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Topic: Obama - Put to the test fails dismally. (Read 9334 times) |
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #75 on: 2009-11-15 09:01:11 » |
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Detainees to get the "state-always-wins" system of "justice"
Obama's announcement to try 9/11 defendants would be commendable if it applied to all, rather than some, detainees.
Source: Salon.com
Authors: Glenn Greenwald
Dated: 2009-11-13
According to The Associated Press, Eric Holder will announce later today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 defendants will be brought from Guantanamo to New York to stand trial, in a real criminal court, for the crimes they are accused of committing. This is a decision I really wish I could praise, as it's clearly both politically risky and the right thing to do.
An open criminal trial under our standard system of justice, accompanied by basic precepts of due process, is exactly the just and smart means for punishing those responsible for terrorist attacks. It announces to the world, including the Muslim world, that we have enough faith in our rules of justice to apply them equally to everyone, including to Muslim radicals accused of one of the worst crimes in American history. Numerous family members of the 9/11 victims have long argued that real trials for the accused perpetrators are vital to providing real justice for what was done -- I expect to have an interview later today with one of those family members -- and holding the trial in New York, the place where 3,000 Americans died, provides particularly compelling symbolism. So this component of the Obama administration's decision, standing alone, is praiseworthy indeed.
The problem is that this decision does not stand alone. Instead, it is accompanied by this:Holder will also announce that a major suspect in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will face justice before a military commission, as will a handful of other detainees to be identified at the same announcement, the official said.
It was not immediately clear where commission-bound detainees like al-Nashiri might be sent, but a military brig in South Carolina has been high on the list of considered sites. So what we have here is not an announcement that all terrorism suspects are entitled to real trials in a real American court. Instead, what we have is a multi-tiered justice system, where only certain individuals are entitled to real trials: namely, those whom the Government is convinced ahead of time it can convict. Others for whom conviction is less certain will be accorded lesser due process: put in military commissions, to which most leading Democrats vehemently objected when created under Bush. Presumably, others still -- those who the Government believes cannot be convicted in either forum, will simply be held indefinitely with no charges, a power the administration recently announced it intends to preserve based on the same theories used by Bush/Cheney to claim that power.
A system of justice which accords you varying levels of due process based on the certainty that you'll get just enough to be convicted isn't a justice system at all. It's a rigged game of show trials. This is a point I've been emphasizing since May, when Obama gave his speech in front of the Constitution at the National Archives and explained how there were five different "categories" of terrorism suspects who would be treated differently based on the category into which they fell:If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions, we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain" them).
Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies (convictions or acquittals).
Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine. That the Obama DOJ is now explicitly picking and choosing different levels of due process in the very same announcement -- we can give that defendant a trial because we know we'll win, but that one over there needs to go to a military commission because we're less sure -- highlights how manipulative this "justice system" is.
Former Air Force lawyer Morris Davis was the Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo Military Commissions system during the Bush years and resigned in 2008 to become one of its leading critics. Although he still believes that military commissions are a viable option for detainees captured on an actual battlefield -- and even believes the President has the right to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely with no trial -- he made the same point last week in a Wall St. Journal Op-Ed about the practice of picking and choosing the system of justice one receives based on how likely the state is to win:In a preliminary report submitted to Mr. Obama in July, the Detention Policy Task Force recommended the approval of evaluation criteria developed by the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice. The task force stated its preference for trials in the federal courts, but added the decision would be based in part on "evidentiary issues" and "the extent to which the forum would permit a full presentation of the accused's wrongful conduct." A Washington Post editorial endorsed the proposal, arguing that there should be an alternative forum when a trial in federal court is "not an option because the evidence against the accused is strong but not admissible."
Stop and think about that for a moment. In effect, it means that the standard of justice for each detainee will depend in large part upon the government's assessment of how high the prosecution's evidence can jump and which evidentiary bar it can clear.
The evidence likely to clear the high bar gets gold medal justice: a traditional trial in our federal courts. The evidence unable to clear the federal court standard is forced to settle for a military commission trial, a specially created forum that has faltered repeatedly for more than seven years. That is a double standard I suspect we would condemn if it was applied to us. . . .
The problem is trying to have it both ways: the credibility that comes from using federal courts with admissible evidence under the very strict rules of civilian tribunals, and military commissions for cases that are often comparable except for the fact that they depend on evidence (such as hearsay testimony) that is not normally admissible in civilian courts. What if Iran proposed the same for the three American hikers it is currently holding? We would surely condemn what we now stand ready to condone. . . .
Double standards don't play well in Peoria. They won't play well in Peshawar or Palembang either. We need to work to change the negative perceptions that exist about Guantanamo and our commitment to the law. Formally establishing a legal double standard will only reinforce them. Obama is certain to be bombarded with all sorts of right-wing idiocy and fear-mongering as a result of his decision to bring 9/11 defendants into the U.S. in order to give them trials. Doing that is clearly the right thing to do: trials and due process is how civilized countries treat people who are accused of engaging in terrorism. Given how Democrats and Republicans will talk about this decision, media coverage will almost certainly fixate on the narrow question of whether (a) 9/11 defendants should be given trials in the U.S. or (b) we're all now Endangered because these Omnipotent Monsters are being brought into our communities (in handcuffs, shackles, and maximum-security prisons). The AP article already includes this preview of the inane attacks on Obama certain to come:It is also a major legal and political test of Obama's overall approach to terrorism. If the case suffers legal setbacks, the administration will face second-guessing from those who never wanted it in a civilian courtroom. And if lawmakers get upset about notorious terrorists being brought to their home regions, they may fight back against other parts of Obama's agenda. In a just-posted New York Times article, Charlie Savage also notes that bringing an accused terrorist of Mohammed's notoriety to the U.S. for trial is unprecedented and likely to provoke intense political controversy. In that "debate," I'm squarely on Obama's side, as is any person who believes in the most basic Constitutional precepts.
