[Peace-discuss] Obama's speech

[Morton K. Brussel]

Comments by Glenn Greenwald.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/21-16

…

UPDATE:  Immediately reacting to speeches of this type, as I've done  
here, is always a perilous undertaking, since it generally helps to be  
able to reflect on what one has heard.  It ought to be apparent that  
my reaction to Obama's speech was fairly mixed.  There were some very  
well-delivered and well-argued parts -- ones that were important.  And  
one sees the potency of the bipartisan political opposition -- and the  
vindictive conniving from some of  Washington's permanent power  
centers in the intelligence and military community -- triggered by  
even by the mildest of changes, such as the closing of Guantanamo and  
the release of the OLC memos.  Challenging that opposition, even  
rhetorically, entails political costs and deserves some credit.  But  
I'm always going to assess Obama based on what he does, not on what he  
says.

Ultimately, what I find most harmful about his embrace of things like  
preventive detention, concealment of torture evidence, opposition to  
investigations and the like is that these policies are now no longer  
just right-wing dogma but also the ideas that many defenders of his --  
Democrats, liberals, progressives -- will defend as well.  Even if  
it's due to perceived political necessity, the more Obama embraces  
core Bush terrorism policies and assumptions -- we're fighting a "war  
on terror"; Presidents have the power to indefinitely and  
"preventatively" imprison people with no charges; we can create new  
due-process-abridging tribunals when it suits us; the "Battlefield" is  
everywhere; we should conceal evidence when it will make us look bad  
-- the more those premises are transformed from right-wing dogma into  
the prongs of bipartisan consensus, no longer just advocated by Bush  
followers but by many Obama defenders as well.  The fact that it's all  
wrapped up in eloquent rhetoric about the rule of law, our  
Constitution and our "timeless values" -- and the fact that his  
understanding of those values is more evident than his predecessor's  
-- only heightens the concern.

So now, we're going to have huge numbers of people who spent the last  
eight years vehemently opposing such ideas running around arguing that  
we're waging a War against Terrorism, a "War President" must have the  
power to indefinitely lock people away who allegedly pose a "threat to  
Americans" but haven't violated any laws, our normal court system  
can't be trusted to decide who is guilty, Terrorists don't deserve the  
same rights as Americans, the primary obligation of the President is  
to "keep us safe," and -- most of all -- anyone who objects to or  
disagrees with any of that is a leftist purist ideologue who doesn't  
really care about national security.  In other words, arguments and  
rhetoric that were once confined to Fox News/Bush-following precincts  
will now become mainstream Democratic argumentation in service of  
defending what Obama is doing.  That's the most harmful part of this  
-- it trains the other half of the citizenry to now become fervent  
admirers and defenders of some rather extreme presidential "war powers."


UPDATE II:  There's very little worth saying about the speech Dick  
Cheney deliveredafter Obama's.  It's just the same recycled, extremist  
neoconservative pablum that drove the U.S. into the deep ditch in  
which it currently finds itself.  The central Cheneyite claim -- they  
were right because they prevented another Terrorist attack on the  
Homeland -- is so patently ludicrous, since (a) they presided over  
9/11; (b) the post-9/11 antrax attacks happened "on their watch"; (c)  
Clinton "kept the country safe" for almost 8 years after the first  
World Trade Center attack (and, therefore, by Cheney's reasoning,  
Clinton's terrorism approach must have been optimal); and (d) it  
assumes without demonstrating that we're unable to defend ourselves  
unless we torture people, spy without warrants, and generally act like  
lawless, barbaric cretins.

I spent most of the first couple of years after I began writing, in  
late 2005, focused principally on the corruption and destruction  
wreaked by America's Right (with a secondary focus on their Democratic  
enablers).  I did that because, back then, that was who mattered.  I  
tend to ignore the Cheneyite Right now because they matter far less  
and their glaring flaws are manifest to most people, not because I  
think they're any less worthy of scorn and contempt.


UPDATE III:  Upon further reflection, and after reading D-Day's  
reaction to Obama's speech, one point I made in the immediate  
aftermath of the speech isn't really accurate.  Obama did not, as I  
inaccurately wrote, "demand[] that there be no investigations or  
accountability for those who repeatedly broke the law."  Instead, he  
said that he personally is not interested in "re-litigating" those  
issues, and that he opposes an independent Truth Commissions, but also  
said:

I have opposed the creation of such a Commission because I believe  
that our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver  
accountability. The Congress can review abuses of our values, and  
there are ongoing inquiries by the Congress into matters like enhanced  
interrogation techniques. The Department of Justice and our courts can  
work through and punish any violations of our laws.

That seems consistent with what he has said in the past -- that it is  
for the Attorney General to decide who should and should not be  
prosecuted -- though, as D-Day points out, those statements seem  
inconsistent with many of Obama's actions.  That, I think, is the key  
point.  As Holly McLachlan says in Comments:  "Obama is a tremendous  
speaker. The best I've seen in national politics during my adult  
lifetime, without contest."  Nobody can give as persuasive and moving  
a political speech as he can.  That's all the more reason to be  
vigilant about judging him by his actions.

© 2009 Salon.com
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights  
litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times  
Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush  
administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His  
second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.
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