More Backtracking and Doublespeak from Obama on Gitmo and Accountability
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on January 11, 2009 at 9:30 PM in Backtrack Obama, Barack Obama, Current Affairs, Dick Cheney, George Stephanopoulos, Guantanamo, Hillary Clinton, Terrorism
According to Jonathan Martin of Politico, in his piece, “Obama: Closing Gitmo ‘A Challenge’”:
Barack Obama suggested he’s not likely to actively pursue criminal charges against national security officials who were directly involved in unlawful interrogations or wire-tapping, and said it would be difficult to quickly close down Guantanamo Bay.
Hold on to your hats, folks. This doesn’t sound like what he campaigned on – does it?
“That’s a challenge,” the president-elect said about the prospect of closing down to the detainee facility within the first 100 days of taking office. “I think it’s going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do.”
On the question of prosecuting crimes that may have been committed during the Bush presidency in the course of the war on terror, Obama continued the theme of “looking forward as opposed to backwards” he took on the campaign trail and reaffirmed since winning the presidency last November.
Let me repeat that for you — looking forward as opposed to backwards. Apparently, he repeated that theme a number of times in his interview.
In Glen Greenwald’s biting Salon piece “Obama’s allegedly “new” centrism and his ABC interview today”, he quotes Obama’s statement on the subject:
“It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize and we are going to get it done but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom who may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted even though it’s true. And so how to balance creating a process that adheres to rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo American legal system, by doing it in a way that doesn’t result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up.”
Greenwald then clarifies the butter:
What [Obama's] saying is quite clear. There are detainees who the U.S. may not be able to convict in a court of law. Why not? Because the evidence that we believe establishes their guilt was obtained by torture, and it is therefore likely inadmissible in our courts (torture-obtained evidence is inadmissible in all courts in the civilized world; one might say it’s a defining attribute of being civilized). But Obama wants to detain them anyway — even though we can’t convict them of anything in our courts of law. So before he can close Guantanamo, he wants a new, special court to be created — presumably by an act of Congress — where evidence obtained by torture (confessions and the like) can be used to justify someone’s detention and where, presumably, other safeguards are abolished. That’s what he means when he refers to “creating a process.”
Amazingly, when discussing the same topic, Obama vowed that “we will send a message to the world that we are serious about our values.” How? By creating a new court just for accused Islamic radicals that allows us to use confessions and other evidence that we obtained through torture? That sounds like exactly the same “message about our values” that we’ve been sending.
Great analysis, Glen. Perhaps Obama’s statements then prompted Politico’s Martin to note:
While aimed at attracting consensus from a broader electorate, the position is not exactly what many in the liberal base of his party would prefer.
Uh, no kidding. Along with Obama inviting Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the Inauguration and appointing Governor Tim “anti–choice, anti-Gay union, pro Iraq war” Kaine as the new Democratic Party Chair, this is just another instance of P.E. Obama getting elected on a totally fictional platform and thumbing his nose at the very people who brought him to the table in the first place.
As Stephanopoulos noted, the most asked question on Obama’s own transition website relates to investigating the “crimes” of the Bush administration. Asked if he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate such matters as warrantless wire-tapping and torture, Obama demurred.
You betcha he demurred. Stephanopoulus asked Obama if he was going to take a piece of advice that Dick Cheney offered in reference to the very subject of Bush’s counterterrorism policies. From ABC News:
DICK CHENEY (via audio clip): Before you start to implement your campaign rhetoric you need to sit down and find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it. Because it is going to be vital to keeping the nation safe and secure in the years ahead and it would be a tragedy if they threw over those policies simply because they’ve campaigned against them.
…
OBAMA: I think that was pretty good advice, which is I should know what’s going on before we make judgments and that we shouldn’t be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric. So, I’ve got no quibble with that particular quote.
Obama went on to say:
“We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth,” he said. “And obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices, and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law.
“On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering.”
Pressed, Obama said twice more that he wanted to get “things right in the future, as opposed looking at what we got wrong in the past.”
Again, ‘look forward,’ ‘look to the future.’ In other words, folks, if you are waiting for accountability in Obama’s administration, you can wait long. As far as an independent body similar to the 9/11 commission being formed to investigate these crimes:
“We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing. That doesn’t mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation’s going to be to move forward.”
I think that statement makes pretty clear that whatever bodies are buried are probably going to stay buried. And as to Mr. sit down and meet with anybody, new world of peacenik diplomacy – try this on for size:
Obama also reiterated his desire for a “new approach” to Iran — something he frequently mentioned during the Democratic primary — but was quick to add a stick to go with the carrot.
Asked if U.S. relations with Tehran would include a “new emphasis on respect,” Obama replied: “Well, I think a new emphasis on respect and a new emphasis on being willing to talk, but also a clarity about what our bottom lines are.”
Could it be that in his recent security briefings, he has had a come to Jesus moment and realized that all the nonsense he was spewing on the campaign trail was just that? Or do you think he knew that information all along and was just strategizing to pull the most votes away from Hillary in the primary and McCain in the general by supplying a war weary, Bush-weary electorate with the pablum they wanted to hear? I go with the latter.
Greenwald also notes that while Obama’s fans in the pundit class are celebrating his shifts to the right as “remarkable” – this strategy is old as the hills:
The central tenets of the Beltway religion — particularly when a Democrat is in the White House — have long been “centrism” and “bipartisanship.” The only good Democrats are the ones who scorn their “left-wing” base while embracing Republicans. In Beltway lingo, that’s what “pragmatism” and good “post-partisanship” mean: a Democrat whose primary goal is to prove he’s not one of those leftists.
I guess this is Mr. Greenwald’s way of informing Obama supporters they’ve been had.
Obama has a history of doing and saying anything in the moment that will take him the farthest. If that amounts to a lie that doesn’t conflate with the next lie, so be it. And if the past year is any indication, Obama has little to worry about. No one in the press seems to bother to compare any of his conflicting statements in order to corner him into an admission of his disingenuous behavior.
I am not even going to comment as to the advisability of shutting down Gitmo in the first 100 days– neither this nor his behavior toward Iran is the point. As we have all been proclaiming from the highest hill for the past year, the point is he is simply politics as usual – exactly the opposite of everything he pretended to be. With each news conference, each interview and each new action, he proclaims that loud and clear.
So if he had but a paper thin resume and is not the “new kind of politics” but just inside the beltway business as usual – what exactly does he have to bring to the table? Why did anyone need to vote for him in the first place?
Apart from the wisdom to hire if not all, at least some, incredibly savvy people to cover his butt for him, why couldn’t we have elected genuine leadership instead of a “brand” or puppet king? Surely Hillary would know how to make great cabinet appointments – and be a caring, ultra capable and prepared leader to boot. It would also be great to have a President possessed of toughness, real decision making capabilities and deep, nuanced knowledge of the issues. Hillary has this. He does not. What happens if Obama’s 300 advisors are not available at the moment? What about if part of the team is skiing in Gstaad? How about if he does not have frat-boy Favreau available to write a pretty speech for him? As the saying goes, “Life comes at you fast.”
Senator Clinton always ran as the general election candidate and told the truth about her policies and stance on the issues, both foreign and domestic, from the beginning. She would require none of the betrayals and shocking about faces that Obama seems to be so comfortable with – whether on Gitmo, Iran, the economy or any other issue. Can you imagine Greenwald’s or Martin’s reaction if Hillary had done what Obama is now doing – their rhetoric would have been far more heated, I can assure you. J’accuse!!!! Bet on it.
Thank heavens she will be Secretary of State. Mr. Hopey Changey is going to need all the help he can get. And I think he’s beginning to figure that out.
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