But the more consequential impact of Obama's decision is likely to be overlooked: we're now formally creating a multi-tiered justice system for accused Muslim terrorists where they only get the level of due process consistent with the State's certainty that it will win. Mohammed gets a real trial because he confessed and we're thus certain we can win in court; since we're less certain about al-Nashiri, he'll be denied a trial and will only get a military commission; others will be denied any process entirely and imprisoned indefinitely. The outcome is pre-determined and the process then shaped to assure it ahead of time, thus perfectly adhering to this exchange from Chapter 12 of Alice in Wonderland:"Let the jury consider their verdict," the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
"No, no!” said the Queen. "Sentence first -- verdict afterward."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Alice loudly. "The idea of having the sentence first!"
"Hold your tongue!" said the Queen, turning purple.
"I won’t!" said Alice.
"Off with her head!" the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. How is that remotely just or fair under any definition of those terms? As Davis wrote: "We need to work to change the negative perceptions that exist about Guantanamo and our commitment to the law. Formally establishing a legal double standard will only reinforce them." There's nothing "pragmatic" or "moderate" about creating a multi-tiered justice system where only some people get trials; it's both counter-productive and profoundly unjust.
UPDATE: Omar Khadr -- the Canadian "child soldier" imprisoned at Guantanamo for the last seven years, since he was 15 years old, for allegedly throwing a grenade at an American soldier in Afghanistan (that's apparently "terrorism") and the subject of a difficult-to-watch video of him weeping like the child he is while being interrogated -- will reportedly be one of those denied a trial and instead allowed only a military commission, according to Canada's Canwest News Service (h/t sysprog):Canadian-born terror suspect Omar Khadr faces continued prosecution in the U.S. military tribunal established in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. . . .
The federal system offers the full panoply of defendant rights available to U.S. citizens under the U.S. Constitution, while civil rights groups have argued the military commissions at the U.S. naval base in Cuba do not meet that standard.
The decision regarding Khadr means that the Obama administration has, for now at least, rejected calls by his U.S. and Canadian defence teams for the repatriation of the Canadian-born terror suspect" . . . My view is, he should be prosecuted," said navy Capt. John Murphy, chief prosecutor in the military commissions system. So even for 15-year-olds who we imprison for seven years with no charges, we refuse to give them a trial. And note how the Canadian press account stresses our multi-tiered system of justice and how their citizen is receiving second-tier due process -- an observation that one can be sure will repeat itself worldwide.
UPDATE II: In his Press Release, Eric Holder says his decisions today were "based on a protocol that the Departments of Justice and Defense developed" whereby he "looked at all the relevant factors and made case by case decisions for each detainee." In other words, there's no categorical determination driving the process (e.g., all those who attack military targets get commissions and all those who attack civilian targets get trials). To the contrary, federal prosecutors choose, in their sole discretion, the level of due process each defendant gets (including "none" -- as in: indefinite detention with no trial), and Holder himself emphasized that "it is important that we be able to use every forum possible to hold terrorists accountable for their actions."
There's supposed to be one justice system for everyone -- not multiple ones from which prosecutors can pick and choose based on assurances of ongoing imprisonment. Highlighting how dangerous this is, the DOJ's investigation of al-Nashiri was originally classified as a standard criminal case, but -- as his counsel pointed out today -- he was assigned to a military commission because there simply isn't sufficient evidence to convict him in a real court.
Vividly illustrating the perverse mentality behind all of this, here's a question asked today of President Obama by AP's Jennifer Loven:President Obama, how can you assure the American people that a trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now that your administration has now decided will take place in a civilian court in New York, will be safe and secure, but also not result in an innocent verdict for him? Apparently, we're only supposed to give trials to people if we can assure in advance that it won't "result in an innocent verdict." Jennifer Loven -- and many of her media colleagues -- seems to yearn for the U.S. to be a lot more like North Korea.
And for those of you who favor what Obama did today, I have two questions: (1) are you in favor of allowing serial murderers and child rapists to go free if the evidence against them is "tainted," or should special commissions be created to ensure their conviction, too; and (2) did you defend the Bush administration's use of military commissions on the same grounds that you're defending Obama today? [ Hermit : Go ahead, take up this challenge Mo, even if you don't approve! :-) ]
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #76 on: 2009-11-24 19:11:00 » |
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Obama Quietly Backs PATRIOT Act Provisions
Source: Inter Press Service (IPS)
Authors: William Fisher
Dated: 2009-11-24
With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA PATRIOT Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.
And it is reportedly doing so over the objections of some prominent Democrats.
When a panicky Congress passed the act 45 days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, three contentious parts of the law were scheduled to expire at the end of next month, and opponents of these sections have been pushing Congress to substitute new provisions with substantially strengthened civil liberties protections.
But with the apparent approval of the Obama White House and a number of Republicans – and over the objections of liberal Senate Democrats including Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Dick Durbin of Illinois – the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to extend the three provisions with only minor changes.
Those provisions would leave unaltered the power of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to seize records and to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail in the course of counterterrorism investigations.
The parts of the act due to expire on Dec. 31 deal with:
National Security Letters (NSLs)The FBI uses NSLs to compel Internet service providers, libraries, banks, and credit reporting companies to turn over sensitive information about their customers and patrons. Using this data, the government can compile vast dossiers about innocent people.
