Everything Points to War

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed the $680 billion defense budget for 2010 into law. Of that, $130 billion is earmarked for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the remainder is for special purposes, such as the “defense” of the United States. With that budget, military expenditures under Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama reached an all-time high in America.

An attachment to the budget is purported to ensure more legal rights for terrorist suspects interned at Guantanamo. In reality, Obama’s “improvements” will just extend the activities of the U.S. Military Commission that have already been called illegal, both in the United States and internationally. The mainstream Associated Press (AP) news agency even titled their report, “Obama Revives Guantanamo Military Tribunals.”

Just hours after he took office last January, Obama suspended the military commission at Guantanamo and promised to close the whole facility within a year. But until now the “BushBama” administration, as many critics call it because of the continuation of Bush’s criminal policies, has done very little to close the notorious torture facility. Even the handful of changes made to the law have already been sharply criticized by U.S. civil and constitutional lawyers. Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has pointed out, for example, that the new rules still permit the prosecution of minors by the military tribunals and the commission. Even if Guantanamo were to be later closed, it would make “little difference because the (illegal) procedures and directives that have become the hallmark of the compound would still exist,” Jaffer said in testimony on Wednesday.

The reality is that Obama’s “improvements” only consist of a few cosmetic changes to the criminal prosecution system of men who can be declared “unlawful enemy combatants” on suspicion alone. Under George W. Bush, people placed in that category lost all legal rights previously guaranteed by U.S. and international standards. Under the new regulation, prisoners can now make requests of their court-appointed defense lawyers and confessions gained through torture or hearsay evidence are no longer admissible. But other than that, little has changed under Obama. People can disappear into the prison camp and continue to be held indefinitely without a hearing or trial.

In the meantime, the latest defense budget line item that will pay Taliban members considerable sums of money to switch sides has to be seen as an act of desperation. And Obama’s procrastination on ramping up troop strength in Afghanistan by 40,000 additional soldiers only signifies confusion and a failed strategy.