Doublethink (Part 3)

“It was always at night — the arrests invariably happened at night. The sudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shaking your shoulder, the lights glaring in your eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed. In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared, always during the night.”   

Nineteen Eighty-Four  Part 1 Chapter 1, p. 19-20 by George Orwell.[1]

Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.        

Nineteen Eighty-Four  Part 1 Chapter 3, p. 32 by George Orwell.

An Obama Presidency and the Promise of the Return to the Rule of Law

Two days after Obama (D) assumed the Presidency, he announced his plan to close the prison camps in Guantanamo within a year, but never closed them.  This  foreshadowed his August 31, 2010 speech when he would announce the ending of combat operations in Iraq without intending to end them.[2] 

On January 22, 2009, the former professor of Constitutional Law and freshly inaugurated President decreed that from now on detentions and interrogations would be conducted lawfully, and the prison at Guantanamo would be closed.  The President also commissioned a study(pdf) to decide what to do with the prisoners in Guantanamo.[3]

President Obama was fulfilling promises that candidate Obama had made.  He had promised change: he would close down Guantanamo upon taking office.[4][5]  When candidate Obama responded to a 2007 Boston Globe questionnaire about executive power:

“5. Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

“No. I reject the Bush Administration's claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.”[6]

Obama’s Promise to Close Down Guantanamo: Flushed Down the Memory Hole

Many of the voting proletariat actually believed candidate Obama: they believed an Obama administration would restore the rule of law by closing the prison at Guantanamo and ending the torture of suspected terrorists.

How have Obama’s promised changes worked out thus far?

Nearly two years after Obama’s decree, the prison at Guantanamo is still open.  In fact, 50 of the prisoners are slated to be held indefinitely without trial.

Obama has also continued the Bush (R) administration policy of kidnapping and transporting  captives to other countries where rules against torturing prisoners are lax.  This practice is euphemistically termed “rendering.”  But don’t worry, they won’t do it very much—they promised, and “US officials are confident” that the prisoners won’t be tortured:

“The Obama administration subsequently said it would continue to send foreign detainees to other countries for questioning, but rarely — and only if U.S. officials are confident the prisoners will not be tortured.”[7]

But if they are tortured (which of course they won’t be), well Big Brother can’t reveal his secrets:

“A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that former prisoners of the C.I.A. could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information.”[8]

Despite the noise it makes, the Obama administration, like the Bush administration, is also not the great protector of habeas corpus that it pretends to be.  Two Yemenis and a Tunisian captured outside Afghanistan and held in Bagram for more than six years without trials want a civilian judge to review the evidence against them and order their release, under the constitutional right of habeas corpus:

“The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, has rejected this argument. Officials say the importance of Bagram as a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq has risen under the Obama administration, which barred the Central Intelligence Agency from using its secret prisons for long-term detention and ordered the military prison at Guantánamo closed within a year.”[9]

Corpses instead of Habeas Corpus

The former professor of Constitutional Law has also made himself judge and jury, approving the assassination of US citizens without due process (video).  In April 2010, Obama authorized the CIA to assassinate a US citizen without due process.  But again, don’t worry—according to CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano:

"This agency conducts its counterterrorism operations in strict accord with the law."[10]

And if they “lawfully” assassinate people, the administration won’t have to worry about any messy discussions about whether to put them on a plane flight to Syria for torture or to imprison them.[11]  If they “lawfully” assassinate people, the administration certainly won’t have to worry about anyone demanding their right to habeas corpus.  Assassination is just another way to flush them down the memory hole.

Did you vote for Obama because you opposed the Bush administration policies in Guantanamo and in the Middle East?

If you still support the President, how do you rationalize your double-thinking?

________________________________

[1] Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, New American Library, N.Y., 1949, p. 19-20.

[2] “Obama Issues Directive to Shut Down Guantánamo,” By MARK MAZZETTI and WILLIAM GLABERSON, NY Times, January 21, 2009, (Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/us/politics/22gitmo.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all on September 21, 2010).

[3] Upon becoming President, Obama issued three executive orders addressing imprisonment without benefit of habeas corpus:

• Executive Order 13491—Ensuring Lawful
  Interrogations (pdf)
• Executive Order 13492—Review and
  Disposition of Individuals Detained at the
  Guanta´namo Bay Naval Base and Closure
  of Detention Facilities (pdf)
• Executive Order 13493—Review of
  Detention Policy Options (pdf).

