, not expanded use.

Last week the Senate voted 90-6 to join the House in blocking the transfer of any prisoners from Guantánamo. By way of explanation, the lawmakers said they need more information on where detainees will be sent.

Also Wednesday, the House voted overwhelmingly to join the Senate in letting people carry loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges. More than 100 House Democrats and 174 Republicans voted for the gun measure, which was attached to an Obama-backed bill imposing new restrictions on credit card companies.

We've already discussed this at some length, the idea being that although the gun amendment was attached to another piece of legislation, it certainly didn't avoid scrutiny. So what explains its passage?

The gun votes were less surprising to many Democrats than were the Guantánamo developments. The NRA remains among the most powerful lobbies, and many lawmakers take care to stay off its political enemies list.

"People do not want to be on the wrong side of this particular cultural divide," said Rep. David Price, D-N.C., who supports tougher gun controls. "It's too bad there's not a more responsible national organization" to counteract the NRA, he said.

Now, there's an interesting idea: a national organization to counteract the NRA.

Many Democratic lawmakers predicted that Obama will resolve the Guantánamo problem and eventually turn to gun issues, where he has advocated ownership rights with "common sense" regulations.

"I do believe that down the road the president will start working on some of the gun violence issues," said McCarthy, the New York Democrat. "But let's face it," she said. "We've got an awful lot of issues on our plate right now."

What' your opinion? Do you think Congresswoman McCarthy is right that Obama will eventually get around to the gun issues? What about the strength of the NRA, would Obama be able to stand up to it? Or do you think Obama has already decided to "stay off its political enemies list?"

Please leave a comment.

Torture

Last week, the New York Times published an op-ed by Mark Danner entitled Tales from Torture's Dark World. The article profiles several cases of torture victims who were interviewed by the Red Cross.

Indeed, since the detainees were kept strictly apart and isolated, both at the black sites and at Guantánamo, the striking similarity in their stories would seem to make fabrication extremely unlikely. As its authors state in their introduction, “The I.C.R.C. wishes to underscore that the consistency of the detailed allegations provided separately by each of the 14 adds particular weight to the information provided below.”

As everyone knows, these interrogation techniques were approved at the highest levels and based on recent comments by the former president and by the former vice president, there are no regrets.

Back in 2006, Mr. Bush said, “the C.I.A. used an alternative set of procedures. These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful.”

Mark Danner says, "this speech will stand as George W. Bush’s most important: perhaps the only historic speech he ever gave. In his fervent defense of his government’s “alternative set of procedures” and his equally fervent insistence that they were “lawful,” he set out before the country America’s dark moral epic of torture, in the coils of whose contradictions we find ourselves entangled still."

What do you think about that? Was the president acting in good faith and doing what he believed was best for the country? Do you think it worked? Even Mr. Danner admits we don't know the answer to that.

As I write, it is impossible to know definitively what benefits — in intelligence, in national security, in disrupting Al Qaeda — the president’s approval of use of an “alternative set of procedures” might have brought to the United States. Only a thorough investigation, which we are now promised, much belatedly, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, can determine that.

He goes on to point out that what we do know "with certainty, in the wake of the Red Cross report, is that the United States tortured prisoners and that the Bush administration, including the president himself, explicitly and aggressively denied that fact."

We can also say that the decision to torture, in a political war with militant Islam, harmed American interests by destroying the democratic and Constitutional reputation of the United States, undermining its liberal sympathizers in the Muslim world and helping materially in the recruitment of young Muslims to the extremist cause. By deciding to torture, we freely chose to embrace the caricature they had made of us. The consequences of this choice, legal, political and moral, now confront us. Time and elections are not enough to make them go away.

Do you agree with all that talk about America having lowered itself by engaging in these practices? Do you think our world reputation has suffered as a result? Do you think it was worth it, did the good gained outweigh the bad?

I know we've all talked about it before, but I never really got it. How could President Clinton have been impeached for what he did and President Bush not? Can someone please explain that to me?

Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan

Unconfirmed reports say that as many as 600 "enemy combatants" are being held in detention at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The BBC reports on the Justice Department ruling which came down last Friday stating that these prisoners have no constitutional rights. (h/t to Jeralyn at Talk Left)

The move has disappointed human rights lawyers who had hoped the Obama administration would take a different line to that of George W Bush.

On the ACLU site there's even stronger talk.

"The Obama administration did the right thing by ordering Guantánamo closed. But a restoration of the rule of law and American ideals cannot be achieved if we allow 'other Gitmos' to be maintained around the globe," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Detainees at Bagram, like at Guantánamo, are under U.S. control and custody. It is therefore the responsibility of the U.S. to ensure that basic fundamental rights apply there. As its review of detention facilities continues, we strongly urge the Obama administration to reconsider this position."

What's your opinion? Should prisoners in military detention centers receive the same human-rights treatment as their counterparts do in the States? Do you think this Bagram development indicates some back peddling on the part of Obama's team? If you were the President, wouldn't you make sure to steer clear of this kind of problem?

Does anyone, besides me, know what the motto of the Department of Justice is, and more importantly what it means? This is at the heart of the problem. When politicians take there marching orders from on high, whether that be "Domina Justitia" or God Himself, terrible excesses can be easily justified.

Please feel free to leave a comment.