[Marxism] Obama "war on terror, " preventive-detention talk seeks anti-rights consensus (Glenn Greenwald in Salon)

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greenwald starts out sort of half-sympathetic with Obama's effort, but the
more he thinks about it the more outraged -- and frightened -- he gets.
Interesting to watch the evolution of the updates. 

Of course, the driving force in all this is not just the nature of Obama's
liberalism but the fact of the imperialist war he has chosen to continue and
sharply escalate against Afghanistan and Pakistan (against both countries,
not just the Pashtuns in both countries;). 

That decision, as well as the difficulties facing efforts to maintain
imperialist control and carry out even a partial Iraq withdrawal, is what is
driving the administration's course today. And making it more difficult to
attempt to ameliorate relations with the Palestinians, Iran, Cuba, or
anybody else (unless they are willing to take his side on this).
Fred Feldman

Obama's civil liberties speech
As usual, Obama effectively defended various ideals while advocating
policies that contradict them 
Glenn Greenwald

May. 21, 2009 | 

(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV - Update V )

Obama's speech this morning, like most Obama speeches, made pretty points in
rhetorically effective ways about the Constitution, our values,
transparency, oversight, the state secrets privilege, and the rule of law.
But his actions, in many critical cases, have repeatedly run afoul of those
words.  And while his well-crafted speech can have a positive impact on our
debate and contained some welcome and rare arguments from a high-level
political leader -- changes in the terms of the debate are prerequisites to
changes in policy and the value of rhetoric shouldn't be understated --
they're still just words until his actions become consistent with them.

Worse, Obama repeatedly invoked the paradigm of The War on Terror to justify
some extreme policies -- see my post of earlier today on this practice --
beginning with his rather startling declaration that he will work to create
a system of "preventive detention" for accused Terrorists without a trial,
in order to keep locked up indefinitely people who, in his words, "cannot be
prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people."  In other
words, even as he paid repeated homage to "our values" and "our timeless
ideals," he demanded the power (albeit with unspecified judicial and
Congressional oversight) to keep people in prison with no charges or proof
of any crime having been committed, all while emphasizing that this "war"
will continue for at least ten years.  Compare the power of indefinite,
"preventive" detention he's seeking to this:

"I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by
which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
--Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789. ME 7:408, Papers 15:269.

Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since
John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned,
dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by
the law of the land."  Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 533 (1953) (Jackson,
J.) (conc. op.).

Similarly, he simultaneously paid homage to "rule of law" while demanding
that there be no investigations or accountability for those who repeatedly
broke the law. 

The speech was fairly representative of what Obama typically does:
effectively defend some important ideals in a uniquely persuasive way and
advocating some policies that promote those ideals (closing Guantanamo,
banning torture tactics, limiting the state secrets privilege) while
committing to many which plainly violate them (indefinite preventive
detention schemes, military commissions, denial of habeas rights to Bagram
abductees, concealing torture evidence, blocking judicial review on secrecy
grounds).  Like all political officials, Obama should be judged based on his
actions and decisions, not his words and alleged intentions and motives.
Those actions in the civil liberties realm, with some exceptions, have been
profoundly at odds with his claimed principles, and this speech hasn't
changed that.  Only actions will.

UPDATE: Immediately reacting to speeches of this type, as I've done here, is
always a perilous undertaking, since it generally helps to be able to
reflect on what one has heard.  It ought to be apparent that my reaction to
Obama's speech was fairly mixed.  There were some very well-delivered and
well-argued parts -- ones that were important.  And one sees the potency of
the bipartisan political opposition -- and the vindictive conniving from
some of  Washington's permanent power centers in the intelligence and
military community -- triggered by even by the mildest of changes, such as
the closing of Guantanamo and the release of the OLC memos.  Challenging
that opposition, even rhetorically, entails political costs and deserves
some credit.  But I'm always going to assess Obama based on what he does,
not on what he says.

Ultimately, what I find most harmful about his embrace of things like
preventive detention, concealment of torture evidence, opposition to
investigations and the like is that these policies are now no longer just
right-wing dogma but also the ideas that many defenders of his -- Democrats,
liberals, progressives -- will defend as well.  Even if it's due to
perceived political necessity, the more Obama embraces core Bush terrorism
policies and assumptions -- we're fighting a "war on terror"; Presidents
have the power to indefinitely and "preventatively" imprison people with no
charges; we can create new due-process-abridging tribunals when it suits us;
the "Battlefield" is everywhere; we should conceal evidence when it will
make us look bad -- the more those premises are transformed from right-wing
dogma into the prongs of bipartisan consensus, no longer just advocated by
Bush followers but by many Obama defenders as well.  The fact that it's all
wrapped up in eloquent rhetoric about the rule of law, our Constitution and
our "timeless values" -- and the fact that his understanding of those values
is more evident than his predecessor's -- only heightens the concern.

