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Reality Isn’t As Simple As Obama’s Fantasies. 

I’ve been seeing, of late, some back- chatter on my Pajamas Media piece of the 21st. Both confirmation, and complaint.  Let’s deal with the confirmation first, since it is the more obvio. I said on the 21st: [1]

As President Obama and his people are briefed on what has been happening in the world these last eight years, the insider’s view has given them a completely new perspective on what to do about the situation, resulting in completely different actions as compared to the ones they were telling everyone they would take once they were given the power.

President Obama and his fellow Democrats are now responsible for the outcome of the next four years.  They are pragmatic enough to understand that they are the ones who will take it on the chin politically after the next terrorist attack or if the current economic problems continue for long. They’re beginning to understand how wrong they were in chastising Mr. Bush and his policies. Thus, they are adopting them. That, dear reader, is vindication.

So you can imagine the smile on my face, when I read in this story [2]in the Washington Post this morning:

President Obama’s plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials — barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees — discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration’s focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.

Surber notes the story [3] and quips:

Gosh, gee, you mean you cannot just text this stuff on your BlackBerry?

How — as this new staff said of the White House computers — Atari in an X-box world.

The reason is simple: Information is a commodity in a war. Far from being an oxymoron, military intelligence is expensive. It is won by guys like Mike Spann, who was not given a fair trial by a jury of his peers when he became the first U.S. military casualty in Afghanistan.

The Post cited unnamed Bush officials who said the records were messy and — in the Post’s words — “the Bush administration’s focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.”

As they should. Let KSM and company wait for their trials.

I have to say, that’s pretty much my attitude as well.  I grow very short on sympathy for the argument that there are innocent people mixed up in this.

One of the complaints I got from the mailbag, was slightly more interesting, and somewhat more complex.  Indeed, I’m not surprised at the comment, given the amount of smoke screen that Mr. Obama has provided himself.  Observe; I said on the 21st, same article:

For all the noise that Mr. Obama is making with regards to water boarding (a practice I should point out was already banned in 2006 under Mr. Bush), Obama has refused repeatedly to explicitly ban all interrogation methods not outlined in the Army Field Manual.

One feedback atuhor  with apparently more arrogance then brains, wrote me to point out that Obama had in fact written executive order barring such, as if this made my entire premise moot.

In response, I offer two points.  First of all, at the point that was written and published, he had not as yet done so.  Secondly, there clearly is a lack of understanding of just what constitutes an executive order, and what it takes to overturn an executive order.

Ron Radosh, at PJM a couple days after my post of the 21st offered this assessment… pay close attention, kids. It precisely explains why I said nothing of that executive order:

The executive orders he just signed both closed the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay within one year, and ended the CIA’s secret prisons and use of so-called “harsh interrogation methods;”  i.e., torture. According to the President’s order, all interrogations will have to follow the noncoercive methods outlined in the official U.S. Army Field Manual. Obama also issued an order for cessation of military trials already under way at Guantanamo.

But will these measures prove to be just symbolic?  Those who are complaining about Obama’s reversal of Bush Administration security policy have not paid attention to the wiggle-room he has left himself.  Certainly Obama does not want our nation hit again by a terrorist attack during his watch. What would the public say if one did occur, and it became clear that the United States had captured al-Qaeda or other terrorists who might have known about the operation before it took place, but that all efforts to get them to talk via Army Field Manual methods had produced only silence?

Should such a scenario occur, Americans would be up in arms about the Administration’s failure to do what was necessary to protect us. That is why, I think, Obama issued an Executive Order that can easily be replaced with another if he deems it necessary.

Obama said that “we can abide by a rule that says, We don’t torture, but we can effectively obtain the intelligence we need,” but in appointing two task forces, he makes it clear that he is covering all bases, so that if it is determined interrogators must  go further, he can squeak out of his first Executive Order and do so by saying he is taking the advice of his trusted appointees who have studied the situation.

Guantanobondi Bay [4]

Guantánamo bay

(Emph is my own.)

Radosh goes on to say that Dennis Blair, who is the new intelligence director, (or will be as soon as the senate intelligence committee confirms him)  has according to the New York Times, [5]left open the possibility [5] that techniques beyond the nineteen currently approved for military Interrogations could be authorized.

We have been saying since Obama’s campaign started, long before he actually got the Democrat nomination: everything Obama says comes with an expiration date.  In this case, we just don’t know what that date is, but we do know that it’s going to take effect the moment there is an an attack on American interests.  Trust me, kids… that executive order will get turned over at the first need.  They won’t be tearing down the jail cells at Guantanamo  anytime soon.  The only outstanding question to my mind is whether not Mr. Obama will wait until Americans die before he reverses that order.