[Peace-discuss] on Obama appointments: Leon Panetta for Dir. of CIA, Dawn Johnsen for Office of Legal Counsel

[Stuart Levy]

Two further notable articles on recent Obama appointments
suggest that he may actually take prohibitions on torture, and
limitations to Presidential power, seriously:

  Obama Picks a Conscience for The CIA
  by Ray McGovern
  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/09-3

   [...]
     (namely Leon Panetta, who wrote on torture a year ago):

	"We cannot simply suspend [American ideals of human rights] in the
	name of national security. Those who support torture may believe
	that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still
	be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either
	believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the
	prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is
	no middle ground.

	"We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We
	are better than that."

    Please tell those of your friends who rely solely on the Fawning
    Corporate Media (FCM) that torture is a crime [...]

    [...]

    It appears that the chickens may now be coming home to roost, as those
    who are informed by alternative media, including many supporters
    of President-elect Obama, are demanding accountability for Bush's
    torture policies and are objecting strongly to any appointments
    tainted by complicity in those policies.

    That sentiment led Obama to look for a CIA director outside the usual
    list of intelligence professionals who had carefully positioned
    themselves - and their careers - so as not to offend the Bush
    administration the past eight years.

    [...]
    As flagship of the FCM, the [Washington] Post seldom checks with us
    in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, so let me simply
    state that those in our movement are virtually unanimous in welcoming
    the naming of Panetta.

    The clean-up is likely to begin before the end of the month, and
    the Post will be losing many of its inside sources, since they will
    no longer be in the swing of things. Those tightly tied to torture
    will be gone. And good riddance.

    Understanding the importance for change, Tyler Drumheller, former
    chief of the European Division in the operations directorate,
    has warned that "the problem with the agency is that people will
    be defending what they've done" in the realm of interrogations
    and detentions.

    [...]
    Fair warning: Obama can expect little if any help from the co-opted
    chairpersons of the intelligence overlook committees in the House and
    Senate - Silvestre Reyes and Dianne Feinstein, respectively. Obama
    and Panetta will have to do it themselves.


and, Glenn Greenwald has highly favorable comments on the
new chief of the White House Office of Legal Counsel, 
Dawn Johnsen (Indiana Univ. law professor, ex-ACLU legal counsel,
part of Clinton's OLC):

    Obama's Impressive New OLC Chief
    by Glenn Greenwald
    http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/05/olc/
or  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/06-4

      [...]

     There are several striking pieces of evidence that suggest this
     appointment may be Obama's best yet, perhaps by far.  Consider,
     first, this rather emphatic Slate article authored by Johnsen in the
     wake of the disclosure, last April, of the 81-page John Yoo Memo
     which declared that the President's power to torture detainees is
     virtually limitless.  Her article is notable at least as much for
     its tone as for its substance (emphasis added):

	I want to second Dahlia's frustration with those who don't see the
	newly released Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) torture memo as a big
	deal. Where is the outrage, the public outcry?! The shockingly
	flawed content of this memo, the deficient processes that led
	to its issuance, the horrific acts it encouraged, the fact that
	it was kept secret for years and that the Bush administration
	continues to withhold other memos like it--all demand our outrage.

	[...]
	OLC, the office entrusted with making sure the President
	obeys the law instead here told the President that in fighting
	the war on terror, he is not bound by the laws Congress has
	enacted. That Congress lacks the authority to regulate the
	interrogation and treatment of enemy combatants. . . .

	Is it possible John Yoo alone merits our outrage, as some kind
	of rogue legal advisor? Of course not.

	As Dahlia points out, Bush has not fired anyone responsible
	for devising the legal arguments that have allowed the Bush
	administration to act contrary to federal statutes with close to
	immunity--or for breaking the laws. In fact, the ones at Justice
	who didn't last are the officials (like Goldsmith) who dared to
	say "no" to the President-which, by the way, is OLC's core job
	description. . . .

	The correct response to all this? Marty has several good
	suggestions to start. And outrage. Directed where it belongs:
	at President Bush, as well as his lawyers.

   and, in another article Prof. Johnsen wrote (in Slate, March 18 2008):
	[...]

	The question how we restore our nation's honor takes on
	new urgency and promise as we approach the end of this
	administration. We must resist Bush administration efforts to
	hide evidence of its wrongdoing through demands for retroactive
	immunity, assertions of state privilege, and implausible claims
	that openness will empower terrorists. . . .

	Here is a partial answer to my own question of how should we
	behave, directed especially to the next president and members
	of his or her administration but also to all of use who will be
	relieved by the change:  We must avoid any temptation simply to
	move on.  We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world
	as we condemn our nation's past transgressions and reject Bush's
	corruption of our American ideals.  Our constitutional democracy
	cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can
	our nation's honor be restored without full disclosure.

And Greenwald comments, among other things:

    I first read these posts of Johnsen's a few weeks ago when a
    reporter asked me about my reaction to the possibility that she
    might be appointed to head the OLC.  Beyond these articles, I
    don't know all that much about her, but anyone who can write this,
    in this unapologetic, euphemism-free and even impolitic tone,
    warning that the problem isn't merely John Yoo but Bush himself,
    repeatedly demanding "outrage," criticizing the Democratic Congress
    for legalizing Bush's surveillance program, arguing that we cannot
    merely "move on" if we are to restore our national honor, stating
    the OLC's "core job description" is to "say 'no' to the President,"
    all while emphasizing that the danger is unchecked power not just for
    the Bush administration but "for years and administrations to come"
    -- and to do so in the middle of an election year when she knows
    she has a good chance to be appointed to a high-level position if
    the Democratic candidate won and yet nonetheless eschewed standard,
    obfuscating Beltway politesse about these matters -- is someone
    whose appointment to such an important post is almost certainly a
    positive sign.  No praise is due Obama until he actually does things
    that merit praise, but it's hard not to consider this encouraging.

    [...]

This appointment comes from the same Obama who supported last year's FISA
bill, complete with retroactive immunity.  This will be interesting to watch!


Lots more, including a number of updates to Greenwald's article,
among them one on Leon Panetta in which he points out that
both Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Jay Rockefeller are grumbling about
Panetta's appointment.  Greenwald closes:

   "Few things could reflect better on Panetta's selection than
   the fact that Feinstein and Rockefeller -- two of the most
   Bush-enabling Senators -- are unhappy with it."