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Detention without Trial: Obama Administration

Posted July 22nd, 2009 by Damon

President Obama's task force on closing Guantanamo recently announced it will require a six month extension. It did release an interim report that in line with Obamas prior pledges envisions a three-tiered system of justice for imprisoning accused terrorists. In all cases to be determined by the administration. 

(1) real trials in real courts for some; (2) military commissions for others; and (3) indefinite detention with no charges for the rest.  This memo is the first step towards institutionalizing both a new scheme of preventive detention and Obama's version of military commissions.

All of which amounts to nothing less than:

'a permanent, institutionalized detention scheme with the power vested in the President going forward to imprison people with no charges.' (Glenn Greenwald)

 More Greenwald here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html

Manifestly, this isn't about anything other than institutionalizing what has clearly emerged as the central premise of the Obama Justice System:  picking and choosing what level of due process each individual accused Terrorist is accorded, to be determined exclusively by what process ensures that the state will always win.   If they know they'll convict you in a real court proceeding, they'll give you one; if they think they might lose there, they'll put you in a military commission; if they're still not sure they will win, they'll just indefinitely imprison you without any charges [a document accompanying the interim report (.pdf) states:  "if the prosecution team concludes that prosecution is not feasible in any forum, it may recommend that the case be returned to the Executive Order 13492 Review for other appropriate disposition"].  It's Kafkaesque show trials in their most perverse form:  the outcome is pre-determined (guilty and imprisoned) and only the process changes.  That's especially true since, even where a miscalculation causes someone to be tried but then acquitted, the power to detain them could still be asserted.

When are we going to see a discussion of these sorts of vital current issues from Integral Institute. President Obama, both as President and because he has been talked of as showing Integral traits, should be someone that Integral engages with in both support and critique. If not, why not? Surely, applying the Integral view point to real life issues is crucial. Otherwise where is the interaction between Integral thinking and the real world? The theory loses its ground and bite.

Perhaps Integral imagines itself as able to be detached, standing outside of time and place - outside of history, in short.  If so, how does it 'integrate' this with the notion of a developing evolving world in which growth occurs through engagement with reality and staking a claim in the flow of events.  Certainly there is a timeless always already perfect luminous suchness, however, luminous suchness is expressing itself in a relative conditional world and needs be engaged via that relative world.

Come on Integral, its time to surrender, die, take a stand, fuck up, get broken, made whole again. Fix yourself to the relative. Grow your ideas. Get beautiful and alive once again.

What is this Integral politics that has almost nothing to say about the real world, beyond yet more of the same detached and masterful statements about quadrants and levels of development, couched in promises of a politics that's always to come?  Pfft.

 

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the art of the possible. . .

Posted July 22nd, 2009 by Charles Bowling

 

Hi Damon,
 
It's not clear to me that "integral", has a defined spokesperson; from my view it looks much more like a free-for-all.
 
That view also holds that criticism is part of a duality, at the other end of which is sympathy. This means that however much people are sympathetic with your criticism of the Obama administration's handling of Guantánamo, an integral view suggests that some balance is called for.
 
No one known to me is in favor of the unjustified imprisonment of the innocent; on the contrary it strikes the conscience as being immensely unfair. Here in Illinois where Mr. Obama was Senator, a considerable number of innocent men were convicted of murder and other heinous crimes and sentenced to die at the hands of the state. Only at a later date thanks to DNA evidence were their convictions reversed and they were released.
 
But the point that i am interested in making is a broader one. Mr. Obama has a great many issues on his plate, and as i have stated elsewhere, he's much less persuaded by ideology (or party affiliation) than he is by sheer practicality. This means if his aim is to accomplish some goal, lesser ones (however important they may be in their own right )must be deemphasized.
 
Here is a quote from one of the few other masterful politicians from Illinois, the late Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen:
 
"The longer one is identified with public life, especially at the national level, the more one is persuaded, as an ancient philosopher said, that politics is the art of the possible." . . . "What you do is to see how much common ground there is on which every member of the party can stand. You note what the differences might be.. . When that's been done, then you try to close the gap, and this is different with every situation that arises."
 
Another way to view these sorts of questions in broad strokes is to look at the difference between strategy and tactics. Strategy cannot be wisely formulated in a vacuum, in the real world it's dependent upon tactics. Simply put tactics means what is possible to do. In chess the strategy is to checkmate the opponent; chief among the means of a skillful player is how do these pieces move, and in the better players, how do they move optimally. That is to say how they move with the least waste. (And in a broader picture may actually include an occasional sacrifice, i.e. a giving up of something valuable in order to bring about something thought to be of greater value .)
 
So tied into this notion of tactics, of the art of the possible, is the idea of efficiency. But these decisions made by presidents are not easy. I think of a never heartless Mr. Lincoln, saddled with generals of the army who demonstrated no capacity or willingness to bring war between the states to an early end. And then he found Ulysses Grant, a hard drinking tough son of a bitch, who finally brought the war to a successful if devastatingly brutal and bloody conclusion. And once having saved the union, for his trouble poor Mr. Lincoln got an assassin's bullet in the brain.
 
For my own part i can join you in being less than pleased with Mr. Obama's handling of the Guantanamo situation; but i can't separate this imprisonment business from the sympathy that i have for the many other issues faced by a president, who is after all the closest thing to an Energizer Bunny chief executive ever seen in the White House.
 
Warmly,
Charles
41N54'51' 88W18'31"

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Well said

Posted July 22nd, 2009 by Brian OConnell
Great points. I also have noticed how Integral so far has lacked real world history and thus real world relavance. The fact that integral leaders beleived Obama could be integral and good for the future showed just how much naivite integral has on real world power structures.

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Reply Charles/Aalferos

Posted July 23rd, 2009 by Damon


 @ aalferos:

I'm glad you feel inspired. And how do you feel about  the issue of preventative detention at the will of the President?  Or the lack of self reflexive awareness exhibited by the gap between how Integral talks and how Integral walks?  Horribly acute when you consider that spirit is all about self reflexivity, and Integral is all about spirit....

@ Charles: 

I don't think Integral is about 'balance' I think Integral is about taking in as many perspectives as possible, and in the process, assessing those perspectives for their worth, and then creating a higher synthesis out of those perspectives. Some perspectives will be accorded far more weight than others. Some, perhaps no weight at all.

We could see integration as an evaluative process of progressing meaning/love. You might be able to come up with a more apt and simple phrase, but whatever it is, its not 'balance',  if balance means all views have equal weight. 

I don't know if you have a family Charles, but what if one night the authorities came  and took away your wife/daughter/son to be imprisoned without trial, without any opportunity to defend themselves. Or, what say they were accorded a trial and won their case, only to then be told that they were going to be imprisoned nonetheless? The preventive detention measures that Obama's administration are planning will allow this. 

Would this be ok if North Korea, or China, or Russia, or Iran did this? Why is it ok for Americans to do it? Surely the very basis of America's claim to virtue is the rule of law under which all are equal?

The bottom line behind all your apologetics for Obama and his administration is that you're condoning the indefinite imprisonment of individuals without trial. Surely the right to trial is a fundamental human right. I can't imagine what you imagine to be a more important issue? You give no actual example.

The same lack of example is evident in your notion of 'strategy'. You give no actual instance of what you think Obama's strategy is. What do you think he hopes to gain in giving up the fundamental human right of innocent until proven guilty?

Frankly, I think its completely outrageous that the right to trial should even be considered tradable. How serious about that are you?

Damon

btw: this website sucks! slow, hard to find old posts, nested comments, comments only last a week or so

crap! .... :(