Obama and the Bush regime

[solarbird]

Mr. 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:

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.

Comments

[pentane.livejournal.com]

Actually, Sullivan's defense rings true to me. Idealism is nice, but reality has a way of really causing it problems. If it was a month later, I'd be less forgiving.

[solarbird]

Perhaps. But if that's true, then it appears government council Doug Letter lied to a presiding judge in a matter of court proceedings, which I'm pretty sure will get you disbarred:

I just spoke with [Claimant lead attorney Ben] Wizner [of the ACLU] about today's court hearing. It's really remarkable what happened. One of the judges on the three-judge panel explicitly asked the DOJ lawyer, Doug Letter, whether the change in administrations had any bearing on the Government's position in this case. Letter emphatically said it did not. Instead, he told the court, the new administration -- the new DOJ -- had actively reviewed this case and vetted the Bush positions and decisively opted to embrace the same positions.

[pentane.livejournal.com]

Lying is such a negative word. It could be that they are embracing the positions until they fully understand just what's involved, but they plan on moving away from them.

I'm bitterly opposed to the torture policies, but I do know that politics is complex. Which is why I'm willing to buy Sullivan's thoughts, though I'm not fully conversant with everything that's been said.

Then again, it's going to be very hard to catch a lawyer lying, once they get done parsing what they said.

[maellenkleth]

nahh, they are simply following the established game plan. Obama just happens to be the Remington Steele figure for this eight-year period.

[cynical today, are we? yass!]

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't vote for him. Not really surprised by this. Why do the right thing when it means giving up an illegal power?

[solarbird]

It could be that they are embracing the positions until they fully understand just what's involved, but they plan on moving away from them.
Mr. Obama has been familiar with this for years; the Senate Democrats talked a lot (tho' never did anything) about passing laws to restrict state secrets; this was a clear and explicit part of the Obama platform.^* They've had years to "fully understand" the concepts here; all they have to do is revert to pre-Bush policies. That's it.

I'm not saying that Mr. Letter is lying; in fact, I rather doubt he is. I don't doubt particularly that the administration made this decision - after all, that's what its representatives in court are saying, and if he's making that up he's doing so at potential terrible personal cost, which I don't really buy. So the Obama administration's Justice Department, through its representatives in the legal system, are saying that the Obama administration has actively reviewed this case and actively made the decision to continue Bush administration policies regarding state secrets in this case.

That's what they're saying, and, thus far, what they're doing. I don't see how you get a "not really" out of that.

Now, I'm also not saying they can't be made to change their minds. Pressure and reaction might achieve that; I don't know. Regardless, I do know that going LA LA LA LA NOT REALLY HAPPENING is not going to get anything at all done.

^*: But then, so was opposing the FISA revisions, and Mr. Obama spun 'round on that while still in the Senate.

[pentane.livejournal.com]

Since the stuff that's being hidden by the priviledge is, um, hidden from everyone, it could be that there are a number of pieces of data in there that you can't know about until you get the reins of power. That's what I mean by fully understand.

They could be totally comitted to changing things, but then discover if they reveal all this stuff that various and sundry stuff could have bad impacts. This doesn't mean that everything hidden should be, but it does mean it will take a while to fully understand what all you have on your hands, both in terms of severity of potential impacts and risk of impact occurring.

[loopback.livejournal.com]

"they could be totally committed to changing things, unless it turns out holding to an ethical stance means you're no longer on the path of least resistance."

What is the value in electing a leader of a country this powerful if they don't have the courage to make an ethical stand?

and saying "sorry you don't get to know all the details, but if you did, YOU WOULD FULLY UNDERSTAND" didn't fly with Bush in charge, and it doesn't fly because the Chief Dictator is now Superman Christ Obama.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Disappointed? Yes. Surprised? No.

Like the Irish say, no matter who you vote for, you end up with the Government.

[adularia.livejournal.com]

What I find more alarming than the decision is the quiet surrounding it. If the Obama administration is committed to changing that policy and they need to buy themselves time, I see no problem with publicly stating that. It's not "disclosing confidential information" to say that you have a plan for dealing with said information.

There is a deep disconnect between the journalists and citizens going "hey, look, this is inconsistent with previous platform statements, please at least explain your intentions if not change them immediately" and the... handpicked lawyers representing appointed officials acting with Obama's blessing.

Anyway, solarbird's conclusion sounds more likely.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I don't often agree with Andrew Sullivan, but I think he's right about this. There simply wasn't enough time to fully review the whole process.

I'm fairly certain that whatever they eventually do will not be enough to reverse this policy, but folding completely on this is not consistent with everything else the administration is doing so far. If this policy is still in place in six months, then we're in trouble.

[avram]

Is that "compare-and-contrast" link premium content? I get a sign-in form for Salon's letters-to-the-editor system.

[avram]

OK, here's the right link.

[solarbird]

Yeah, sorry, fixed. Oops. *^_^*;;

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/10/obama/index.html

[solarbird]

Senator Feingold does not agree.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Feingold is right to hold the administration's feet to the fire, as should we all. Obama's MO on stuff like this so far is to change the policy going forward, but avoid holding anyone accountable for past crimes. This decision makes sense (i.e. is in character) to the extent it does the latter, but not to the extent that it seems to leave the policy in place.

I actually have hope that the current feeble attempts at accountability in Congress will snowball into a real chance for prosecutions despite the strong efforts of the administration and the executive appeasement crowd in DC. For example, Senator Leahy is talking about a truth commission that at first glance looks like it would immunize Bush administration officials so long as they tell the truth. But I think in practice, as with truth commissions in other countries, some war criminals could not bring themselves to admit to their actions, and once the process is underway that leaves them subject to prosecution. I can also see an avenue for eventual criminal prosecutions coming out of the regular legal system, where judges don't have the political considerations that Congress and the White House have.

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

Ya know, when I read this in the NYTimes, I thought I'd misread it. After the second reading, I threw something and cursed. *sigh*

Cathy

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Come on, what a joke. They could have asked for a delay to formulate their policy, the fact that the judges themselves were visibly shocked I think speaks volumes.