Commuted

With only three days left in office, President Obama has finally done the right thing and commuted Wikileaks source Chelsea manning's prison sentence:

In the most audacious – and contentious – commutation decision to come from Obama yet, the sitting president used his constitutional power just three days before he leaves the White House to give Manning her freedom. She will walk from the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on 17 May, almost seven years to the day since she was arrested in a base outside Baghdad for offenses relating to the leaking of a vast trove of US state secrets.

[...]

Manning, who is a columnist for the Guardian, was the face of one of the harsher aspects of the Obama administration, as an official leaker who suffered under his approach a longer custodial than any other whistleblower of modern times. She was one of several leakers who were prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act – with more individuals falling foul to that anti-spying law than under all previous US presidents combined.

Manning is a hero who should never have been prosecuted. Her leaks exposed US murders and human rights abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the globe. Instead, the US jailed her, then tortured her in prison with prolonged solitary confinement and denial of essential medical care. Because that's what the US is now: a human rights abusing torture state.

Meanwhile, Obama is pretending he can't pardon NSA leaker Edward Snowden, because he hasn't "presented himself in court". To point out the obvious, neither did Nixon - but a US president could pardon him for his crimes against the constitution. But I guess exposing US wrongdoing is more of a crime than undermining the US's democracy in Obama's eyes.

New Fisk

Air strikes? Talk of God? Obama is following the jihadists’ script

New Fisk

The eyes of the world are trained on Israel. But will there be anything to see?

Hope in the US

Yesterday, like everyone else, I was watching the US election, wondering whether Republican cheating and vote suppression would be enough to give them the White House. It wasn't. Some people think Obama's re-election made the world a better place, but they're fools. In case anyone has forgotten, Obama is pro-war, pro-torture, pro-drone-strikes, pro-extrajudicial murder. Yes, Romney was even more in favour of these crimes, but at best Obama's re-election has not made the world any worse than it already was. The fact that this is all we can expect from "the leader of the free world" at the moment is a sad commentary on the state of US politics and its attitudes towards the rest of the world.

There was however some genuinely good news yesterday, which did show that America, and the world, was becoming a better place: Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington all voted to legalise same-sex marriage. And voters in Minnesota, faced with a proposed amendment to their state constitution which would outlaw same-sex unions, rejected it. The tide of bigotry and hate in the US appears to be turning. And that, rather than the re-election of a failed President, is a genuine reason for hope.

Obama backs equality

US President Barack Obama has finally gotten off the fence and come out in support of same-sex marriage:

Obama said he had been swayed in particular by considering the service of gays and lesbians in the US military. "At a certain point I just concluded, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," Obama said.

[...]

In the interview, Obama said he had always been adamant that gay and lesbian people should be treated fairly and equally. But he added: "I had hesitated on gay marriage, in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient … something that would give people hospital visitation rights and other elements we take for granted. And I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word marriage was something that evokes powerful traditions, religious beliefs, and so forth."

There's an obvious irony here of Obama, a black man, thinking that "separate but equal" was OK for gays. But its good to see that he's moved past that. And while his support is "only symbolic "(because its not as if the US President can, like, set federal government policy or anything), its one hell of a powerful symbol.

So, where's Labour on this? Last election, they avoided the topic. Their supposedly "pro same-sex marriage" rainbow policy (included here [PDF]; get it before it disappears down the memory hole like the individual release) couldn't even bring itself to use the phrase "same-sex marriage", promising only to "review and update relationship and relationship property law". Meanwhile, their politicians called it "a peripheral issue" and that Civil Unions were enough and they were "not intending to make further changes". Charitably, they were deceitful, trying to send different messages to different groups (something which no longer works in the age of the internet). Less charitably, they had decided to throw gays under the bus. Either way, it was a display of the chickenshittery that made them not worth supporting.

Wouldn't it be nice if our major "progressive" party was actually progressive, and not afraid to say so, rather than skulking and trying to hide its moral principles?

An actual death panel

The committee meets in secret, and keeps no records. It operates by no fixed rules, only a mandate: decide which citizens outside the country are enemies of the state. When they make such a decision, the President is informed, and if he agrees, the victim is targeted for assassination.

No, its not the Soviet Union, or some totalitarian dystopia. It's the United States of America under Barack Obama:

American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

This is, of course, completely unconstitutional - the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits individuals from being "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Which is presumably why they don't keep records - they would be evidence of conspiracy to murder.

