Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 121

Obama on presidential war-making powers

The U.N. Security Council Resolution authorizing military force in Libya does not, on its face, compel U.S. involvement, but news reports (and common sense) suggest that American participation is likely.  That has led to debates over whether the President is constitutionally empowered to order military action in Libya without Congressional approval, whether it be in the form of a declaration of war or at least some statutory authorization to use military force (my views on the substance of this new war are here). 

I will simply never understand the view that the Constitution allows the President unilaterally to commit the nation to prolonged military conflict in another country -- especially in non-emergency matters having little to do with self-defense -- but just consider what candidate Barack Obama said about this matter when -- during the campaign -- he responded in writing to a series of questions regarding executive power from Charlie Savage, then of The Boston Globe:

Q. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

OBAMA:  The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent.  

Obama's answer seems dispositive to me on the Libya question:  "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."  And he went on to say that the President could constitutionally deploy the military only "in instances of self-defense." Nobody is arguing -- nor can one rationally argue -- that the situation in Libya constitutes either an act of "self-defense" or the "stopping of an actual or imminent threat to the nation."  How, then, can Obama's campaign position possibly be reconciled with his ordering military action in Libya without Congressional approval (something, it should be said, he has not yet done)?

And here's what then-Sen. Hillary Clinton said in response to the same question from Savage; it's at least as clear as Obama's answer:

The President has the solemn duty to defend our Nation. If the country is under truly imminent threat of attack, of course the President must take appropriate action to defend us. At the same time, the Constitution requires Congress to authorize war. I do not believe that the President can take military action -- including any kind of strategic bombing -- against Iran without congressional authorization. That is why I have supported legislation [GG:  also supported by Obama] to bar President Bush from doing so and that is also why I think it is irresponsible to suggest, as some have recently, that anything Congress already has enacted provides that authority.

Leading Democrats constantly argued the same thing during the Bush years:  that Presidents lack the power to order military actions in non-emergency, non-self-defense situations without Congressional approval; indeed, they insisted that even the attack on Iraq, which (unlike Libya) was justified as necessary for self-defense, required Congressional approval [and, needless to say, the always-principled Republicans routinely argue that Presidents do possess unilateral war-making power whenever there is a GOP President, but argue the exact opposite when there is a Democratic President].  There has to be some purpose to Article I, Section 8's assignment of the power "To declare War" to Congress; what is it?  As Yale Law Professors Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway put it:

No existing statute or treaty allows this action. Gaddafi isn't linked to Al Qaeda, so an attack against him isn't supported by the resolution authorizing force against terrorists involved in 9/11. If Obama goes it alone, he must return to Bush-era assertions that the president, as commander-in-chief, can unilaterally launch the nation into war. . . .

We are at a crossroads. President Obama can deal a death blow to our constitutional commitment to checks and balances in war-making. Or he can establish a precedent in constructive congressional engagement which will serve as a model for the foreign policy challenges of the twenty-first century.

The arguments made to justify such unilateral presidential action are uniquely unpersuasive.  Former Bush OLC official and Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith, along with others, points to Clinton's air bombing campaign of Kosovo without Congressional approval, but the mere fact that X happened in the past does not mean X is justifiable; that would be like pointing to FDR's internment of Japanese-Americans to argue that Presidents are constitutionally empowered to imprison American citizens on U.S. soil without due process.  I've also heard the claim that actions undertaken as part of NATO or the U.N. are somehow exempt from the constitutional requirement, but the fact that a war is fought with allies does not make it any less of a war (Congress declared war during World War II; it also voted to authorize the first Gulf War and the attack on Afghanistan even though they were done, respectively, through the U.N. and NATO).  And then there's the notion that the War Powers Act entitles a President to order military force for a limited time without Congress, but that constitutionally dubious statute has never been tested and thus does not remotely resolve the constitutional question.

The one point I want to underscore is that the constitutional requirement for Congressional approval is not some legalistic or technical barrier; it's vital.  The Founders emphasized that war is the most serious matter upon which a nation can embark, that it is the citizenry that bears the risks and costs, and it is thus imperative that they first consent through their representatives in Congress.  John Jay explained in Federalist 4 that Presidents will start wars that are unnecessary and unjust -- i.e., for their own self-serving benefit -- but the people are much less likely to do so (emphasis added):

But the safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign force depends not only on their forbearing to give just causes of war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing themselves in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult; for it need not be observed that there are pretended as well as just causes of war. 

It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.

After George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama, New York Times correspondent R.W. Apple wrote that starting new military conflicts is "a Presidential initiation rite," that "most American leaders since World War II have felt a need to demonstrate their willingness to shed blood," and that Bush's order to attack tiny, defenseless Panama "has shown him as a man capable of bold action."  Just as the Founders predicted, allowing Presidents to order military attacks without the approval of the citizenry (through their Congress) has engendered a whole slew of unnecessary wars that serve the political and ruling classes but not the people of the country.

The dangers from unilateral, presidential-decreed wars are highlighted in the Libya situation.  There has been very little public discussion (and even less explanation from the President) about the reasons we should do this, what the costs would be on any level, what the end goal would be, how mission creep would be avoided, whether the "Pottery Barn" rule will apply, or virtually anything else.  Public opinion is at best divided on the question if not opposed.  Even if you're someone who favors this intervention, what's the rationale for not requiring a debate and vote in Congress over whether the President should be able to commit the nation to a new military conflict?  Candidate Obama, candidate Clinton, and the Bush-era Democrats all recognized the constitutional impropriety of unilateral actions like this one; why shouldn't they be held to that?

