Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

July 3, 2009 (LPAC)—Among the people happiest to be liberated from the Bush Administration, were liberal activists who had fought that Administration's creeping police-state, in the courts and in their writings. With the advent of a liberal Obama Administration, they thought, there would surely be a change in that arena. However, since shortly after Obama's inauguration, a series of policy-positions, perhaps most visibly beginning with Obama's decision not to examine, let alone prosecute, the outrageous national security actions of the Bush Administration, has led many of these liberals to suspect a case of "old wine in new bottles." The New York Times reported today that "To Critics, Obama's Terror Policy Looks a Lot Like Bush's." Obama officials cited in the article point out that the difference is, that Bush operated on the basis of an expanded notion of his authority (i.e., the "unitary executive" theory, etc.], while Obama relies on Congressional statutes. Critics say this is a legalistic dodge — the problem is that both approaches trample on individual rights.

Notable among the positions causing liberal disquiet, is the continued assertion of the "state secrets" privilege to quash the lawsuits against telecommunications companies which cooperated with the Bush warrantless electronic surveillance ("NSA wiretaps") program. Another concern is seen in a New York Times report today, that the ACLU, representing one of the Guantanamo detainees, is accusing the Administation of using statements .PAGE elicited through torture, to justify continued confinement. The Times notes that a U.S. military commission issued a finding that that detainee, captured at the age of 12 (!) on an Afghanistan battlefield, confessed after being threatened by Afghan interrogators, that they would kill his family.

A central matter causing concern, however, is President Obama's May 21, 2009 speech at the National Archives. That speech, which asserted the importance of American values not being jettisoned in the pursuit of security from attacks by our enemies, nevertheless laid out the possibility of "indefinite detention" of Guantanamo prisoners who cannot be given a trial (notably because evidence against them was unconstitutionally obtained), but are too dangerous to be released, because they would likely return to battle against the U.S. in the manner of the "9/11" attacks.

This, of course, goes against the grain of the American values otherwise extolled by the President in his speech, and "indefinite detention" in the manner of the "Count of Monte Cristo" or the French penal colony on Devil's Island makes many Americans — liberal and conservative — want to puke. A significant problem is, that, looking back in history, prisoners of war have been held indefinitely — 'til the definable end of the war — but not forever. What will define the end of a war which is not with another nation's government and military forces, which mark the end of war by a surrender? The danger is, that the Administration will once again go for the perceived easy way out, causing an even worse situation. President Obama said in an interview with Associated Press today, that the "indefinite detention" proposal "gives me huge pause," but it remains to be seen whether it will be "the pause that refreshes," or will be jettisoned in the interest of his vaunted "bipartisanship."

Causing further disquiet, is that the Executive Orders issued by Obama on Inauguration Day concern only the Guantanamo detainees and one "al Qaeda affiliate" held inside the U.S. What is perhaps the second major "war on terror" detention facility, Baghram Air Force Field in Afghanistan, remains untouched, along with lesser-known such facilities; the Administration has endorsed the Bush position that those detainees have no rights. (It took a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court during the Bush Administration, for Guantanamo detainees to obtain the right of habeas corpus, for court hearings on whether their detention was proper.) And the Administration's statements that an interagency task force is studying "detention policy" sound uncomfortably like a policy for future detentions, as well as the issues of Guantanamo.