Sadly, this being the modern US, the chances of anyone being held to account for this are around zero. In the US, laws apply to poor black people, not to presidents and their cronies. We saw that with Bush and his torturers, and we will see it with Obama and his assassination squad.

New Fisk

Lots of rhetoric – but very little help

New Fisk

President's fine words may not address the Middle East's real needs

This doesn't solve anything

As I type this, I'm waiting for President Obama's already long-delayed late-night address, in which he is expected to announce that Osama bin Laden has been assassinated. As with the execution of Saddam Hussein, it was morally wrong, and it is unlikely to resolve anything.

On the first point, everyone deserves a fair trial, and no-one deserves to be executed. That applies to monsters like Saddam Hussein, and it certainly applies to mass-murderers like Osama bin Laden. Killing people for their crimes is wrong. Killing them without a fair trial is worse. It is not justice; it is murder. Those taking satisfaction in it, are vengeful sadists, with the ethics of kitten-strangling psychopaths who kill for pleasure.

(Phil Goff is apparently one of those psychopaths. I will not support anyone who supports extrajudicial execution, and such a person is unfit to hold a seat in the New Zealand Parliament, let alone be its Prime Minister).

Secondly, while Americans are already cheering the death, it doesn't actually solve anything. This is the real world, not a fantasy novel. The world is not suddenly set to rights because the Dark Lord is dead. To point out the obvious, the Taliban are fighting their own war, not bin Laden's; they are not going to lay down their arms because an old man is dead. Likewise, al Qaeda as an organisation isn't going to magically disappear with bin Laden's death, and the long war he has started is not going to end - not as long as the US keeps murdering innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It will be justice, not murder, which ends that terrorist campaign.

The only positive aspect of this is that it now gives the US an excuse to declare victory in Afghanistan and go home, and cease providing more recruits for terrorist networks with their presence and impunity. The sooner they do so, the better.

Guantanamo: Obama fails

During the 2008 US presidential election campaign, Barack Obama ran on closing Guantanamo and ensuring everyone there received a fair trial. One of his first acts after assuming office was to order that the prison be closed within a year. That didn't happen - and now two years later, Obama has ordered the resumption of kangaroo courts to "try" Guantanamo inmates.

This is a complete reversal of policy, a backdown on one of Obama's fundamental promises which shows that when push comes to shove, he does not believe in justice or human rights. Having come to office pledging to reverse Bush's policies, he is now continuing them. Its Obama in a nutshell, really - a disappointment.

Obama appeals for bigotry

It's official: the Obama Administration is appealing for the US military's homophobic "don't ask, don't tell" policy to be retained. Their reason?

President Barack Obama has said he supports getting rid of the policy, but his administration believes that overturning it immediately could cause problems for the military.

I expect people said the same thing about desegregation back in the 50's. But then, the government realised that its most pressing duty was not to make life easier for racists, but to immediately end discrimination. President Eisenhower didn't ask for more time to implement Brown v. Board of Education - he sent the army to Arkansas to enforce the constitution and ensure that kids could go to school regardless of the colour of their skin.

With this appeal, Obama has shown that he is not the man that Eisenhower was. He's a mouse, unwilling to stand up for his beliefs, unwilling to take the opportunities to implement the change he campaigned on. He doesn't stand for change or hope - just for the same old bigotry.

"Change"

President Obama was elected on a platform of change. He promised to repeal the US military's bigoted and discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" policy. So why is he appealing to preserve it?

Instead of change, it looks like Americans are instead getting more of the same.

Obama approves extrajudicial execution

The New York Times reports that President Obama has approved the "targeted killing" of radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki lives in Yemen, but he was born in New Mexico. So Obama has just approved the assassination of an American citizen.

There is a name for the officially sanctioned killing of people without trial or evidence: extrajudicial execution. And it is contrary to the rule of law and to Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a party. When other countries do this, the US State Department screams bloody murder, and rightly so. But I guess, like torture, extrajudicial execution is OK If You're An American.

Except its not. Judicial execution is fundamentally wrong; extrajudicial execution doubly so. Ordering your citizens summarily murdered because they oppose you is the sort of thing kings do. but I guess that's all the US is now: a petty tyranny dressed in democratic clothing.

Underwhelmed by "reform"

While I was focusing on the government's plans to dig up our national parks yesterday, there was an even more dramatic political landmark in the US: the US House of Representatives passed President Obama's healthcare reform package 219 - 212, extending healthcare to 32 million Americans.