The "Material Support" StatuteThis provision criminalizes providing "material support" to terrorists, defined as providing any tangible or intangible good, service, or advice to a terrorist or designated group. As amended by the PATRIOT Act and other laws since Sept. 11, this section criminalizes a wide array of activities, regardless of whether they actually or intentionally further terrorist goals or organizations. [ Hermit : This is the "everything clause" in the standard USA prosecutor's opening bid of "Murder, Rape, Kidnapping, Exceeding the Speed Limit, Breathing and everything else" intended to elicit quick plea deals with defence attorneys. ]
FISA Amendments Act of 2008This past summer, Congress passed a law that permits the government to conduct warrantless and suspicion-less dragnet collection of U.S. residents’ international telephone calls and e-mails.
Asked by IPS why committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and other Democrats chose to make only minor changes, Chip Pitts, president of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, referred to "the secret and hypocritical lobbying by the Obama administration against reforms – while publicly stating receptiveness to them." White House pressure, he speculated, "was undoubtedly a huge if lamentable factor."
He added that some committee members were cautious because of the recent arrests of Najibullah Zazi and others.
Zazi , a citizen of Afghanistan and a legal U.S. resident, was arrested in September as part of a group accused of planning to carry out acts of terrorism against the U.S. Zazi is said by the FBI to have attended courses and received instruction on weapons and explosives at an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan.
Leahy acknowledged that, in light of these incidents, "This is no time to weaken or undermine the tools that law enforcement relies on to protect America."
Pitts told IPS, "Short-term and political considerations driven by dramatic events once again dramatically affected the need for a more sensible long-term, reasoned, rule-of-law approach."
"In the eight years since passage of the original PATRIOT Act, it’s become clear that the escalating political competition to appear tough on terror – and avoid being accused of being ’soft on terror’ – brings perceived electoral benefits with few costs, with vital but fragile civil liberties being easily sacrificed," he added.
In contrast to the Senate, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved a version of the legislation containing several significant reforms. In a 16-10 party-line vote, the committee’s version curbs some of the government’s controversial surveillance powers.
The PATRIOT Act, passed by a landslide after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to provide law enforcement and intelligence agencies additional powers to thwart terrorist activities, was reauthorized in 2005.
The legislation has been criticized by many from across the ideological spectrum as a threat to civil liberties, privacy, and democratic traditions. Sections of the original act have been ruled unconstitutional, with certain provisions violating protected rights.
Judiciary Chair John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, said the goal of the new legislation was to "craft a law that preserves both our national security and our national values."
The proposed new legislation would permit the so-called "lone wolf" provision to sunset. This authority removed the requirement that an individual needed to be an agent of a foreign power to be placed under surveillance by intelligence officials and permitted surveillance of individuals with a much lower evidentiary threshold than allowed under criminal surveillance procedures.
It was intended to allow the surveillance of individuals believed to be doing the bidding of foreign governments or terrorist organizations, even when the evidence of that connection was lacking.
The Justice Department maintains that the "lone wolf" authority is necessary, even though there is no evidence that it has been used. Its opponents believe that existing authorities are sufficient to achieve the goals of the lone wolf provision while more effectively protecting the rights of innocent citizens.
The proposed new House legislation would also restrict the use of national security letters. According to a Congressional Research Service report, "National security letters (NSL) are roughly comparable to administrative subpoenas. Intelligence agencies issue them for intelligence gathering purposes to telephone companies, Internet service providers, consumer credit reporting agencies, banks, and other financial institutions, directing the recipients to turn over certain customer records and similar information."
Under current law, intelligence agencies have few restrictions on the use of NSLs, and in numerous cases, have abused the authority. An FBI inspector general report in 2007 "found that the FBI used NSLs in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines, and internal FBI policies." The reform provisions seek to create greater judicial scrutiny of NSL use.
The bill approved in the Senate contains much more modest reforms. It would retain the lone wolf provision, and is, in general, much more in line with the wishes of the administration. Should both bills pass and go into conference to be reconciled, it is unclear which approach would prevail.
House and Senate versions still need to be voted on by each body separately and then reconciled into a single bill to send to the president for signature.
Pitts told IPS, "President Obama’s flip-flop on PATRIOT Act issues does as much damage as did his flip-flop on the FISA Amendments Act and telecom immunity last year. But it’s imperative that we fight, while we still can, to comprehensively reinsert requirements for fact-based, individualized suspicion, checks and balances, and meaningful judicial review prior to government intrusions."
In a report on the PATRIOT Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, "More than seven years after its implementation there is little evidence that the PATRIOT Act has been effective in making America more secure from terrorists. However, there are many unfortunate examples that the government abused these authorities in ways that both violate the rights of innocent people and squander precious security resources."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #77 on: 2009-11-26 00:38:24 » |
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Groups Denounce Obama Rejection of Landmine Treaty
Source: Inter Press Service
Authors: Jim Lobe
Dated: 2009-11-26
Human rights and disarmament activists reacted bitterly Wednesday to the decision by the administration of President Barack Obama, who will receive the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize next month, not to sign the 10-year-old treaty banning anti-personnel landmines.
The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL), a coalition of scores of activist groups, called the administration’s decision "shocking," while Human Rights Watch (HRW), one of the Campaign’s most influential members, described it as "reprehensible."
"President Obama’s decision to cling to anti-personnel mines keeps the U.S. on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of humanity," said Steve Goose, the director of HRW’s Arms Division, who also noted that Washington stood alone among its NATO allies in refusing to sign the treaty.
