Campaigning Was Easier Than Governing

Obama’s plans to close Guantanamo were scuttled by his own people. That doesn’t bode well for the future.

From the contradictory reactions to it, one might think Barack Obama gave two different anti-terror speeches on Ascension Day. For some, he’s the brave warrior now engaged in cleaning up the messes left by the Bush administration: Guantanamo will be closed; most of the remaining inmates will either be tried in civilian courts or set free; only a small number of really hard cases will be judged by military tribunal where they will be granted more rights than they had during the Bush years; questionable evidence such as that obtained by torture or based solely on secret reports or hearsay will not be admissible.

For others, Obama is a waffler. He promised to break with Bush’s tactics. During the campaign, he scorned the military tribunals as “kangaroo courts” where the accused had no rights at all and which he suspended in the first symbolic act of his administration. Now, he’s reactivating them with modifications his critics say are only cosmetic. Those suspects considered especially dangerous but against whom there is no evidence that will stand up in court will be held in preventive detention indefinitely. Many Republicans crow with great satisfaction that Obama is continuing Bush’s terror policies. Human rights groups say the same thing, but are protesting with disappointment.

In fact, Obama has understandably explained how complicated – and often contradictory - a responsible anti-terror policy can be in seeking to strike a balance between security and civil rights. Bush overdid it in one direction: anything was permissible as long as it promised more security. Even worse, he nullified constitutional guarantees by declaring his methods to be state secrets. But Obama doesn’t want to lapse into the other extreme. He considers preventive detention legal, and that invites arbitrariness. He will depend on judicial controls.

There’s another aspect of this ongoing argument in the United States that is truly appalling: a missing sense of guilt among the American people themselves and the opportunism rampant in Congress. A significant majority of Americans cheered Obama when he campaigned against Bush’s policies and they followed through by electing him President. Now when he does anything that has consequences, such as the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the United States for trial or exoneration, he faces broad opposition. Nobody wants to have an ex-con in his neighborhood even if he was wrongly convicted. The atmosphere of fear created and promoted by Bush and his VP Cheney still exists to this day. The convicts are supposed to vanish into thin air – or be taken in by other countries. Obama’s political allies are howling with the wolves instead of supporting his policies – and the next congressional election is a scant 17 months away.

This begs a couple of questions: why should America’s allies accept Guantanamo prisoners in their countries as long as Americans themselves are unwilling to correct their own mistakes? And if as straightforward a problem as the future of 240 inmates creates so much opposition, how does Obama expect to realize his sweeping plans for reform?