* * * * *

Yesterday, Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin wrote one of the most insightful and succinct accounts of Obama's presidency and the National Security State; one can quibble with parts if one wishes, but I highly recommend it.

Journalistic irony

On Wednesday, the Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, depicted the threat posed by Japanese nuclear reactors as much graver than had been suggested by Japanese officials.  Yesterday, this is how The New York Times described the impact (or lack thereof) of Jaczko's statements in Japan:

Most Japanese citizens did not react to Mr. Jaczko's comments, which presented a far bleaker assessment of the unfolding nuclear crisis, for the simple reason that they went nearly unreported in the Japanese news media. . . . The technical nature of the issue perhaps compounded the Japanese news media's tendency to shield the government. Reporters who cover agencies and ministries are organized in press clubs that have cozy ties with officials and decide what to report -- and what not to. The lack of attention received by Mr. Jaczko's comments was consistent in the news media.  

I wonder what it's like to be a citizen of a country plagued by the "news media's tendency to shield the government" due to "cozy ties with officials" on the part of "reporters who cover agencies" and other government departments.  That must be awful.  Fortunately, the U.S. has a free press and we'll therefore never have to find out.  After some of his fellow journalists attacked The Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings for publishing Gen. Stanley McChrystal's statements that led to his dismissal, Politico helpfully explained:

McChrystal, an expert on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, has long been thought to be uniquely qualified to lead in Afghanistan. But he is not known for being media savvy. Hastings, who has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for two years, according to the magazine, is not well-known within the Defense Department.

And as a freelance reporter, Hastings would be considered a bigger risk to be given unfettered access, compared with a beat reporter, who would not risk burning bridges by publishing many of McChrystal's remarks.

Shortly after Politico published its article with those two paragraphs of rarely spoken truth, it quickly deleted them, so we can just pretend that never happened.  But unfortunately for our efforts to forget, The New York Times' John Burns, while on right-wing talk radio, also criticized Hastings' reporting on the ground that "it has impacted, and will impact so adversely, on what had been pretty good military/media relations"; that Hastings' reporting contradicted "a kind of trust" which war reporters "build up" with military officials that is "not explicit, it's just there"; and that this touching reporter/General relationship should guide decisions about "what it is necessary to report."  Anyway, as The New York Times was saying, important events are being suppressed in Japanese political discourse because -- over there -- "reporters who cover agencies and ministries. . .  have cozy ties with officials and decide what to report -- and what not to."

Three-minute Cliffs Notes of U.S. foreign policy

Duane Clarridge was a CIA agent and clandestine program supervisor for more than three decades.  He gained particular noteriety for his mid-1980s role in the Iran-contra scandal (for which he was indicted but then pardoned by Bush 41 in the middle of his trial) and specifically for placing mines in the Nicaraguan harbor (an act which the International Court of Justice ruled was illegal, only for the U.S. to ignore the order and prevent the U.N. from enforcing the judgment).  But Clarridge is no obsolete relic of the past.  As The New York Times detailed in January of this year, he formed his "own private CIA" after leaving the actual CIA and -- until May of last year when his funding was finally cut off -- was repeatedly contracted by the U.S. Government to engage in all sorts of covert acts, including "field[ing] operatives in the mountains of Pakistan and the desert badlands of Afghanistan."

In 2002, Clarridge wrote a book lauding his clandestine work for the agency, and as part of his book tour, he was interviewed by the Australian journalist John Pilger.  The three-minute clip below from that interview is very worth watching.  The Washington Times' Eli Lake, who referenced the clip last night, described it as "a nice three minute summary of [the] foreign policy philosophy" of neocon extremist and McCain and Palin aide Michael Goldfarb.  It certainly is that (though I think Goldfarb's "foreign policy philosophy" is more aptly summarized by (1) send other people but never me off to fight in endless wars; (2) vest the President with the powers of a King to prosecute those wars; and (3) the overaching objective is to serve the interests of the Israeli government, which can do no wrong).   But the reason this three-minute clip is so worth watching isn't because it reflects the foreign policy of someone like that, but rather because -- in broad terms -- it reflects the foreign policy of the U.S. over the last several decades and the especially mindset driving and justifying it:

Various matters: Afghanistan, Libya and Manning

(updated below - Update II)

(1) One finding from the new Washington Post/ABC News poll has received some attention:  Americans -- by the large margin of 31-64% -- believe that "all in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting."  And they believe by an even wider margin -- 71-23% -- that the "United States should withdraw a substantial number of U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan this summer" (though 53% doubt, probably presciently, that this will happen).  But what's even more striking is that a mere 17% of the American citizenry "strongly believes" that the war was worth fighting (see this very good analysis of how dubious is the administration's new positive war spin). 

It may be that some policies should be continued as desirable no matter how little public support they command.  But war is different.  Wars are supposed to be fought only when the citizenry is behind them and they are absolutely necessary.  It's almost impossible to imagine a situation where a war should be continued when only 17% of the nation's citizens "strongly believe" it's worth fighting.  Almost by definition, a nation shouldn't be fighting a war -- especially in another country -- if such a small fraction of its citizens believe it's truly necessary.  What justifies sending fellow citizens off to die -- let alone killing people in the country we've invaded -- if so few people believe it's worthwhile let alone necessary?  But this underscores yet again the most ingenious and valuable achievement of the National Security State:  enabling endless war while appearing to impose costs on only a tiny percentage of the population, thus ensuring that pointless, unnecessary, unjust wars will continue without much resistance even when the vast majority of the public recognizes them as such.