"This decision lacks vision, compassion, and basic common sense, and contradicts the Obama administration’s professed emphasis on multilateralism, disarmament, and humanitarian affairs," he added.
A leading Democratic lawmaker, who spearheaded the drive in the early 1990s to ban Washington’s export of the weapon to other countries, also decried the decision, which was announced by State Department spokesman Ian Kelly Tuesday.
Sen. Patrick Leahy said the decision constituted a "default of U.S. leadership" and charged that it appeared to be based on a review that "can only be described as cursory and half-hearted."
Rep. Jim McGovern, another leader of Congressional disarmament efforts, called the review and the decision "a major insult to the international community that unfortunately far overshadows our contributions in the areas of de-mining and support for landmine survivors."
The decision, which came on the eve of the Second Five-Year Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty to begin Sunday in Cartagena, Colombia, was viewed as a victory for the Pentagon, which has long opposed the treaty, and Republicans wary of all international treaties that may limit Washington’s freedom to act in the world as it wishes.
"I think what you see is an administration that is genuinely committed to multilateralism and renewing international cooperation coming up against the hard limits of domestic politics and realities," said Heather Hurlburt, director of the Washington-based National Security Network.
The decision, however, is likely to add to growing frustration in recent months among Obama’s more-liberal political base over his willingness to break more definitively with the unilateralist and militarist policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
That frustration has been fueled, among other things, by his retention of many of the legally questionable tactics, such as indefinite detentions of terror suspects and their rendition to third countries, in what Bush called the "global war on terror"; by his strong embrace of counterinsurgency doctrine; by his failure to engage diplomatically more quickly with Bush nemeses, such as Cuba, Syria, and Iran; and his escalation of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.
Obama’s defenders insist that his administration has been steadily moving the ship of state in a more multilateralist and diplomatic direction.
They cite, for example, his decision to send for the first time a U.S. observer delegation to take part in the Cartagena talks next week, just as he sent a similar delegation this week to attend a meeting at The Hague of the state parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court and that was explicitly rejected by Bush.
They also noted his decision, announced here Wednesday, to lead the U.S. delegation at the U.N. Climate Summit in Copenhagen next month.
"I think they are moving away from the Bush administration, and the fact they’re showing up at these [states] parties conventions is very significant," said Don Kraus, CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions here.
He noted that the administration has sent the Senate a list of priority treaties for ratification, including the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and is currently trying to negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia as part of a strategy to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
"It’s more a question of timing than commitment," said Kraus. "There’s limited bandwidth in terms of what the administration and the Senate can do at any one time."
Still, the announcement that the administration had completed its review and concluded that Washington "would not be able to meet our national defense needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign the [landmine] convention" came as a harsh blow to those have been campaigning for it for years.
The U.S. is currently one of only 39 countries that have not signed the treaty, which was opened for signing in 1997 and took effect in 1999 after a campaign led by Canada and Western Europe, as well as hundreds of independent human rights and disarmament organizations that make up the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). The ICBL won the Nobel Prize for its efforts in 1997 in recognition of its leadership role in the effort.
In its most recent report, the ICBL, which has since undertaken an initiative for an international ban on cluster munitions, reported that mines remain planted in more than 70 countries where they killed or wounded more than 5,000 people – the vast majority of whom were civilians — last year.
Ironically, the U.S. has been in substantial compliance with most of the treaty’s provisions. It has not deployed anti-personnel mines since 1991, banned their export in 1992, and stopped manufacturing them in 1997. Washington has also spent some 1.5 billion dollars in de-mining and related activities since 1993, Kelly noted Tuesday.
Like Leahy, the USCBL, which is part of the ICBL, said it was especially disappointed by the way the administration’s review of the treaty was carried out.
"While we were told to expect a landmine policy review… we were taken by surprise that it had already been concluded behind closed doors without the consultation of non-governmental aid workers, legislators, and important U.S. NATO allies who are all States Parties to the treaty," said Zach Hudson, the group’s coordinator.
"We also have been offered no official reasons as to why the U.S. would continue on this present course – other than that nothing has changed since Bush reviewed the policy in 2004," he added. "President Obama should explain these actions to the international community, which held such high hopes for a different kind of U.S. engagement."
"It’s painful that President Obama has chosen to reject the Mine Ban Treaty just weeks before he joins the ranks of Nobel peace laureates, including the ICBL," Goose added.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #78 on: 2009-12-08 14:12:54 » |
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White House wants suit against Yoo dismissed
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Authors: Bob Egelko (Chronicle Staff Writer)
Dated: 2009-12-08
The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.
Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose "the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military's detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict," Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Other sanctions are available for government lawyers who commit misconduct, the department said. It noted that its Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating Yoo's advice to former President George W. Bush since 2004 and has the power to recommend professional discipline or even criminal prosecution.
The office has not made its conclusions public. However, The Chronicle and other media reported in May that the office will recommend that Yoo be referred to the bar association for possible discipline, but that he not be prosecuted.
Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, worked for the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was the author of a 2002 memo that said rough treatment of captives amounts to torture only if it causes the same level of pain as "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death." The memo also said the president may have the power to authorize torture of enemy combatants.
In the current lawsuit, Jose Padilla, now serving a 17-year sentence for conspiring to aid Islamic extremist groups, accuses Yoo of devising legal theories that justified what he claims was his illegal detention and abusive interrogation.
The Justice Department represented Yoo until June, when a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the suit could proceed. The department then bowed out, citing unspecified conflicts, and was replaced by a government-paid private lawyer.
