Well, I was the original poster for the thread, and I was responding to a post directed at me by Hamlet. I can only defend arguments that I’ve advanced, in any event. So perhaps you can select one of my “erstwhile allies,” direct your question to him, and see how that goes.
Wrong, yourself. Bush claimed that the AUMF triggered his Article II authority as CinC to act. Obama’s brief does not depart from this position.
Are you serious?
Now, I guess you could provide a rationale that goes something like, “Well, technically, he didn’t lie. He is allowing them habeas petitions, but we can deny them based on the President’s authority to detain them!” I hope you don’t sink to that sort of quasi-argument, though. It’s clear to me, and to millions of voters, that when Senator Obama said “…we’re going to restore habeas corpus…” he didn’t mean bringing to life some technical procedure that still resulted in unchallangable detentions.
Did he?
OK, fair enough. I thought the government dropped that indefensible line rather early on. I agree that Obama’s stated intention to keep unwitting support out of the ambit of executive detentions is a departure from Bush’s claimed policies.
Of course. That’s why I asked for you to answer my questions rather than respond to the entire post which was not directed at you. The part directed at you followed your name.
Nope. I see that you’re going to make me type out the paragraph from the merits brief. So be it:
Boumediene v. Bush, Brief for the Respondents 66-67 (2007) (emphasis added)
Are you? Your argument is what, that Obama implicitly promised that he would renounce all AUMF detention power? You may have thought that as a voter. I certainly did not. I’m not sure I would have voted for him if I thought he would entirely renounce any detention power.
ETA: let’s not forget that Obama’s promise to restore Habeas was more meaningful before SCOTUS did it. Restoring habeas is quite different from renouncing all detention power.
Maybe. I hope so. Or maybe the matter will be so politicized, with the flag-waving and the impugning of the patriotism of those who don’t support Bush policy, that by the time it gets through the process what you describe will turn out to be a distinction without a difference.
Unfortunately, you still haven’t persuaded me one iota that it was a misapprehension.
I haven’t found any actual evidence that there is any inhumane treatment at Guantanamo under Obama. I also understand that he hasn’t actually released anyone yet, which isn’t surprising given the limited time period. The concerns you quoted seem to be nothing more than the “he hasn’t done anything yet” that I already dealt with. Do you actually have a point to make on these issues or is this just a game?
Thanks for finally linking to it. Oops.
Sorry.
I mean, thanks Richard Parker for linking to it.
I’ve already answered this. You just snipped it out of my post. “Does the President have the power to detain in a war. Well, I didn’t think you needed an answer to that, but the answer has pretty much always been YES. Or was it “Do Obama and Bush agree on that?” Well, that one is pretty easy to answer too. YES. Or was it “Is there any difference between the two?” Other than more references to international law, less emphasis on broad executive powers, and using different words? Nah, not really. Same assertion of the same general power.”
I’m not following you. Can you rephrase? Because I don’t see it as a question you raised or asked or a point you made any time prior in this thread.
I’m pretty sure I can’t correct your perceptions. Maybe if you did a bit of research. But here in the real world, the issue of whether the President can detain prisoners under the AUMF was pretty well decided back in 2004 in Hamdi, well before Obama began running for President. And I agree with Richard Parker. I don’t recall Obama ever promising he wouldn’t detain anyone pursuant to the AUMF". Got a cite for that one?
Yours are people who agree with you. Sorry if you took offense.
Where are you getting that idea? Obama has explicitly said that the prisoners have a right to habeas.
Not yet. They haven’t made a determination as to how to handle all the detainees yet.
Six to nine months sounds about right, but definitely before he shuts Guantanamo. I would expect him to be conducting hearings before a CSRT before then, while he also works out how to handle the detainees. I also would expect him to begin setting up a system for trying those still detained in Guantanamo in six to nine months.
Why don’t you put a reminder in your calender for 6 months down the road, send me a PM, and I’ll express my disappointment in Obama for not having taken more concrete steps toward resolving the detainee issue around then. OK?