 

(2) The retrospective view of Afghanistan as not worth fighting mirrors, of course, the longstanding view among Americans about the Iraq War.  But both wars began with substantial support, which means -- logically -- that large numbers of Americans came to change their initial views and ultimately concluded that the very wars for which they cheered were not, in fact, worth fighting.  One might think that this experience would teach them lessons about the dangers of cheering for unnecessary wars in foreign lands, but one would be wrong.  The same poll cited above finds, depending on how the question is asked, substantial support for U.S. military involvement in imposing a no-fly zone in Libya (between 49-56%), and of those, a robust 72% still support such an action even when told that it "first requires bombing attacks on anti-aircraft positions, and then requires continuous air patrols" (similarly, most Americans say they would support a military attack on Iran to stop their nuclear program).

Obviously, a strong humanitarian appeal can be crafted in support of military intervention in Libya.  Any decent human being would loathe Moammar Gadaffi and find his attacks on his unarmed population to be repulsive.  But exactly the same could be said -- and was constantly said -- about the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.  There's an obvious emotional appeal in vanquishing murderous tyrants out of power through the use of force.  But even leaving aside the question of whether the U.S. can effectively shape outcomes in distant lands with complex foreign cultures -- even after a full decade, our confusion seems greater than ever in Afghanistan -- nations don't fight wars primarily with humanitarian aims; they fight them to advance their interests.

Humanitarianism is the pretty package in which every new war is wrapped.  That's just the Manichean propaganda tactic needed to induce public support for killing human beings:  it's justified because we're there to destroy Evil and do Good.  Wars can sometimes incidentally produce humanitarian benefits, but that isn't the real aim of war.  We can (perhaps) remove Gadaffi from power, but we'll then up defending and propping up (and thus be responsible for) whatever faction will heed our dictates and serve our interests regardless of their humanitarian impulses (see our good friends Nouri al-Malaki and Hamid Karzai as examples). 

As our other good friends Saudi Arabia and Bahrain collaborate on attacking civilian protesters, there are no calls for U.S. intervention there -- even though that's arguably more serious than what's happening in Libya -- because those governments serve our interests.  Nor is there much anger among Americans (as opposed to Egyptians) over our decades-long support for the dictator of Egypt (and most of the other tyrants now suddenly being vilified).  That's because our conduct in the Middle East isn't driven by humanitarian objectives no matter how manipulatively that flag is waved.  It's driven by a desire to advance our perceived interests regardless of humanitarian outcomes, and exactly the same would be true for any intervention in Libya.  Even if we were capable of fostering humanitarian outcomes in that nation -- and that's highly doubtful -- that wouldn't be our mission.

 

(3) The forced nudity imposed on Bradley Manning followed by the forced resignation of P.J. Crowley has clearly created a media tipping point in this story.  In addition to the scathing New York Times Editorial from Monday (Manning's treatment "conjures creepy memories of how the Bush administration used to treat terror suspects"), editorial condemnation has now come from The Los Angeles Times ("punishment, not protection, is the purpose of these degrading measures") and The Guardian ("There was at least the ghost of an excuse for bullying foreign combatants but no US need for mistreating one of their own").  Perhaps most notably, even the military-revering, establishment-defending Washington Post Editorial Page today emphatically condemns these conditions as "uncomfortably close to the kind of intimidating and humiliating tactics disavowed after the abuses at the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons that eroded the country's standing in the world."

The abusive treatment of Manning is indeed now reverberating internationally.  Der Spiegel has a long article on the conditions of Manning's detention, noting that "even US politicians believe they're illegal" and highlighting the point I've repeatedly made:

Before he was inaugurated, Obama talked about the importance of whistleblowers, or sources who expose abuses within their organizations. Such "acts of courage and patriotism" ought to be "encouraged, rather than stifled," his website read at the time.

Once in office, Obama underwent a radical shift. His government is currently taking legal action against a number of whistleblowers. The government apparently wants to use the Manning case as a deterrent.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has an excellent article today describing how Physicians for Human Rights is now formally raising objections to the role of brig psychiatrists in enabling Manning's inhumane treatment (just as they once raised objections to the role played by health professionals at Guantanamo).  On Twitter today, the generally pro-administration Ezra Klein re-printed this insightful observation: "Oddly, Manning's treatment helps to justify his actions ex post. Is a govt that would do this a govt we should trust to act in secret?"  And even National Review, in a fairly good feature article, discusses the consensus among progressives and other Obama supporters that has now arisen in condemnation of Obama's treatment of Manning (though they amusinglys note at the end that "there's a notable (though not surprising) exception: The New Republic":   its principal function in life).

(4) Without endorsing all of their observations, here are two very worthwhile commentaries about what the Manning episode (and related matters) reflects about Barack Obama:  (a) this post and (b) this Tom Tomorrow cartoon.

 

(5) Evan Bayh has long been one of the most perfect expressions of the rotted sickness and corruption plaguing Washington.  In The Washington Post, Ezra Klein perfectly documents how Bayh's new, conflict-ridden post-Senate trough-feeding is itself a perfect expression of what Washington is.

 

(6) In The American Conservative, Daniel Larison twice expertly mocks the laughable claim from "conservative intellectuals" that Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh are degrading their otherwise high-minded and profoundly substantive movement.

