First Moves
By BJ
Well, now that he is finally, actually the President, we can start looking at Obama's actions as the man in charge. The initial moves look pretty good, starting with Guantanamo.
In one of its first actions, the Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- a clear break with the approach of the outgoing Bush administration.
The instruction came in a motion filed with a military court in the case of five defendants accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The motion called for "a continuance of the proceedings" until May 20 so that "the newly inaugurated president and his administration [can] review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases currently pending before military commissions, specifically."
The same motion was filed in another case scheduled to resume Wednesday, involving a Canadian detainee, and will be filed in all other pending matters.
And then there is this news.
As one of his first actions, Obama plans to name former senator George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) as his Middle East envoy, aides said, sending a signal that the new administration intends to move quickly to engage warring Israelis and Palestinians in efforts to secure the peace.
Mitchell was apparently one the big players in the negotiations in Northern Ireland. Putting him in place as Middle East envoy is a sign that Obama is actually going to look at the fundamentals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and maybe even address them, which will be a nice break from current US policy.
Probably not a coincidence that the Israelis quickly pulled all of their troops out of Gaza before Obama took the reins.
Not bad for the first day. We'll be watching.
Not to nitpick, but Sen. Mitchell wasn't "apparently" one of the big players in the Northern Ireland peace process, he was the Big Kahuna.
To me, this signals, as you indicate, President Obama's intention to address in a real and serious way the Israel-Palestine question.
Posted by: Breezeblock | January 21, 2009 at 08:46 AM
Nitpick away. For myself, I didn't follow the N. Ireland peace process near closely enough to offer an opinion on the relative importance of the players involved, ergo the "apparently". Just in case the people I was reading were exaggerating some.
Posted by: BJ Bjornson | January 21, 2009 at 12:41 PM
No worries.
Actually Sen. Mitchell wrote a book about his experience: "Making Peace" (April 1999 — 1st Edition, July 2000 — Updated).
Posted by: Breezeblock | January 21, 2009 at 01:43 PM
My understanding (from still living in the UK at the time) is that Mitchell gave political cover to two sides who were looking for an excuse to talk. But that shouldn't take away from the fact that once they started talking he did sterling work in keeping the ball rolling. He's a good pick imho.
Regards, C
Posted by: Steve Hynd | January 21, 2009 at 04:24 PM