Obama Backs Bush Policy, Guantanamo up to Geneva Convention Standards: It's Different, When You're in Charge

This is a dark day for people who see Code Pink as a group of centrist moderates, and agree with professor Churchill's views on American guilt.

Guantanamo Prison Humane, Pentagon Recommends More Prayer and Group Recreation

Human rights groups aren't happy with the report President Obama ordered last month, about the appalling, degrading, awful, disgusting, terrible, brutal - - - you get the idea - - - conditions that an oppressive regime forces Islamic activists to endure at Guantanamo.

The Pentagon came up with the wrong answers.

The report apparently found that conditions at Guantanamo were humane, according to Geneva Convention standards. America's military did have some recommendations, though. Particularly troublesome prisoners should get more time for prayer, and for group recreation.

As the Los Angeles Times put it, "Rights groups criticize the findings." (LAT)

Bagram Airfield Detainees: Obama Confirms Bush Policy

President Barack Obama's administration made an important decision: Detainees at Bagram Airfield, in Afghanistan, don't have the same rights as American citizens.

They can't use American courts to challenge their detention.

That policy was set during the Bush administration: part of President Bush's efforts to wage a successful war on terror.

This didn't go down very well in some quarters.

" 'The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped,' said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Airfield. 'We all expected better.' " (AP)

My reaction is "I had feared worse."

But, I had hoped that Barack Obama, once he was at sitting at the desk where the buck stops, would behave responsibly.

America is at war, and although it's important to live up to this country's high standards: It's also prudent to remember who's trying to bring down the country: rights groups, human rights attorneys and all.

Things tend to look different, when you're the one in charge.

More or less related posts:

• "Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri: No Cole Charges - Dandy"
  (February 5, 2009)
• "Inauguration Day, 2009: History Gets Made"
  (January 19, 2009)
• "Pakistan and Mexico Collapse Possible: Why I'm Glad Somebody Else is President"
  (January 14, 2009)

In the news:

• "Guantanamo meets Geneva Convention standards, Pentagon study finds"
  Los Angeles Times (February 21, 2009)
• "Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners"
  The Associated Press (February 20, 2009)

T-Shirt Story 2: Civil Rights vs Common Sense

My post earlier today, "T-Shirt Story 1: 'I Got Rights!'," tells about Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi living in the United States, who chose to wear a T-shirt with bold Arabic lettering, days after terrorists tried to blow up airliners. Again.

He's suing, of course.

Maybe scaring airline passengers is a constitutional right. The ACLU is backing Mr. Jarrar, the architect who says his civil rights were violated, so I think we can count on this case being taken as far as it will go in the courts.

I'm not going to argue one way or the other about the profound constitutional issues involved. Not in this post, anyway. I don't have expert knowledge in constitutional law.

On the other hand, I think that over a half-century of living in the real world has given me a little knowledge about common sense.

Based on my experience, Mr. Jarrar was not showing common sense. Not if he was serious about wanting to board that JetBlue airliner quietly.

I mean to say: a few days after terrorists tried to blow up airliners, wearing a black shirt with big white letters - in Arabic?!

The sad fact is that there is the people who knocked over the World Trade Center in New York City were from the Arabic-speaking part of the world. The people who have been chanting "Death to Israel! Death to the Great Satan America!" all these years have been doing so in Arabic.

Like it or not, Arabic has been linked with some very anti-social activity. Moreover, many people are not broad-minded enough to risk being part of the next jihadist martyrdom, just to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

I hope that the Flying Imams (I still think that would be a good name for a rock group) and Mr. Jarrar's T-shirt escapade don't represent an increase of false alarms triggered by daft behavior.

I'm very fond of my hypothetical Scandinavian Lutheran terrorists, so I'm going to indulge in another mini-story about them.

If you find that sort of thing annoying, you should stop reading this post now. There won't be anything else after this paragraph.

In case you missed the setup of this very hypothetical situation, here's an excerpt from a previous post.

Let's say that Scandinavian Lutherans had, for decades, been blowing up airplanes, buses, and themselves in what they called a Ragnarokathon. Leaned scholars explained that the Scandinavian Lutherans were doing this because western culture didn't appreciate lutefisk and lefse.

