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)

Melissa Stockwell: Representing America, Again

In an MTV News article, Melissa Stockwell says that she's represented American before, in uniform as an Army lieutenant. She's representing America again, in the 2008 Paralympic Games.

Three things jumped out at me when I heard what Melissa Stockwell had to say, and read up on her.

1. Swimming requires upper body strength - you don't need two legs to swim well
2. She's from Minneapolis, Minnesota
3. She sees her tour of duty in Iraq as representing America

I like her attitude. It's not the only way someone could approach losing a leg.

Strong Arms, Swimming, and Good Sense

A young man I ran into at college, a few decades back, had hurt a leg in a motorcycle accident. He was rather tightly focused on how disgustingly bad his condition was.

That young man had it rough. He was born with functional legs, and had to adjust to working with defective equipment. Happily, I was born with gimpy hips. That gave me opportunities to give my arms and shoulders a workout, when most people are learning to crawl.

Which explains why I understand about swimming and upper body strength. Swimming was the only part of physical education where I got good grades.

Back to Melissa Stockwell. With about 1¼ legs and a prosthetic, she's not going to be running the Boston Marathon: not very well, anyway. On the other hand, compared to the way most of us thrash around, she's a very good swimmer.

A Minnesotan, Don't 'Cha Know

Melissa Stockwell and her husband live in Chicago now, but she came from Minneapolis, Minnesota. That's the state where I live, and I rather like to see a fellow-Minnesotan do well.

Representing America

Melissa Stockwell said that when she wore an American Army uniform in Iraq, she was representing America: and that she was representing America again, by participating in the Beijing Paralympics.

I get the impression that traditional news media, with their preoccupation with body counts, ruined lives, and alleged atrocities, often misses an important point. A country's armed forces represent that country, as a forceful diplomatic tool.

The American armed forces were rather rough on parts of Iraq when the coalition removed Saddam Hussein from power, and later when the Surge made it possible for the new Iraqi government to start sorting itself out.

That got quite thorough coverage. The American military's undoing decades of neglect in Iraq's infrastructure, not so much.

That reticence may be understandable. It's hard to imagine a journalist getting a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on some boring project, like repairing a sewage plant. It's exciting stuff, like a horribly unforgivable atrocity or an 8-year-old heroin addict, that gets attention and gets the prize. Besides, My Lai's Seymour Hersh and Jimmy's Janet Cooke were educating the public about relevant social issues: not reporting boring facts about the American military.

On the other hand, John Burns, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, learned that journalists don't get much attention when they let facts get in the way of a story ("Top Newspaper's Journalists Praised: Blackout Imposed on Praise" (October 15, 2007)).

I've wondered how much American war coverage over the last 40 years has been affected by journalists' choosing between going with the flow and getting adulation, or reporting unwanted facts and getting ignored.

I hope - and think - that there are many Melissa Stockwells out there, representing the America I know: an imperfect country that offers its citizens freedom and opportunity.

More:

• "Wounded Iraq Veteran To Represent U.S. In Paralympics"
  MTV News (August 25, 2008)
  (Includes video (3:10))
• "Melissa Stockwell"
  U.S. Paralympic Team
• "Wounded Vet Again Tackles Basic Training"
  Washington Post (March 21, 2008)
• "Melissa Stockwell"
  Wounded Warrior Project
• "Air War Strategy Preserved Iraqi Infrastructure, Lives"
  U.S. Department of Defense (April 10, 2006)

Related posts, on Individuals and the War on Terror.

Blackwater Employees and Dead Iraqis: Let Foreigners Try Americans?!

Many Iraqis died a few weeks ago when employees of Blackwater security shot up a street that had people on it. In downtown Baghdad. With dozens of witnesses.

Iraqis are upset about this: understandably, since there have been other incidents.

People running the Iraqi government's probe into the incident have made a report. They say that the Blackwater security employees should face trial in Iraqi courts, and that Blackwater should compensate victims. Or, I presume, their surviving kin.

After Aruba revived Marx Brothers-style comedy in their investigation of Natalee Holloway's disappearance, and the way Portuguese authorities are making a hash of Madeleine McCann's disappearance (I've lost track of who they're accusing, and why), this is going to sound odd.

I think the trial of the Blackwater security guards should take place in Iraq, with an Iraqi court.

I also think that the Blackwater employees better get good lawyers, and that a relatively impartial set of observers be on hand to verify fair play: or lack of it.

First, taking the Blackwater employees back to America for trial sounds like a good idea, until you look at what could happen.

Having a court find them not guilty due to improper toilet training, pre-traumatic shock, or some other of the weird excuses defense lawyers and judges seem to love, will not go over well in Iraq, or anywhere else.

Or, imagine the reaction if a court found them guilty of aggravated assault, or whatever, sentenced them to five years, and reduced the sentence to 90 days. This sort of thing has happened in American courts. Those courtroom videos of victims' families going berserk after a defendant got off with a light sentence will look like a Sunday ice cream social, compared with how Iraqis are likely to express their displeasure.

Second, these killings, justified or not, were of Iraqis in Iraqi territory: in Baghdad, in fact.

How would Americans be likely to react, if a foreign security service shot of a street-full of Americans in Washington D.C.?

For all its faults, the people running the Iraqi government seem to have no more chauvinists and charlatans than the American government.

I say that Iraq is a sovereign country. Let them do their job.

It's Different, When You're in Charge

This blog is not intended to be political, but sometimes politics are inextricably enmeshed in America's efforts to avoid a second 9/11 attack. A presidential campaign debate yesterday at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College was one of those times.

One party has typically insisted on telling Al Qaeda and others in Iraq exactly how long they have to hunker down, before U.S. troops retreat. For those who might want to overthrow the current government, and replace it with something more like late Taliban regime in Afghanistan, knowing how long they have to stay low could be vital information.

Now that there's a real possibility that their party will be in the White House, the party's top three candidates, Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, said that they couldn't promise to have all U.S. troops out by the end of the presidential term in 2013.

It's remarkable: how looming responsibility changes one's perspective.