Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama’s stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions – a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate.
The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.
They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” – how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.
If I have to choose a side, there’s no contest.
National Lawyers Guild sprung me out of the joint more times then the Democrats so only rollin’ with the civil liberties/human rights/anti-war/non-profit groups when it comes time to pick a side and they’re saying that Obama isn’t being cool with them.
So now, we got problems.
Mr. Cheney and other hawkish critics have sought to portray Mr. Obama as weak on terror, and their argument seems to be catching on with the public. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats, in a clear rebuke to the White House, blocked the $80 million Mr. Obama had requested in financing to close the Guantánamo prison.
The lawmakers say they want a detailed plan before releasing the money; there is deep opposition on Capitol Hill to housing terrorism suspects inside the United States.
Well now the only way to close Guantanamo Bay is to get other nations to house the suspects, but that means Obama is gonna have to reverse course on not seeking prosecution for torture. They’re not gonna help clean up our mess unless we show them that we’re serious about confronting our past. So there goes Option 1 I guess.
If that’s not an option, here’s Option 2: “Fuck You”.
This option requires of the person implementing it to say these two magic words (explicitly or implicitly) to the individual representatives refusing to house the terror suspects in their state. Implementing a policy of having representatives prove that their state is incapable of housing the detainees in a Federal Penitentiary and keeping them from escaping into the American population. If you can prove that these suspects would be able to escape your State and/or Federal facilities due to the lack of security inside them to commit acts of terrorism in the surrounding area then we will not send them to your state. Although that would also be admitting that you can’t properly run your prisons in your state as well as insinuating that the Federal Government provides less than adequate security to their Federal Facilities in your view. Your move asshole.
Option 3:
Ask Congress to come up with an idea as to what should be done and say that if they can’t agree on a solution besides Guantanamo Bay, you will release all the evidence needed to prove that it must be shut down. Names, dates, memos, photos, the whole shabang. If that doesn’t get them motivated nothing will.
There are many side effects to these options such as retaliation from your own party and stubborn people that will vote “No” on every measure to throw a hissy but I say don’t worry about it.
Just name the people stopping you and we’ll fight them here. We smeared Jindal in less than a week of his presentation to us by the G.O.P. I think a Corpracrat will be a breeze.
Oh, and there’s that “The Whole World Is Watching” part where the torture being committed in the prisons right now as we speak under your Administration makes you an accessory to the crimes seeing how you show no interest in stopping the current torture on top of not pursuing those who did it in the past.
Sooooo yeah…
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I gotta go work on my series.
I look forward to seeing where all this leads.
Thanks for your bluntness.