Then, in the fall of 2001, Scandinavian Lutherans, mostly from Sweden, blew up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Thousands of people were killed. The skyscraper was destroyed by crashing two airliners into it.

It's five years later. A few days earlier, Norwegians belonging to Eske Lutefisk og Lefse eller Dø (ELLD) were foiled in their plans to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean.

You're in a New York City airport. You notice that a fellow passenger, six-foot-something (two meters) Kjell Hanssen is wearing a black T-shirt.

The first thing you notice is probably not how well it sets off his pale blond hair and blue eyes. You're more likely to notice the big white letters spelling out "Stillhet er ikke en valgmuligheten." You might even notice the English translation, in small lettering below: "Silence is not an option," a phrase used by those protesting the war in Denmark.

You've got quite a few options, including

• Ignore Kjell, and hope he's not a terrorist
• Alert one of the flight crew or a guard of the shirt and its slogan, and your visceral reaction to it
• Beat Kjell to within an inch of his life, just in case
• Make a mental note to contribute to the Defense Alliance for Witless Norwegians (DAWN)

I'm sure you can think of other options.

I don't think that the second option would be that far out of line, under the circumstances.

Finally, in case you wondered what the name of that hypothetical Scandinavian terrorist group, "Elske Lutefisk og Lefse eller Dø" (ELLD), means, here's the name in English: "Adore Lutefisk and Lefse or Die." Catchy, isn't it?

T-Shirt Story 1: 'I Got Rights!'

"I grew up and spent all my life living under authoritarian regimes and I know that these things happen.

"But I'm shocked that they happened to me here, in the US."

These were the words of Mr. Raed Jarrar, an architect, who wasn't allowed to board a JetBlue airliner in New York. Just because of his T-shirt!

If fact, he wasn't allowed to board until he got another T-shirt to wear.

Shocking!

And he's gonna sue!

That's not really so shocking, come to think about it.

On the surface, this looks like a clear case of racism, islamophobia, or something scary like that. Mr. Jarrar grew up in Iraq, moving to to the United States in 2005. The T-shirt he was wearing was black, with the words "We Will Not Be Silent" written on it in white.

In Arabic.

These days, "We Will Not Be Silent" is a slogan used by people against the war in Iraq and other conflicts in the Middle East. The BBC article on Mr. Jarrar's troubles says that the phrase comes from the White Rose dissident group in Nazi Germany. "Resistance group" might be a better term, but "dissident" is the more groovily relevant term these days. That's another topic.

The Curious Affair of the Architect's Shirt started August 12, 2007.

"We Will Not Be Silent" was boldly proclaimed on Mr. Jarrar's shirt in Arabic, and, in much smaller lettering, in English.

The black-shirted Iraqi-American boarded the flight "days after British law enforcement officials announced they had disrupted a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights," the New York Sun pointed out.

I wouldn't have chosen that day to wear a black T-shirt with Arabic writing in big, bold, white lettering.

Mr Jarrar said that the T-Shirt slogan was protected by his "constitutional rights to free expression."

He finally consented wear another T-shirt, another T-shirt, purchased for him by a JetBlue employee at the airport gift shop. At least, that's what the Mr. Jarrar's complaint says.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has gotten involved with Mr. Jarrar's lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over the T-shirt affair. This should be interesting.

If Mr. Jarrar's lawyer decides to play Mr. Jarrar as an a-political architect whose just happened to wear a T-shirt with a harmless slogan, I hope that the court will take a few facts in mind:

• A month before the T-shirt incident, Raed Jarrar wrote "An Illegal War Degenerates / Iraq: Raped." He has a definite position on U.S. involvement in Iraq, and has actively promoted that position
• Raed Jarrar is the Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange

Global Exchange says that, in contrast to "US companies such as Nike abusing the women who make its shoes, the US government fueling an illegal, unjustified, murderous war in Iraq, or the World Trade Organization (WTO) undercutting consumer and environmental protections, Global Exchange offers itself as a partner for peace and social justice."

Mr. Jarrar's bolg is In The Middle / Raed Jarrar's Blog.