Obama echoes Bush: CIA abductees can’t sue

@dlowan,

This is a very salient bit from the article... and it is very true, I think:

Quote:

Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., told the judges that many of the facts that the government is trying to keep secret are scarcely secret at all, since the administration’s rendition program and the particulars of many of the cases have been revealed in news reports and in the work of government investigations from around the world. “The only place in the world where these claims can’t be discussed,” Mr. Wizner said, “is in this courtroom.”

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Fair enough -- but that was my point, wasn't it? The New York Times reported it on February 10. It condemned the Obama administration's turnaround in a comment on February 11. If Bush was still president, news like this would have reached A2K, via dailykos and friends, on February 11 at the latest, more probably in the evening of February 10. Yet here I am, on February 14, posting this on A2K for the first time.

I've never read dailykos much but my acronym soup at the top of the screen (DD = Daily Dish, FR = First Read, etc.) also hasn't been touched for a very long time. When I did look this up, Daily Dish was one of my first results, on February 9th.

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This is depressing, but I haven't heard about it until just now in this thread, haven't read it in any blogs or headlines that I get in the mornings; must of missed the headline you referenced.

I don't know if there are any protest (not talking about street but just voiced protest such as we did when Bush did similar things); but there should be. I am heartened that at least he is taking some positive steps in correcting behavior, I just wish he would extend it to exposing past behavior which so far he is not doing enough of in my opinion. Maybe if enough of his supporters press him on it, he will reverse his course he has so far set (with regards to also the investigations congress is conducting) I am wondering though if he said in his campaign that he would allow those suing the government to go forward or if just stated his intention to stop such practices? Not that I think this excuses him in this instance and he should be made to see his error.

From one of your links.

Quote:

President Obama has taken some important steps to repair Mr. Bush’s damaging legacy " issuing executive orders to prohibit torture, shut secret prisons overseas and direct closure of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It would have been good if he and Mr. Holder had shown the same determination in that federal court, rather than defending the indefensible.

I agree.

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@sozobe,

Daily Dish Feb 9th:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/the-binyam-moha.html

DD Feb 10th:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/obamas-state-se.html

Matt Yglesias:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/02/rep_delahunt_calls_for_release_of_binyam_mohammed_evidence.php

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/02/dear-obama-administration.html

And in looking for those, found this whole page of bloggers (some I recognize as liberal, some I don't recognize) expressing dismay:
http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/2/6/the_binyam_mohamed_case/

In fact, the dismay in the liberal blogosphere seemed so pervasive as I did this review that, while I don't usually read it, I thought I'd look up DailyKos too, et voila:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/11/171221/781/367/696296

If I were still reading these things, then, I would have been very aware (and not happy about it) by the time you brought it up.

Meanwhile, the review was useful to me in working out the truth of what's up. (No, I don't trust the NYT in and of itself. For example, I have enough past-tense knowledge to bring to bear to dislike their recent headline, "Bipartisanship Isn't So Easy, Obama Finds." When did he say it would be easy?) It's bad news, with the only possible mitigating factor I see being that they're keeping a holding pattern for now -- Holder is going to be doing a big review that hasn't happened yet. As in, that this isn't the final policy, just a placeholder until they get a better grip on things. But I don't know.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

I've never read dailykos much but my acronym soup at the top of the screen (DD = Daily Dish, FR = First Read, etc.) also hasn't been touched for a very long time. When I did look this up, Daily Dish was one of my first results, on February 9th.

Okay, then it seems the limiting factor isn't the bloggers. It's politics fatigue in the general public, from which a cross-section then comes here to talk about what they'd read in the blogs. It's still sad, but I can't say I blame 'em.

Thanks for the links! I don't read politics blogs much because I work from farther down the information food chain (in this case newspapers). I'll check them out.

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IMO, there is a great difference between continuing to torture suspects and protecting the government from being sued by past victims.

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@DrewDad,

That's very true, but how do you know they aren't continuing? Certainly the administration wouldn't tell you if they shut down the CIA's extraordinary rendition program or not. Or if they did shut it down and rebooted it under some other name, or maybe some other agency. It's a government secret, see.