Yoo's new attorney, Miguel Estrada, argued for dismissal in a filing last month, saying the case interfered with presidential war-making authority and threatened to "open the floodgates to politically motivated lawsuits" against government officials. The Justice Department's filing Thursday endorsed the request for dismissal but offered narrower arguments, noting its continuing investigation of Yoo.
Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Chicago in 2002 and accused of plotting with al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb." He was held for three years and eight months in a Navy brig, where, according to his suit, he was subjected to sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and stress positions, kept for lengthy periods in darkness and blinding light, and threatened with death to himself and his family.
He was then removed from the brig, charged with and convicted of taking part in an unrelated conspiracy to provide money and supplies to extremist groups.
Padilla's suit says Yoo approved his detention in the brig and provided the legal cover for his allegedly abusive treatment. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White refused to dismiss the case in June.
The Justice Department's filing Thursday said Padilla is asking the courts to determine the legality of Yoo's advice, Bush's decision to detain Padilla, the conditions of his confinement and the methods of his interrogation - all "matters of war and national security" that are beyond judicial authority. [ Hermit : In other words, the Obama administration is arguing that if the government accuses a US Citizen of involvement in a crime related to "war or national security" and conspires to perform unconstitutional, illegal and extra-legal actions against the accused, the accused has no recourse during or after such treatment. This of course was already recognized as a total dereliction of the rule of law by the 1100s (Henry II), and in England the argument that the authority of the King was sufficient was legally excluded by the 1600s (Charles I) and in the US, where the people became sovereign after their successful insurrection, the authority of the President to detain people - irrespective of arguments that they were advised that it is legal, never has been legally established, although numerous Presidents (and Congress) have sometimes acted as if this were the case and the Suupreme Court has sometimes supported them (think of slaves in the late 1800s and Japanese in the mid 1900s). I consider this the most venial failure by the Obama administration to date. ]
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Fritz
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #79 on: 2010-01-23 11:19:31 » |
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It seems to me for a time we have been dancing to the impending news that the economy is well on its ways ... to what is less then clear to me; but nothing good is my thought .... if nothing else it has kept us from the usual contemplations of, 'How many Terrorists fit on the Head of an RPG ?' ... for a while anyway, so all is not for nothing.
Sighs & Cheers
Fritz
Source: The Globe & Mail
Author: KONRAD YAKABUSKI, WASHINGTON
Date: 2010.01.22
Obama picks populist fight by taking on the big banks
President tries to win over the people with move to cap bank size, calling for toughest regulation measures since the Depression
A newly assertive Barack Obama, smarting from his party's stunning loss of a normally secure Senate seat, has concluded that one way back into doubting Americans' hearts is through their hate-on for Wall Street.
After repeatedly rejecting calls to put the vise to the banking industry, which has roared back to profitability only months after being bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, the President yesterday signalled he will prohibit financial institutions from growing too large or engaging in risky trading practices with depositors' money.
If enacted by Congress, the measures would constitute the most significant re-enforcing of U.S. bank regulation since the Great Depression and would arrest the steady relaxation of financial rules that has occurred since the 1980s.
Mr. Obama is proposing a cap on bank size that would go far beyond current rules limiting a single institution to 10 per cent of overall deposits. His plan would also make it illegal for most deposit-taking institutions to trade on their own behalf, a measure aimed at reducing banks' exposure to the kinds of risky products that almost brought down the financial system in 2008.
The President, who has until now preferred consensus over confrontation, vowed to drop the gloves should bankers unleash lobbyists on Capitol Hill to quash the proposals: "If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have." Republicans intend to take him up on that. The President's tough talk was immediately ridiculed as "faux-populism" by New Jersey GOP Congressman Scott Garrett.
The President did not offer specific remedies for the main source of public ire toward the banks - the executive bonuses that Mr. Obama yesterday labelled as "obscene." And the rules unveiled by the President raised as many questions as they answered. The White House provided almost no details on how they would be applied, though analysts were quick to parse the President's language to determine whether the overhaul is as far-reaching as he seemed to indicate.
But the proposals stunned Wall Street, and rocked stock markets, in part because the Obama administration had previously appeared to rule out using such blunt instruments to discipline the banks. The Dow fell 213 points yesterday and the TSX tumbled 210 points. What's more, the move signals an apparent comeback for Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the U.S. central bank who heads the President's economic recovery advisory board, but whose calls for stricter regulation had been dismissed by top White House operatives.
That, however, was before the Democratic candidate in Tuesday's race to fill the late Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat succumbed to a wave of populist anger at the Obama administration, handing Republicans a game-changing victory. A chastened Mr. Obama conceded the following day that voters were reacting in part to his perceived "remoteness" and "detachment."
Now, the President wants to prove he's on the side of the little guy by taking aim at a banking industry that is "still operating under the same rules that led to its near collapse." "The forces within the White House shifted dramatically about 8 o'clock on Tuesday night," James Cox, a professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University in Durham, N.C., opined in an interview. He was referring to Mr. Volcker's apparent rehabilitation after having been sidelined for months by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, Mr. Obama's top economic adviser.
On the surface, the new rules would appear to usher in a sober new era on Wall Street, where commercial banks had strayed beyond their core businesses in recent years to engage in speculative investing.
If Congress enacts the limits proposed by Mr. Obama, federally regulated banks and their subsidiaries could no longer engage in that kind of risk-taking. Such activities are seen to have contributed to the financial meltdown because banks, had an incentive to take big risks knowing they were insulated from debilitating losses by taxpayer backstops.
