The big news last week was Barack Obama's executive order declaring that the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay will be closed in one year—maybe. But the interesting thing about this measure is that it is largely symbolic, not substantive.
Obama is unlikely to simply release men like, for example, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the main planner of the September 11 attacks. So instead, as a Wall Street Journal article makes clear, he is going to have to reconstitute some close equivalent of the current military tribunals and the current system of indefinite detention of al-Qaeda combatants.
Thus, this is likely to be a change in symbols rather than substance. But the symbolism is itself ominous. As Jennifer Rubin notes:"So in the end we'd have essentially the same legal system, extremely dangerous prisoners on US soil, and the same complaints from the civil liberties lobby. This is a peculiar type of change indeed, one attuned to the elusive and subjective feelings of "world opinion."
That hits the nail on the head. The real significance of the executive order on Guantanamo is that it is a symbol of Barack Obama's desire to tailor US national security to the demands of "world opinion."
Ask the Israelis how well that policy has been working out for them lately.
READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment