Obama’s Prisoners - March 8, 2011
Obama has worked out his solution for Guantanamo prison. During the campaign he promised to large and small crowds alike that one of his main goals was to close the prison, stop the inane practice of military trials and bring the detainees to civilian courts. After being unable to close the prison since signing an executive order and after buckling to Republican complaints of the “terrible danger” of trying the detainees in continental U.S.courts, the administration gave up stating that it was impossible” to close the base.
Yesterday the administration announced a solution. Obama has separated the 180+ detainees into THREE categories: those who will be tried in civilian courts, those to be tried in and military tribunals and a new and improved “special” category for some of the detainees.. This third class of prisoner are those considered too dangerous to be released but they cannot be tried in either system. Some cannot be tried because of a lack of evidence, because their trial would put US Intelligence operations at risk, or because they had been tortured or all of the above.
These detainees will be held indefinitely.
Wait...WHAT??? Hold on... Indefinitely? Am I to understand we now have people who we just KEEP? Incarcerate with no chance of ever facing the evidence against them or facing their accusers? When did we become the Soviet Union circa 1980? Forget how Europe and the U.S. chided the Soviets, China, Argentina, and many other countries for prosecuting exactly this type of terrorist act against their own people. Amnesty international was founded to free just this type of prisoner. Forget the illegality...how is this an ETHICAL or MORAL decision?
Oh, the administration did say that this special category will be reviewed periodically (but with no set time frame.). To quote Cenk Uygur of TheYoungurks.com & MSNBC ...”Are they not merciful!”
Anyone who had a pulse during the first eight years of this century knew that there were terrible, terrible acts committed by the Bush adminstration. Waterboarding, warrant-less wiretaps, rendition, invading countries under false pretenses, murder of thosands if not tens of thousands Iraqi civilians. These were bad but somehow it is worse for a Democratic president to codify this “lost” class of prisoner.
The Guardian said it well:
“Monday's announcement also included a process for periodically reviewing the status of detainees held at the prison. That's an effort to resolve one of the central dilemmas at Guantanamo Bay: what to do when the government thinks a prisoner is too dangerous to be released but either can't prove it in court or doesn't want to reveal national security secrets by trying to prosecute him? The answer, the White House said, is that the U.S. will hold those men indefinitely, without charges, but will review their cases periodically. However, if a review determines that someone should be released, there's no requirement that he actually be freed”
A prisoner’s status will “periodically” be reviewed to see if they can still be imprisoned ILLEGALLY! How is this legal decision any different than Bush’s John Yoo who wrote his infamous Torture paper which determined that water boarding was not illegal because the executive branch said it was not illegal. All was legal under the prosecution of War. Really? Tell that to the Nazis tried at Nuremberg, the Japanese we prosecuted for water boarding US troops, and the many other individuals we’ve tried for torture.
The Obama administration, the justice department and Obama himself are making a terrible, terrible mistake. We are supposed to be a country of laws! Obama has mishandled this issue (and many others) since the beginning: by not at least making a show of prosecuting Cheyney, Bush, Yoo, and going after every person in the government involved in torture Obama left an untreated wound on the body politic of the United States. We are now reaping the rewards: the US has lost it’s compass. By “looking forward, not backward” (an inane term) the Obama administration has both ignored the monsters among us and the bigger one lurking behind.
Like with many decisions in his presidency, Obama has gone against a major campaign promise to close Guantanamo and stop these false trials. He’s made it worse by creating this special class of prisoners. Let’s call them “Obama’s Prisoners”. This from a Harvard trained lawyer, constitutional scholar and community activist. During the campaign he said that military tribunals were unnecessary since our legal system had a track record of handling all types of terrorists. What happened? Now, like with many of his decisions, his inability to act decisively has negatively affected his reputation and the reputation of the U.S. both at home and abroad. Worse, his Justice Department has proved that terrible acts and decisions of one president will be blindly followed by the next out of political expediency ignorant to what is right!. .
The president needs to be reminded that campaign promises may just be words but the decision to create a class of “disappeared” prisoners without the right to face the accusers is ethically, morally and should be legally wrong! This act is diametrically opposed to the constitution, the bill of rights and the core values on which our country was founded.
Who’s to say that we won’t get a worse president in the future who will use this precedent to arrest, sequester and “disappear” citizens of the U.S. not just other countries? Hell, Huckabee is off spouting that Obama grew up in Kenya! We could easlily get a worse presdient!
I think of the poem “First they Came” by Pastor Martin Niemoller. Niemoller didn’t just write this poem he lived it. After at first supporting the Nazis he was arrested for protesting their treatment of the church. He was held and incarcerated at Dachau and other concentration camps. Unline so many millions, however, he survived the war.
This poem is on display at the Holocaust Museum in DC and at Yad Vashem in Israel but it speaks to all of us, not just to jews, communists or trade unionists.
First They came... - Pastor Martin Niemoller
- First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
What can we do? Speak out! Feel free to forward this post, tweet it, facebook it, talk to friends. Call the white house, write a letter, send them an e-mail. Hell, send them two. (...put it on paper, they put great import on stuff with a stamp.) It is clear that like in 2008 we need to ramp up again and take back our democracy...Get out there, visit your town councils, your state legislatures, your congressman and senators, get involved.
This cannot stand. - Josh Weisbuch
