Ken Hanly says:
At least Obama moved right away to close Guantanamo and stop the military tribunals and also to clearly disallow waterboarding and a number of other coercive techniques...
JG replies:
Jeez, Ken, why toss your hard-earned skepticism overboard now?
Per usual, with his public statements (and now policy initiatives) aimed at hopeful liberals, this one was riddled with escape clauses, exemptions, fine print, and waivers, and weasel words.
1) Moving RIGHT AWAY to close Guantanamo... in ONE YEAR. You know, setting up a process to set up a proces to begin a process.
2) There is a strong possibility that special, draconian "national security courts" will be established inside the civilian legal system to try the Guantanamo detainees... that is, if they are to be tried at all. Some may be held indefinitely in stateside military brigs.
3) If I understand it correctly, the Army Field Manual may be revised to incorporate new "extreme interrogation techniques"... after a review process hidden from the public (at the behest of Obama's nominated national intelligence director).
Also, did anyone notice that in his speech to State Department functionaries, Obama used the phrase "twilight struggle" to describe the "war on terror" (TM)? Yeah, I know, it's just words, but words cribbed straight from the neo-con Cold War playbook. Even from a self- interested point of view, it is really dumb for Obama to use such framing, because it just gives the right wing the ammunition it needs to fire away at Obama's piddly "reforms" (what do you call a reform so insignificant that it scarcely merits the title?).
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