Everything You Need To Know About President Obama's National Security Speech In One Simple Sentence...

Well, I've read President Obama's national security speech twice, and this is what I come up with in the way of translation:

The Bush Administration fucked it all up, and the Obama Administation intends continue down that same path.

I can't say I disagree much with the President's assessment of Bush's War on Terror, but once you look behind the rhetorical flourishes, it is apparent that the status quo remains intact. For all the hysteria in the media and the blogosphere, it appears the fundamental differences between Barack Obama and Dick Cheney have to do with tactics, rather than strategy. I find that very depressing.

Comments

[Guesst]

President Bush was not a finger-in-the-wind type, unlike the new boss.

[Dennis the Peasant]

Based on the evidence so far, I'd have to agree with you.

[Eric Blair]

Cheney's speech made more sense. At least he's not apologizing for what happened.

Then, my solution to problem at Gitmo is to simply try them all and shoot them, like the Geneva convention allows, but then I'm old fashioned that way.

[markg8]

Obama's closing Gitmo. Bush wished he could because it's a very damaging symbol to the US in the eyes of the rest of the world. Bush did release (or transferred to other countries) over 500 prisoners from Gitmo and there are 241 detainees left. After the Supreme Court twice ruled his military commissions were kangaroo courts he never did come up with another plan. I guess his justice dept was too busy firing US attorneys who refused to prosecute Democrats on trumped up charges.

Regardless, Obama is trying to come up with a legal plan to try them and hopes to get other countries to take some more of them. The evidence is so tainted by the methods used to get it against some of the worst offenders, for others the evidence may compromise ongoing investigations (though at this late stage I doubt there's many of those cases), no court anywhere would allow the evidence it'd take to convict.

Let's keep in mind the reason Gitmo was built in the first place was to keep these detainees out of the US justice system not because they're scary monsters.

Civil rights absolutists want the chips to fall where they may in US courts even if it means releasing jihadi lunatics. Republicans seeing an opportunity want us to wet our pants at the thought of imprisoning detainees on US soil.

There's nothing politically popular on the left or right about the needle Obama's trying to thread here. He's just doing what's right.

despite that page A1 story in the NYT that the reporter took less than a day to

[markg8]

Oops, and despite that page A1 story in the NYT yesterday the reporter, Elizabeth Bumiller, took less than a day to disavow the claim that 1 in 7 Gitmo detainees "returned to terrorism or militant activity."

NYT publishes unattributed, unsubstantiated DOD bullshit and then can't stand by her story for a day. We've seen that before but this has to be a new land speed record.

[PeterUK]

"Let's keep in mind the reason Gitmo was built in the first place was to keep these detainees out of the US justice system not because they're scary monsters."

Let all those fluffy bunnies come and live with you Mark.

[markg8]

My cat eats bunnies. For some reason she chews their heads off.

[markg8]

A proud citizen of the Netherlands chimes in at TPM:

"If you live outside of the US, or the US centric bubble. then the incredible stupidity of the this viewpoint is obvious.

Where does the World Court reside? It resides in the Hague in the Netherlands. the Netherlands has a population of 16 million (that are not allowed to bear arms or such).

The world courts deals with the worst of the worst, anything in Gitmo pails to what these folks have done.

Let's take those war criminals (of which dozens have been tried and sentenced) from the Balkan conflict as an example. Here is a group that still has lots of support (Serbs primarily) all across Europe. They are in cells in the Hague which is driving distance from their homeland. Not like some poor Afghan farmer totally divorced from his people, these people have strong support living with a few hours drive!! Almost nothing could stop them from attacking and trying to release there leaders (and heros), or at least taking revenge on the country they are incarcerated in. The REAL danger to this court pails to anything the perceived Gitmo people could possibly do.

Just look at the history of the Balkan conflict, its horrible geenocide and the people who did the killing, and then grab a map to see where the two countries lie, you will get the picture. Then do the same for the Afghan conflict ... Kinda makes you giggle.

But, do you hear the good people of the Netherlands on the streets demanding these criminals leave or cowering under their beds at night? No, it just might be that not all folks in the globe are NIMBY and some have the balls to realize that freedom comes at a price, and you never know when you will have to pay up in full.

Could it be that a small country in "old" Europe has more balls than the gun toting folk wingnuts of the US have?"

[Allen]

Take them out of Guantanamo Bay and put them in Pelican Bay. Maybe that's what Sen. Feinstein was talking about.

