The reality? Not so much. Meet the new Boss Obama, same as the old Boss Obama. According to Greenwald, we can...
- Expect expansions of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Expect ongoing wars and even some new ones.
- Expect to learn about secret wars already underway.
- Not reasonably expect Guantánamo to be closed.
- Expect Congress to issue a new AUMF. (This is already underway in the House Armed Services Committee.)
- Not expect Obama's executive-detention-without-trial policy to end.
Quoting Greenwald reporting on a letter from the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, among other org's:
We seem headed inexorably toward an executive-only government. I, for one, am not happy about that.In a joint letter to Congress, about two dozen groups -- including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights -- contended that the proposal amounted to an open-ended grant of authority to the executive branch, legitimizing an unending war from Yemen to Somalia and beyond.
"This monumental legislation -- with a large-scale and practically irrevocable delegation of war power from Congress to the president -- could commit the United States to a worldwide war without clear enemies, without any geographical boundaries" and "without any boundary relating to time or specific objective to be achieved," the letter warned.
i doubt if there will be an expansion in iraq. the administration has pretty religiously followed the timetable for withdrawal that was negotiated in 2008 and that obama endorsed as a candidate. that timetable calls for all troops to be out by the end of this year. it can be extended, but only by the invitation of the iraqi government and, so far at least, the iraqi government doesn't seem anxious to ask the u.s. to stay. but even if they do, it would probably just be an extension of the current force levels (which is about 1/3 of what we had in the country at the beginning of 2009) and not an expansion.
ReplyDeletethe obama administration seems to be using the iraq withdrawal as a counter-point to its more hawkist stances in afghanistan and libya.