Greenwald writes: "As everyone knows, 'closing Guantánamo' was a centerpiece
of the 2008 Obama campaign. In the Senate and then in the presidential
campaign, Obama repeatedly and eloquently railed against the core, defining
evil of Guantánamo: indefinite detention."
President Barack Obama. (photo: AFP/Getty)
Democrats Continue to Delude Themselves About Obama's Failed Guantanamo Vow
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
12 August 15
As everyone knows, closing Guantánamo was a centerpiece of the 2008 Obama
campaign. In the Senate and then in the presidential campaign, Obama
repeatedly and eloquently railed against the core, defining evil of
Guantánamo: indefinite detention.
On the Senate floor, Obama passionately intoned in 2006: As a parent, I can
also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were
rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantánamo without even
getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove
their innocence. During the 2008 campaign, he repeatedly denounced the
Bush Administrations attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantánamo.
In the seventh year of Obamas presidency, Guantánamo notoriously remains
open, leaving one of his central vows unfulfilled. That, in turn, means that
Democratic partisans have to scrounge around for excuses to justify this
failure, to cast blame on someone other than the president, lest his legacy
be besmirched. They long ago settled on the claim that blame (as always)
lies not with Obama but with Congressional Republicans, who imposed a series
of legal restrictions that impeded the camps closing.
As Ive documented many times over the last several years, that excuse,
while true as far as it goes, does not remotely prove that Obama sought to
fulfill his pledge. Thats because Obamas plans never included an end to
what he himself constantly described as the camps defining evil: indefinite
detention. To the contrary, he explicitly demanded the right to continue to
imprison Guantánamo detainees without charges or trial exactly what made
Guantánamo so evil in the first place based on the hideous new phrase
cannot be tried but too dangerous to release. Obama simply wanted to
indefinitely imprison them somewhere else.
In other words, Obama never sought to close Guantánamo in any meaningful
sense but rather wanted to relocate it to a less symbolically upsetting
location, with its defining injustice fully intact and, worse,
institutionalized domestically. In that regard, his Guantánamo shell game
was vintage Obama: He wanted to make a pretty, self-flattering symbolic
gesture to get credit for change (I have closed Guantánamo) while not
merely continuing but actually strengthening the abusive power that made it
so odious in the first place.
All of this is worth emphasizing because the close-Guantánamo controversy is
back in the news as the result of what the Washington Post today, citing
anonymous U.S. officials, describes as an internal disagreement over its
most controversial provision where to house detainees who will be brought
to the United States for trial or indefinite detention. The Post said that
as part of the plan, the administration had considered sending some of the
116 detainees remaining at the prison to either a top-security prison in
Illinois or a naval facility in Charleston, S.C. Most members of Congress
who love to parade around as super-tough warriors claim to be petrified
about imprisoning Terrorist super-villains in their states, even though one
of the few things at which the U.S. still excels is building oppressive
penal institutions.
But even Obamas current Guantánamo plan like all his previous ones does
not seek to end indefinite detention. It does the opposite: It insists on
the right to continue to indefinitely imprison detainees, most of whom have
already been kept in a cage for more than a decade with no charges or trial.
In that regard, Obama as has been true since the first day of his
presidency is not seeking to close Guantánamo but rather relocate it, as
Human Rights Watchs Ken Roth noted today:
The ACLU also made this point from the moment Obama first unveiled his move
Guantánamo plan and Democratic partisans pretended it was a close
Guantánamo plan.
Headline covering Gitmo North. (photo: The Intercept)
As the ACLUs Ben Wizner told me in an interview back in 2009, Obamas
Guantánamo plan long before Congress took any action was more likely to
strengthen the camps scheme of indefinite detention than end it, just as
Obama did with so many other once-controversial Bush/Cheney War on Terror
policies:
It may to serve to enshrine into law the very departures from the law that
the Bush administration led us on, and that we all criticized so much. And
Ill elaborate on that. But thats really my initial reaction to it; that
what President Obama was talking about yesterday is making permanent some of
the worst features of the Guantanámo regime. He may be shutting down the
prison on that camp, but whats worse is he may be importing some of those
legal principles into our own legal system, where theyll do great harm for
a long time.
Obama-excusing Democrats also love to point out that even Democratic
Senators such as Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders voted for legislation
blocking Obamas Guantánamo plan, implying that even the Senates most
liberal members wanted Gitmo to remain open. But these Obama advocates never
mention that those votes were based on their concerns about Obamas desire
to simply relocate the camp to U.S. soil and thus strengthen its core
injustice. And all of that is to say nothing of all the limits on closing
Guantánamo, which Obama himself (not the Republicans) imposed.
In sum, its true that Congress impeded Obamas Guantánamo plan. But its
misleading in the extreme to pretend that Obamas plan was ever about ending
the core injustice of that camp. If anything, Obamas plan would have, and
if it succeeds still will, institutionalize and strengthen the Bush/Cheney
scheme of indefinite detention: the very same beyond-the-law framework that
made them want to open the camp, and made it a symbol of injustice around
the world, in the first place.