Actually, that might satisfy everyone. Pelican Bay might be considered harder time than Gitmo.

[Eric Blair]

Muslims have openly assassinated people they didn't like on Dutch streets. A member of the Dutch parliment basically had to flee the country becuase the threats on her life.

You're welcome to move there.

[markg8]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been back in the Netherlands since 2004. The murder rate there is .92 per 100,000 for the latest year I could find in 2002 and was 5.7 that year in the USA what with all the easily available guns and all. Just some facts for you bedwetting torture lovers.

Here's some more for ya from the WaPo:

[T]he apocalyptic rhetoric rarely addresses this: Thirty-three international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaeda, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo., with little public notice.

Detained in the supermax facility in Colorado are Ramzi Yousef, who headed the group that carried out the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993; Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of conspiring in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Ahmed Ressam, of the Dec. 31, 1999, Los Angeles airport millennium attack plots; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, conspirator in several plots, including one to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Wadih el-Hage, convicted of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

Inmates in Florence and those at the maximum-security disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., rarely see other prisoners. At Leavenworth, the toughest prisoners are allowed outside their cells only one hour a day when they are moved with their legs shackled and accompanied by three guards.

[richard mcenroe]

So the Democratic argument boils down: Holding terrorists indefinitely is not wrong, but Gitmo is an evil place to hold them. Let's hold them indefinitely in a Federal maximum-security hellhole instead. Bad Cuban soil! Bad! Bad!

Damn, Dennis, this distilling Democratic thought is fun!

[markg8]

Well I'm all for turning Ramzi Yousef loose in Utah with a sack full of C-4 (the real stuff, not the kind they gave to those whackjobs in NY) Richard. He's blind and he'd probably stumble into the Great Salt Lake and drown or give himself mercury poisoning drinking the water before he could get to your house.

[PeterUK]

I'll ask the question again. What about habeus corpus,if you hold these men in a federal prison ,what are you going to charge them with? Liberal lawyers would have them out on bail in no time.

[just passin by]

Dennis,

Just curious, but what do you think is a better strategy?

[badanov]

Well I'm all for turning Ramzi Yousef loose in Utah with a sack full of C-4

Liberals love dead Americans

[markg8]

Liberal lawyers would have them out on bail in no time.

Really? Please tell me noted legal scholar Petey how come they haven't succeeded so far?

badanov he's only a fluffy bunny, ask Petey.

[PeterUK]

"Really? Please tell me noted legal scholar Petey how come they haven't succeeded so far? "

Because they aren't in a federal prison,no jurisdiction. Gee Marky ask your cat,when it stops laughing.

[PeterUK]

"Liberals love dead Americans".

Liberals cause dead Americans.

[markg8]

That's the best you got? Who am I kiddin, of course that's the best you got. Pathetic.

[PeterUK]

I take it from that, you haven't got a clue Marky. Amazing how logic eludes you.

[markg8]

Tell us again oh noted legal scholar Petey how US courts have no jurisdiction over Gitmo prisoners. Just because Bush and Cheney tried that ploy doesn't make it legal ya twit.

LARA JAKES
AP News

May 21, 2009 16:44 EST

Forty-eight terror suspects currently held at Guantanamo Bay are waiting to be released to other nations, the Obama administration said Thursday. The detainees are among 50 detainees whose cases President Barack Obama said Thursday have already been reviewed. The detainees would be the first to be released to other nations under the Obama administration's effort to empty the Cuba-based prison without bringing all its inmates to the United States.

Two other detainees have been released since January, to Britain and France, officials said.

...

Military officials described those detainees Thursday as either low-level threats who no longer have valuable intelligence to give, or have been cleared for transfer because of a court order or otherwise lacking evidence against them.

...

Since 2002, more than 500 detainees have been transferred to at least 30 nations to be prosecuted, rehabilitated or released. Many nations, however, are reluctant to take detainees who remain at Guantanamo because they are seen as higher security risks than those who were cleared earlier.

And the U.S. is leery about transferring many detainees to other nations, like Yemen, where they may be released despite the threat they may pose.

...

The two detainees who have been transferred to other nations since January are:

_Ethiopian national Binyam Mohammed, a former resident of Great Britain, who claims he was tortured while at Guantanamo. He was sent back to Britain in February and is seeking to have evidence in his case be released.

_Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian, was sent to France earlier this month after a U.S. appeals court ordered his release last year. Boumediene's whose landmark 2008 Supreme Court case gave the Guantanamo detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment.

Source: AP News

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080612163731.sn58q011&show_article=1

The US Supreme Court ruled 6/12/08 Guantanamo prisoners have the right to challenge their detention at the US military base in civilian courts, dealing a stiff rebuke to the Bush administration.

"The laws and constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," the court said in its historic ruling, for the third time in four years striking down the government's case for trying "war on terror" suspects in military tribunals.

...

By a vote of five to four, the court found that even if the base was officially on Cuban territory, it was in fact operating as if it were on American soil.

[markg8]

I know a lot of you guys prefer to live on planet dumbass in that alternate reality of yours where the only news you get comes from nice safe sources you trust like FOX, SKY News or Da Raj but it really helps to move the debate along if you actually do a little googling to check your facts before you stick that pissed in boot in your mouth.

[PeterUK]

"Tell us again oh noted legal scholar Petey how US courts have no jurisdiction over Gitmo prisoners. Just because Bush and Cheney tried that ploy doesn't make it legal ya twit."

The fact that ,in your own words ""Really? Please tell me noted legal scholar Petey how come they haven't succeeded so far? ", it has obviously worked.

Do try harder Marky.Just because you flunked stupid school is no excuse for contradicting yourself.

[markg8]

Petey: Because they aren't in a federal prison,no jurisdiction.

Once again Petey you're just obstinately holding to a position that's just plain wrong.

Since 2002, more than 500 detainees have been transferred to at least 30 nations to be prosecuted, rehabilitated or released.

As far as I know none have been released in the US though there's hope for the Chinese Uighers who, despite the current wingnut argument to the contrary, are not terrorists and who most likely would be executed by the Red Chinese if they were repatriated there.

Once again: The US Supreme Court ruled 6/12/08 Guantanamo prisoners have the right to challenge their detention at the US military base in civilian courts, dealing a stiff rebuke to the Bush administration.

[PeterUK]

Marky,
Guantanano opened in January 2002 the Supreme Court ruling was 6/12/08,not quite a year ago. So until that time there was no ruling,six years.

"Since 2002, more than 500 detainees have been transferred to at least 30 nations to be prosecuted, rehabilitated or released."

Which means they were processed at Guantanamo and released into the jurisdiction of other countries,which is exactly what the facility was designed for.Note,they were released,not extracted by lawyers.

Remember? "Really? Please tell me noted legal scholar Petey how come they haven't succeeded so far? "

Now who has been president since January 20 2009,months after the SC ruling?
Why the turkey's turkey Barrack Hussein Obama!

So Obama has been talking turkey whilst continuing the policies of the previous administration.

"Sell 'em sunshine ans ship 'em shit".

[markg8]

Petey: Guantanano opened in January 2002 the Supreme Court ruling was 6/12/08,not quite a year ago. So until that time there was no ruling,six years.

Oh for chrissakes, read the goddam article:

"The laws and constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," the court said in its historic ruling, for the third time in four years striking down the government's case for trying "war on terror" suspects in military tribunals.

Which means they were processed at Guantanamo and released into the jurisdiction of other countries,which is exactly what the facility was designed for.Note,they were released,not extracted by lawyers.

Well no, what it actually means and what the not so old, real history says is this: Bush, after much outcry here and around the world, tried his kangaroo court approach, which even military lawyers denounced as all fucked up on a par with Soviet show trials.

So as the Bush Administration lost court case after court case to those civil rights lawyers about how they were conducting these trials, Bush's DOJ and DOD turned to other countries to get them to take these detainees off their hands.

Like I said before, Bush wanted to close Gitmo, he finally realized it was an ugly stain our reputation and counter productive, arguably the biggest single PR boost Al Qaeda has had (next to the Iraq occupation) since 9/11.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/washington/21gitmo.html

Bush Decides to Keep Guantánamo Open

The effect of Mr. Bush’s stance is to leave in place a prison that has become a reviled symbol of the administration’s fight against terrorism, and to leave another contentious foreign policy decision for the next president.

Yeah Dennis, it is all George Bush's fault. For listening to Cheney.

But administration officials say that even Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the most powerful advocates for closing the prison, have quietly acquiesced to the arguments of more hawkish advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

The ruling, Boumediene v. Bush, undercut a core rationale for keeping the prison off American soil, raising expectations that Mr. Bush might at last move to close it, a prospect he first raised in June 2006, when he said, “I’d like to close Guantánamo, but I also recognize that we’re holding some people that are darn dangerous, and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts.”

