We’re discovering the worst of Bush in Barack Obama

By Naomi Wolf

Hearings are under way in the United States Senate to assess what to do with the 240 detainees still behind bars at Guantanamo Bay, and what will become of the military tribunals and detention without trial that the Bush administration and a compliant Congress put into place. The US Congress is also debating what will happen to the detention camp itself, which was established in 2002 to house men who were allegedly “the worst of the worst,” in a setting deliberately framed by Bush attorneys as “legal outer space.”

But are those Senate hearings actually window dressing on a new reality that is just as bad as the old one – and in some ways worse? Military tribunals without due process are up and running again. While President Barack Obama has released a few prisoners, notably the Chinese Uighurs, and sent another for a real trial in New York City, he is now, chillingly, signaling that he is about to begin “preventive detention,” which would empower him to hold forever an unspecified number of prisoners without charges or trials.

On a visit to Guantanamo, Defense Department spokesman Joe DellaVedova told me that a series of panels are reviewing the detainees’ files, a process that will take until this year’s end. The review will sort the detainees into three categories: those who will be tried in criminal courts in the US; those who will be released and sent to other countries; and those who “can’t be released and can’t be tried and so have to be held indefinitely … what is being called ‘preventive detention.’”

I was stunned. DellaVedova’s comment suggested that the review process was merely political theater. If there is to be a genuine review of the accusations against these detainees, how can it be known in advance that the third category will be required? Indefinite preventive detention is, of course, the foundation of a police state.

Human rights organizations knew that Obama had prepared the way, in public-relations terms, for some criminal trials – talking up the “supermax” security of some US prisons, and noting that other terrorists have successfully been tried by America’s justice system. (Other democracies, such as the United Kingdom and Spain, always try terrorism suspects, including alleged Al-Qaeda members, in ordinary criminal trials).

But, six months after he ordered an end to torture and CIA “black sites,” and promised to close Guantanamo within a year, Obama seems to be re-branding Bush’s worst excesses. He has brought in planeloads of journalists to Guantanamo Bay to show them a “safe, transparent, and humane” facility that now offers fresh baklava and video viewing from a shackled loveseat. But the roughly 240 detainees remain incarcerated without having been charged with any crime, and will still not get a fair trial, even under Obama’s proposed military commissions. After all, the prosecutor, the judge, and the “panel” are all to be US government employees.

Furthermore, Obama’s Justice Department has invoked Bush’s argument that the State Secrets Act bars evidence about torture from being disclosed, which means that anyone who was tortured can never appear in court. Moreover, Obama has sought to suppress hundreds of photographs depicting sexual assault in US-run prisons, and has done nothing to roll back the Patriot Act.

Why should Obama, a constitutional scholar, be backtracking this way?

First, he does not dare appear to be “soft on terror.” Second, perhaps he needs to be able to try the Guantanamo detainees in a rigged setting, or even keep them from trial forever: lawyers claim that torture, including sexual torture, was so endemic in the CIA and the military that Obama could be holding scores, if not hundreds, of prisoners whose bodies are crime scenes.

According to Wells Dixon, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights who represents some of the detainees, the Obama administration cannot risk calling the torture practices crimes, so it calls them “classified sources and methods” that cannot be revealed in court. “I can’t even tell you about the way my clients were tortured or I will be prosecuted,” he says. In fact, even the explanation of why this material is classified cannot be reproduced, because it is privileged.

Nor has the access of lawyers to their Guantanamo clients improved under Obama. “We are subject in all detainee cases to a protective order,” Dixon says. “Under this order, everything the detainee says is classified,” unless the Defense Department’s “Privilege Team” decides otherwise.

Dixon then told me a revealing story about one of his clients, Majid Khan, a so-called “high-value detainee” who was held for three years in CIA “black sites.” Khan was tortured, Dixon said, though “the government would say that what happened to him is an ‘intelligence source or method.’”

Because Dixon has a security clearance, he cannot discuss those classified “sources and methods.” On the other hand, Dixon continued, “When the government does something to [Khan] that they say is classified, they have disclosed to him classified information. But since he doesn’t have a security clearance, there is nothing that prevents him, unlike me, from saying to the outside world, ‘This is what they did to me.’ Nothing prevents that – except for the fact that he is physically in custody.”’

The “logical conclusion,” according to Dixon, is that Khan “must be detained for the rest of his life – regardless of whether he is ever charged with a crime – because if he was ever released, nothing would prevent him from disclosing this information.

Majid Khan – and there are many more like him – is a classic product of the Bush administration’s disregard for the fundamental principles of the rule of law. Unfortunately, Obama’s administration, for all its lofty rhetoric, appears too willing to perpetuate it.


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5...

Views: 53

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

"Destroying the New World Order"

TOP CONTENT THIS WEEK

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SITE!

mobile page

12160.info/m

12160 Administrators

 

Latest Activity

Doc Vega posted a blog post

Terror on All Hallows Eve

Chapter IElizabeth was angry. All of her friends were going to be out on Halloween, but her. She…See More
13 hours ago
Jeff favorited Jeff's profile
yesterday
Jeff favorited Jeff's profile
yesterday
Jeff favorited Doc Vega's profile
yesterday
Jeff is now a member of 12160 Social Network
yesterday
Doc Vega posted blog posts
Friday
tjdavis posted a video

How Corporations Are Secretly Poisoning Our Food Supply

Dupont and 3M have been secretly poisoning America for decades. PFAs — also known as forever chemicals—are now in our food, water, clothes, and our blood. Th...
Friday
Doc Vega posted a blog post

They Won’t Stop

 The demonically driven left will not stop. Makes no difference how much violence they call for or…See More
Wednesday
Doc Vega posted a blog post

What US Scientist unwittingly helped the Nazis devise the V-2 Missile?

  In the early 1920’s and leading up to World War II German technology outpaces the peace time…See More
Oct 20
tjdavis favorited Sandy's video
Oct 19
tjdavis posted a photo
Oct 19
Christopher Walker is now a member of 12160 Social Network
Oct 19
tjdavis posted videos
Oct 19
Burbia commented on tjdavis's photo
Thumbnail

Reflection

"Let's see if this goes past indictment."
Oct 18
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Something Watches From Out there in the Wilderness
"cheeki kea That's very interesting history. So many things about history that go ignored or…"
Oct 18
Burbia commented on Burbia's video
Oct 18
Burbia posted a video

Programmed To Kill/Satanic Cover-Up Part 433 (The Charlie Kirk Conspiracy Show)

https://www.programmedtokill.net/projects---- DISCLAIMER! ----Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair u...
Oct 18
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's photo
Thumbnail

American werewolf- 2018

"Yip I've looked again and this is what the creature looks like, even has stripes just like…"
Oct 18
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's photo
Thumbnail

American werewolf- 2018

"The mystery continues I guess. ( reminds me of something out of the under world )"
Oct 18
cheeki kea posted a photo
Oct 18

© 2025   Created by truth.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

content and site copyright 12160.info 2007-2019 - all rights reserved. unless otherwise noted