He’s calling once again for closing Guantanamo, he’s saying we need to turn the WoT into more of a police action (except for the real enemies, al Qaeda), and he wants to scale back, but still use, drones as a tool in the infamous “War on Terror”?
This seems to me like many of Obama’s policies to be a step in the right direction, but a bit too cautious for my liking. Perhaps he is just being a realist and not pushing for much more than he can get in this political climate. Still, kudos for even opening this discussion, telling us that we can’t be at war forever, and let’s hope some real changes come about.
I am very pleased at least with the sentiment being expressed. When Bush first announced the war on terror, I was worried that it would be a one-way ratchet always working in the direction of increasing fear and caution. It’s nice to see someone come out publicly and suggest moving things back the other way.
As far as what this means on a practical level I will have to wait and see. He can’t close Guantanamo if congress doesn’t allow him to move the detainees, and if he’s for it they will by definition be against it.
Then the detainees are no longer in some strange legal limbo from being incarcerated by U.S. authorities but not (quite) on U.S. soil, and they have the same rights of access to counsel and to courts as all the other prisoners in the general federal prison system.
Their crimes, such as they were, were committed in other countries. They should be in those countries and judged there. The few that we should continue to detI and prsecute, like KSM, can be tried in US courts.
Well, can we actually prove anything? To the legal standards we like to pretend are sacred to us? We can’t even seem to release guys we’re pretty sure were innocent. How do we release guys we put on trial and they are acquitted?
What about the guys who were innocent at the time, but now hate the USA more than they hate bacon?
We turn them loose, we let them go. Because we are the Americans. And if we are not, who the hell is going to take our place?
How is it too cautious for you? The way you stated your opinion is too vague.
From what I’ve read I agree with the following: (1) that a narrower definition of what we are at war against is needed, (2) an emphasis on police work backed up by military levels of force, (3) we should be entirely focused on al-Qaeda in terms of terrorist organizations, and (4) Gitmo should be closed.
I am not sure if he said it, but I think it is better to attack al-Qaeda and its offshoots where they reside, assuming they will eventually mount an attack in the US rather than work from an attack or plot that actually occurred, backwards to the source branch of al-Qaeda. Hope that makes sense, and I mean it only in the context of al-Qaeda.
Europeans- who would never have countenanced such illegal action in the first place! Any attempt to justify a known concentration camp like Gitmo on European territory would have been swiftly overturned by the National Courts or by the ECHR. The judicial systems in Europe are possibly somewhat more liberal and legalistic the an the US system, which is far more political and far less to do with Justice itself.
In the speech Obama claims that “core al-Qaeda” is pretty much finished, which, he notes, still leaves lots of independent groups operating under that name.
There was one in Poland- rapidly closed down when it became public knowledge. Any such facility would be banned under the European Convention on Human Rights which would ban it. The fact that the US Constitution does not ban Guantanamo is a sad reflection on the state of Justice in what claims to be the world’s leading democracy.
I think the US Constitution would ban something like Gitmo if it were on US soil, but I’m not positive about that.
Anyway, I think this is a big step in the right direction, and for those who said there’s no difference between Obama and Romney on this issue, I find it pretty unlikely that Romney would have done this.
I’m glad some executive power seems to be getting scaled back and that the CIA is becoming a spy agency again, rather than a covert army.
We have a 100% success rate in US courts with the terrorism cases. KSM is dead meat as soon as he enters the legal system.
What of it? We have no right to detain innocent people.
The main problem we have with turning the loose is finding a country that will take them. But if we can’t prosecute them, and no one else will take them, then maybe we have to turn them lose in the US. We’re not talking about that many people, and if we really had to, we could figure a way to keep tabs on them.
Yeah, Europe doesn’t know anythingaboutconcentrationcamps. On an even more meaningful note, much as I despise the way Gitmo has been and is still being used, it is in no way, shape, or form a ‘concentration camp’ nor can it meaningfully be described as one.
Huh. There were quite a few concentration camps in Poland, have a look here. I don’t recall anyone banning them.
The one seemingly nation-changing announcement during the speech is the President’s plan to work toward repealing the AUMF. When a person in power suggests giving up some of his or her power, it’s always a bit astounding.
Of course, this might be the type of thing that happens on the last day of his presidency. And there was talk last week from officials of the drone war going on for at least another decade, so maybe we shouldn’t hold our breath.