In August 2007, Mr. Bush said “it should be a goal of the nation to shut down Guantánamo,” adding, “But it is not as easy a subject as some may think on the surface.”

And even then they fucked it up. If you believe Dick Cheney and his daughter (the only surrogate he can get to keep peddling his crap) 14% of the released detainees have "gone back to the fight."

Ya think actual trials with real evidence (not bullshit confessions gained from illegal torture) might have helped determine whether or not any of these 500+ guys Bush released was just itching to kill Americans or anyone else?

Back to the article: Mr. Cheney and his chief of staff, David S. Addington, have made it clear in the internal discussions this year that keeping Guantánamo open under a new president would validate the administration’s decisions dealing with terrorists, the officials said.

Cheney's position is nothing new for him. He doesn't want the world to know just how horribly he and Rummy screwed the pooch on rounding up and detaining these people, just how little threat most of these detainees were and are because it would:

A.) destroy their argument that they "kept us safe"

B.) expose them to legal charges they should be indicted on for politicizing their whole "war on terror" while breaking multiple US laws.

[PeterUK]

NYT,You read Sulzbergers Pravda.

"Well no, what it actually means and what the not so old, real history says is this: Bush, after much outcry here and around the world, tried his kangaroo court approach, which even military lawyers denounced as all fucked up on a par with Soviet show trials"

An outcry mainly by Democrats and leftists like yourself for purely political reasons. The biggest PR boost for al Qaeda came from the Democrats and the left.

"The US Supreme Court ruled 6/12/08 Guantanamo prisoners have the right to challenge their detention at the US military base in civilian courts"

Note challenge in civilian courts,not order their release.An extraordinary move to endow none US citizens with the rights of US citizens.

Now let's cut to the chase,Obama hasn't closed Guantanamo down.The Democrat Congress won't have the prisoners in their states.Countries around the world won't take them.

Which is exactly where you were before.This is a fuck up of your own making,no use banging on about Bush and Cheney,the ball is in your court.

"Mr Obama,tear down that wall"

[markg8]

The outcry was from around the world ya twit.

World Opinion Turns Against the US: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib
Friday February 17, 2006
A British Judge denounces the US position on torture as "not the same as ours" and states it "does not appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations" as the US dismisses a UN report calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay as a "rehash of allegations."

the Iraqi Human Rights Minister called for "all Iraqi inmates at prisons run by the US-led coalition to be handed over to the Iraqi government," according to the Guardian.

A British Cabinet Minister is also calling for closure of the Cuban prison, where nearly 500 prisoners are still being held without charge as ''enemy combatants." British leaders have been criticizing US actions in Cuba since the summer of 2004.

On January 13, 2006, German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized the U.S. detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the "advanced interrogation technique" known as "waterboarding", calling it a form of torture: "An institution like Guantánamo, in its present form, cannot and must not exist in the long term. We must find different ways of dealing with prisoners. As far as I'm concerned, there's no question about that," she declared in a January 9 interview to Der Spiegel.

On March 10, 2006, a letter in The Lancet is published, signed by more than 250 medical experts urging the United States to stop force-feeding of detainees and close down the prison. Force-feeding is specifically prohibited by the World Medical Association force-feeding declarations of Tokyo and Malta, to which the American Medical Association is a signatory.

on May 6, 2005, prominent Kuwaiti parliamentarian Waleed Al Tabtabaie demanded that U.S. President Bush "uncover what is going on inside Guantánamo," allow family visits to the hundreds of Muslim detainees there, and allow an independent investigation of detention conditions.

In May 2006, the Attorney General for England and Wales Lord Goldsmith said the camp's existence was "unacceptable" and tarnished the U.S. traditions of liberty and justice.

In June 2006, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion urging the United States to close the camp.

In June 2006, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (the then Republican head of the Judiciary Committee) stated that the arrests of most of the roughly 500 prisoners held there were based on "the flimsiest sort of hearsay".

