Guantanamo Watchdogs Say Obama Gets Away With Legal Moves Bush Wouldn’t Have

By on April 23, 2012 in News 25

3-6-12-obama-press-conference-cropped-proto-custom_28As we assess Barack Obama’s first term, why hasn’t his reneging on his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay stirred more outrage? TPMMuckraker writes:

Bryan Broyles, the Pentagon’s deputy chief defense counsel at Guantanamo, and other observers believe that some policy changes instituted under the Obama administration would have sparked outrage if President George W. Bush was still in the White House.

Kammen called the reforms instituted by the Obama administration in 2009 “quite superficial” and said there are “huge, huge problems” in the military commissions system. “There is nothing about this system that the average American, if they were caught up in it, would see as being fair,” Kammen said. “The Republicans have an interest in keeping this process going and the Democrats have an interest, to a certain extent, in not embarrassing Obama.”

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  • Liam_McGonagle

    Because he’s such a helpless little darling, that’s why.

    If it isn’t some nasty ol’ Eric Campbell-esque silent screen villain like Eric Cantor splashing mud on Obama and his brand new sailor suit and giant lolly as he passes in his gold-plated Stutz Bearcat, it’s some Bowery wraith like the Little Rascals’ Butchie throwing a sticky taffy apple into Obama’s newly coiffeured spit curls.

    It’s really an old vaudeville routine, and the American public just can’t get enough, 100+ plus years on.  And the Republicans really dig playing Snidley Whiplash, too.

  • emperorreagan

    Also refer back to Bill Clinton – he signed things that democrats should have been up in arms about (for example: NAFTA or welfare reform) – yet people seem to have re-imagined his presidency to be better than it really was.

    It’s good cop/bad cop – you may not confess to the bad cop, but confessing to the cop who’s being nice to you lands you in the same spot.

    • Reptile Overlord

       ”Good cop bad cop actually means there are two bad cops.” ~~ Bernie Brillstein

      • Liam_McGonagle

        Another side.  The onion is beginning to reveal its layers.

  • rus Archer
    • Vincent Vega

       Thanks for the link. REally interesting.

      • rus Archer

        i think the 3rd episode explains how clinton switched the operations of the democratic party because they couldn’t win on issues – so they just catered to whatever focus groups and surveys showed to matter the most to voters – like vchips in your tv
        wooooooooo

  • red_dragon132

    Both parties are the same  everyone are no good self centered assholes.

  • pocoTOTO

    The GOP (along with several Dems who stood to get primaried) pitched an unholy shitfit when he mentioned it the first time around. But hey, carry on with the short-term memory thing if that works for you. 

  • http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

    Anyone who didn’t see this coming is either very young or willfully blind.

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    Obama has done more than Bush ever could to erode civil liberties
    and Bush did a great job of killing the constitution.

    The CIA Elites saw the whole Dem/Rep shell game was wearing thin.
    What better way to stifle criticism
    while at the same time taking away civil liberties
    than by placing a “black” man in the white house to oversee it.
    Brilliant move!

    Hope & Change
    I’m luvin’ it!

  • Ben Alberts

    I know quite a few anti-racist, progressive, feminist, leftist folks who simply won’t accept that Obama conned them. They just can’t wrap their heads around the fact that they were fooled by this puppet. All he had to do was say the right words and reflect a different wavelength of light from his skin. That’s all it took.  

    • Jin The Ninja

      if those ‘progs’ are still all about Obama, it’s because they aren’t reading/watching leftist sources, nor are they  analysing things in a leftist, progressive way. those readings of obama, lend an immediate condemnation to his presidency. But to put it in context, race in america is such a major issue, i can understand how some people would have difficulty understanding how someone who should represent certain progressive values- very readily rejects them outright in favour of fascism. it is all a bit mind-boggling. but again, all the progressive, leftist news sources i read/watch have criticised him from day 0, so i am a bit confused as to how people would miss the not unconsiderable amount of analysis.

      • Eric_D_Read

        Because the vast majority of voters still rely on TV as their primary news source. I can’t remember the source for the numbers, but the last I read 57% of likely U.S. voters relied on TV for their news. When you added radio and newspapers, it totaled about 70-75%. At least where I live, those numbers sound pretty close to the mark.
        Try an experiment; spend a couple weeks only using these mediums for all your news and information gathering.* 
        It will start to make a lot more sense as to why large chunks of the population can believe so much of the nonsense that they do.

        *Warning- stock up on anti-nausea medication before attempting*

        • Jin The Ninja

           lol, i do realise that about the vast majority. but i have difficulty believing lefty oriented people (not dems, real left) are not abundantly aware of what and who obama is.

          • Andrew

            > (not dems, real left)

            Damn straight.  The Democrats are conservative, and the Republicans are reactionary.

    • Redacted

      What the fuck is an “anti-racist”?

      • Jin The Ninja

        it’s a combination of post-colonialism, equity studies and ethnic studies. i.e. a way of framing issues around people of colour and minority cultural groups.

        • Redacted

          So its a way of being racist while you feel good about not being racist.

          • Jin The Ninja

            it’s more like being a feminist, just with race, but most consider the two to be one in the same (overlapping concerns).

          • Ben Alberts

            Perhaps you have another definition fellas but to me “anti-racist” just means the same as “non-racist” except you don’t keep your mouth shut when someone starts ranting about “those niggas” at the dinner party. I think I am an anti-racist and hope you are too.  

          • Jin The Ninja

            i think we both misunderstood eachother, since i’m a PoC, and you listed feminist alongside ‘anti-racist.’ which i interpreted as meaning understanding race from an equity and ethnic studies standpoint. which is a very progressive one.

          • Ben Alberts

            If you said Masters in Social Anthropology, now working in human resources and vocal when it comes to a certain brand of Bourgeois Schoolgirl Feminism (the one where absent mindedly  zoning out on a woman’s cleavage over coffee = trafficking girls for sex slavery) you would have had a bull’s eye. 

          • Jin The Ninja

            .

  • Rapierdiva

    He’s been at this for the past three+ years.  Very slowly, very quietly, increasing his own power, and diminishing that of the U.S. citizens.  His veiled threats to the Supreme Court just recently were incredibly out of line; no U.S. president has ever before threatened the Supreme Court to make a specific ruling.