 

UPDATE:  Yale Law Professors Bruce Ackerman and Jack Balkin, along with Yochai Benkler of Harvard Law School, have issued an exceptionally good statement -- for which they are seeking the support of other academics -- condemning the "degrading and inhumane" conditions of Manning's detention as "illegal and immoral."  Similarly, the ACLU today issued a letter (not yet online) sent by its Executive Director, Anthony Romero, to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, arguing that the "cruel and unusual treatment" of Manning "violates fundamental constitutional norms" and that the "purpose of such treatment is to degrade, humiliate, and traumatize."  Not only has the Obama administration's treatment of Manning now become a national scandal, there are very few people outside of the Far Right who are doing anything other than condemning it.

UPDATE II:  The ACLU letter to Gates is here.  And at CNN, prison psychiatric expert Terry Kupers explains why Manning's detention is so destructive and barbaric, including this:  "The problem with the argument that Manning is being kept in long-term solitary confinement to prevent his suicide is that long-term solitary confinement causes suicide."

Various matters: Afghanistan, Libya & Manning

(1) One finding from the new Washington Post/ABC News poll has received some attention:  Americans -- by the large margin of 31-64% -- believe that "all in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting."  And they believe by an even wider margin -- 71-23% -- that the "United States should withdraw a substantial number of U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan this summer" (though 53% doubt, probably presciently, that this will happen).  But what's even more striking is that a mere 17% of the American citizenry "strongly believes" that the war was worth fighting (see this very good analysis of how dubious is the administration's new positive war spin). 

It may be that some policies should be continued as desirable no matter how little public support they command.  But war is different.  Wars are supposed to be fought only when the citizenry is behind them and they are absolutely necessary.  It's almost impossible to imagine a situation where a war should be continued when only 17% of the nation's citizen "strongly believes" it's worth fighting.  Almost by definition, a nation shouldn't be fighting a war -- especially in another country -- if such a small fraction of its citizens believe it's truly necessary.  What justifies sending fellow citizens off to die -- let alone killing people in the country we've invaded -- if so few people believe it's worthwhile let alone necessary?  But this underscores yet again the most ingenious and valuable achievement of the National Security State:  enabling endless war while appearing to impose costs on only a tiny percentage of the population, thus ensuring that pointless, unnecessary, unjust wars will continue without much resistance even when the vast majority of the public recognizes them as such.

 

(2) The retrospective view of Afghanistan as not worth fighting mirrors, of course, the longstanding view among Americans about the Iraq War.  But both wars began with substantial support, which means -- logically -- that large numbers of Americans came to change their initial views and ultimately concluded that the very wars for which they cheered were not, in fact, worth fighting.  One might think that this experience would teach them lessons about the dangers of cheering for unnecessary wars in foreign lands, but one would be wrong.  The same poll cited above finds, depending on how the question is asked, substantial support for U.S. military involvement in imposing a no-fly zone in Libya (between 49-56%), and of those, a robust 72% still support such an action even when told that it "first requires bombing attacks on anti-aircraft positions, and then requires continuous air patrols" (similarly, most Americans say they would support a military attack on Iran to stop their nuclear program).

Obviously, a strong humanitarian appeal can be crafted in support of military intervention in Libya.  Any decent human being would loathe Moammar Gadaffi and find his attacks on his unarmed population to be repulsive.  But exactly the same could be said -- and was constantly said -- about the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.  There's an obvious emotional appeal in vanquishing murderous tyrants out of power through the use of force.  But even leaving aside the question of whether the U.S. can effectively shape outcomes in distant lands with complex foreign cultures -- even after a full decade, our confusion seems greater than ever in Afghanistan -- nations don't fight wars primarily with humanitarian aims; they fight them to advance their interests.

Humanitarianism is the pretty package in which every new war is wrapped.  That's just the Manichean propaganda tactic needed to induce public support for killing human beings:  it's justified because we're there to destroy Evil and do Good.  Wars can sometimes incidentally produce humanitarian benefits, but that isn't the real aim of war.  We can (perhaps) remove Gadaffi from power, but we'll then up defending and propping up (and thus be responsible for) whatever faction will heed our dictates and serve our interests regardless of their humanitarian impulses (see our good friends Nouri al-Malaki and Hamid Karzai as examples). 

As our other good friends Saudi Arabia and Bahrain collaborate on attacking civilian protesters, there are no calls for U.S. intervention there -- even though that's arguably more serious than what's happening in Libya -- because those governments serve our interests.  Nor is there much anger among Americans (as opposed to Egyptians) over our decades-long support for the dictator of Egypt (and most of the other tyrants now suddenly being vilified).  That's because our conduct in the Middle East isn't driven by humanitarian objectives no matter how manipulatively that flag is waived.  It's driven by a desire to advance our perceived interests regardless of humanitarian outcomes, and exactly the same would be true for any intervention in Libya.  Even if we were capable of fostering humanitarian outcomes in that nation -- and that's highly doubtful -- that wouldn't be our mission.