This is an enormous change in the US, and it means Obama will go down in history not just as the first black President, but also as a President who actually did something. But to foreign eyes, the "reform" seems somewhat underwhelming. In NZ, as in the rest of the civilised world, if you get sick, you get treated, and the government pays. Oh, there may be some waiting if surgery is "voluntary" (meaning "not immediately life-threatening"), but that's the general principle. Healthcare is seen as a public good, like sewers and a fire service and a welfare system - something necessary for people to get on with their lives. Private health insurance is for stupid people who don't know they don't need it (alternatively, snobs who don't want to mingle with the hoi polloi), or for people with cosmetic surgery addictions.

The US sees healthcare as a private good, and so their health infrastructure is centred on privately-owned insurance companies and hospitals. Obama's reforms work within this framework rather than tearing it down, and so the expansion is achieved primarily by requiring people to buy insurance, coupled with tax credits to help them do it. There is some expansion of government-funded healthcare, but its mostly a giant subsidy to the insurance industry.

(Oh, and the price of this reform? Preventing federal subsidies from being used for abortions. But if all insurance programs are (or are potentially) subsidised, then this means that abortion will suddenly become a lot less accessible. Oh, it will still be legal - just unavailable in practice. Thanks, Obama).

As healthcare goes, this is a crazy way to do it - a bastard hybrid of public and private which will primarily benefit insurance companies. And it makes you wonder why the government didn't just set up its own "insurance" provider / health funding agency, and avoid paying for the profit of grasping insurance companies. These Americans really are crazy...

This is a joke, right?

Obama wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

As much as I admire the guy, he has been in office for a mere eight months. During that time he has continued the wars started by his predecessor, and looks set to escalate one of them. Though I suppose he hasn't started any new ones, which makes him fairly peaceful as US presidents go. Still, if that's the new standard, hell, I haven't started any wars recently. Can I have a Nobel peace Prize too?

New Fisk

Police state is the wrong venue for Obama's speech
Most Arabs know this speech will make little difference

New Fisk

Obama falls short on Armenian pledge

Obama protects torturers

Today, President Obama released the evidence needed to convict Justice Department lawyers John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Stephen Bradbury of conspiracy to torture, in the form of previously classified memos authorising torture and providing guidelines for its use. But in the same breath, Obama also ruled out any action being taken against the torturers who implemented those techniques. They had acted "in good faith" and on legal advice, and therefore should not be held accountable. In other words, Befehl ist Befehl - "they were only following orders". The US rightly rejected this attempt at blame-shifting at Nuremberg, and the hypocrisy of them accepting it now to protect their own who have been involved in crimes under US and international law is astounding. but its worse than that - because Obama didn't just promise to protect the US's torturers - he praised them. From his statement:

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.

Oh yes - unknown heroes who have Sacrificed To Save America - by torturing people, waterboarding them, threatening to rape and murder their children, and in some cases even killing their victims in the process. So, I guess Obama approves of torture after all. And then, to cap it all off, he says this:

The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals.

...by excusing those who violate those laws and ideals from any threat of justice. That noise was my hypocrisy meter overloading.

This just makes it clearer: the US will not act to uphold its obligations under the Convention Against Torture, so the international community will have to do it for them. There is universal jurisdiction for torture, and any CIA torturer who sets foot outside the US should expect to be arrested and tried. And the same should apply to President Obama - because by taking a stand to protect his torturers, he's just made himself a co-conspirator.

New Fisk

So far, Obama's missed the point on Gaza...

Change, and rhetorical pyramids

And so its done. President Obama has been sworn in, and Bush and Cheney consigned to the dustbin of history. And so a village in Texas gets its idiot back. Couldn't they have reclaimed him sooner?

As for the speech, I'm struck by the sheer weirdness of American political rhetoric. It reads like something from the nineteenth century or Battlestar Galactica - all Bible quotes and historic mission and shaping our destiny and tested by god. It's difficult to imagine any New Zealand politician saying anything like this with a straight face - or a New Zealand audience not simply gawping at its purple pomposity. But then, we see our country as a place we live in, not some great historical project. We know our unimportance, so we are not obsessed with its "greatness" and whether it will wax or wane. And whether it "continues" or not we see as a decision for outside forces, or (on a sufficiently long time scale) geology - not the politician d'jour.

Basically, we don't care about leaving a mark on history. New Zealanders aren't the sort of people to build pyramids (though we have built a henge). Americans are. And that's what their political rhetoric is best seen as: rhetorical pyramids. Don't they understand we have Google now?