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@Thomas,

Perhaps this administration will manage to keep it secret....

Did you think that Obama pooped rainbows?

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@Thomas,

Quote:

That's very true, but how do you know they aren't continuing? Certainly the administration wouldn't tell you if they shut down the CIA's extraordinary rendition program or not.

Well unless Obama signed something totally frivolous as well as fraudulent to the American people, then I am assuming the following article is correct.

Quote:

Barack Obama embarked on the wholesale deconstruction of George Bush's war on terror, shutting down the CIA's secret prison network, banning torture and rendition, and calling for a new set of rules for detainees. The repudiation of Bush's thinking on national security yesterday also saw the appointment of a high-powered envoy to the Middle East.

Obama's decision to permanently shut down the CIA's clandestine interrogation centres went far beyond the widely anticipated move to wind down the Guantánamo Bay detention centre within a year.

source

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677#29128721

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908#29110713

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908#29129139

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908#29129616

http://able2know.org/topic/129241-1

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

It's politics fatigue in the general public, from which a cross-section then comes here to talk about what they'd read in the blogs.

I think the most likely "it" is simply that the stimulus package (and other news about the economy) is Very Big News, which is crowding out most other news. I get and read the NYT daily and hadn't seen this.... I do skim, rather than reading every news item, and I'd tend to think that they didn't give it much prominence, either.

Just checked -- the story you linked to is in a narrow sidebar on page 12, next to a big photo of a place called "The Hitching Post Inn" in Cheyenne, Wyoming's "legislative dormitory" for years, which the accompanying story explains is $3.6 million in debt and in danger of closing. No photo goes with the Mohamed story. The Mohamed story continues in another narrow sidebar on page 16, next to a big story, with photos, headlined "Geithner is Said to Have Prevailed in a Dispute Over Bailout."

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I did hear it discussed on NPR.

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@dlowan,

Thanks for filling me in, Dlowan. It was so abundantly clear that the right didn't care about human right abuses, many of them seemed to revel in them. Nor did they care about the multitudes of innocents killed and maimed.

My point, suggesting that it was odd, relates to lack of support on such a position. In these folks minds, one would think it the ultimate form of absolution.

Regarding the left, many of them have studiously avoided a large number of war crimes perpetrated by the US government.

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@JTT,

So...what do you think of the new administration continuing with Bush policies on this to some extent?

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While Pres Obama probably doesn't need any more problems right now, I think this is one nettle he will have to grasp.

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@dlowan,

From this one brief article and a short series of quotes, I don't think that we can jump to any big conclusions yet.

If Obama were to continue with policies similar to GWB's, that definitely would be a sad sad set of events.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

I do skim, rather than reading every news item,

How dare you! Next thing you'll tell me you have a life or something. You know ... this tired old chestnut about having a kid, a job, a house, and a husband to care about. Gimme a break!

Seriously though: I think it's interesting how much more equally the New York Times website directs our attention to articles, as contrasted to the paper paper. The Times is an excellent newspaper, and I'd love to pay for it in some way, but the free, html website is just so much easier to navigate than the paper-paper and its PDF image, which is what they charge for.

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@Thomas,

I agree... frequently I will read something in the paper paper, look for it online for some reason (grabbing a quote, usually), and then when looking for it on the NYT website find other stuff that I hadn't seen in the paper paper (even though it was there, I just missed it -- though there is online-only content too).

The converse happens too though, like when I'm away from home and read the NYT online and then come home and catch up with the paper paper. I like having access to both. (Thanks, mom, for your annual Christmas present. Much appreciated.) Basically, I find the online version much easier for researching something specific that I want to learn more about, while I find the paper version is easier for general-interest browsing, coming across things that I wouldn't expect to be interested in but nonetheless enjoy reading.

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I admit to hearing a report about this on NPR last Wednesday or Friday, not sure which. To be honest it made me sad and I didn't want to talk about it. Glad you started the thread, though.

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Here you go, Thomas. More of the same.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/us/politics/18policy.html?_r=1

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Obama echoes Bush: CIA abductees can’t sue

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