‘Getting round the door’, is precisely what George Bush did and it’s still illegal. And not just for ‘some of us’…

I know you’d like to take my analogy and beat me over the head with it, but I can’t let you do that – sorry.

Your analogy is is a very effective illustration of why the quickest solution to a problem isn’t always the best. The problem is that all analogies have their limitations. Yours is limited to considering only the value of the door, not the circumstances that require getting around that door. No matter how valuable the door, there’s always going be something worth taking an axe to it over.

For some of us bringing our country back into compliance with international and it’s own laws us a higher priority than political considerations. We also seek to remind those we put in power that talk isn’t enough, they need to take concrete steps towards that goal. You seek to remind us that some things take time, and are more complicated than they first appear. Both are important elements to the dialogue and neither should be brushed aside as “not getting it,” as you seem to be trying to do.

There’s value in this door, which is centuries old, hard-core mahogany, and still fits the style of the building perfectly.
Any action that breaks apart that door is the ‘wrong’ action, even if you are successful in finding the key later.

You need both if you want to maintain not only the original hand-carved beauty, but the much needed security in having a door with a key that still works.

You can always replace a door and/or install new locks, but it’s never going to be the same as what what was there originally.
And if you’re going to go to all that extra trouble you definitely should be aiming for something better, if that’s even possible.

I (and I believe the others that have spoken out) understand that this will be a process, and that there is no way for the current administration to hit “ctrl-z” and simply fix everything. If you review my comments on this subject, you’ll find that I was among the first to applaud this decision as a positive step.

It is an essential right of We the People to let those we put into office know how we feel. Included in that is when we feel more work needs to be done. I won’t stop putting pressure on ANY elected official to restore the rule of law until it is fully restored, and then I’ll transfer my energy to demanding it’s maintenance.

While your calls for realistic expectations serve an important function, so do the reminders of others that time is of the essence. It is often the case the longer reform gets put off, the harder it is to achieve.

To continue your analogy, sometimes an axe at hand is a better option than a key you have to search for. This is simply a discussion as to which option is best.

And what I am suggesting is that there has to be a strategy with equal thought given to where we’ll t Iend up, possibly for the first time, AND how to get ‘there’.

I believe it’s naive to imagine all that can happen over night.

If you liken this situation to being faced with a locked door and needing to get inside. There are a lot of ways to approach the problem including blasting it open with plastic explosives. Get’s the job done, but causes a lot structural damage in the process.

It makes much more sense to slow down and find the key, first, don’t you think?

Being better than something is not the same as being good.

I’m more than willing to give the President time to prove he’s deserves a second term, but simply not being a repeat of Bush doesn’t get my vote. He needs to prove that he’s working on completely restoring the rule of law, not just restoring the parts that are convenient for his administration. Long term goals are great, but they aren’t met by short term gestures.

How that interest ends up being satisfied is less important than achieinv the goal, no matter what you call it in the process.
And I don’t think that’s been all figured out yet.

Nice catch on the Rich article. I don’t read him every day, but most days. He’s one of the better writers at the Times.

“Moses dragged us for 40 years through the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil. ”
-Golda Meir

http://www.adailycartoon.com/Grafix%20/Panel%20Cartoons/moses.gif

I read a wonderful op/ed article by Frank Rich today on the end of the “Culture Wars.” It points up to me that Obama is doing many things right but they are being met with a collective yawn from the Right, who stands to lose even more ground by railing against a popular President more concerned with the competent performance of his job to extricate us from the Bush mess, than pandering to ideologues of either stripe. Here’s the site:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/opinion/15rich.html?_r=1

The Afghanistan War is also an issue the implicates longterm detention. Obama has made the same argument as the Bush administration: Afghan captives at Bagram Air Force Base do not qualify for habeas relief.

George Bush et al is/was a disaster.

I want the pendulum to swing back where it belongs.

The world I live in allows me to accept that our new President is being as careful as he can possibly be in the unwinding of what amounts to Bush’s perpetual hog-tying of the Contitution.

It’s the ‘gift’ that keeps on ‘giving’, as it were… ;P

I am prepared to believe there is legal wisdom involved in his thinking, so I was delighted to find this from some who may very well be, apparently, entitled to have an opinion.

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2009/03/al-marri-case.html

I wish George Bush was never’elected”, that this ‘war’ never started, and that Guantanamo could simply close tomorrow, but we have to deal with what ‘is’.

It’s just not as easy as clicking one’s heels, unfortunately,
it’s just not.

Rhetorical?

Looks more like a concurrence to me.

That is another interesting ‘blawg’ and I am pleased to see many lawyers expressing their opinions over the Internet regarding the U.S. Constitution.

I would especially like to see all of the ‘blawgging’ lawyers (not the disparaging adjective most often used to describe opinions of lawyers) coalesce into a critical mass of definitive recommendations to our 3 branches of government demanding their return to the rule of law and an adherence to the principles of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the additional 17 Amendments.

Secondly, it does not really end Obama’s power to unilaterally proceed as “commander in chief”. The DOJ is not defining its terms. Without a narrow definition the “law” still remains: the president may choose whom he wishes to designate and imprison. I don’t want my president having this kind of power. It is illegal and dangerous. Right now, this power is primarily directed at people who seem far away (which was the point of Gitmo in the first place) and many people think they are guilty anyway despite all evidence. We should care about these people from many standpoints, as fellow human beings, as people concerned with the rule of law, and as people who would like to see an excellent terrorist recruiting tool taken away (to name of few), and as people who realize this power could be used against US citizens as well.