It’s hard for me to tell how to read this. My first take is that it’s quite flippant; you don’t particularly care if Obama takes those steps or not.
But I can’t believe that.
So please remove the ambiguity and the flippancy, because it is masking my sense of what you really mean, and answer the question again: is there some point you will, really truly legitimately, will feel as though Obama hasn’t done what he represented he’d do on this issue?
Nor Iraq. As far as I know, the requirement of habeas only applies to US, and it’s territories. That’s why POWs tried by War Crimes Tribunals in the Phillipeans were granted habeas (Yamashita).
My answer is truthful. In 6-9 months, if nothing has been done to improve our handling of detainees and our method of determining and justifying their detention, I’ll be quite upset. It’s something he has promised to do, and Guantanamo is a huge blot on the reputation of America.
Where you get the flippancy is because I’m sick and tired of the nigh but constant refrain from many “conservatives” on this board playing the tu quoque game. This thread, and furt’s “question” are the same thing. Your OP was, to me, nothing more than “Bush thinks he can detain people, and you democrats hated him, so why don’t you hate Obama for thinking he can detain people too.” Furt’s “question” was nothing more than “You hate Bush because he didn’t do much of anything to resolve the issue of the detainees, how long do we have to wait until you hate Obama too!”
It’s a game your side has played incessantly since Obama has taken office. And its wearing thin.
If you want to debate an issue, then by all means, let’s do it. But it seems to me that you and furt’s question, is nothing more than idiotic gameplaying, trying to trap someone into being or pretending that someone is inconsistent. It helps resolve absolutely nothing, it isn’t a debate, let alone a Great Debate, it cheapens discourse, and it’s a waste of time.
Hence, the flippancy.
Need I explain more, or do you wish to actually deal with the issues?
My point is that Obama views Bagram as being outside the US, and therefore habeas doesn’t apply. Bush held the same view of Guantanamo. They are both military bases under control of the US in foreign countries.
Eventually, Bush was overruled via the Supreme Court. Obama supported that decision. Yet now he is fighting tooth and nail against it in Bagram, fighting the same battle that Bush fought. How are those policies different? Isn’t Bagram Obama’s opportunity to be proactive in applying habeas?
If Bush had simply sent everybody to Bagram, rather splitting them up, would there be no Constitutional problem in your eyes?
Why is Bush fighting against habeas in Guantanamo detestable, but Obama fighitng against it in Bagram commendable, or at the very least, OK?
Great question. Seriously, it’s a intriguing, and very tough, question to deal with.
How far do you think the Constitution should apply? To the entire world? To every human being the military comes into contact with? To every country we have diplomatic relations with? Or do you prefer a red line test that only applies the Constitution to the territorial limits of the 50 states? Is any action taken by our government outside of the territorial limits beyond any limits? Should the President, when acting outside the continental US, be unlimited in his powers? These kinds of questions have existed before this country was founded even to England with its original habeas protections. There really is no easy answer, which is why the majority in Boumediene spent a fair amount of time discussing habeas protections in a historical context.
It seems to me that, in our country, it’s a balancing of powers and a matter of control. If you believe the Constitution and habeas in particular, only apply to the territorial US, you are granting the President a vast amount of unchecked power, power which historically were not that vast. But if you insist on having the judiciary the power to review the detention of every person seized in a war, it’d be unworkable. It’s finding a balance that has taken, and will continue to take, decades., to figure it out. After WWII, the Supreme Court held, in Johnson v. Eisentrager, that not all Constitutional protections apply to evey person seized by the military. Yet, in Yamashita, the Supreme Court heard the habeas petition of a Japanese military officer who was tried for war crimes in the Philippines. To me, the prisoners in Guantanamo have moved beyond the typical “battlefield detentions” that should be exempt from intricate judicial review. But neither should they be granted every protection of that US citizens have under the Constitution.
While also asserting that he has the right to hold them indefinitely. Again, IANAL, but it seems to me he’s making a distinction without a difference.