Still, the proposals do not appear to prohibit banks from trading in the same kind of risky financial products on behalf of clients. As a result, Mr. Obama's move yesterday "is the kind of thing the public, in its anger at the moment, will buy without really understanding what it means," offered Lawrence Baxter, who also a professor at the Duke law school. "But it may not have the effect they're looking for, which is greater safety and soundness in the financial system, because it was the underlying financial products, not the trading practices, that were the problem."
For years, those trading activities were wildly profitable. But taxpayers had to bail them out when hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bets on risky financial instruments went bad in 2007 and 2008.
Only months later, banks have resumed their previous behaviour - and profitability. Goldman Sachs, for instance, yesterday reported a record annual profit of $13.4-billion (U.S.) in 2009, much of it from "proprietary trading." What's more, the firm set aside an eye-popping $16.2-billion for salaries and executive bonuses.
The President will require the co-operation of Democrats in Congress to enact his proposals. While members of the House of Representatives are generally more amenable to cracking down on the banks, Mr. Obama could have a tougher row to hoe in the Senate.
The head of the Senate banking committee, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, last week reportedly rejected the idea of creating a new regulatory body with an explicit mandate to protect consumers from mistreatment by banks.
The House bill contains such a measure, however, and, after the loss of the Kennedy fortress in Massachusetts, some Senate Democrats facing re-election this fall may be inclined to seek salvation in anti-bank populism. Just like Mr. Obama.
****
INSIDE OBAMA'S PLAN
THE GOAL
Reduce the risk of another economy-crushing financial crisis, stop the banks from using depositors' money for risky trading activities and rebuild the fortunes of the President and his party by tapping into public anger over the banks' renewed hefty trading profits and fat employment bonuses.
THE GUIDING LIGHT
The new plan bears the thumbprints of revered former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. His views had been given short shrift by Obama advisers until the big Wall Street banks began throwing their weight around again.
THE GOODS
Bank-bashing is always a smart political move. But the fact is, the proposed regulations would not have prevented a housing bubble fuelled by cheap credit. At the end of the day, bad lending practices cannot be legislated away, and financial institutions typically repeat their mistakes about once a decade.
The presidential ambition
U.S. President Barack Obama proposes reining in the potential size, complexity and risk-taking capacity of the big U.S. banks through what amounts to an updated version of the 1933 Glass-Steagall legislation, which separated commercial and investment banking from the depths of the Great Depression until the 1990s.
What it would mean
The proposed regulations would bar commercial banks from: trading in securities for their own profit; operating, sponsoring or investing in hedge funds or private equity vehicles; and trading complex financial derivatives such as credit default swaps without oversight. They would still be able to trade securities on behalf of clients. A cap on the market share of deposits and other liabilities held by any single bank would also be enforced.
Who would be affected
The regulations are aimed at the surviving banking heavyweights, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The latter two became commercial banking companies at the height of the crisis to obtain access to cheap loans from the Federal Reserve and would be affected only if they retained that status and took consumer deposits. The targeted banks are chief among the culprits blamed by the government for the financial collapse through their aggressive pursuit of short-term profits at the expense of the long-term health of the financial system.
effect on foreign banks
If they operate commercial banks in the United States, they would face the same curbs on speculative trading and size.
Will it happen?
The plan requires congressional approval, a key stumbling block to other efforts at financial, fiscal and health-care reforms. But this is a midterm election year, and opponents of sweeping regulatory changes can hardly be seen siding with bankers in the midst of an economic slump. Nevertheless, parts of the proposal are sure to be watered down. And the banks, which fear that less-regulated global competitors will steal market share, will mount a strong counteroffensive. They have already argued that the proposal will boost risk and limit lending.
BRIAN MILNER
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Hermit
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #80 on: 2010-01-28 10:17:19 » |
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OBAMA’S REPORT CARD: C MINUS
Source: EricMargolis.com
Authors: Eric Margolis
Dated: 2010-01-26
Here in normally arid southern California, we’ve just endured a week of torrential rains, tornados, flash floods, and mud slides. Some roads have even turned to rivers in the great western monsoon.
But these tempests are nothing compared to last week’s electoral storm that greeted President Barack Obama’s first anniversary in office.
Conservative Republican Scott Brown’s dramatic upset victory in the Massachusetts race for the late Senator Teddy Kennedy’s seat has left Democrats shaken and frightened. Massachusetts is the most Democratic of all states; if Republicans won there, no place is safe for the Democrats.
The loss of Kennedy’s feudal seat was as stunning as if a Protestant had become pope.
Republicans are cock-a-hoop, crowing that an anti-Obama revolution has begun. They hope American voters will forget the nation’s economic melt-down and wars overseas occurred when Republicans held in power. Voters do have notoriously short memories.
The upset was due to voter’s fear and anger over America persistent high unemployment, the Wall Street rescue, gargantuan deficits, and Obama’s unpopular health plan.
Instead of focusing on the economy, the president wasted a year trying to implement his awkward health plan. Many Americans just don’t want to pay health costs for the poor.
Obama’s disappointing, lackluster first year record is also mirrored in his foreign policies.
The new leader who promised to bring change has largely failed to do so, and has continued or expanded many of the most pernicious policies of the Bush years. Liberals who had hoped for glasnost and perestroika instead got Bush’s third term with a kinder, smiling, intelligent face.
The Mideast continues to be America’s most trying foreign problem. What the west calls terrorism stems from the Muslim world’s fury over the endless agony of Palestine, the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and mounting raids against Somalia and Yemen. It has next to nothing to do with Islam or cultural hatred, as George W. Bush so dishonestly claimed.