On this same day the Obama DOJ denied that anyone in Gitmo has habeas rights. There is the beginning and the end of this story, the rest is whitewash. Without this right any person taken to there, Bagram, or god knows where else, has no easy way to challenge their detention. Mistakes were/are/will be made.

The CCR and other groups have already outlined a complete plan for the orderly closing of Gitmo. There is no need for a task force to “study” the issue. That is a stalling tactic. Along with other decisions regarding detainees, secret keeping, presidential power protection acts and the failure to investigate war crimes, the pattern is clear. The DOJ is trying to mullify critics while slowing the whole process to restore the Constitution to a halt.

Nice catch on the Canadian article! It brought a smile. Let’s just hope the Land of Poutine has the intestinal fortitude to actually arrest Bush. I certainly hope so, because I really love Canada and Canadians. I’ve always had a great time visiting and I’m lucky enough to call several of them friends.

Patty,

The pizza was fantastic! She told me for approx. 1/3 # of shrimp she used 1/4 teaspoon of Cavender’s Multipurpose Greek Seasoning, a dash of extra oregano, garlic powder and white pepper. She mixed the spices with garlic infused olive oil (just enough to coat) and marinated the shrimp for 20 minutes in the ‘fridge. The spicing allowed the shrimp to stand up to the Gorgonzola and was nicely complemented by the sweetness of the figs. There were no leftovers.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a “Jump Street” marathon to get back to.

Thank you for the link. Good to know some Canadians revile Bush.

Thought you all might be interested in what our neighbors to the north are thinking about the United States’ resident war criminal:

http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/news-views/news/canada-should-bar-or-prosecute-bush-lawyer-3378/

Canada should bar or prosecute Bush: lawyer
Foreign Affairs stays silent on upcoming Calgary visit

As George W. Bush’s St. Patrick’s Day visit to Calgary draws near, the federal government is facing pressure from activists and human rights lawyers to bar the former U.S. president from the country or prosecute him for war crimes and crimes against humanity once he steps on Canadian soil….

Good luck with the pizza! I do spicy shrimp with the Basic Tomato Sauce, carmelized leeks, and mozzarella, myself. But I really like my white clam pizzas with garlic and oregano and my lobster fra diavolo for sefood.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting this is a simple issue. It does however impact both civil rights and the international treaties governing warfare. While I personally think the civil rights component is critical, it’s a narrow margin between that and protecting our troops. A move toward treaty can limit how abuses under Bush Co. could lead to our troops being treated as badly or worse should they be captured and using Bush’s violations of international law as an excuse. Separate issues, nearly equally important.

And on a cooking note, my lady friend is taking the reins tonight and she promised a variation on the Gorgonzola and fig pizza by way of adding what she called “Greek spiced shrimp”. I’ll let you know the results.

Slightly different thing…

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/court-gives-detainees-habeas-rights/

“…The Court also found serious defects in the process that the Pentagon set up in 2004 to decide which prisoners are to be designated as “enemy combatants” — the status that leads to their continued confinement. This process is the system of so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The procedures used by CSRTs, the Court said, “fall well short of the procedures and adversarial mechanisms that would eliminate the need for habeas corpus review.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s opinion for the majority in Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196) was an almost rhapsodic review of the history of the Great Writ. The Suspension Clause, he wrote, “protects the rights of the detained by a means consistent with the essential design of the Constitution. It ensures that, except during periods of formal suspension, the Judiciary will have a time-tested device, the writ, to maintain the ‘delicate balance of governance’ that is itself the surest safeguard of liberty.” Those who wrote the Constitution, he added, “deemed the writ to be an essential mechanism in the separation-of-powers scheme.”

Even though the two political branches — the President and Congress — had agreed to take away the detainees’ habeas rights, Kennedy said those branches do not have “the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will.”…”

And I agree, depending on the definition of ‘substantial,’ this news could be virtually meaningless.

“March 13, 2009, Washington, D.C. – Four British former detainees alleging torture and religious abuse at Guantanamo filed their brief today in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Department of Justice, in its first opportunity under the new administration to address those issues, argued that detainees had no constitutional rights. The United States Supreme Court earlier granted the men’s certiorari petition and remanded the case for further consideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last summer in Boumediene v. Bush, which held that Guantanamo detainees had a constitutional right to habeas corpus.”

The important point being that the Obama DOJ argued detainees had no constitutional rights.

NEW YORK – In a court filing today, the Obama administration argued that detention of prisoners held at Guantánamo is justified even if the individual is captured far from any battlefield and has not directly participated in hostilities. According to the definition offered in the government’s brief, individuals who provide “substantial” support to al-Qaeda or the Taliban can be detained.

The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union:

“It is deeply troubling that the Justice Department continues to use an overly broad interpretation of the laws of war that would permit military detention of individuals who were picked up far from an actual battlefield or who didn’t engage in hostilities against the United States. Once again, the Obama administration has taken a half-step in the right direction. The Justice Department’s filing leaves the door open to modifying the government’s position; it is critical that the administration promptly narrow the category for individuals who can be held in military detention so that the U.S. truly comports with the laws of war and rejects the unlawful detention power of the past eight years.”

Now if we could just get Obama to acknowledge he’s wrong about signing statements . . .

Good On you Mr. President, you’ve taken a first step in earning my second vote.