President Falls Short

[IndianaGreen]

Published on Sunday, December 27, 2009 by The St. Petersburg Times (Florida)

President Falls Short

by Robyn Blumner

At the end of each year I typically award the "Freeby" to the person who has done the most in the service of civil liberties. As dusk fell on 2008 and the reign-of-error Bush administration was packing up its jackhammers, I felt then that I could have written ahead to December 2009, giving the Freeby to President-elect Barack Obama. I was deliriously confident that all of his campaign promises to resurrect civil liberties and the rule of law would be fulfilled.

But I come to report that my hopes have been dashed in a way that is so thoroughly disappointing that I am devoting this column to the reasons why Obama is undeserving of the Freeby.

Yes, there have been accomplishments. Obama promised to end torture, and reports suggest that prisoners are no longer subject to brutal interrogations as a matter of policy. He said that he would close Guantanamo within a year, and while that will probably not occur before 2011, Obama is determined to get it done against terrific congressional opposition, even, shamefully, from his own party.

But even as our president seeks to close the dark symbol that is Guantanamo, he is working to enshrine the principle it stands for: that men arrested far from any battlefield can be held indefinitely and without charge on the president's orders.

There are reportedly 198 prisoners remaining at Guantanamo, some of whom commendably are now being prosecuted in federal court in New York, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Moving a high-profile terrorist from a legal black hole to an established, legitimate process is a significant step, but the Obama administration isn't doing that for every prisoner as it should.

Some detainees will be facing revamped but still deeply flawed military commissions. And then there are the leftovers, those prisoners whom the administration doesn't have much of a case against but doesn't want to free. Having those prisoners transferred to a supermax prison in rural Illinois makes their continued detention no more constitutionally palatable. In fact the whole plan, where legal forums get chosen based on the quality of the evidence (so prosecutors always win), sounds like little more than a gussied-up version of the Bush theory of detention.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/27-3

[ixion]

1. k/r... and GITMO isn't the ONLY black box prison operated by the US

they ALL need to be closed. Not simply the most notorious one.

This is why I posted oppostion on this thread:

Obama scores well for first year on ethics, say watchdog groups

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7332490

I'm taking all kinds of heat over there for having the gaul to say I don't find Obama particularly ethical at the moment.

[snagglepuss]

2. K& R. A clear and concise overview. Thanks for posting.

So well written. Bush's "reign of error", just brilliant.

[sharp_stick]

3. The "writing" from commondreams

is getting just as stale as their ideas. The fact that so many of the contributors actually seem to have thought that their plans and goals were ever actually in the thoughts of a centrist like Obama makes it laughable.