[Peace-discuss] Obama complicit with Bush war crimes

[C. G. Estabrook]

...If a historian were to write about the events of the first nine months of 
2009 when it came to transparency issues as they relate to the war crimes of the 
Bush years, the following is would be written.  Just remember this was all done 
with an overwhelming Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and a 
Democratic President elected on a promise to usher in "an unprecedented level of 
openness in Government" and "a new era of openness in our country."  There's no 
blaming Republicans for any of this:

      In February, the Obama DOJ went to court to block victims of rendition and 
torture from having a day in court, adopting in full the Bush argument that 
whatever was done to the victims is a "state secret" and national security would 
be harmed if the case proceeded.  The following week, the Obama DOJ invoked the 
same "secrecy" argument to insist that victims of illegal warrantless 
eavesdropping must be barred from a day in court, and when the Obama 
administration lost that argument, they engaged in a serious of extraordinary 
manuevers to avoid complying with the court's order that the case proceed, to 
the point where the GOP-appointed federal judge threatened the Government with 
sanctions for noncompliance.  Two weeks later, "the Obama administration, siding 
with former President George W. Bush, [tried] to kill a lawsuit that seeks to 
recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails."

      In April, the Obama DOJ, in order to demand dismissal of a lawsuit brought 
against Bush officials for illegal spying on Americans, not only invoked the 
Bush/Cheney "state secrets" theory, but also invented a brand new "sovereign 
immunity" claim to insist Bush officials are immune from consequences for 
illegal domestic spying.  The same month -- in the case brought by torture 
victims -- an appeals court ruled against the Obama DOJ on its "secrecy" claims, 
yet the administration vowed to keep appealing to prevent any judicial review of 
the interrogation program.  In responses to these abuses, a handful of 
Democratic legislators re-introduced Bush-era legislation to restrict the 
President from asserting "state secrets" claims to dismiss lawsuits, but it 
stalled in Congress all year.  At the end of April and then again in August, the 
administration did respond to a FOIA lawsuit seeking the release of torture 
documents by releasing some of those documents, emphasizing that they had no 
choice in light of clear legal requirements.

      In May, after the British High Court ruled that a torture victim had the 
right to obtain evidence in the possession of British intelligence agencies 
documenting the CIA's abuse of him, the Obama administration threatened that it 
would cut off intelligence-sharing with Britain if the court revealed those 
facts, causing the court to conceal them.  Also in May, Obama announced he had 
changed his mind and would fight-- rather than comply with -- two separate, 
unanimous court orders compelling the disclosure of Bush-era torture photos, and 
weeks later, vowed he would do anything (including issue an Executive Order or 
support a new FISA exemption) to prevent disclosure of those photos even if he 
lost again, this time in the Supreme Court.  In June, the administration 
"objected to the release of certain Bush-era documents that detail the 
videotaped interrogations of CIA detainees at secret prisons, arguing to a 
federal judge that doing so would endanger national security."  In August, Obama 
Attorney General Eric Holder announced that while some rogue torturers may be 
subject to prosecution, any Bush officials who relied on Bush DOJ torture memos 
will "be protected from legal jeopardy."  *And all year long, the Obama DOJ 
fought (unsuccessfully) to keep encaged at Guantanamo a man whom Bush officials 
had tortured while knowing he was innocent.*

That's the record which a historian, wedded as faithfully as possible to a 
narration of indisputable facts, would be compelled to write.  And those are 
just disclosure and transparency issues.  None of that has nothing to do with 
ongoing assertion of detention powers, habeas corpus denials, renditions, the 
Democrats' active efforts just this week to prevent abuses of the Patriot Act 
and FISA, etc. (for those with Twitter, just read Marcy Wheeler's infuriating 
account from the last two hours of how key Democrats in the Senate -- led by 
Dianne Feinstein and Pat Leahy -- just gutted virtually every effort to rein in 
Patriot Act and FISA abuses that were sponsored by Feingold, Durbin and even 
Arlen Specter:  ZAZI!!!).  And now this war on transparency is all culminating 
with a White House-backed effort -- spearheaded by key ally Joe Lieberman -- to 
sweep aside two federal court rulings and to write a new exemption for FOIA that 
has no purpose but to prevent the world from seeing new and critical evidence of 
systematic American war crimes.  If the stated goal of Democrats had been to use 
their newfound control of Government to protect and suppress Bush-era war 
crimes, how could they have done any better?


Full article at <http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/08-8>.