The Obama Doctrine...

[Lord Jim]

Obama gave what was billed as a defining policy speech on national security and the War On Terror last week...

And as is usually the case when Obama makes a policy speech, he said a number of seemingly contradictory things, and sent a very mixed message...( He does this because he's always trying to please multiple constituencies with any major address, so he rarely speaks with clarity...)

There was something in the speech to please just about everyone, (and also something in the speech for just about everyone to dislike)

I found parts of the speech reassuring, (like his full on defense of the drone program) and other parts quite troubling....

However I have to say that in examining it closely the parts that I found the most troubling were also the parts that were the most vague and least likely to happen...(like closing Gitmo; the Congress has made very clear that until his Administration comes up with an acceptable alternative, strong bi-partisan majorities will block any attempt to transfer the prisoners here.)

A little digression on Gitmo:

We haven't discussed it, but I understand that about 100 of the 160 or so inmates being held there have gone on a hunger strike....They are currently being force fed....

(Gee whiz, where are the "right to die" folks when they could actually be useful?)

I have a plan for emptying the prison facility at Gitmo once and for all...

I call it: "Adopt-A-Terrorist"....

All the folks who work themselves into a tizzy over the existence of Gitmo, can participate in a lottery to be able to take one of the inmates home to come live with them....

Of course they will also have to take responsibility for any subsequent crimes their new housemate commits, but hey that shouldn't be a problem...

Since most of this lot are convinced that the people being held there are innocent little angels who are wrongly incarcerated, I'm sure they wont cause any trouble once they're released....

Now, back to my main topic:

Another troubling thing Obama did was come perilously close to declaring "mission accomplished" in the WOT...

He went on at some length about how "all wars have to come to an end". (Yes that's true Mr. President, but some wars take longer than others, and this one is nowhere near won. The Cold War took 45 years....)

I'm a little puzzled as to why he felt the need to do this. I guess he felt like he had to toss a bone to the pacifist wing of his party that has never been willing to see this as a war in the first place. (Primarily because of their blind reflexive hatred for anything associated with George W. Bush; if Bush called it a war then it can't possibly be one.) But it's a politically perilous attitude for him to take, since on any given day he can be proven wrong, and then held culpable for having a lax attitude. It seems to me like an unnecessary risk for him to take....

But then I was reassured by the fact that despite the flawed rhetoric, there were no real concrete policy changes attached to this unrealistically rosy view....

He talked about doing away with some of the tools that have proven invaluable in the fight against Islamo-fascism, but he didn't mention any specifically, nor did he give a timetable. (And like his ill advised position on Gitmo, he would have to get approval from Congress to start dismantling valuable tools like The Patriot Act, and I don't see that happening any time soon.)

So on balance the parts of the speech that did have actual concrete policy decisions attached to them, (like the drone program, and his forward leaning policy to combat terrorism abroad, so that we can avoid future Afghanistans) were the parts of the speech I approved of, and the parts that I didn't approve of didn't have any real policy decisions attached to them, (or any realistic chance of actually happening because of Congressional opposition) they were just pretty much hot air.

[Lord Jim]

I'm sure there are some folks here who will see this in precisely the opposite way that I do. They will be cheered by his talk about ending the WOT and disappointed by his defense of the drone program, and the fact that he made no real policy changes to reflect the rhetoric.

But that's what makes horse races...

One other thing about the speech...

I don't know if anyone else saw it, but Obama was heckled repeatedly and for a prolonged period of time by some Pink Shirt ninny....(It seemed to take forever for the security personnel to finally get the crank out of the hall.)

I saw this arrogant self-important jackass interviewed on CNN later, and she blathered on about how she was just exercising her first amendment rights...

One thing that I've noticed that's consistent about these exhibitionist morons is that it's always all about "them" and "their" rights. Never any thought whatsoever for the rights of the person they're trying to shout down, or the rights of those who came to hear the speaker. Those rights don't count apparently....

Talk about entitlement issues....

[dales]

Talk about entitlement issues....

Must be from SF.

sorry, jim

[Crackpot]

The "war on terror" must end lest it become something Orwellian. Does it mean we will stop pursuing terrorist targets? No.

[Grim Reaper]

I have plan for emptying the prison facility at Gitmo once and for all...

Here's another novel suggestion, let's try putting these people on trial instead of trying to forget they exist.

He went on at some length about how "all wars have to come to an end". (Yes that's true Mr. President, but some wars take longer than others, and this one is nowhere near won. The Cold War took 45 years....)

The big difference is that the Cold War had a well-defined enemy that could be defeated. The War on Terror is a war against cockroaches. They scurry away and hide whenever we show up and come back once we leave.

[Andrew D]

I have as much as evidence that Lord Jim is a terrorist as the US government has produced with respect to most of the Guantanamo detainees. (For a rational take on the Guantanamo detainees -- including a much needed reminder that 86 of them were cleared, by the US government, for release three years ago -- see here.

Of course, if we were to send Lord Jim to Guantanamo, we would have to redraw our maps of the known universe ....

