How Safe Will We Be?

MSNBC.Com from the AP

President Barack Obama issued sweeping orders Thursday to rein in secretive U.S. counterterrorism policies and end harsh interrogations, prompting immediate skepticism over how and whether they would work to keep Americans safe.

Obama’s three executive orders, coming on Day Two of his presidency, sought to show that the United States does not torture and abides by domestic and international laws governing the treatment of detainees.

“The message that we are sending the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism,” the president said. “And we are going to do so vigilantly, and we are going to do so effectively, and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.”
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New rules raise questions
Shortly afterward, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs acknowledged that the new rules raise “very complex, very detailed questions” about how they will be carried out.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, called the orders “putting hope ahead of reality” because of the yet-unanswered concerns.

“Given the stakes and unanswered questions, it seems premature for the president to have signed the orders today,” said Hoekstra, R-Mich. “One of the biggest challenges we face is that many decisions made early on after 9/11 were made without a clear plan. Is the president risking the same mistakes by making decisions before having a clear plan in place?”

Taken together, the orders would:

* Shut down the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within one year.
* Prohibit the CIA from using coercive interrogation techniques that already are banned by the Pentagon.
* Shutter secret CIA “black site” prisons abroad where terror suspects have been held.
* End the practice of “extraordinary renditions” that transfer detainees to countries where they can be tortured.
* Scrap every legal opinion or memo issued during the presidency of George W. Bush that justify interrogation programs, including the use of waterboarding and other techniques, the CIA’s black sites and extraordinary renditions.

Task force to study issues
But questions abound over how the orders will work — a mission handed over to review groups that have only a few months to come up with answers.

Under Obama’s executive orders, one task force will study where the estimated 245 detainees now at Guantanamo should be sent when the prison closes, and under what kind of court system they could be prosecuted. Even before Obama took office, the government was wrestling with the question of whether the terror suspects were due the same legal rights accorded to U.S. citizens.

The American Civil Liberties Union was not immediately satisfied.

“There are ... ambiguities in the orders regarding treatment of certain detainees that could either be the result of the swiftness with which these orders were issued or ambivalence within the Obama administration. We are hopeful that as the process unfolds and gets clarified, there will be no doubt that detainees must either be charged, prosecuted and convicted or they need to be released,” said Executive Director Anthony D. Romero.

House Republicans introduced legislation Thursday to bar Guantanamo detainees from being released or transferred to detention facilities inside the United States.


My Personal Commentary:

If we continue to allow our hands to be shackled and tied, time will be of the essence before unnecessary terror is unleashed on this country. Maybe a campaign promise can give way to liberal ideology in the name of national security.

Go Placidly,
Dan Miller