About Me

My photo
This blog is the work of an educated civilian, not of an expert in the fields discussed.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

NYT Obama Piece of Moment

Many things are depressing, same half true stuff raised each time mixed with the rightful, and it makes reading pretty tiresome. Small circle of topics lead the way here -- same sex marriage, PPACA and Obama's counter-terrorism (sometimes labeled "civil liberties" as if abortion rights etc. is not included there) policy seems to be up on the list. Some coverage of an extended look at Obama's "secret kill list" in the NYT continues the norm.

I made a few comments in two of those links and covered this stuff before.  Don't want to belabor the point, though didn't stop me in the past.  Don't want media articles, with various on the record and off the record sources, to be my primary source of the details though appreciate them all the same.  The Administration, as Jack Goldsmith and others who aren't a bunch of liberal pansies suggest, should release stuff like the legal memorandum (properly redacted) used to justify the killing of an American citizen (you know who I mean) though they had their guy give a speech summarizing things.  The latter suggests why I refuse to buy into the Glenn Greenwald (often with spittle) approach that Obama is useless here.
In an extensive piece Jo Becker and Scott Shane report for The New York Times that Obama has “preserved three major policies – rendition [where prisoners are sent to secretive sites to undergo harsh, often brutal interrogation], military commissions and indefinite detention – that have been targets of human rights groups since the 2001 terrorist attacks.”
The fact is that the Administration has drawn lines here and some of the concern is a result of super-majority efforts like AUMF 2001 (voted by Ron f-ing Paul et. al. -- though, strangely, I'm the only one who seems to know this, given his name keeps on popping up as this great libertarian)  that gives broad discretion.  And, take this quote. That isn't what "rendition" means
In law, rendition is a "surrender" or "handing over" of persons or property, particularly from one jurisdiction to another. For criminal suspects, extradition is the most common type of rendition. Rendition can also be seen as the act of handing over, after the request for extradition has taken place.
Extraordinary rendition or rendition without proper procedures and safeguards is the damn problem. But, you know, I'm just an "Obama lover" (more than one person called me that inane term).  Some want Obama to release those in Gitmo or give them civilian trials.  Congress doesn't want to fund the latter, and in various cases, military commissions are appropriate (if done properly).  As to indefinite detention. simply put, putting aside that Congress is hindering the process of detainees, there are a portion that there is in the real world simply no easy way to handle.  Regardless, you are allowed to detain people here until the conflict is over. It isn't over. If you want a damn limit, have Congress pass one.

But, the buck always stops on the person who actually is doing the most (if not enough) in the long run here.  Congress wanted to give him MORE power.  The ACS link quoted GG. Sigh:

Virtually every one of the most far-right neocon Bush officials – including Dick Cheney himself – has spent years now praising Obama for continuing their Terrorism policies which Obama the Senator and Presidential Candidate once so harshly denounced. Every leading GOP candidate except Ron Paul wildly praised Obama for killing U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki without a shred of due process and for continuing to drop unaccountable bombs on multiple Muslim countries.
Right. That is, other than (see Rachel Maddow) they weren't out there (including father/daughter [not the lesbian one] Cheney) railing against Obama for being too soft.  He has it at both ends, I guess.   What policies are we talking about here? He tried to close GITMO. He tried to have civilian trials.  Obama was never some crystal pure civil libertarian, no matter how many times people put out that strawman.  He set up more rules, denied the "no limits" policy of Yoo/Cheney and so forth.  If Congress et. al. don't want to make him accountable, who's fault is it?  And, does a police who shoots a fleeing suspect within accepted rules have "not a shred of due process"?  Over and over again, b.s.

The tiresome thing is that the policy as a whole can't really be defended.  The problem is multi-fold but to me is largely a matter of policy as an expert quoted in the piece suggested.  It isn't, as Greenwald tweeted as if it was so horrible, that Axelrod is in on the decisions.  Are we not supposed to hope that public opinion serves as a check here?  That's inane.  Do you think politicians don't judge public reaction before they use military force?  Do you think Lincoln didn't?  Did he make public his "kill lists" aka the military targets that would kill Americans, at times civilians? 

LGM (linked above), at least not the tiresome knee-jerk duo, noted:
Jo Becker and Scott Shane’s extensive, extremely useful analysis is not entirely without flaws. There’s a strange bit of Green Laternism where Becker and Shane talk about how Holder and Hillary Clinton wanted to lobby Congress but Obama shut them down — with the implication that this might have made a difference — which is pretty silly. I’d listen to counterfactuals it if the bill passed by a vote or two, but the vote was 90-6; the idea that Clinton and Holder using the BULLY PULPIT could have shifted 54 votes is so implausible as to be self-refuting.
Anyways, there is a lot of power here and there should be more safeguards in place.  It's appreciated the media shines a light.