So now, we're going to have huge numbers of people who spent the last eight
years vehemently opposing such ideas running around arguing that we're
waging a War against Terrorism, a "War President" must have the power to
indefinitely lock people away who allegedly pose a "threat to Americans" but
haven't violated any laws, our normal court system can't be trusted to
decide who is guilty, Terrorists don't deserve the same rights as Americans,
the primary obligation of the President is to "keep us safe," and -- most of
all -- anyone who objects to or disagrees with any of that is a leftist
purist ideologue who doesn't really care about national security.  In other
words, arguments and rhetoric that were once confined to Fox
News/Bush-following precincts will now become mainstream Democratic
argumentation in service of defending what Obama is doing.  That's the most
harmful part of this -- it trains the other half of the citizenry to now
become fervent admirers and defenders of some rather extreme presidential
"war powers."

UPDATE II: There's very little worth saying about the speech Dick Cheney
delivered after Obama's.  It's just the same recycled, extremist
neoconservative pablum that drove the U.S. into the deep ditch in which it
currently finds itself.  The central Cheneyite claim -- they were right
because they prevented another Terrorist attack on the Homeland -- is so
patently ludicrous, since (a) they presided over 9/11; (b) the post-9/11
anthrax attacks happened "on their watch"; (c) Clinton "kept the country
safe" for almost 8 years after the first World Trade Center attack (and,
therefore, by Cheney's reasoning, Clinton's terrorism approach must have
been optimal); and (d) it assumes without demonstrating that we're unable to
defend ourselves unless we torture people, spy without warrants, and
generally act like lawless, barbaric cretins.

I spent most of the first couple of years after I began writing, in late
2005, focused principally on the corruption and destruction wreaked by
America's Right (with a secondary focus on their Democratic and media
enablers).  I did that because, back then, that was who mattered.  I tend to
ignore the Cheneyite Right now because they matter far less and their
glaring flaws are manifest to most people, not because I think they're any
less worthy of scorn and contempt.

UPDATE III: Upon further reflection, and after reading D-Day's reaction to
Obama's speech, one point I made in the immediate aftermath of the speech
isn't really accurate.  Obama did not, as I inaccurately wrote, "demand[]
that there be no investigations or accountability for those who repeatedly
broke the law."  Instead, although he said that he personally is not
interested in "re-litigating" those issues and opposes an independent Truth
Commission, he added:

I have opposed the creation of such a Commission because I believe that our
existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver
accountability. The Congress can review abuses of our values, and there are
ongoing inquiries by the Congress into matters like enhanced interrogation
techniques. The Department of Justice and our courts can work through and
punish any violations of our laws.

That seems consistent with what he has said in the past -- that it is for
the Attorney General to decide who should and should not be prosecuted --
though, as D-Day points out, those statements seem inconsistent with many of
Obama's actions (and recent non-public statements).  That, I think, is the
key point.  As Holly McLachlan says in comments:  "Obama is a tremendous
speaker. The best I've seen in national politics during my adult lifetime,
without contest."  Indeed, nobody can give as persuasive and stirring a
political speech as he can.  He proved that again today.  That's all the
more reason to be vigilant about judging him by his actions.

UPDATE IV:  At TheWashingtonPost.com, Dan Froomkin's reaction was as mixed
as mine and, independently, is well worth reading.  He praises parts of
Obama's speech (the soaring rhetoric rejecting the fear-mongering over
closing Guantanamo, the emphatic condemnation of Bush's interrogation
techniques, his calls for more oversight on his secrecy powers), but then
notes:

But in some parts of his speech, Obama appeared to be defending actions and
even taking positions that didn't live up to his own professed standards.

When it came to what to do with the detainees at Guantanamo, he declared
that he would work to create a system that would enable the indefinite
detention without trial for a limited number of people whom the government
is unable to prosecute for past crimes, but whom are nevertheless considered
to be threats to the country. 

Even though he spoke of establishing lawful standards and periodic reviews,
that's a dangerously extreme policy proposal. He once again expressed his
intention to use a reformed military commission process for some detainees
-- but gave no reason to think it won't run into many of the same legal
challenges that Bush's process did.  He spoke of sending many detainees to
face trial in federal courts -- but then promised that no one would be
released who endangers our national security. The whole point of a fair
judicial system is that the executive can't guarantee the results.

Obama spoke passionately about his commitment to transparency, but offered
up the same lousy and unpersuasive excuses he did last week for his decision
to fight the court-ordered release of more photos of prison abuse. In
particular, the weight he put on his responsibility not to release
information that would inflame our enemies was deeply disturbing.

He offered no additional clarity regarding his position on the state secrets
doctrine, where his lofty promises still stand in dramatic conflict with
what his administration is actually doing.

And in continuing to oppose the creation of an independent commission that
would fully investigate the abuses of the Bush administration, he
marginalized those of us who want to find out what happened as polarizers,
much like those who continue to doggedly defend Bush policies. He said the
recent debate has obscured the truth -- when all we want is to let it free.

The fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring
Constitutional principles -- along with huge hordes of his supporters --
will now advocate creating and institutionalizing a system of indefinite
detentions with no trial and no charges of lawbreaking (not only for current
detainees but also future ones) is a pretty remarkable event.

UPDATE V: I'm aware that I say this with some frequency, but I'd really be
remiss if I didn't highly recommend reading what Digby has to say on what it
really means that Obama and Senate Democrats are now advocating their own
system of indefinite detentions without trial for what will be, by all
accounts, the Permanent War on Terror.

-- Glenn Greenwald



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