 

(3) The forced nudity imposed on Bradley Manning followed by the forced resignation of P.J. Crowley has clearly created a media tipping point in this story.  In addition to the scathing New York Times Editorial from Monday (Manning's treatment "conjures creepy memories of how the Bush administration used to treat terror suspects"), editorial condemnation has now come from The Los Angeles Times ("punishment, not protection, is the purpose of these degrading measures") and The Guardian ("There was at least the ghost of an excuse for bullying foreign combatants but no US need for mistreating one of their own").  Perhaps most notably, even the military-revering, establishment-defending Washington Post Editorial Page today emphatically condemns these conditions as "uncomfortably close to the kind of intimidating and humiliating tactics disavowed after the abuses at the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons that eroded the country's standing in the world."

The abusive treatment of Manning is indeed now reverberating internationally.  Der Spiegel has a long article on the conditions of Manning's detention, noting that "even US politicians believe they're illegal" and highlighting the point I've repeatedly made:

Before he was inaugurated, Obama talked about the importance of whistleblowers, or sources who expose abuses within their organizations. Such "acts of courage and patriotism" ought to be "encouraged, rather than stifled," his website read at the time.

Once in office, Obama underwent a radical shift. His government is currently taking legal action against a number of whistleblowers. The government apparently wants to use the Manning case as a deterrent.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has an excellent article today describing how Physicians for Human Rights is now formally raising objections to the role of brig psychiatrists in enabling Manning's inhumane treatment (just as they once raised objections to the role played by health professionals at Guantanamo).  On Twitter today, the generally pro-administration Ezra Klein re-printed this insightful observation: "Oddly, Manning's treatment helps to justify his actions ex post. Is a govt that would do this a govt we should trust to act in secret?"  And even National Review, in a fairly good feature article, discusses the consensus among progressives and other Obama supporters that has now arisen in condemnation of Obama's treatment of Manning (though they amusing note at the end that "there's a notable (though not surprising) exception: The New Republic":   its principal function in life).

(4) Without endorsing all of their observations, here are two very worthwhile commentaries about what the Manning episode (and related matters) reflects about Barack Obama:  (a) this post and (b) this Tom Tomorrow cartoon.

 

(5) Evan Bayh has long been one of the most perfect expressions of the rotted sickness and corruption plaguing Washington.  In The Washington Post, Ezra Klein perfectly documents how Bayh's new, conflict-ridden post-Senate trough-feeding is itself a perfect expression of what Washington is.

 

(6) In The American Conservative, Daniel Larison twice expertly mocks the laughable claim from "conservative intellectuals" that Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh are degrading their otherwise high-minded and profoundly substantive movement.

The clarifying Manning/Crowley controversy

The forced "resignation" of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley -- for the mortal sin of denouncing the abusive detention of Bradley Manning -- has apparently proven to be a clarifying moment for many commentators about what the President is and how he functions in these areas.  Writing at Time's Swampland, Mark Benjamin identifies the real crux of the controversy:

Free speech advocates are shocked, and, as I wrote last week on TIME.com, concerned over Obama's record as the most aggressive prosecutor of suspected government leakers in U.S. history.

Those advocates have wondered whether the penchant for secrecy in the Obama administration comes from the President, or those around him. Obama's statement on Manning, followed by Crowley's resignation, seem to suggest some of this comes from the President himself.

It's long been obvious that the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistleblowers "comes from the President himself," notwithstanding his campaign decree -- under the inspiring title "Protect Whistleblowers" -- that "such acts of courage and patriotism should be encouraged rather than stifled."  The inhumane treatment of Manning plainly has two principal effects:  it intimidates future would-be whistleblowers into knowing that they, too, will be abused without recourse, and it will break him psychologically (as prolonged solitary confinement and degrading treatment inevitably do) to render him incapable of a defense and to ensure he provides whatever statements they want about WikiLeaks.  Other than Obama's tolerance for the same detainee abuse against which he campaigned and his ongoing subservience to the military that he supposedly "commands," it is the way in which this Manning/Crowley behavior bolsters the regime of secrecy and the President's obsessive attempts to destroy whistleblowing that makes this episode so important and so telling.

Denunciations of the President from his own supporters are as intensive and pervasive here as they have been for any other prior incident, if not more so.  Matt Yglesias wrote that "to hold a person without trial in solitary confinement under degrading conditions is a perversion of justice" and that it's a "sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning."  Andrew Sullivan -- writing under the headline "Obama Owns the Treatment of Manning Now" -- said that Crowley was forced out "for the offense of protesting against the sadistic military treatment of Bradley Manning," that "the president has now put his personal weight behind prisoner abuse," and that "Obama is directly responsible for the inhumane treatment of an American citizen."  Meanwhile, Ezra Klein previews his denunciation of the President's treatment of Manning and Crowley by announcing that it's his first ever lede "that isn't about economic or domestic policy" but rather is "about right and wrong," and then questions "whether the Obama administration is keeping sight of its values now that it holds power."  Those strong words are all from supporters of the President.

Elsewhere, The Philadelphia Daily News' progressive columnist Will Bunch accuses Obama of "lying" during the campaign by firing Crowley and endorsing "the bizarre and immoral treatment of the alleged Wikileaks leaker."  In The Guardian, Obama voter Daniel Ellsberg condemns "this shameful abuse of Bradley Manning," arguing that it "amounts to torture" and "makes me feel ashamed for the [Marine] Corps," in which Ellsberg served three years, including nine months at Quantico.  Baltimore Sun columnist Ron Smith asks:  "Why is the U.S. torturing Private Manning?," while UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman -- who only last year hailed Obama as "the greatest moral leader of our lifetime" and eagerly suggested on Friday (before Obama's Press Conference) that Crowley was speaking for Obama -- mocked Obama's defense of the Manning treatment as "clueless on the Bush level" and now says of Crowley's firing:  "The Torturers Win One," while lamenting Obama's overt support for a policy that he calls "unconscionable and un-American and borderline criminal."