According to polls conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIP) attitudes, “Large majorities in Germany and Great Britain, and pluralities in Poland and India, believe the United States has committed violations of international law at its prison on Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, including the use of torture in interrogations.” PIP found a marked decrease in the perception of the U.S. as a leader of human rights as a result of the international community's opposition to the Guantánamo prison.[162] A 2006 poll conducted by the BBC World Service together with GlobeScan in 26 countries found that 69% of respondents disapprove of the Guantánamo prison and the U.S. treatment of detainees.

Obama said he'd close it by January 2010. I know the nuance escaped you, it always does. The Democratic congress wants to see his plan before he closes it. And when Obama presents his plan the Democratic congress will comply with the courts and his wishes and close it. By then, you of course will have moved on to some other non issue to be "outraged" about.

[markg8]

You may want to read this Dennis.

VANDEVELD'S ENDORSEMENT.... One of the more contentious decisions of the Obama administration of late was the reintroduction of military commissions. The president has expanded the rights of the accused within the commissions process, but there are only so many ways to make a fundamentally suspect system look better.

In tomorrow's Washington Post, however, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld offers some encouraging words about the new process, suggesting Obama is, at a minimum, on the right track.

Military commissions have a long history in the United States, not all of it commendable. (One wonders what Samuel Mudd, the physician who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg after Lincoln's assassination and who received a life sentence from a military commission for his Hippocratic efforts, might make of the Military Commissions Act of 2006; Mudd escaped capital punishment by one vote.)

Nonetheless, the Bush-Cheney administration left President Obama with a limited number of alternatives, all of them bad, and he has made rational decisions, devoid of hysteria or false emotion. The worst aspects of the commissions appear to be on their way to correction. It is impossible to criticize or condemn the president for acting decisively and quickly to restore America's role -- always an aspiration, imperfectly realized -- as an exemplar of transparency and fairness. As someone who has risked his life on the battlefield in Iraq, I can only express support for the commander in chief as he undertakes these enormously complex -- and costly -- decisions.

Vandeveld's perspective is pretty relevant here, given his background.

When Army Lt. Col. Darrell Vandeveld began his work in May 2007 as a prosecutor at the Guantánamo Bay military commissions, the Iraq war veteran was one of the most enthusiastic and tenacious lawyers working on behalf of the Bush administration. He took on seven cases. In court hearings he dismissed claims of prisoner abuse as "embellishment" and "exaggeration." Once, when a detainee asked for legal representation only for the purpose of challenging the legitimacy of the military commissions, Vandeveld ridiculed the request as "idiotic."

So it came as a shock in mid-September when Vandeveld announced that he was resigning as a prosecutor because he had grave doubts about the integrity of the system he had so vigorously defended.

In the days following his resignation -- now testifying, remarkably, for the defense counsel in one of his own cases -- Vandeveld said that he went from being a "true believer" in the military commissions to feeling "truly deceived" about them. His deep ethical qualms hinged foremost on the fact that potentially critical evidence had been withheld from the defense by the government.

If Vandeveld believes the improvements mandated by the Obama administration are a step in the right direction, that seems like a significant endorsement -- and further evidence of the mistakes embraced by the Bush administration.
—Steve Benen 3:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (19)

[PeterUK]

Check the dates on your quotes Marky one 2005 the rest 2006,well after the left,the Democrats and their bitches in the MSM had been screaming about Guantanamo.You made it an issue.

"Obama said he'd close it by January 2010. I know the nuance escaped you, it always does. The Democratic congress wants to see his plan before he closes it. And when Obama presents his plan the Democratic congress will comply with the courts and his wishes and close it. By then, you of course will have moved on to some other non issue to be "outraged" about. "

Problem is Obama hasn't got a plan,any more than you have. Congress isn't doing much complying so far is it? Other countries are being disobliging by refusing to take any of the inmates.They can't be sent to countries where their lives are
in danger,So what are you going to do? After all it is you who is getting his panties all moist on the subject.
Me,all I'm saying is if you have an idea,you better have a plan.Doesn't seem to work out with you lefties.

[markg8]

The Bush Administration released over 500 detainees from Gitmo. There are now 241 left Petey so evidently some countries have obliged by taking them because they ain't here.

I clearly show the outcry was international in response to your saying it was "mainly by Democrats and leftists like yourself for purely political reasons" yet you cite no sources of your own and quibble about the dates. The least you could do is get some quotes from Democrats (with links like I've provided) that show them railing about closing Gitmo for years contrasted with their votes against closing it last week. Why should anyone believe a word you write otherwise after I've proven wrong time and time again? It shouldn't be that hard for you Petey.