Space Goat

The United States is a country which has a constitutional system of government and lives under rule of law. In such a country, for the rulers to indulge the electorate's desire for unconstitutional and illegal behavior isn't acceptable or defensible. (Just because the country might have some democratic procedures doesn't make it a democracy through and through.)

I'm reminded of a quote from Doctor McCoy in Star Trek III: "How can you get a permit to do a damn illegal thing?!"

That's not what I'm suggesting Obama do. I want Obama to obey the law; that's not the same as demanding Obama undo every Bush action the left didn't like.

I'm not sure of that. Candidate Obama -- who called for legally constrained detentions and vowed to end torture and close Gitmo -- had quite a few supporters from the right, enough for him to win states that had swung red previously. Opponents of Obama would definitely have caused a ruckus, but it'd have been nothing compared to, for example, Southern dissatisfaction with federal civil rights legislation, which President Lyndon Johnson nonetheless pushed.

Then I'll take the opportunity to say so directly: Obama misrepresented himself during the election.

While campaigning, Obama distributed a paper that said (emphases mine): "He will reject the Military Commissions Act, which allowed the U.S. to circumvent Geneva Conventions in the handling of detainees. He will develop a fair and thorough process based on the Uniform Code of Military Justice to distinguish between those prisoners who should be prosecuted for their crimes, those who can’t be prosecuted but who can be held in a manner consistent with the laws of war, and those who should be released or transferred to their home countries."

Obama also said (emphasis mine), "It’s time to better protect the American people and our values by bringing swift and sure justice to terrorists through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice."

President Obama has reneged on this promise. He has embraced Bush-style military commissions outside the UCMJ, preventative detention (for which none of the standards to which Obama claimed he'd adhere make provision), and even imprisonment regardless of the results of a trial (ditto). These policies directly contradict what Candidate Obama said he'd do.

Furthermore, Candidate Obama's campaign materials delivered a stirring defense of habeas corpus (emphases mine): "The right of habeas corpus allows prisoners to ask a court to determine whether they are being lawfully imprisoned. Recently, this right has been denied to those deemed enemy combatants. Barack Obama strongly supports bipartisan efforts to restore habeas rights. He firmly believes that those who pose a danger to this country should be swiftly tried and brought to justice, but those who do not should have sufficient due process to ensure that we are not wrongfully denying them their liberty."

Denying detainees a trial, as well as ignoring the results of a trial after it's taken place, would break this promise.

Obama needn't have stuck with the Bush policies or begun from scratch. The United States has long maintained a robust justice system, one that stiffly punishes terrorism, to the extent that mere membership in terrorist organizations constitutes a severe crime. This justice system imprisoned for life without parole the men who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, as it also did the "20th hijacker," Zacarias Moussaoui.

Moving the detainees into America's justice system, wherein truly vile men would likely be found guilty and punished accordingly, is a viable option for Obama.

Move the detainees into the American justice system. If evidence has been tainted by coercion and torture, investigate properly to gather more evidence. This should yield enough incriminating information to convict dangerous terrorists heavily involved with al Qaeda.

In the absence of trials to establish guilt -- indeed, with the government striving to avoid trials and accountability -- how can we be certain? All we have is the government's word these men are dangerous. Some likely are, but many others who were imprisoned and mistreated for years were verifiably innocent. This includes detainees still in US custody!

If the government's word shouldn't have been enough to imprison people under Bush, why should it be enough under Obama?

The purpose of constraining government to respect civil rights isn't to protect criminals and terrorists, but the rest of us. An authoritarian government that could imprison whomever it deems fit, without trials or accountability, would pose a far graver threat to the American people than would a few terrorists. Thankfully, we don't have such a beast now, but the extralegal preventative detention Obama supports would place many more bricks in the road to that grim fate.

And one couldn't argue Obama would just apply that policy to a few detainees whom Bush mistreated. Obama intends it for future detainees as well. The president isn't just dealing with his predecessor's mess, but building on what Bush did to establish a permanent framework.

Sometimes, that's probably true. Much of the time, though, I think that's just an excuse to avoid hard choices and a balm for troubled consciences.

And, likely in most instances, these situations have their genesis in past decision-makers abandoning principle in favor of so-called pragmatism. An illustrative example that comes to mind is the US-UK toppling of Iran's liberal prime minister in 1953, followed by decades of support for the Shah, a brutal dictator. This culminated in the Islamist revolution of 1979.

I don't need to describe how Iran's theocracy, likely made possible by Western "pragmatism" at the expense of the ideals of non-intervention and national self-determination, troubles the world today.

I agree, and the situation disturbs me.

Whereas unjust denials of freedom to specific groups of Americans have declined, in their place has arisen an increasingly authoritarian state whose crimes impact not just all Americans but the whole world.

__________________