Obama’s “Change” Comes In Like Lightning

First Day on the Job

An almost incomprehensible workload was given to the U.S. president his first day on the job. He delayed the trials in Guantánamo, called the Middle East, and established new regulations for government officials. His first executive orders concern the freedom of information and the work of lobbyists.

President Barack Obama began his first full day on the job with the issue of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. For politically interested Americans, and especially the news media, however, Obama’s first executive orders were even more important milestones, if that is possible. The orders involved the issues of the freedom of information and the work of lobbyists.

Immediately after taking the oath of office, Obama requested that the military judges overseeing the eight ongoing military trials in Guantánamo suspend their trial preparations until the end of May. The government wants to get an overview of possible alternatives first, before the trials are resumed in their present form.

Early Wednesday morning, Obama received the assurance of a trial suspension from one of the eight judges. This judge was set to start the trial against the now 20-year-old Canadian Omar Khadr next Tuesday. Five of the seven other trials were later delayed for 120 days. The two remaining trials may possibly be suspended in the near future as well. Obama cannot order the suspensions by executive order because military judges are independent of the government in their decisions. The military courts, over which they preside, were created by an act of Congress and are not linked with the existence of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. In addition, the judges need the approval of the defendants for the suspensions.

On Thursday, Obama wants to sign another executive order promising to shut down the prison in favor of other more appropriate alternatives. The facility's closing is to take place by the end of January 2010. The president can issue this kind of executive order because detention facility was not established by a congressional act, but by a presidential executive order. Obama would fulfill a campaign promise by doing this.

Finding other appropriate solutions will certainly not be easy. Obama, a Harvard lawyer, warned that the shutdown should not be taken as a show of good intentions or a lack of will to put the detainees on the stand. On the contrary, it is part of a very complicated legal question. Putting the Guantánamo prisoners on trial in American civil courts is an idea which has been mentioned frequently, and Obama might now endorse this action.

The central question is this: Are foreigners legally entitled to the full rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution, when these non-citizens of the United States define themselves as members of foreign military or paramilitary organizations who have attacked Americans abroad and have been captured abroad by the U.S. military or CIA operatives?

The U.S. Constitution offers unalienable rights to American citizens in a criminal trial. The same applies to foreigners who violate the law in the United States. George W. Bush tried to suspend the right to a speedy trial and complete disclosure of the charges against the accused in the case of an American al-Qaida sympathizer; however, the Supreme Court prohibited him from doing it.

If this also applies to foreigners who consider themselves to be part of an armed international movement that attack Americans abroad and are then captured abroad, it could have significant consequences. It could mean that those who, in the name of a terrorist or guerrilla group, attack Americans around the world, may be able to utilize American procedural law as soon as they are captured.

This ruling in turn would have two different consequences. First of all, the territorial principle for national law would be abolished. The U.S. Constitution would have validity for everyone all over the world, regardless of whether they are American citizens or not, or where they reside. Secondly, irregular combatants would be better off than would soldiers. This is because uniformed soldiers may be imprisoned indefinitely, without independent oversight, until the war is over. This same situation also applies to national resistance groups according to the Geneva Convention of 1949. On the other hand, international terrorists who conceal themselves as civilians would have a right to review of remand in custody within sixty days, even though they had been operating underground and were using weapons.

Therefore, Obama is looking for a legal way in which such enemy combatants could be interned in regular American prisons and have all of the rights granted to American citizens so they can eventually be tried in normal U.S. courts.

Barack Obama’s schedule yesterday was filled with many other appointments. At 10:00am, he participated in a thanksgiving service, which has been a White House tradition for each new president during the past 50 years. Obama certainly made news during this service. He invited a large group of people that represented many religions. For the first time on such an occasion, the sermon was given by a woman. Obama had also invited the current pastor of Chicago’s Trinity Church, his former congregation. This pastor, Otis Moss, is the successor of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, with whom Obama denounced his association in the spring of 2008 because of Wright's politically incendiary comments. Moss is also considered to be just as far to the left as Wright, as well as being one of his confidants. After a number of friendly signals from Obama to American conservatives, this invitation was an indication that Obama does not want to suspend his contacts with the left wing of American politics. This fits Obama’s policy of bringing together a broad consensus.

