Good job.
Good job.
Not that I have a problem with that, really. The real problem is that our legal categories haven't caught up with reality. Regular criminals we catch, try and imprison. But soldiers of an enemy nation we shoot on sight... unless they surrender, in which case we're obliged to keep 'em as POWs until hostilities end and then return them to the other country. Unless they're not legit combatants (e.g. they're spies or saboteurs or otherwise not dressed in proper military uniforms) in which case we can declare 'em illegal combatants and shoot them.
That's the way it used to be, but now that we live in a world where non-state organizations make war against states (well, war against everything) there's a need for some new legal classification. If you're a real honest-to-Allah member of Al Qaeda then I don't think that the civilian "release 'em until they actually kill someone then try 'em for murder" is a good strategy. On the other hand "kill 'em as soon as they pop their head up" has too high a risk of false positives.
That's a very big if.
Why should anyone trust the US government to decide who is and who isn't a member of Al Qaeda?
The US government repeatedly proven themselves to be liars (or at least incompetents) on precisely this subject (not to mention many, many others).
what process do you suggest for proving that?
Without a court trial, how can your membership in Al Qaeda reasonably be established?
Also, membership of what other clubs or groups also allows the government to imprison you indefinitely without trial and torture you? who decides that?
This will of course never been done. Not by this president, nor by any future ones.
I'd love to be proven wrong.
That's what any sane man would do about, say, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
This detainment is illegal, it doesn't matter what the hell they did. Release them, and try again legally this time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant
The law of unlawful combatants is, however, pretty poorly developed. It needs to be the subject of serious thought rather than political football.
...virtually guaranteeing impeachment, and/or setting a precedent for a successor to disregard, say, human rights laws. Think of it like legacy code; it may be badly written, obsolete, and a waste of resources to remain compatible with it, but you may not have have any other choice. Historical figures often appear to have acted more boldly and decisively than those in politics today, because historical review necessarily involves simplification and a focus on outcomes. When you dig deeper, though, the process of change was often equally messy and haphazard.
Failing that, we could live up to our so-called standards and laws and live with the consequences of torturing him, ie that all evidence tainted by torture is now inadmissible.
Then I fundamentally disagree with what constitutes "enough time and capital" when it comes to ending endable human rights abuses.
Organize some protests and get some visibility if you feel that strongly about it.. being sanctimonious about human rights on a blog impresses nobody.
I don't think it's wrong to express strong disapproval of political issues even if I'm not currently politically involved, because the fact is, I spent most of my twenties thinking about how to effect (big) change in the world, and the answer I came up with was that, first, I had to become wealthy. I concluded that the political process itself was badly broken, that there were serious social issues stretching back many decades, and that while working as a teacher or a politician might have some impact, it would ultimately almost certainly be less effective than accumulating a huge amount of resources and then putting those resources into play in ways that I think would be beneficial to the world. That doesn't mean that I don't spend any time at all on other endeavors -- one of the first things I hope to do after opening up a local shop is host mechatronics classes for kids, because I think it's important for technologists and others to teach their craft to the young. However, politics in general -- whether at the local, state, or national level -- requires disproportionate amounts of attention, with few benefits. It is a huge distraction from my primary goals, so I'm not inclined to get involved with it. Not completely disinclined though: I did apply and interview for a local planning commission position, I have attended city council meetings in two local towns, I have been the tech guy for a California wanna-be governor's campaign a couple of years ago.
But in the end, spending much effort on organizing rallies or protesting with signs, for me, is self-defeating ... at least to some extent.
I also don't think that the President is above reproach just because the job is difficult. I have a tremendous amount of respect for just how difficult the job is; it's obvious to anyone that watches how quickly various Presidents age while in office. It is a physically debilitating position to have. That said, the President is (supposed to be) elected to deal with issues like this. I do not think that "they gave it an honest shot" is a reasonable way to accept failure on certain issues. I also think that, as a candidate who ran on platform issues like transparency in government and workers' rights, the President has disenchanted many of his most ardent supporters, which is really a rather big problem because many of these people became politically active for the first time in nearly a decade in order to get him into office. His supporters did not want to elect a "lesser evil", they wanted to elect change. To what degree any change has occurred is a matter of perspective, but I think it's hard to argue that it has fallen far short of expectations and promises.
So, yes, I speak out on political issues that I think are important. I hold the President of the United States -- whoever he is -- to a very high standard, because I believe that it is necessary for the health of our country to do so. However, I don't do any of that to impress anyone, because impressing people won't help change anything.
I do it because people having more conversations like this one is, I think, the first step towards fixing some of the social and political problems in our country.
I voted for Obama, but sadly on this issue, he has been mostly a disappointment, to put it mildly. The great Glen Greenwald over at Salon.com recently wrote: "Obama -- for reasons having nothing to do with Congress -- worked from the start to preserve the crux of the Bush/Cheney detention regime. Even with these new added levels of detention review (all inside the Executive Branch), this new Executive Order is little more than a by-product of that core commitment, and those blaming it on Congress either have little idea what they're talking about or are simply fabricating excuses in order to justify yet another instance where Obama dutifully "bolsters" the Bush War on Terror template."[1]
This latest Wikileaks revelation is shameful, and for awhile I bought into the idea that Congress prevented Obama from closing Gitmo. I am no longer convinced.
[1] http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/08...