Tag: preventive detention

Jun 26 2009

This Is Fucked Up (Updated)

From the WaPo:

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, White House officials are growing increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may prove impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the facility by the president’s January deadline.

So let me see if I have this right.

Writing an Executive Order to halt DADT, which would prevent people losing their jobs from … losing their jobs — Bad.

Writing an Executive Order fucking up our legal system even more due to politics — Good.

I always take WaPo analysis with a grain of salt, but no matter what, this is fucked up.

UPDATE (h/t to mcjoan).  From Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic, an administration denial (emphasis in original):

(Update: An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, flatly denied the report to me. “There is no executive order. There just isn’t one.”)

This is the second time there’s been rumors of Obama signing an executive order like this, the first one about keeping the torture pics from being released, and that one has not been confirmed either.  If as mcjoan says, this is a trial balloon, the sooner shot down the better.

May 26 2009

Obama falls victim to his bogeyman

Like some great inflatable amusement park monster, Obama and his fellow Democratic Party Machiavellians decided to pump up the deflating Al Qaeda bogeyman to prove their “toughness” on national security – and to keep the arms merchants happy. But the problem with reinvigorating bogeymen is that they frighten people.

The campaign promise of closing Guantanamo has now collided with the rediscovered super-evil, world-threatening, cosmically colossal threat of AL QAEDA! This great terrorist organization, which has been incapable of putting so much as one sniper with a rifle and a box of bullets in the United states, is now becoming a self-created political obstacle for the Obama administration.

We are waging two ruinously expensive “wars” against the Al Qaeda bogeyman, and now the main issue Republicans are using to undermine Obama is his “weakness” in dealing with the terrorist threat he has revived. The irony is extraordinary, but the results are very bad for America. We will continue to piss away our dwindling resources chasing the Al Qaeda bogeyman, and Obama has given the Republicans a permanent claim to superior devotion to protecting us.

Al Qaeda is a weak enemy that can easily be contained for a fraction of our “war on terror” expenditures. But Obama can’t tell these simple truths. He is now the victim of his own bogeyman.