Speaking to the graduating class of U.S. Naval Academy, President Barack Obama told the graduates that the best way to protect our nation is to stand up to its principles. I discussed the detainee issue last night on this segment of Countdown.
President Obama stated: “We uphold our fundamental principles and values not just because we choose to, but because we swear to — not because they feel good, but because they help keep us safe, . . . When America strays from our values, it not only undermines the rule of law, it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops.”
If only the White House would match its actions to its rhetoric, this country would be able to regain our moral and legal leadership in this troubled world. He needs to guarantee a trial for all detainees and to investigate the U.S. torture program.
For the story, click here.
Cherry,
While I don’t have the time or inclination to go through your list point by point and demolish them (though I could and I’m sure that many of the other posters here could do so even better than I), I thought that I would mention a few things to you for your education. In case you missed Countdown tonight (by the way, great job Professor Turley, keep it up!), six seconds is the amount of time it takes for a right wing radio host to go from defending waterboarding to saying that it is “absolutely torture”. Eric “Mancow” Muller, the host of “The Mancow Show” underwent waterboarding this morning on his radio show to prove that it isn’t torture and afterwards said that if he were interrogated in that way he would confess to anything. And as to your unsubstantiated comment about it being common knowledge that the midshipmen wanted no part of President Obama being at their graduation – all of the veteran’s groups that I know of are much more supportive of the president than either Senator McCain or (the worst) President (ever) George Bush and his sidekick Dick the war criminal – it’s nice to have a president who actually cares about our troops rather than one who uses them as political props before sending them to die and ignoring their needs when the come home wounded.
Kirk,
The untriable are not who you think they are; untrialable means we don’t have any evidence against them and no country will take them back.
Jonathan,
I’m listening you talk right now on Countdown and I have an issue. Morality does not ever put one in danger, and it certainly does not put one in the mercy of an unjust man. I think you hold higher standards of morality for our government than you would an individual. If you are holding somebody for whom you are reasonably certain will kill you and your family you don’t let him go. You would be crazy to even take that chance. There are just, though admittedly not legal, ways to handle these prisoners. I think the burden of proof here must be reasonable certainty. Lets us hear the rationale why these men should be denied their right to trial and judge the issue on that.
Kirk,
I appreciate the Rayburn comment. I agree with that, nothing better that saying what you feel. Now, if you release the untriable in a battlefield, how would that fair to them, if they are senile and demented and for that matter there feet are healing after the other torture?
So AY,
Why do you assume I voted for Obama? I voted for Nader.
So MatthewN.
Why did you vote for him then? I voted for Nader.
I served in the Navy for 31+ years and, for the most part, I agree with J.T. and the majority on this site.
I have no degree, I was a sailor. I served in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, three Middle East tours, the First Gulf War and Desert Shield.
I am a Texas Sam Rayburn Democrat and a proud Obama supporter.
I agree with all of President Obama’s suggestions concerning the Gitmo detainies except one.
Turley, Jill, and others preach the rule of law concerning the “unreleasable and un triable” in GITMO.
There is also a RULE OF WAR. I have been a provider. Use the rule.
Release these “UNTRIABLE” on the battlefield and KILL THEM!
I guess I’m a cynic since I never trusted Obama. I wanted to believe. Oh, believe me, I wanted to. In the end, I knew he could never fulfill many of the things he promised, even if he wanted to. I do think it is quite despicable of him to give the kind of speech he did while at the same time acting directly contrary to the beliefs he claims to espouse. I’m not for him, but I’m not necessarily against him either. If he continues to blatantly lie to our faces, the public will not put up with it (but then again, who am I kidding? The public doesn’t care).
Jill,
Hello. At the risk of a chastising from you other favorite Friend. But you are sounding like a troll with that post.
Jill:
“…he’s already needlessly put our troops in harms way, not to mention all the civilians we have killed, some using white phosphorus, while failing to equip our own people (see NY Review of Books on Afghanistan).”
****************
I think you’re on the kool-ade again Jill. You bought the far left’s assessment without any critical analysis. By doing this you are rendering Patty C’s assessments of you very prescient. There are numerous explanation for the only reported proof, so-called “unusual burns,” and even more uncertainty over how they got them. Here’s one from a more reputable source:
“Doctors have said villagers wounded in the fighting had “unusual” burns.
