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Obama and the Bush regime
Feb. 11th, 2009 08:23 amMr. Obama's administration has decided in clear and unambiguous terms to continue to use state-secrets privilege to block torture trials. The government's legal team surprised the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by informing it that its position had changed in no way whatsoever with the new administration, and that the new administration had vetted the case thoroughly before actively deciding to maintain this course.
As the link discusses, nothing about this case is actually secret. It's all been in the press; all the other involved governments have discussed it; as with Mr. Bush's administration, only the courts weren't allowed to be involved, and that, of course, was to keep Mr. Bush's administration out of court, to keep it above the law.
Mr. Obama's administration has now endorsed this. This is unacceptable.
Andrew Sullivan has more on the case here (tho' the first link above discusses it with source links as well), and his reaction is short but to the point, here:
A flotilla of excuses are being made by all the usual sources, the most annoying of which being Marc Ambinder's made-up lunacy that this is an all or nothing process; that rejection has to be complete and cannot be on a per-document or per-secret basis. Mr. Sullivan - who I quote above - has decided that this is some sort of 'holding pattern' manoeuvre, and to give the Obama administration more time. This ignores the legal team's assertion that this case has been actively vetted and this decision actively reached. One of these two things must be wrong.
If you want to grasp for a straw, then, as far as I can see right now, you have to hope that either the legal team was lying and is operating out more or less on its own (something akin to the "holding pattern" theory, Mr. Sullivan's position), or hope for something like a grand plan to defend the position in order to lose at its defence in court, thereby overturning the policy as unconstitutional or illegal. But given Mr. Obama's repeatedly-stated desire not to investigate the Bush administration's torture policies and other war crimes - a desire restated most recently in his latest press conference - I think both are unlikely.
eta: Senator Feingold is raising some hell.
As the link discusses, nothing about this case is actually secret. It's all been in the press; all the other involved governments have discussed it; as with Mr. Bush's administration, only the courts weren't allowed to be involved, and that, of course, was to keep Mr. Bush's administration out of court, to keep it above the law.
Mr. Obama's administration has now endorsed this. This is unacceptable.
Andrew Sullivan has more on the case here (tho' the first link above discusses it with source links as well), and his reaction is short but to the point, here:
This is a depressing sign that the Obama administration will protect the Bush-Cheney torture regime from the light of day. And with each decision to cover for their predecessors, the Obamaites become retroactively complicit in them.It's clear and concrete enough that even The New York Times is upset. Here's a compare-and-contrast between Mr. Obama before the election on this topic, and Mr. Obama's legal team now, in this case.
A flotilla of excuses are being made by all the usual sources, the most annoying of which being Marc Ambinder's made-up lunacy that this is an all or nothing process; that rejection has to be complete and cannot be on a per-document or per-secret basis. Mr. Sullivan - who I quote above - has decided that this is some sort of 'holding pattern' manoeuvre, and to give the Obama administration more time. This ignores the legal team's assertion that this case has been actively vetted and this decision actively reached. One of these two things must be wrong.
If you want to grasp for a straw, then, as far as I can see right now, you have to hope that either the legal team was lying and is operating out more or less on its own (something akin to the "holding pattern" theory, Mr. Sullivan's position), or hope for something like a grand plan to defend the position in order to lose at its defence in court, thereby overturning the policy as unconstitutional or illegal. But given Mr. Obama's repeatedly-stated desire not to investigate the Bush administration's torture policies and other war crimes - a desire restated most recently in his latest press conference - I think both are unlikely.
eta: Senator Feingold is raising some hell.
