"The idea that we
would still detain forever a group of individuals that have not been
tried, that is contrary to who we are, that is contrary to our
interests and it has to stop,” the
president said during a press conference at the
White House.
The rhetoric was bold
and progressive. The reality? At least half of 166 never-tried,
never-convicted prisoners that reside at Guantanamo Bay are engaged
in a hunger strike that is making the president
look bad. And so the man with a kill
list who is ultimately responsible for them
being there – and who's initial plan for closing the prison was
simply moving
it to Illinois – had to act as if he was
deeply troubled by his poor human rights record, like an oil
executive shedding tears for Mother Earth after a big spill.
What Obama is banking
on is the fact that most people (including his base) aren't terribly
detail oriented. The tale liberal Democrats tell themselves, and
which the liberal media tells the rest of us, is that the fight over
Guantanamo Bay is Obama and a bunch of ACLU lawyers on one side, the
forces of fear-mongering, reactionary insanity on the other. The
president, it is to be understood, is facing irrational hostility
from the Chicken Littles of the right and would like to the do the
right thing -- of course he would -- but, you know: Republicans.
That narrative,
unfortunately, is false. The true story, obfuscated by the
president's occasional condemnations of his own human rights record,
is that Obama himself signed
an executive order creating "a formal
system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military
prison at Guantanamo Bay." Rather than repudiate the notion of
“detain[ing] forever a group of individuals that have not been
tried,” Obama (through a task force he commissioned) determined
that 48 of the prison camp's detainees were
“too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution.” The
evidence against those men would not be admissible even by the
weakened standards of a military court – that is, it was probably
gained through torture – but rather than release them, as if they
were persons endowed with certain inalienable rights, the Obama
administration would prefer to lock them away until they die.
The president has even
refused
to release dozens of Yemeni citizens who have
been cleared of all wrongdoing. Obama also signed (and his lawyers
later defended
in court) a bill that allows for the indefinite
detention of US citizens. And let's not forget
that kill list, which is based on the idea that it's alright for the
president to act as judge, jury and executioner, so long as the
unilateral justice is being delivered abroad. So when the president
of the United States righteously condemns the idea of imprisoning
someone forever without charge or trial, it's important to remember
the truth about his record. It's important to remember he is lying.