The controversy around a recent U.S.-Taliban battle which left dozens of Afghans dead could deepen as a top human rights group says it’s probing whether white phosphorus was employed. The organization says civilians wounded in the attack have “unusual burns.” The American military denies using the weapon.
The American military on Sunday denied using the incendiary in the battle in Farah province — which President Hamid Karzai has said killed 125 to 130 civilians — but left open the possibility that Taliban militants did. The U.S. says Taliban fighters have used white phosphorus, a spontaneously flammable material that leaves severe chemical burns on flesh, at least four times the last two years.
Using white phosphorus to illuminate a target or create smoke is considered legitimate under international law, but rights groups say its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitutes a war crime.
Afghan doctors told The Associated Press they have treated at least 14 patients with severe burns the doctors have never seen before. The villagers were wounded during last Monday’s battle in Farah province.
Allegations that white phosphorus or another chemical may have been used threatens to deepen the controversy over what Afghan officials say could be the worst case of civilian deaths since the 2001 U.S. invasion that ousted the Taliban regime.”
–JASON STRAZIUSO, Associate Press
Critical analysis means being critical of your own impressions first and then realizing that you can be manipulated as well as the next guy. It’s facts, facts, facts, not wild-eyed supposition. Even the treating doctors don’t allege the US caused these burns.
This whole speech was written by someone who studied Orwell. Obama has done exactly the opposite of everything he said. He’s not only still allowing torture in the world’s greatest prison (see Jeremy Scahill’s report on Democracy Now), he’s already needlessly put our troops in harms way, not to mention all the civilians we have killed, some using white phosphorus, while failing to equip our own people (see NY Review of Books on Afghanistan).
Finally, how does he have the nerve to talk about oaths? He took one which he feels completely comfortable ignoring on multiple levels.
I conclude that Obama’s speeches are made to generate headlines and nothing more. Those get published and many people believe that’s the end of the story. I call this propaganda. These are such important issues. This is no time for lies and propaganda. It is past time to do the right thing and live up to the so far, Orwellian speeches he thinks are appropriate to say but not act on.
Here is the video on torture at Gitmo from Democracy Now
http://rebelreports.com/post/110058178/my-appearance-on-democracy-now-this-morning-to
It’s widespread common knowledge here that the Naval Academy graduates didn’t want any part of Obama being at their graduation.
CBS’s Lefty Schieffer Admits Cheney ‘Winning’ Security Debate
May 22, 2009
On Friday’s CBS Early Show, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer acknowledged: “The fact that the President of the United States had to make this speech, the fact that Congress had turned him down in giving him the money to close Guantanamo, I have to say that on points, I give it to the Vice President on this. Right now I think the Vice President has made his case. And at this point I’d have to say he’s winning.”
Hadi,
If you are going to plagiarize my words do so in their entirety or at least with partial credit to me. My signature lines follow me wherever I go and my conversations outside this blawg do as well.
I can always point to the place where ‘I said it, first’ as well as what i meant, so forget about it.
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/05/21/obama-promises-to-hold-some-detainees-without-trial/#comment-54970
Dick Cheney responds (and gives Obama a new one!)
Toby Harnden
Telegraph, UK
Cheney’s speech wasn’t stylish, there were no rhetorical flourishes and the tone was bitingly sarcastic and disdainful at times. But it was effective in many respects and Cheney showed that Obama is not invulnerable. Here are 10 of the punches he landed on the President’s jaw:
1. “I’ve heard occasional speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that, but I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.”
Anyone who was in New York or Washington on 9/11 (I was here in DC) was profoundly affected and most Americans understand this. Obama was, as far as I can tell, in Chicago. His response – he was then a mere state senator for liberal Hyde Park – was startlingly hand-wringing and out of step with how most Americans were feeling. This statement by Cheney reminds people of the tough decisions he and Bush had to make – ones that Obama has not yet faced.
2. “The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law- enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact: arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed.”
This was the pre-9/11 mindset, much criticised after the attacks. Many sense that this is the approach Obama is increasingly taking.