Osama bin Laden warned, `there will be no peace in America until there is peace in Palestine.’
Unfortunately, he may be right. The Christmas airline hysteria caused by a young Nigerian with incendiary underpants was a graphic example.
Barack Obama’s vow to halt Israeli annexation of the West Bank and engineer a fair Arab-Israeli peace has turned into a humiliating fiasco for the president.
The White House’s demand that Israel cease building settlements – and particularly so in illegally occupied East Jerusalem - was rejected with contempt by Israel’s hardline Prime Mininster, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hillary Clinton even stabbed boss Obama in the back by lauding Israel’s “restrained” settlement policies, a clear sign of her future political ambitions if Obama falters.
Dismaying his liberal supporters, Europeans and the entire Muslim world, which had high hopes for the new “peace president,” Obama is expanding the pointless war in Afghanistan, entrenching a permanent US presence in Iraq, and intensifying US military operations in Somalia, and Yemen, as well as North and West Africa.
Obama is under mounting pressure to launch an air war against Iran. So far, Obama has sensibly resisted. But as Obama’s presidency weakens, and mid-term elections grow closer, he may be forced into a major military confrontation with Iran, which shows no signs of giving into to American threats over its nuclear program.
The president just asked Congress for an additional $33 billion this year to fund the trillion-dollar Afghan and Iraq wars. The costs of these inherited conflicts - that now belong to Obama - are being financed by emergency loans, not taxes, as they should be.
Future generations will pay for these colonial misadventures that have so far cost $1 trillion.
If American’s taxes were to go up to properly finance these colonial wars, popular outrage would swiftly end them.
By contrast, Obama has improved frayed US relations with Europe, in large part due to his personal popularity on the continent. Relations with Russia, however, remain jagged. On the plus side, Obama has apparently dropped Bush’s dangerously provocative plan to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO and to build a major anti-ballistic radar near Russia’s border in favor of a smaller, less capable system.
The US-India entente, begun by Bush, is moving ahead apace. America’s arms industry is drooling at the thought of huge contracts with India.
But every American step closer to India increases tensions with India’s rival, China, which sees the new US-Indian axis as a blatant attempt to surround it.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is getting sucked ever deeper into the growing, increasingly dangerous mess in volatile Pakistan where anti-American hatred has reached alarming intensity.
The president disappointingly failed to normalize relations with Cuba while cozying up to other Communist regimes. Nor has he managed to yet close America’s gulags at Guantanamo, Cuba, and Bagram, Afghanistan, or end many of the Bush administration’s anti-democratic security measures.
Obama backed away from pursuing government officials who conducted torture, kidnapping and illegal surveillance of American citizens.
In sum, a very disappointing year from a man who inspired so many.
Thanks to Washington’s financial `rescue,’ America’s big five banks now control 40% of all deposits nationally. In spite of a proposed new bank tax and some tepid restrictions of gambling with depositor money, big finance seem too often to be giving the Obama administration its marching orders.
Goldman Sachs rules while Washington floods the world with depreciating US dollars.
Obama failed to grasp the levers of power and wasted time. He took on four of Washington’s most powerful lobbies – Wall Street, the Israel lobby, the military-industrial complex, and medical insurance – and lost all these battles. Many Americans are left with the unhappy conviction that Obama has become a prisoner of these special interests.
Meanwhile, the Republicans seem to be rising from the dead, revivified by Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts. Watch for Brown to be shortly hailed as the party’s next standard bearer.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #81 on: 2010-02-11 14:18:58 » |
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White House Blasts British Disclosure of Gitmo Abuse
Warns Court Decision May Harm Future Intelligence Sharing
Source: Antiwar.com
Authors: Jason Ditz
Dated: 2010-02-10
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt today lambasted the British government for the disclosure of seven paragraphs of a “redacted” CIA report on the abuse of a British national at Guantanamo Bay.
LaBolt said the administration was "deeply disappointed" in the ruling of the British court, adding that "we shared this information in confidence and with certain expectations." [Hermit: i.e. The US must be free to torture with impunity and expects those tortured to have no recourse to the courts. ]
The paragraphs were released earlier today on the British Foreign Office website, and conceded, among other things, that the detainee, Binyam Mohamed, faced "at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities." Mohamed was released in early 2009, and all charges against him were dropped.
LaBolt suggested that the US would be more cautious about releasing intelligence to Britain, as the confidentiality of such releases would be in doubt. The British government had fought against the release, insisting that national security rested on its ability to keep such secrets.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #82 on: 2010-02-12 00:48:36 » |
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[Blunderov] So Bush, I mean Obama, is going to be "more cautious about releasing intelligence to Britain". How very condescending of him. I don't suppose it's possible that the Brits might ever have any intelligence in which he might be interested?
"Mohamed was released in early 2009, and all charges against him were dropped." (Press "pause" here.)
Clearly the unfortunate Mohamed had no intelligence worth sharing. So what Bush, I mean Obama, is actually objecting to is not the disclosure of any intelligence as such but rather the disclosure of the means by which it was not obtained. That this means was immoral, illegal and inhumane seems to bother Bush, I mean Obama, not one whit.
Way to go, Peace Prize laureate!
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Fritz
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #83 on: 2010-03-14 22:14:50 » |
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Still nothing seems to be what it is and this can't be going anywhere good, none the less interesting to see how the 'Empire' views US politics.
Cheers
Frtz
Source: Economist Print Edition
Author: Lexington
Date: Mar 4th 2010
Angry white men
Will piqued pale males hand the Republicans a victory in November?