 Executive Order 13491
Can you spot the loopholes?

Sec. 2.  Definitions.  As used in this order:

(g)  The terms "detention facilities" and "detention facility" in section 4(a) of this order do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis.

Sec. 4.  Prohibition of Certain Detention Facilities, and Red Cross Access to Detained Individuals.

(a)  CIA Detention.  The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future.

Executive Order 13492
Sec. 2. Findings.

(c) The individuals currently detained at Guanta´namo have the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Most of those individuals have filed petitions for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal court challenging the lawfulness of their detention.

Sec. 3. Closure of Detention Facilities at Guanta´ namo.

The detention facilities at Guanta´namo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order.
If any individuals covered by this order remain in detention at Guanta´namo at the time of closure of those detention facilities, they shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.

NOTE (From Wikipedia): “On May 20, 2009, the United States Senate passed an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R. 2346) by a 90-6 vote to block funds needed for the transfer or release of prisoners held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp.  As of July 2010, 176 detainees remain at Guantanamo.”

The prisoners are a “hot potato” for Obama.  On December 15, 2009 he issued a Presidential Memorandum ordering preparation of the Thomson Correctional Center, Thomson, Illinois to receive Guantanamo prisoners.

Executive Order 13493
Created a task force to write a report.  The Guantanamo Review Task Force issued its Final Report January 22, 2010, but didn’t release it publicly until May 28, 2010. The report recommended:

• releasing 126 current detainees to their homes or to a third country (Today even Bush administration officials admit that most Guantanamo prisoners are “innocent.”)
• 36 be prosecuted in either federal court or a military commission
• 48 be held indefinitely under the laws of war
• 30 Yemenis were approved for release if security conditions in their home country improve.

[4] “Obama to order Guantanamo Bay prison closed,” January 12, 2009, By Ed Henry CNN Senior White House Correspondent, (Accessed at http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-12/politics/obama.gitmo_1_president-elect-barack-obama-plans-prison-at-guantanamo-bay-military-prison?_s=PM:POLITICS on September 21, 2010).

[5] “Blueprint for Change Obama and Biden’s Plan for America” (pdf)  p. 71, (Accessed at http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf on September 11, 2010).

On page 71 of their campaign “Blueprint for Change,” Obama and Biden promised to:

“…reject torture without exception or equivocation, including so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ like waterboarding; restore the Rule of Law by closing Guantanamo and restoring habeas corpus; and provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track down terrorists without undermining our Constitution or civil liberties.”

[6] “Barack Obama's Q&A,” By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, December 20, 2007, (Accessed at http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/ on Sept. 24, 2010).

[7] “Appeals court lets government halt torture lawsuit,” By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press, September 8, 2010, (Accessed at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/09/08/financial/f111944D71.DTL on Sept 9, 2010).

[8] “Court Dismisses a Case Asserting Torture by C.I.A.,” By CHARLIE SAVAGE, NY Times, September 8, 2010, (Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/us/09secrets.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all on Sept. 23, 2010).

“Among other policies, the Obama national security team has also authorized the C.I.A. to try to kill a United States citizen suspected of terrorism ties, blocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas corpus lawsuits challenging the basis for their imprisonment without trial, and continued the C.I.A.’s so-called extraordinary rendition program of prisoner transfers — though the administration has forbidden torture and says it seeks assurances from other countries that detainees will not be mistreated.”

[9] “U.S. to Expand Detainee Review in Afghan Prison,” By ERIC SCHMITT, NY Times, September 12, 2009, (Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/world/asia/13detain.html?_r=1 on September 21, 2010).

[10] “Muslim cleric Aulaqi is 1st U.S. citizen on list of those CIA is allowed to kill,” By Greg Miller, Washington Post Staff Writer, April 7, 2010, (Accessed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/06/AR2010040604121.html?hpid=topnews on Sept. 22, 2010).

[11] “Appeals Court Rules in Maher Arar Case: Innocent Victims of Extraordinary Rendition Cannot Sue in US Courts,” November 03, 2009, Democracy Now, (Accessed at http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/3/appeals_court_rules_in_maher_arar on Oct. 3, 2010).