Generic change-mockery title #670123

And the beat goes on:

The Obama administration, siding with the Bush White House, contended Friday that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

In a two-sentence court filing, the Justice Department said it agreed that detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys.

"The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped," said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Airfield. "We all expected better."

(Really?  Why?)

Foster was just echoing this hopeful call from Amnesty International, issued the day before the State Department filing:

Amnesty International is urging President Barack Obama and his administration to continue its break from the USA's unlawful detention policies of recent years by ensuring that detainees held in the US airbase in Bagram in Afghanistan have access to the US courts to challenge their detentions.

"Continue its break"?  Aw, that was a sweet gesture.  I don't think the Obama administration was listening, though, since they apparently have a plan:

But as Guantánamo is being drawn down, large-scale construction is under way at a US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan.

Some critics are already calling it "Obama's Guantánamo." And it looks to become the next big flash point in a long legal tug of war over the direction of America's antiterror policies.

An estimated 242 prisoners remain at Guantánamo. In contrast, more than 600 are held at Bagram, and efforts are under way to expand facilities to potentially hold as many as 1,100 terror suspects.

This is why I've long felt it was a mistake to call (in isolation) for Guantanamo to be shut down: because it's the most recognizable symbol of what the U.S. is doing elsewhere as well, and so the ultimate result would just be that detainees would be shipped to less conspicuous dungeons like Bagram.  Unless all detention facilities are closed simultaneously, the main effect of shutting down Guantanamo is to remove the focal point for resistance.

Obama understands this clearly, which is why he made such a show of moving toward closing it.  Like so many of his fellow Democrats, Obama's real problem with Guantanamo has never been the institution itself but the damage it's done to the "reputation" of the United States—and he's smart enough to know that rebranding often works. Get used to hearing nice liberals braying "Yes, but he closed Guantanamo" for the next four years.

Comments

[Save the Oocytes]

It's possible that they really expected better, but it's also at least theoretically possible that they find it useful to claim they expected better. That way no one knows that they are reflexively criticizing Obama because they predicted his policies would be the same as Bush's and seek to be vindicated in their beliefs. Honesty about not having expected better marginalizes you.

[John Caruso]

Subtle indeed.

[Bjorn]

To STC's point that "[h]onesty about not having expected better marginalizes you" - does that mean they should go out of their way to lie that they did expect better (assuming they're as sly and aware as you're suggesting)? And even that couldn't explain/defend "continue its break."

Well-spotted, John.

[hedgehog]

Did you say "rebranding"?

[SteveB]

I still think the focus on Guantamo was justified. It's like the anti-sweatshop activists, who, faced with an entire industry using exploited labor, chose to focus on a single bad actor (Nike) and make an example of them.

Now that Guantanamo is closed, the same international movement that opposed Guantanamo will turn its focus on Bagram (the fact that the phrase "Obama's Guantanamo" is already in circulation is one indication this is happening.)

When you're up against entrenched power, you never win everything at once. Those in power always have a "Plan B", (and a "Plan C" after that). But it's still important to note that we have pushed them off of their "Plan A", and that momentum is on our side, and not theirs.

[Donald Johnson]

In the interests of fairness, the possible appointment of this person Chas Freedman might be good news on the I/P front. It still means nothing until we see a real change in policy, but Mitchell and Freeman do seem different from the kinds of appointments that you'd get from someone who was totally in AIPAC's pocket.

Link

Not that I want to make too much of this. In my wildest dreams, Obama will turn out to be less bad than most American Presidents on human rights issues and foreign policy, which still leaves plenty of scope for badness.

[Save the Oocytes]

Bjorn: no.

[John Caruso]

Mostly agreed, Steve. I originally thought that under Bush, when secret prisons were available to make the detainees disappear entirely. Even John McCain wanted to close Guantanamo to save our "reputation", and I expect he'd have pursued the same alternative.

If the secret prisons really do close under Obama, though, it'll be harder to keep things under wraps. But I also predict—and I imagine the Obamaites expect—that there'll be less opposition to holding people at Bagram than there was to holding them at Guantanamo.

[SteveB]

If Obama's goal is to "restore our reputation" worldwide, it's hard to see why people in Europe, for example, should care whether these prisoners are in Guantanamo or Bagram. I understand the argument that Obama-justifying American liberals will claim there's a difference, but if Obama is trying to win over international opinion, this won't do it.

One important distinction, and one reason why Bagram is "Plan B" and not "Plan A", is that we have a fairly tenuous hold on Afghanistan. Even Karzai has called for an Iraq-style withdrawal plan. We've been in Guantanamo for a hundred years, and, barring the complete collapse of U.S. power, will be there for a hundred more, but can we be sure we'll be in Afghanistan even five or ten years from now? That matters if you're really going to detain people "indefinitely."

[John Caruso]

I don't see any reason to think Europeans have a greater awareness of Bagram than Americans do. The main issue isn't geography, it's prominence, and Guantanamo has gotten by far the most attention and therefore opposition (despite the fact that there are over two times as many people being held at Bagram).

Geography does play a role in that the reason Guantanamo was a magnet for criticism was because it was so obviously used to move people as far as possible from the place they were kidnapped without according them any legal rights. It stood out like Rudolph's nose, basically. On that count Bagram appears much more reasonable, because it's a prison in Afghanistan being used to hold people captured in Afghanistan (and environs). And even the denial of rights appears more reasonable there—why should prisoners in Afghanistan be accorded Constitutional rights? That's a much easier sell.

(I wouldn't underestimate the amount of Obamalove in Europe, by the way.)

[Gekkou]

John - With reference to Bagram and European's knowledge, I can say without doubt that serious reporting is going on in the UK over it. I was watching Channel 4 news on Saturday and there was a wonderfully long piece about the god-awful things going on there and how Americans can say with a straight face that it is run by Afghanistan so, therefore, it's only subject to local laws. Which seem to allow torture. And US troops are there, but uh, only "training" or some such nonesense. The conclusion was that it was obvious that the US was going to use Bagram as where they will shove any remaining Gitmo guys they don't want to release (as is already the case it seems).

[NomadUK]

I can say without doubt that serious reporting is going on in the UK over it.

True enough, but how is it competing against Big Brother House; Snog, Marry, Avoid?; whatever Richard Hammond is hosting these days; and repeats of CSI?

[John Caruso]

I'm glad to hear there's serious reporting going on over there about Bagram (though there is in the U.S. as well, and Nomad's point is well taken). I'd still be surprised if Guantanamo hasn't gotten much more attention than Bagram over the past few years, though.

But I don't mean to throw any mud. If Europeans are going to keep the heat on over Bagram—which has always been far worse than Guantanamo—that's great. And I agree with Steve that it's a hopeful sign that the phrase "Obama's Guantanamo" is already being thrown around (though the fact that Bagram has to be characterized relative to Guantanamo illustrates my point).