3. “By presidential decision last month, we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public’s right to know. We’re informed as well that there was much agonizing over this decision. Yet somehow, when the soul searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth.”
The release of the documents was a nakedly political move by Obama and Cheney called him on it. This passage from Obama’s speech today came across as completely disingenuous: “I did not do this because I disagreed with the enhanced interrogation techniques that those memos authorized, and I didn’t release the documents because I rejected their legal rationales — although I do on both counts. I released the memos because the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known, the Bush Administration had acknowledged its existence, and I had already banned those methods.”
4. “It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessor. Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers, who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security and what it requires.”
Obama’s suggestion that Bush administration officials might be prosecuted for legal and policy judgements about what was an was not permissible in interrogations was chilling. I doubt most Americans have any enthusiasm for such a witch-hunt and it flies in the face of Obama’s stated desire not to “re-litigate” the Bush years.
5. “We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country, things we didn’t know about al Qaeda. We didn’t know about al Qaeda’s plans, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we did not think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.”
The political climate is very different now from what it was just after 9/11 but it could change again in a heartbeat if and when there is another terrorist attack. Most Americans do not favour torture but do want the CIA and other agencies to question suspected terrorists very vigorously indeed if there is any chance they might know something about an attack on the US homeland.
6. “On his second day in office, President Obama announced he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation, and no plan. Now the president says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries; but so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists.”
Obama’s grand announcement at the start of his administration that Gitmo would be closed within a year was clearly not properly thought out. If he fails to achieve what he promised, he will pay a big political price and Cheney was marking his card on the issue.
7. “The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo, but it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interest of justice and America’s national security.”
The notion that Obama makes gestures designed to court popularity abroad is one that could find increasing resonance – many Republicans strongly suspect it already.
8. “If fine speechmaking, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field.”
As Cheney said this, sarcasm dripped from his lips. Obviously “fine speechmaking” but no real substance is not a new charge against Obama and it hits home. And Cheney successfully mades the point that much of the rhetoric from the Left tends to suggest that if only the US did not waterboard people, if only the US was viewed as Obama rather than Bush, Venus rather than Mars then it would be universally loved and al-Qaeda would wither away. UNfortunately, that’s not the real world.
9. “It’s worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the president himself. President Obama has used his declassification authority to reveal what happens in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials.”
Cheney is pushing Obama to declassify documeents relating to the information gained from terrorist suspects who were subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. This puts Obama in a bind. If he does so, it prolongs an argument he wants to move on from and prolongs the Obama vs Cheney meme that is distracting and doesn’t really help him. if he doesn’t, he looks like he has something to hide.
10. “To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, 7- 1/2 years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized.”
It’s indisputably an achievement of the Bush administration that it prevented the US from being attacked after 9/11. By ramming this point home, Cheney tees things up for some very tough questioning of Obama in the event that the US is attacked again.
Obama is clueless.
It’s common knowledge out here that the Naval Academy graduates didn’t want any part of him being there.
Obama not only inherited a “mess” from the previous administration, as he said yesterday, he also stepped into a stronger exceutive branch in the nations recent history. You might remember that after assuming office Cheney, et al, bemoaned the erosion of power of the presidency in the aftermath of Watergate and set out aggressively to tilt the balance in its favor. I submit that beacuse of the efforts of Bush era officials the executive is much stronger than the legislative and judiciary branches of our government today. And therein lies a problem
Those of us who were complaining, as George W. Bush was begining to look more and more like King George, were pointing out the longer term consequences of the imbalance developing in a system that depended on a delicate balance of power sharing between three branches of government. The accumulation of power in one place was dangerous in the minds of the founding fathers. They knew that the allure of power after all is seductive, maybe even a mind numbing aphrodisiac.
Along with a “mess’, Obama has stepped into a position of enhanced presidential powers. For one to expect that he will willingly give up some of these powers is at best naive. To put it more simply, ever seen a hungry dog give up a meaty bone?
Good, let’s start by respecting the law, President.
http://www.light-to-dark.com/War_Criminal_One.html
The shame belongs to all of us.
Just don’t tell em if they ask. Stay strong, onward through the fog, by G-d.