But the news isn't all bad for the President.  Aside from his shrinking though still-vocal The-Leader-Can-Do-No-Wrong loyalists (whose mirror image counterparts stood behind George W. Bush to the end no matter what he did), Obama is finding support for his conduct in the Manning/Crowley episode from the Far Right.  HotAir's Ed Morrissey, as but one example, lavishly praises the President's decisions:  "The White House acted appropriately in kicking Crowley out at State, and should be commended for taking quick action," and goes on to defend the conditions of Manning's detention as appropriate and necessary.  It really is quite striking -- and quite revealing -- how, at least in the areas about which I wrote most (civil liberties, secrecy, surveillance, privacy, war, due process, detention, etc. etc.), and for many of the specific controversies on which I've focused (WikiLeaks, Manning, indefinite detention, Afghanistan, drone attacks, the due-process-free assassination program, legal immunity for Bush officials, state secrets, etc.), the greatest support for the President's policies (with a few early exceptions) are found, by far, among the same faction of America's Right who so eagerly supported the Bush/Cheney policy framework.  That's just a fact.

* * * * * 

When Obama was asked on Friday about Manning's treatment, he said in part:  "I've actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures . . . are appropriate.  They assured me they are."  When George W. Bush, in his book, attempted to justify his torture regime, he wrote, as summarized by Newsweek's Jacob Weisberg: "When [Bush] asked 'the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government' to review interrogation methods, 'they assured me they did not constitute torture.' Case closed. You can't argue with the choices Bush defends in this book, because he doesn't argue them himself. He describes, asserts, and cites any authority handy, usually the authority he hired to defend his decisions" (h/t WLLegal).

* * * * * 

When Anderson Cooper last month accurately described statements from the Mubarak regime as "lies," numerous colleagues of his criticized him for "taking sides," but then patronizingly suggested that he had likely lost his "objectivity" because he had been beaten by regime supporters in Egypt -- as though only being beaten could cause a journalist to become so emotional and reckless as to describe an official lie (from America or its allies) as a "lie." 

Now, a similar tactic is being used to discredit Crowley and impugn the reliability his comments. Politico's Mike Allen, as he always does, conveys the Washington conventional wisdom today:  "Crowley is unusually sensitive to the treatment of prisoners because his late father, a B-17 pilot, was a prisoner of war for two years in a camp that at the time was part of East Germany."  In other words, one would object to abusive detention only if one were "unusually sensitive" because of some overwrought, emotional family issue; no rational, objective person -- with Beltway power -- could possibly find anything wrong with inhumane detention.  So Crowley is just a weird, emotionally affected outlier because of his "unusual sensitivity" to such matters.

* * * * *

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a sitting member of Congress and member of the President's own party, has repeatedly sought to visit Manning and view his detention conditions, yet has been endlessly thwarted and given the runaround by Pentagon officials.  He talks about that situation in an interview with Scott Horton here (it includes a transcript).

* * * * *

Last Tuesday, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I spoke at a newly inaugurated speakers series sponsored by the Lannan Foundation; the topic of my speech was WikiLeaks and the war against transparency.  The roughly 45-minute speech can be seen (or downloaded) here.  It was preceded by two introductions (the second of which, from radio host David Barsamian, quoted several passages from my forthcoming book), but the speech itself begins at the 9:35 mark; for those unable to watch all of it, the section of my speech discussing why WikiLeaks is such a vital battle begins at 41:30.  A 30-minute Q-and-A session hosted by Barsamian took place after, and it can be viewed or downloaded here.

WH forces P.J. Crowley to resign for condemning abuse of Manning

(updated below)

On Friday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denounced the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention as "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid," forcing President Obama to address those comments in a Press Conference and defend the treatment of Manning. Today, CNN reports, Crowley has "abruptly resigned" under "pressure from White House officials because of controversial comments he made last week about the Bradley Manning case." In other words, he was forced to "resign" -- i.e., fired.

So, in Barack Obama's administration, it's perfectly acceptable to abuse an American citizen in detention who has been convicted of nothing by consigning him to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, barring him from exercising in his cell, punitively imposing "suicide watch" restrictions on him against the recommendations of brig psychiatrists, and subjecting him to prolonged, forced nudity designed to humiliate and degrade. But speaking out against that abuse is a firing offense. Good to know. As Matt Yglesias just put it: "Sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning." And as David Frum added: "Crowley firing: one more demonstration of my rule: Republican pols fear their base, Dem pols despise it."

Of course, it's also the case in Barack Obama's world that those who instituted a worldwide torture and illegal eavesdropping regime are entitled to full-scale presidential immunity, while powerless individuals who blow the whistle on high-level wrongdoing and illegality are subjected to the most aggressive campaign of prosecution and persecution the country has ever seen. So protecting those who are abusing Manning, while firing Crowley for condemning the abuse, is perfectly consistent with the President's sense of justice.

Also, remember how one frequent Democratic critique made of the Right generally and the Bush administration specifically was that they can't and won't tolerate dissent: everyone is required to march in lockstep? I wonder how that will be reconciled with this.

