Vol. 73/No. 22      June 8, 2009

The president stated his administration’s goal of improving Washington’s image in the world, criticizing the Guantánamo prison camp and Bush’s authorization of torture techniques for undermining Washington’s “war and counterterrorism efforts.” The main thrust of his speech, however, was making a case for expanding and legitimizing the U.S. government’s attack on constitutional rights and protections in the name of combating “terrorism.”

By last year it became clear that a majority of the U.S. rulers and the Bush administration had come to see the continued existence of the Guantánamo prison—and widespread public knowledge of the inhumane conditions and lack of rights there—as a political liability.

On January 22, Obama issued an executive order vowing to close the Guantánamo facility within one year. The Senate in a 90-6 vote May 20 rejected the president’s request for $80 million to close the prison camp. Legislators said that Obama had presented no plan to Congress for what to do with the 240 remaining prisoners.

Obama criticized Bush for setting up a system at Guantánamo in which only three prisoners were convicted in seven years and where more than 525 prisoners were released. Only one prisoner has been released since Obama took office. U.S. courts have ruled that the government has no reason to hold 21 of the prisoners remaining in Guantánamo.  
 
Indefinite detention
While taking a critical position on the highly public Guantánamo prison, the Obama administration has insisted that prisoners from around the world at the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan, can be jailed indefinitely without charges and have no right to challenge their detention. The administration is fighting an April 2 ruling by a U.S. federal district court that stated Bagram prisoners have the same minimal rights as those in Guantánamo.

Obama said his administration’s goal “is to construct a legitimate legal framework” for the indefinite incarceration of Guantánamo prisoners who “pose a threat,” but can’t be prosecuted.

“Prolonged detention should not be the decision of any one man,” he said, in reference to the method under George Bush of fighting the courts to carry this out by executive decree. Obama complained that the Bush course has left his administration with a flood of time-consuming legal challenges.

In another departure from policy under Bush, Obama explained his administration’s intention to try some of its stronger cases in U.S. federal courts. He answered critics who argue that the government can’t secure “terrorism” convictions in a civilian court. He cited the sentencing to life of Ramzi Yousef and Zacarias Moussaoui as examples. “They are wrong,” he said. “The record makes that clear.”  
 
Military tribunals to proceed
In his January executive order, Obama suspended all military tribunal proceedings, while a “Special Task Force” reviewed the procedure. The task force is headed by the U.S. attorney general and secretary of defense.

Congress established the current rules that govern the Guantánamo tribunals in 2006. The judge and jury are military personnel appointed by the Pentagon. Hearsay, secret evidence, and statements extracted through threats, beatings, and forms of torture are permissible.

Obama addressed the military commission trials in his speech. Those who “violate laws of war,” Obama said, should be tried by military tribunal, which allows for the use of evidence that “cannot always be effectively presented in federal courts.” Obama said he has always supported the use of military commissions, but that they needed to be reformed to make them “more credible and effective.”

He defended his recent decision to block the release of photographs of torture and degrading treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq taken between 2002 and 2004, because they “would inflame anti-American opinion.”  
 
‘State secrets privilege’
Obama also defended use of “state secrets privilege” to keep classified information on government activity from the public. The Obama administration recently invoked the “privilege” in Mohamad v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. A Justice Department lawyer for the case said the Obama administration was taking “exactly” the same position as the Bush administration in its move to dismiss a lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary for transporting kidnapped CIA prisoners to locations for torture.

Obama acknowledged the widespread opposition to torture worldwide, saying that those who argue for use of it are on “the wrong side of history.”

In his January executive order, Obama revoked a 2007 Bush order authorizing torture techniques for interrogations. At the same time he assigned the Special Task Force to evaluate interrogation techniques that are authorized in the Army Field Manual to determine whether they “provide an appropriate means of acquiring the intelligence necessary to protect the Nation.”
 
 
Related articles:
N.Y.: Four entrapped by FBI, arrested on conspiracy charges
California inmate to appeal execution to high court
Hearing of Bay Area cop in killing of youth resumes
Convictions in Miami ‘terror’ case stir outrage
Defend our constitutional rights!  
 
 
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