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Obama admin corroborates/affirms W. Bush admin's position...
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Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:07 pm Post subject: Obama admin corroborates/affirms W. Bush admin's position...

Quote:

Morning Edition, February 10, 2009 � In the first major national security case of the Obama administration, lawyers representing the government took the exact same position as the [W.] Bush administration. Government attorneys asked a judge to throw out a torture case, citing the need to preserve state secrets...

NPR Reports

Kuros

Joined: 27 Apr 2004

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:07 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Many senior Obama nominees for national security positions have not yet been confirmed. Robert Raben, a former U.S. assistant attorney general during the Clinton administration, believes the administration's position on state secrets may evolve once those people arrive. "I just don't think there's been enough time," Raben said. "I don't think every computer has been turned on in the executive branch, I don't think every seat has been warmed by the smarties that will sit down and figure out what the policy will be.

"I think people need to stay calm," said Raben

Eric Holder was only confirmed as Attorney G. just a week ago.

Its not good, but we'll see, it may be temporary.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 5:27 pm Post subject:

Kuros wrote:

Its not good, but we'll see, it may be temporary.

Quote:

Attorney General Eric Holder ordered senior Justice Department officials to review all of the [W.] Bush administration's assertions of the state secret privilege.

"It is vital we protect information that, if released, could jeopardize national security, but the Justice Department will make sure that the privilege is not invoked to hide from the American people information about their government's actions that they have a right to know," department spokesman Matthew Miller said. He said the attorney general intends to make sure the privilege is only invoked in "legally appropriate" situations.

How will you respond, Kuros, should E. Holder and his people conclude their reviews and then, in at least some of the cases, concur with the W. Bush administration's judgment?

Also, I believe B. Obama has recd all the briefings there are on the current war. What if, upon hearing this information in its entirety, he has already moved in this direction?

As for me it will do two things: prove me right re: the far left and antiwar left's dangerous naivety on national-security issues; prove me wrong re: suspecting Democrats of not being willing and/or able to manage national-security affairs responsibly -- for example, J. Carter and Desert One; B. Clinton and Somalia.

Hater Depot

Joined: 29 Mar 2005

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 5:54 pm Post subject:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/02/dear-obama-administration.html

Quote:

It would be one thing if the state secrets privilege meant only that government officials could not be asked to provide evidence in a case. That would be bad, but not as bad as the state secrets privilege, which (if I understand it) allows the government to argue not simply that it should not be required to testify, but that plaintiffs should not be allowed to try to establish certain sorts of facts on their own, from the public record. When those facts are central to the plaintiffs' case, as they are here, the government can argue that that case should be dismissed. To allow the executive the power to make such claims simply on its own say-so, without any opportunity for anyone to verify them, is just plain wrong. Again, the Obama administration cannot be expected to have made this power go away, but it can absolutely be expected not to use it.

Moreover, I have read the government's filing invoking the state secrets privilege. Like every other Bush administration court filing I have read, it is striking not just for the breadth of the powers it claims for the government, but for the complete absence of any concern for justice. When the government has argued against Guantanamo detainees' petitions, including those of people it has itself found not to be enemy combatants, it always seems to consider only what is convenient for itself, never the fact that keeping people locked up for seven years for no reason is a sufficiently dreadful thing to do that it might be worth a bit of inconvenience to avoid it.

Likewise in this case. Here's what was done to one of the defendants:

"Early on the morning of July 22, 2002, a Gulfstream V aircraft, then registered with the FAA as N379P, flew Mohamed to Rabat, Morocco where he was interrogated and tortured for 18 months. In Morocco his interrogators routinely beat him, sometimes to the point of losing consciousness, and he suffered multiple broken bones. During one incident, Mohamed was cut 20 to 30 times on his genitals. On another occasion, a hot stinging liquid was poured into open wounds on his *beep* as he was being cut. He was frequently threatened with rape, electrocution and death. He was forced to listen to loud music day and night, placed in a room with open sewage for a month at a time and drugged repeatedly."

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee

Joined: 25 May 2003

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:38 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool
The role of the CIA's controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say.
By Greg Miller

February 1, 2009

Reporting from Washington � The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States. Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-rendition1-2009feb01,0,5642032,print.story

Hater Depot

Joined: 29 Mar 2005

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:29 pm Post subject:

The controversy isn't over rendition per se, but rather extraordinary rendition where the purpose is to send the captured person to a country that uses torture. So just to say that Obama will allow rendition doesn't really get at the real issue.

bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:57 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

As for me it will do two things: prove me right re: the far left and antiwar left's dangerous naivety on national-security issues; prove me wrong re: suspecting Democrats of not being willing and/or able to manage national-security affairs responsibly -- for example, J. Carter and Desert One; B. Clinton and Somalia.

And prove me right regarding Obama's lie of promised "change."

Kuros wrote:

Eric Holder was only confirmed as Attorney G. just a week ago.

Its not good, but we'll see, it may be temporary.

Kuros, you aren't really basing your hopes for change on Eric Holder, attorney for Chiquita's death squads in Colombia, are you?

Good luck on that one.

TheUrbanMyth

Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:14 pm Post subject:

bacasper wrote:

Gopher wrote:

And prove me right regarding Obama's lie of promised "change."

Kuros wrote:

Eric Holder was only confirmed as Attorney G. just a week ago.

Its not good, but we'll see, it may be temporary.

Kuros, you aren't really basing your hopes for change on Eric Holder, attorney for Chiquita's death squads in Colombia, are you?

Good luck on that one.

When is that trial for Bush coming about by the way?

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:23 am Post subject:

TheUrbanMyth wrote:

When is that trial for Bush coming about by the way?

Looks like they are going to have to indict B. Obama as well...That or they must acknowledge that they have misjudged and been too dogmatically dismissive re: the threat that our govt is seeing and facing.