After the church service, he participated in the swearing in of his staff. On this occasion, he signed his first two official executive orders. In one, the president ordered that, in the future, federal authorities should handle requests for information by Americans generously and swiftly. In another, he prohibited his staff members, if they resign their positions, from working as lobbyists in Washington as long as Obama is president.

There has been a right to freedom of information ever since Jimmy Carter’s presidency. However, this policy, the "Freedom of Information Act " (FOIA), had been administered with restrictions under George W. Bush. Waiting periods of months or years were not uncommon if it involved issues the government considered to be related to national security. Presidential files, which are stored in presidential libraries, are excluded from Obama's order. Although some are in the possession of the National Archives, these files are subject to the discretion of the respective former president. It remains an open question as to how these files are to be handled now, with some being kept in these libraries and others stored in the National Archives in Maryland.

Life Becomes More Difficult for Lobbyists

The regulation for lobbyists is a small revolution on the Potomac. Until now, presidential staff members frequently resigned at the beginning of a second term to accept a high-paying lobbyist job. They wanted to and were expected to take the information and connections from the first term to jobs with new employers in business, trade unions, or interest groups. These lobbyists would then quickly make enough money to buy a nice town house in a sought-after location such as Washington’s Georgetown enclave or in McLean, Virginia, or else they moved into the executive suites of New York as political directors. With this regulation, all of that will end under Obama. So anyone who previously worked for his administration may not become a lobbyist until the end of the second term in 2017.

At 2:00pm, Obama revived a long-forgotten tradition. He invited citizens to a reception in the White House. Such receptions were common on New Year’s Day decades ago.

Over the course of the day, the new president met with David Petraeus, Commander, U.S. Central Command. This unit has headquarters in Tampa, Florida, and is responsible for operations in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Linked into the meeting were American generals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus returned from a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan the day before yesterday. The conference was the first step toward a precise plan for a withdrawal from Iraq and a reevaluation of the strategy in Afghanistan. To show his commitment to peace in the Middle East, Obama also spoke by phone with several heads of state and governmental leaders in the region, including Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. Obama pledged assistance in finding tunnels used to smuggle weapons between Gaza and Egypt.

Mitchell to Become Special Envoy to the Middle East

It was also expected that Obama would designate his future special envoy to the Middle East, a position that will work as a coordinator for policy with respect to the Palestinian territories and Israel. George Mitchell, the 75-year-old former Democratic senator, was named for this position. He negotiated the truce between the warring groups in Northern Ireland during the late 1990’s. Three years ago he led a commission which investigated doping in American professional baseball. Bill Clinton’s former negotiator in the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke, and Clinton’s former Middle East expert, Dennis Ross, are being discussed as other special envoys to Iran as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama later held a meeting of his economic advisors. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had to answer questions from the Senate Finance Committee yesterday morning. It was recently disclosed that he had neglected to pay taxes for self-employment work. Obama called it an “innocent mistake.” However, it did not make a favorable impression on several senators, including Democrats, that the future treasury secretary did not take his personal tax obligation as seriously as any other taxpayer.

Geithner himself made several contrite apologies for his behavior during the hearing. Senate Republicans used the opportunity to grill one of Obama's most important cabinet members with tough questions. Geithner is expected to play an important role in the implementation of the 850 billion dollar comprehensive economic stimulus package. Obama inherited the package from the Bush administration, but the Democrats want to address their own issues with this money. Democrats want to include emergency assistance for mortgage debtors in this package. This is controversial for fiscally conservative Democrats because it does not affect the fundamental operations of the credit market, but rather involves federal assistance to heavily indebted individual citizens.