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President Barack Obama. (photo: AFP/Getty)
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/12/democrats-continue-lie-obamas-
failed-guantanamo-vow/https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/12/democrat
s-continue-lie-obamas-failed-guantanamo-vow/
Democrats Continue to Delude Themselves About Obama's Failed Guantanamo Vow
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
12 August 15
s everyone knows, closing Guantánamo was a centerpiece of the 2008 Obama
campaign. In the Senate and then in the presidential campaign, Obama
repeatedly and eloquently railed against the core, defining evil of
Guantánamo: indefinite detention.
On the Senate floor, Obama passionately intoned in 2006: As a parent, I can
also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were
rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantánamo without even
getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove
their innocence. During the 2008 campaign, he repeatedly denounced the
Bush Administrations attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantánamo.
In the seventh year of Obamas presidency, Guantánamo notoriously remains
open, leaving one of his central vows unfulfilled. That, in turn, means that
Democratic partisans have to scrounge around for excuses to justify this
failure, to cast blame on someone other than the president, lest his legacy
be besmirched. They long ago settled on the claim that blame (as always)
lies not with Obama but with Congressional Republicans, who imposed a series
of legal restrictions that impeded the camps closing.
As Ive documented many times over the last several years, that excuse,
while true as far as it goes, does not remotely prove that Obama sought to
fulfill his pledge. Thats because Obamas plans never included an end to
what he himself constantly described as the camps defining evil: indefinite
detention. To the contrary, he explicitly demanded the right to continue to
imprison Guantánamo detainees without charges or trial exactly what made
Guantánamo so evil in the first place based on the hideous new phrase
cannot be tried but too dangerous to release. Obama simply wanted to
indefinitely imprison them somewhere else.
In other words, Obama never sought to close Guantánamo in any meaningful
sense but rather wanted to relocate it to a less symbolically upsetting
location, with its defining injustice fully intact and, worse,
institutionalized domestically. In that regard, his Guantánamo shell game
was vintage Obama: He wanted to make a pretty, self-flattering symbolic
gesture to get credit for change (I have closed Guantánamo) while not
merely continuing but actually strengthening the abusive power that made it
so odious in the first place.
All of this is worth emphasizing because the close-Guantánamo controversy is
back in the news as the result of what the Washington Post today, citing
anonymous U.S. officials, describes as an internal disagreement over its
most controversial provision where to house detainees who will be brought
to the United States for trial or indefinite detention. The Post said that
as part of the plan, the administration had considered sending some of the
116 detainees remaining at the prison to either a top-security prison in
Illinois or a naval facility in Charleston, S.C. Most members of Congress
who love to parade around as super-tough warriors claim to be petrified
about imprisoning Terrorist super-villains in their states, even though one
of the few things at which the U.S. still excels is building oppressive
penal institutions.
But even Obamas current Guantánamo plan like all his previous ones does
not seek to end indefinite detention. It does the opposite: It insists on
the right to continue to indefinitely imprison detainees, most of whom have
already been kept in a cage for more than a decade with no charges or trial.
In that regard, Obama as has been true since the first day of his
presidency is not seeking to close Guantánamo but rather relocate it, as
Human Rights Watchs Ken Roth noted today:
The ACLU also made this point from the moment Obama first unveiled his move
Guantánamo plan and Democratic partisans pretended it was a close
Guantánamo plan.
Headline covering Gitmo North. (photo: The Intercept)
As the ACLUs Ben Wizner told me in an interview back in 2009, Obamas
Guantánamo plan long before Congress took any action was more likely to
strengthen the camps scheme of indefinite detention than end it, just as
Obama did with so many other once-controversial Bush/Cheney War on Terror
policies:
It may to serve to enshrine into law the very departures from the law that
the Bush administration led us on, and that we all criticized so much. And
Ill elaborate on that. But thats really my initial reaction to it; that
what President Obama was talking about yesterday is making permanent some of
the worst features of the Guantanámo regime. He may be shutting down the
prison on that camp, but whats worse is he may be importing some of those
legal principles into our own legal system, where theyll do great harm for
a long time.
Obama-excusing Democrats also love to point out that even Democratic
Senators such as Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders voted for legislation
blocking Obamas Guantánamo plan, implying that even the Senates most
liberal members wanted Gitmo to remain open. But these Obama advocates never
mention that those votes were based on their concerns about Obamas desire
to simply relocate the camp to U.S. soil and thus strengthen its core
injustice. And all of that is to say nothing of all the limits on closing
Guantánamo, which Obama himself (not the Republicans) imposed.
In sum, its true that Congress impeded Obamas Guantánamo plan. But its
misleading in the extreme to pretend that Obamas plan was ever about ending
the core injustice of that camp. If anything, Obamas plan would have, and
if it succeeds still will, institutionalize and strengthen the Bush/Cheney
scheme of indefinite detention: the very same beyond-the-law framework that
made them want to open the camp, and made it a symbol of injustice around
the world, in the first place.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