My own frustration, on this as well as a number of other issues, is that while I was not a fan of Bush and never voted for him, I recognized that he was dealing with a thorny problem for which there was no easy answer. But whenever one expressed the idea that every alternative proposed to Gitmo had problems of its own, many of the louder voices of the left insisted that no, it was completely obvious what needed to be done and that if only Bush and his apologists weren’t so completely evil we would know this.
So, yes, there is some satisfaction in seeing that once Obama is in office, some on the left are suddenly realizing that actually governing and making those decisions is kind of tough. It’s not a tu quoque so much as “now do you see the problem?” It’s not that Obama is wrong when he continues Bush policies, and certainly not that I (I speak for myself) want anyone to hate Obama. But acknowledgement that Obama is in fact continuing Bush policies would be nice validation that support for those policies was not unreasonable.
FWIW, I do fully expect that Gitmo will be closed on schedule, and as an international PR move, it’s a good thing. But I also fully expect that the US will continue to detain unlawful enemy combatants, at Bagram or elsewhere, under a different nomenclature that will allow some to pretend that Obama’s policy is nothing at all like Bush’s. I suppose we’ll see.
Its a deeply fundamental question, and thus unproveable, its almost a question of civic faith. For me, America stands for human rights, our mission statement clarifies those rights for ourselves and for others, citizen and alien alike. “We hold these truths to be self-evident” refers to all, not simply to our own.
By that reasoning, we simply cannot withhold human rights from anyone on the suspicion of hostility. (And, in some cases, where resistance to our aims is justifiable, not even then…) If we do not afford equal rights to our enemies as well as to ourselves, we don’t stand for anything more than nationalism, we stand only for ourselves.
I agree with this on many levels. I too, am no fan of Bush and never voted for him. But, as you say, this is a very thorny issue with no easy answers. I do share a sense of relief from the exasperation of repeating this to the brain-turned-off Bush Haters. Your “now do you see the problem?” sums up my feelings nicely. Though I’d add bolding and a dozen exclamation points. And probably, insert “you friggin’ idiot” before them.
Man, am I glad Bush is gone. Maybe we can now discuss more things without assuming a position is wrong because Bush favors it.
I think you misunderstand what habeas means. It’s not a “get out of jail” card, it is (briefly) the right to have your detention justified in court. What Bush did was say he had the power to detain AND the detainees have no power to question their detention in court. Obama, and the Supreme Court, have said that yes, the President has the power to detain, but that the detainees have the right to question their detention in court. And if that detention is not justified, to be released. Do you see the difference?
I understand your problems with certain voices on the left, especially on this board. I also understand that the issues surrounding Guantanamo have no easy solution. Hell, I’ve had the same posters you are concerned with railing on me for suggesting that military commissions can be an acceptable form of due process for the detainees, so I’ve been there.
But I am not one of those “certain voices of the left.” And neither is Obama. If you have problems with those voices, perhaps a cathartic Pitting is a better solution rather than flooding the board with these types of attacks. As I said, it “is nothing more than idiotic gameplaying, trying to trap someone into being or pretending that someone is inconsistent. It helps resolve absolutely nothing, it isn’t a debate, let alone a Great Debate, it cheapens discourse, and it’s a waste of time.”
But in this thread, and many I’ve seen, the policies that Obama are continuing are, as I pointed out, pretty non-controversial. I don’t think anyone seriously questioned that the President has the power to detain people under the AUMF. Yet Bricker starts this thread pretending that that is some kind of outlandish thing that Obama supporters should take issue with, and, to my eyes, misrepresenting the issue while doing it. But the fact remains while it is a continuation of a policy, it’s a policy that has existed since the founding.
The real issue so many of us had with Guantanamo wasn’t that the President has the power to detain, that’s pretty much a given. It’s the allegations of mistreatment. It’s the fighting tooth and nail for any legal protection for the detainees. It’s the sham of CSRTs and lack of due process for years. It’s the making of outlandish arguments made, both in public and in court, to support the policy. It’s the turning his back on what made this country a leader in the world in freedom and justice. And much more. THOSE are the things that make the world of difference between Obama and Bush. And THOSE are the things that matter, not the fact that they agree on an uncontested fact.