[Andrew D]

...(like closing Gitmo; the Congress has made very clear that until his Administration comes up with an acceptable alternative, strong bi-partisan majorities will block any attempt to transfer the prisoners here.)

We already have what any rational person must agree is "an acceptable alternative". We are currently holding (unless death has reduced the number) 355 terrorists in US prisons. Not one has ever escaped. And politicians' rouse-the-rabble expostulations notwithstanding, not even one international terrorist has ever escaped from a US federal prison.

Not one.

Not ever.

In a typical display of substance-free rhetoric, Lord Jim suggests that people who support closing the Guantanamo detention facility "participate in a lottery to be able to take one of the inmates home to come live with them". That bears, of course, no rational relationship to the issue presented by the actual facts.

The issue presented by the actual facts is whether people who support closing the Guantanamo detention facility would be willing to have the Guantanamo detainees housed in the nearest US federal maximum-security prison. And for me, the answer is "yes".

Why not? No international terrorist has escaped from a US federal maximum-security prison. So why should I be worried?

But Lord Jim is not interested in why I or anyone else should be worried about detaining actual or supposed terrorists in US federal maximum-security prisons. He wants merely to deflect our attention from that possibility.

He likes having people detained indefinitely, without charge, without trial, and without any evidence that they are terrorists. It gets his rocks off.

[Big RR]

I'd also like speedy (as if we could after 10+ years) and public trials, preferably in the courts, but if not, with all the same safeguards the law provides in the courts to justify continued imprisonment. Imprisonment without trial is what I was always told "they" (our enemies) did; but we are becoming them.

[Rick]

The Transcript

No person has ever escaped one of our super-max or military prisons here in the United States — ever.

Hmmm sounds familiar.

This speech comes during a time that Congress is at odds with the Pentagon on issues of scope and power concerning the "War on Terror". I agree with LJ in as much as Obama creates as many questions as he provides answers.

As for the prisoners at GTMO, living in fairly close proximity to 3 max security prisones I don't exactly relish the thought that them boys might be stored within said proximity however if it would shut up the whiners (which it won't) let it happen.

Butt crap or get off the pot...

[Grim Reaper]

We already have convicted terrorists serving life imprisonment in the continental US and nobody bats an eye.

But want to transfer people who are imprisoned because of suspicious behavior? Not a chance.

[dgs49]

The people in GITMO are not there because they committed a crime.

POW's are not imprisoned because they committed a crime.

"Putting them on trial" is an absurd proposal, for countless reasons. Crime requires jurisdiction, a legal definition of the crime itself, proof must be done under rules of evidence that are simply unworkable in battlefield circumstances.

[Big RR]

And POWs require a War, a real war they are fighting in; if we can just call anything a war to justify imprisonment, we could jail drug dealers as POWs as well, or even people who want to keep the poor in poverty. Just saying we are in a war with an "enemy" that is open to interpretation does not make those arrested POWs.

[dales]

We haven't been in an honest-to-goodnesss war since 1941.

[Andrew D]

Simple fact: If you agree with keeping the Guantanamo detainees where they are under the circumstances in which they are there, then you agree with holding people indefinitely without charge or trial. And our Founders would spit on you.

[Grim Reaper]

The people in GITMO are not there because they committed a crime.

POW's are not imprisoned because they committed a crime.

"Putting them on trial" is an absurd proposal, for countless reasons. Crime requires jurisdiction, a legal definition of the crime itself, proof must be done under rules of evidence that are simply unworkable in battlefield circumstances.

These people have been imprisoned for some reason, that reason would be the basis of their trial. Unless you think the US government is just randomly grabbing people off the streets, which would also be illegal.

[Econoline]

More importantly, if the U.S. says that it's okay for the U.S. to imprison citizens of other nations without any international or domestic legal justification, that sends a powerful message to the rest of the world that it's okay to do the same to U.S. citizens.

[Joe Guy]

More importantly, if the U.S. says that it's okay for the U.S. to imprison citizens of other nations without any international or domestic legal justification, that sends a powerful message to the rest of the world that it's okay to do the same to U.S. citizens.

Are you saying that places in the Middle East like Iran or even closer, like Mexico would stoop to that level?

Lord help us. We need to be nicer to suspected terrorists.

[Scooter]

If they are "suspected terrorists", then bring them to trial and prove it.

What's that, you say? There's not enough evidence to bring them to trial? Then ship them back from whence they came.

There, was that so hard to figure out?

[Econoline]

Are you saying that places in the Middle East like Iran or even closer, like Mexico would stoop to that level?

No, I'm saying that my nation, the United States of America, should not put itself in the position of approving or endorsing "stooping to that level." That is all.

[Joe Guy]

If they are "suspected terrorists", then bring them to trial and prove it.

What's that, you say? There's not enough evidence to bring them to trial? Then ship them back from whence they came.

There, was that so hard to figure out?

The problem seems to be that Congress is opposed to bringing them to trial here in the U.S.

Let's blame Obama.