Obama, Like Bush, Wrong On Indefinite Detention

By Steve Hynd

A Pro-Publica report for the Washington Post which says that the Obama administration is drafting an executive order to reassert Bush's claimed presidential authority to lock up detainees forever without trial.

It's generating a lot of blogger comment, with rightwing posts being mostly along the lines of "see, we told you Bush was right" and leftwing posts being critical of Obama's plans and the very notion of indefinite detention.

The report is being described as a "trial balloon". Not to see if people will accept the idea of indefinite detentions - Obama has already said explicitly those will happen - but to see if doing an end-run around Congress to proclaim the right to do so by executive fiat will upset too many very important people.

I've nothing really to add to Glenn Greenwald's post on this report, and in particular this:

A government that will give you a trial before imprisoning you only where it knows ahead of time it will win -- and, where it doesn't know that, will just imprison you without a trial -- isn't a government that believes in due process.  It's one that believes in show trials.

This move is an abuse of authority and immoral at every level.

Obama has already foreited my (always sceptical) support - over his claims to secrecy, his abysmal Af/Pak non-plan, his denials of habeas rights and his continued torturing of the facts about Iran's nuclear program. My original fears have been proven justified, he's America's Tony Blair. Yes, he's better than John McCain or Hillary Clinton would have been in the Oval Office; that's a pretty low bar though, and not one that should garner progressives' uncritical support for a president who simply isn't very good at all.