Obama and War Crimes, 2009, 2011 and 2014 [View all]

[BainsBane]

Ever since I saw the fuss on DU on Friday, I've been wondering why people only now are outraged about the Obama administration's decision not to prosecute war crimes, when I recall it's being clear early on, even before his inauguration, that he had decided not to have the Justice Department pursue indictments.

I remember objecting to it at the time, but not many people seemed concerned. Yet suddenly Friday people here began to express outrage due to the comments in the President's press conference. We even have an OP reposting a piece by Charlies Pierce in Esquire, positioned below Cameron Diaz in a wet shirt, declaring the President's statement at the press conference "the single most revolting thing this president ever said in public."

Now I may be at a disadvantage in not having had television the past couple of months, but I am having trouble understanding why those comments were worse than his decision six years ago not to proceed with full investigations and prosecutions of war crimes. Is my lack of outrage due to being deprived a repeat loop on cable television reminding me how this above all else is a seminal moment the Obama Presidency? Did I hallucinate prior press coverage from years ago making clear no prosecutions would take place?

No, it turns out I did not hallucinate. Jan 11, 2009, NYTimes:

President-elect Barack Obama signaled in an interview broadcast Sunday that he was unlikely to authorize a broad inquiry into Bush administration programs like domestic eavesdropping or the treatment of terrorism suspects. . . .

In the clearest indication so far of his thinking on the issue, Mr. Obama said on the ABC News program “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that there should be prosecutions if “somebody has blatantly broken the law” but that his legal team was still evaluating interrogation and detention issues and would examine “past practices.”

Mr. Obama added that he also had “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

“And part of my job,” he continued, “is to make sure that, for example, at the C.I.A., you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got spend their all their time looking over their shoulders.” . . .

There was no immediate reaction from Capitol Hill, where there has been a growing sense that Mr. Obama was not inclined to pursue these matters. In resisting pressure for a wider inquiry, he risks the ire of influential Democratic lawmakers on Congressional judiciary and intelligence committees and core constituencies who hoped his election would cast a spotlight on President Bush’s antiterror efforts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/us/politics/12inquire.html?_r=0

Using the Google machine, I found some articles from 2011 maintaining that the President feared a coup if he pressed for prosecutions.

Advisors for President-Elect Barack Obama feared the new administration would face a coup if it prosecuted Bush-era war crimes, according to a new report out this morning.

Christopher Edley Jr., law dean at the University of California and a high-ranking member of the Obama transition team, made the revelation during a 9/11 forum at his law school on September 2. Andrew Kreig, director of the D.C.-based Justice Integrity Project, reports that Edley's comments were in response to questions from Susan Harman, a long-time California peace advocate.


Edley apparently tried to justify Obama's "look forward, not backwards" policy toward Bush-era lawbreaking. Instead, Kreig writes, Edley revealed the Obama team's weakness in the face of Republican thuggery:

Edley's rationale implies that Obama and his team fear the military/national security forces that he is supposed be commanding--and that Republicans have intimidated him right from the start of his presidency even though voters in 2008 rejected Republicans by the largest combined presidential-congressional mandate in recent U.S. history. Edley responded to our request for additional information by providing a description of the transition team's fears, which we present below as an exclusive email interview. Among his important points is that transition officials, not Obama, agreed that he faced the possibility of a coup.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/07/1014303/-Obama-Advisors-Feared-a-Coup-if-the-Administration-Prosecuted-War-Crimes

I don't know if those fears about a coup were legitimate. They strike me as exaggerated, and I certainly can't comment on what actual threat might have existed. However, my question to DU is the following: Where were you on this issue in Jan. of 2009? Were you outraged then? Did you communicate those views to the President? Or did you wait until this past Friday to become upset? Why did it take six years? And why was the speech Friday worse than the interview on ABC's This Week in Jan. 2009 when it was clear he had decided not to move forward on prosecutions? Did you think he would magically change his mind over those six years? Or did you just not think about it until Friday's press conference? How is it possible that the statement on Friday can actually be worse than the decision not to prosecute six years ago?