 

UPDATE: Remember when the Bush administration punished Gen. Eric Shinseki for his public (and prescient) dissent on the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz plan for Iraq, and all good Democrats thought that was so awful, such a terrible sign of the administration's refusal to tolerate any open debate? And then there was that time when Bush fired his White House economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for publicly suggesting that the Iraq War might cost $100 billion, prompting similar cries of outrage from Democrats about how the GOP crushes internal debate and dissent. Obama's conduct seems quite far from the time during the campaign when Obama-fawning journalists like Time's Joe Klein were hailing him for wanting a "team of rivals", and Obama was saying things like this: "I don't want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone."

Amnesty calls for protests over Bradley Manning's treatment

In late January, Amnesty International wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates denouncing the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention as "unnecessarily harsh and punitive" and in "breach the USA's obligations under international standards and treaties."  In the wake of the prolonged forced nudity to which Manning is now being subjected, Amnesty has escalated its denunciations: as the Associated Press put it today, the group is now "urging people to complain to the Obama administration about the confinement."

In particular, Amnesty said that "the conditions inflicted on Bradley Manning . . . amount to inhumane treatment by the US authorities" and "appear to breach the USA's human rights obligations."  As a result, the group is encouraging as many Americans as possible to demand an end to these conditions (independent of Amnesty, there is a planned protest outside the Quantico brig on March 20, expected to be fairly large in size, with others being planned at military detention facilities around the country for later dates).  In case anyone is wondering what Amnesty is:  it's the world's premiere human rights organization which Democrats once held up as authoritative on issues on detainee abuse circa 2001- January 20, 2009 -- remember that?

Yesterday, the Quantico base commander denied Manning's formal request for less harsh treatment -- including an end to his forced nudity and 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement.  That request -- which is really a formal complaint of mistreatment -- will now be forwarded to the Secretary of Navy, and if he also rejects it, then Manning's lawyer will file a Writ of Habeas Corpus with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.  Manning's counsel today released his rebuttal to the Commander's decision and it supplies much more detailed information about just how harsh and punitive is Manning's treatment; Marcy Wheeler documents how similar in language and content is this treatment to many of the core methods of degradation popularized during the Bush administration.  But as we well know, caring about what Amnesty thinks is -- just like concerns over detainee abuse and indefinite detention -- so very 2005.

The "Bush-tortured" excuse for indefinite detention

Yesterday, I wrote about the fictitious excuse being offered to justify why Obama is continuing the indefinite detentions and military commissions which defined the Bush/Cheney Guantanamo detention scheme:  it's Congress' fault.  Today we have a new excuse:  it's Bush's fault.  Because Bush tortured some of the detainees, this reasoning goes, Obama is incapable of prosecuting them, yet because many of those detainees are Terrorists and/or Too Dangerous to Release (even though they can't be convicted of anything), he has no real choice but to keep imprisoning them without charges.  Here are the NYT Editors -- even as they criticize Obama's indefinite detention policy -- making this case, one frequently heard from Obama supporters offering excuses for his policy of indefinite detention:

[T]he Obama administration has still chosen to accept the concept of indefinite detention without trial, which represents a stain on American justice. The president made that acceptance clear in a speech in May 2009. To some degree, he was forced into it by the Bush administration's legacy of torture and abuse, which made some important cases impossible to prosecute.

And here's Andrew Sullivan making a somewhat different but related claim, and then going even further, suggesting that the only thing that ever bothered him about Guantanamo was the torture, not the fact that people were being indefinitely imprisoned without a shred of due process:

My fundamental concern has always been humane treatment. When Gitmo was a torture camp, it was indefensible. . . . [Those equating Obama's detention policies with Bush's] omit that the very dilemma - prisoners with no formal charges, no serious evidence, and radicalized by torture and unjust imprisonment - was created by Bush in the first place.  I'd release those against whom there is no credible evidence. But I can understand the security and political concerns of releasing men who could join Jihadists in, say, Yemen.

There's a serious moral flaw in the NYT's reasoning, and two even worse empirical flaws with this excuse-making for indefinite detention.   There are several compelling reasons why the use of torture-obtained evidence is barred by every civilized country for use in prosecution, and has been barred for decades if not centuries.  A primary reason is because the most basic norms of Western morality demand that torture not be rewarded, which is what happens when the fruits of it are admissible in court to prosecute people.  Those who say that Obama is justified in imprisoning people without charges because the evidence against them was obtained via torture and is thus unusable in court are repudiating this long-standing Western moral principle by justifying imprisonment based on evidence obtained by coercion (we know they're guilty because of the evidence we got from torture, so we have to detain them). 

But the moral repugnance of this position is even worse than that:  at least people who are prosecuted using torture-obtained evidence have the opportunity to defend themselves in court and to call into question the reliability of that evidence.  But what Obama is doing -- and what some of his supporters are defending -- is to deny detainees even that opportunity. Obama is keeping these people imprisoned without any charges, and then pointing to secret torture-obtained evidence to justify that imprisonment.  He's not even prosecuting them using torture-obtained evidence.  He's going beyond that:  he's imprisoning them without bothering to prosecute them, while his supporters publicly claim that we know they're guilty -- or "dangerous" -- by citing untested, unseen evidence that the government claims can't be used because it was coerced.   Anyone who supports indefinite detention on this ground is doing something much worse than justifying the use of torture-obtained evidence to prosecute someone:  they're justifying imprisonment without trials based on evidence they know -- and which they admit -- was obtained by torture.

