Lemkin

Uh, We Did Elect Him

jeffmiller:

“First, in addressing global terror and violent extremism, we need the kind of comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy I called for last August. We need to strengthen security partnerships to take out terrorist networks, while investing in education and opportunity. We need to give our national security agencies the tools they need, while restoring the adherence to rule of law that helps us win the battle for hearts and minds. This means closing Guantanamo, restoring habeas corpus, and respecting civil liberties.”

— Candidate Obama, 2008 (eBooks, Databases, and other searchable on-line content from askSam)

I wish we had elected this man.

Perhaps you are forgetting that Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, put the kibosh on any movement towards even beginning to wind down Guantanamo. Obama did exactly as he said he would and got the ball rolling on the Executive side; he is not a dictator (reports on FOXnews to the contrary). The onus is on all of us, the citizens in various districts, for not pressuring our individual representatives to drop their wrong-headed opposition to a return to rule of law. As FDR said (and Obama frequently quoted on the campaign trail) “You’ve convinced me… Now go out and make me do it.” Precisely. The Presidency is not a political-suicide pact. Underestimating the limitless potential for utterly craven demagoguery around this issue doesn’t in any way change the fact that he walked (partway) into a political chipper shredder trying to restore sensibility in this domain. There was never a broad based, citizen uprising in support of making this entirely sensible return to normalcy, so it died on the vine. Period.

We are getting precisely the government we deserve. We vote these tools into Congress and then blame all the rest of those tools in DC because our tool brought in some needless and destructive water management dollars to the district.

Without an educated and engaged electorate, nothing will change. Inventing supposed lies, “flipflops,” or failures on the part of Obama doesn’t educate anyone.

Curveball II →

I’d say this paragraph pretty well sums up American “terrorist policy” from 9/12/2001 on:

…whatever the truth about the detainee’s role before his capture in 2002, it is receding into the past. So, presumably, is the value of whatever information he possesses. Still, his jailers have continued to press him for answers. His assessment of January 2008 — six years after he arrived in Cuba — contended that it was worthwhile to continue to interrogate him, in part because he might know about Mullah Omar’s “possible whereabouts.”

Takron-Galtos revisited

jimray posts:

“Terrorists should not be treated like common criminals in federal court. These detainees are enemies of the state, and should be treated as such by being held and brought to justice right where they are — in Guantanamo Bay.”

— Representative Jerry Lewis (R-CA), criticizing a Democratic play to [transfer suspected enemy combatants from Guantanamo to the United States to stand trial]

It occurs to me that this kind of thinking is exactly backwards — nothing would be more humiliating to a terrorist than to be treated like a common criminal. We need to stop treating these people as if they’re some kind of team of super-villains ready to sow havoc on the U.S. at a moment’s notice. It’s not Lex Luthor or an evil genius Bond villain that we’re up against here — these people are barely literate, delusional and fueled by a misappropriation of religion and blind hatred of a worldview too complicated for them to understand. If that sounds familiar to people like Representative Lewis, it’s probably because it’s also an apt description of the extreme of his own party.

This is exactly right. Why the GOP and many average citizens seem to think our justice system simply cannot handle criminals “like this” is beyond me. A series of regular old trials (and, presumably: convictions and sentences) is precisely how to prevail in this situation over the long haul. We lose when we’re seen to dispatch with our whole system of government because it’s expedient or just more convenient. That dissolution of our government and, by extension, our ability to tinker in world events abroad, is precisely the object of their desire. Bring Osama bin Laden and his associates before the bench, one by one, just like any other common criminal. Nothing would undermine their entire worldview more.