Like being shot at and missed, the prospect of being called to account by voters for supporting President Obama’s planned closing of Guantanamo Bay and relocating its 240 War on Terror detainees to prison facilities here in America apparently concentrates the mind of U.S. senators. Virginia Democrat Jim Webb, of “Born Fighting” Scots-Irish fame, is illustrative of this process. He noted on May 17 the case against the Obama plan: “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in Guantanamo to try these cases. There are cases against international law. These aren’t people who were in the United States, committing a crime in the United States. These are people who were brought to Guantanamo for international terrorism. I do not believe they should be tried in the United States.” Three days later, the Senate voted 90-6 against funding Obama’s proposal, even though it was a centerpiece of his 2008 presidential campaign. Obama still insists that closing Gitmo is the right thing to do, but Congress has delivered a clear message.
Obama has been moving away from some other campaign promises on terrorism issues. For example, despite the rhetorical camouflage provided by his continuously invoking his predecessor’s alleged sins, Obama has recently affirmed the Bush administration’s approach of using military tribunals, rather than civilian courts, to prosecute captured terrorists. To be sure, Obama is making some changes, including adding new procedural protections for those being prosecuted like barring the use of evidence obtained by allegedly improper interrogation methods. But Obama seems to have come to agree with the fundamental assumption made by the Bush administration: Terrorists captured on the battlefield should be tried in military forums using military procedures, not civilian courts accustomed to adjudicating law enforcement procedures.
Even on the ugly issue of rendition, Obama has moved much closer to the Bush perspective, though again with some window dressing to give it the appearance of a different approach. According to The New York Times, Obama has ordered U.S. intelligence officials to rely heavily on foreign intelligence operations for interrogation of all but the most senior terrorists captured outside of the combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. This follows on CIA Director Leon Panetta’s observation in February that the agency was likely to continue the practice of extraordinary rendition in which detainees are turned over to foreign nations without extradition proceedings, meaning with no conditions on what happens to them after they are transferred. So, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Obama White House acts increasingly like the Bush White House in dealing with captured terrorists.