If you're someone who wants to claim to find torture repugnant: fine.  But if you simultaneously justify the imprisonment of people based on evidence obtained by torture, then your protestations are meaningless.  Wanting to use evidence obtained by torture is functionally incompatible with claims of finding torture morally unacceptable.  After all, what's the point of barring the use of torture-obtained evidence in trials only to then imprison people anyway without trials based on that very evidence?

Then there are the glaring empirical flaws with this excuse for indefinite detention, i.e., we know they're Dangerous but can't prosecute them because of torture.    Here's the most obvious flaw:  among progressives, liberals and most other critics of the Bush torture regime, the idea that "torture doesn't work" long enjoyed sacred status.  This is what anti-torture advocates claimed over and over and over again:  torture doesn't work because it's unreliable, produces false confessions, causes the person to say whatever they need to say to make the torture stop, etc. etc.  

If that's true, then what possible justification is there for assuming that someone is guilty -- that they're a Terrorist who is Too Dangerous To Release -- if the only real evidence against them was obtained via torture?  Doesn't that mean, by definition, that the evidence is unreliable and shouldn't be used to assume their guilt or dangerousness?  And if there is evidence beyond that obtained by torture, then why can't they be prosecuted?  

Put another way, with regard to those individuals whom Obama has ordered imprisoned without trials based on the notion that they cannot be prosecuted but are too dangerous to release, only 1 of 2 possibilities exist; either:

(1) there is substantial evidence that they're guilty independent of the torture-obtained evidence, in which case they can be prosecuted using that legitimately obtained evidence, or,

(2) the only real evidence against them is evidence obtained by torture, which means that it's unreliable, which means that no decent person should be assuming they're guilty -- or deserving of imprisonment -- based on such evidence.

What's the way out of that dilemma for those who claim that Obama's indefinite detention order is justifiable because of all the dangerous Terrorists we can't prosecute due to Bush's torture?  This excuse has never made any sense because of this glaring contradiction, and I've been posing this same question for over a year to those defending Obama's indefinite detention scheme on the "blame-Bush's-torture" ground and I could never get an answer.  What is the answer?

Finally, as for Sullivan's claim that there is this some group of detainees against whom there is no "credible evidence" yet who pose a security threat, I'd ask this:  if there's no "credible evidence" against them, then why would he believe that they pose a threat?  Is the idea that because we've abused them and kept them locked up for years without justification, they are now too radicalized and angry to safely release: in other words, because of what we've done to them by unjustly imprisoning them, we have to keep unjustly imprisoning them?  We've unjustly imprisoned you for so long that you now hate us too much to allow us to release you.  Does the warped nature of that reasoning even need to be articulated?

Or is it -- as I suspect -- that Sullivan (even though he wants all such detainees released) is nonetheless willing to believe the government's unproven accusations that certain detainees are dangerous even without (a) knowing what evidence exists to support that accusation, (b) having the evidence presented in a judicial proceeding, and/or (c) being certain that any evidence exists at all?  In light of how many times claims that someone is a Dangerous Terrorist by Bush and Obama haven proven to be false, I genuinely cannot comprehend how anyone is willing to vest in them the power to imprison people without charges.  When one adds the fact that the risk of error is exceptionally high because "combatants" are captured far away from any battlefield and without uniforms, and that the "duration of hostilities" for which they are to be held will be decades rather than years, indefinite detention is one of the great evils of our time.

There is simply no justification -- or excuse -- for locking people away without charges or any opportunity to contest the validity of the accusations against them (the habeas right which the Supreme Court finally granted in 2008 is a far cry from a real trial and, in any event, is being denied to all detainees at Bagram).  That's why those who attempt to justify indefinite detention -- whether done by Bush or Obama -- find themselves wallowing in such intense moral and logical quandaries as these: because they're trying to defend the indefensible (not to mention the illegal).

* * * * * 

On the night of April 28, I'll be speaking in New York, along with Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman, for an event sponsored by (and for the benefit of) FAIR.  Tickets are expected to be sold out quickly, so those interested in attending can arrange to do so here.  And, as a reminder for those in Houston, I'll be speaking tonight at this event, open to the public [link fixed].

NYT and "torture": Searching for a justification

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller explaining why his newspaper won't describe Bush interrogation techniques as "torture":

[D]efenders of the practice of water-boarding, including senior officials of the Bush administration, insisted that it did not constitute torture.

New York Times Washington Bureau Editor Douglas Jehl on why his paper refuses to describe Bush's waterboarding program as "torture":

I have resisted using torture without qualification or to describe all the techniques. Exactly what constitutes torture continues to be a matter of debate and hasn't been resolved by a court. This president and this attorney general say waterboarding is torture, but the previous president and attorney general said it is not. On what basis should a newspaper render its own verdict, short of charges being filed or a legal judgment rendered?

From a New York Times obituary today:

As a hero of the French Resistance, Stéphane Hessel was in exile with Charles de Gaulle in London, imprisoned in concentration camps, waterboarded in Nazi torture sessions and saved from hanging by swapping identities with an inmate who had died of typhus. . . . Asked how he survived torture, he said, "The third time of waterboarding, I said, 'Now, I'll tell you.' And I told them a lie of course." He added: "One survives torture. So many people unfortunately have been tortured. But it's not a thing to recommend."

So according to The New York Times, it's journalistically improper to call waterboarding "torture" -- when done by the United States, but when Nazi Germany (or China) does exactly the same thing, then it may be called "torture" repeatedly and without qualification. An organization which behaves this way may be called many things; "journalist" isn't one of them.