RACISM explains a lot of white opposition to Barack Obama, say some Democrats. It would be foolish to dismiss this argument out of hand. Lexington walked into a shop in Millington, Tennessee last week and asked the white gentleman behind the counter what he thought of the 44th president. “He’s a fucking nigger,” came the reply. The shopkeeper then helpfully explained that he was “not bashful” about expressing his opinions.
Bigotry cannot explain, however, why Mr Obama’s approval rating among white Americans has fallen since he took office, from roughly 60% to 40%. As the president pointed out in September: “I was actually black before the election.” White voters have changed their view of Mr Obama not because of his skin colour, but because of what he has done—and what he has failed to do—since he took office. And although he is not on the ballot this year, this matters. The less people admire the president, the less likely they are to vote for his party in the mid-terms.
Consider David Peel, another white Tennessean whom Lexington met outside a hardware store in Millington. He had just bought some spare wheels for his trailer, which he planned to use for his weekend mission work: helping to rebuild a school playing field in a poor, black district of nearby Memphis. As a Christian, he says, he does not believe in race: “We are all brothers and sisters.” He thinks Mr Obama is a nice guy, but naive. He thinks it is a lousy idea to try terrorists in civilian courts, where a judge could “release them with a stroke of a pen”. He is appalled that the Obama administration wants terrorists to be swiftly informed of their right to remain silent. “If we Mirandise these guys, we aren’t going to get anything out of them,” he says.
In 2008 Mr Peel voted for John Tanner, a Democrat, for the House of Representatives. Mr Tanner is the kind of Democrat who does best in the South: pro-gun, pro-life, fiscally hawkish and a co-founder of the moderate-to-conservative caucus of “Blue Dog” Democrats. But he is retiring this year. Mr Peel is thinking of voting for a Republican, any Republican, to replace him. Since Mr Peel is a trial lawyer, this would be against his economic interests, but moral issues matter more, he says. And top Democrats “are not remotely in touch with any of the people walking out of this store,” he adds, gesturing at the hardware shop behind him. He is not alone: although most of the counties that make up Mr Tanner’s district have been Democratic since the 19th century, the smart money says the seat will go red this year.
Democrats have a Caucasian problem. It is not new: no Democratic presidential candidate has won the white vote since Lyndon Johnson. Mr Obama actually did better among whites than John Kerry did. But in the past year white voters have become grumpier, and this is especially true of white males. There is even talk of a repeat of 1994, when a surge of “angry white men” helped Republicans take over both chambers of Congress.
Sixteen years ago, it was blue-collar white men who were the angriest. This year, too, they are smarting. The recession has hit hardest the most macho trades, such as building and manufacturing. Two-thirds of the jobs destroyed since it began belonged to blue-collar men. Black men have been worse affected than whites, but their loyalty to Mr Obama and his party is unshakeable. Not so for white men, whose unemployment rate was a comfortable 3.9% in 2006 and still only 6.8% when Mr Obama was elected, but is now a painful 10.3%. Those who can no longer provide for their families feel emasculated. Those who still have jobs fear losing them. Since Democrats now run Washington, Democrats get most of the blame. And white men are disproportionately sceptical of Mr Obama’s proposed solutions. Seven out of ten prefer small government to big government. “I don’t like the way they’re giving away all that money,” says Steve Roberts, a welder in Arkansas. “I think you should work for your money.”
Neglected and frustrated
Cultural issues add to Democrats’ woes with whites. Mr Obama’s first pick for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, is best known for backing a plan to deny promotion to white firefighters because of their race. (That is not how she phrased it, but it is what happened.) On another occasion, the president accused the police of acting “stupidly” when they briefly arrested a friend of his, a black Harvard professor who was locked out of, and broke into, his own house. Many blacks sympathised with the professor because they, too, have been presumed criminal. But many whites sympathised with the cops because they, too, have been presumed racist, says David Paul Kuhn, author of “The Neglected Voter”, a fine book about white men and politics. Both episodes reinforced the stereotype that the Democratic Party favours everyone except white males.
Perhaps in reaction to unified Democratic control in Washington, white men (among others) have grown more conservative in the past year. Support for gun rights rose from 51% to 64% between 2008 and 2009. Ballot initiatives to protect “hunters’ rights” will pull deer-shooters to the polls. All this spells trouble for Democrats in swing states and districts. Because the party did so well in 2006 and 2008, it is defending a lot of seats in “enemy territory”. Because incumbent Democrats in such seats are nervous, many are reluctant to support Mr Obama’s most ambitious reforms. And a slew of Democratic retirements is tilting the field yet further towards the Grand Old Party.
It will take more than a posse of piqued pale males to hand the Republicans control of Congress in November. White men are a shrinking share of the electorate: 36% in 2008, down from 43% in 1994. But still, the Democrats can hardly afford to alienate the nation’s largest ethnic group. And with the economy in the doldrums, it is not only white men who are angry.
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.
« Reply #84 on: 2010-03-22 00:09:19 » |
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WASHINGTON — The House delivered Sunday night on President Obama's top priority, a historic restructuring of the nation's health care system that has eluded his predecessors for more than a century.
The 219-212 House vote, coming after a tumultuous day of protests and rancorous debate, paves the way for Obama to sign the major portion of his 10-year, $940 billion plan early this week. The House was to vote later Sunday on a package of changes and send it to the Senate for final passage.
The vote assured that about 32 million Americans will gain health insurance coverage and millions more will win protections against losing theirs. The legislation will raise taxes, largely on the wealthy, and reduce future Medicare spending by about $500 billion.
[full article at link]
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-21-health-vote_N.htm
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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