Obama Reverses Himself on Military Tribunals

President Barak Obama has decided to reverse his earlier decision to suspend military tribunals for suspected terrorists. In addition, he will continue to detain some terrorists indefinitely, without trial -- even on American soil!

Obama will make minor changes to the military tribunals, such as eliminating hearsay evidence, in returning to the policy of the Bush Administration that Democrats and liberals had criticized and that he had sought to eliminate. Some terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay will be released to foreign governments or tried in civilian courts.

The indefinite detention of terrorists who cannot be released to foreign states or tried in civilian courts represents yet another continuation of another policy of former President George W. Bush that was criticized harshly by Democrats, liberals and other civil libertarians. Obama had promised during the presidential election campaign to close down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, although so did his Republican opponent, John McCain. Indeed, even the Bush Administration had agreed to close it down. But Obama authorized the camp's closure early in his Administration without having announced any plan for what to do with the inmates there. Now the supposedly un-Bush president will continue with the indefinite detention of terrorists, which was the most controversial part of the Bush policy for terrorists captured on the battlefield abroad. The Bush Administration sent the detainees to Guantanamo because it is not U.S. soil, believing it to be out of the jurisdiction of the judicial branch. That the Obama Administration will detain the terrorists on American soil is all the more extraordinary.

As I have noted in previous posts, Obama is vindicating Bush by following most of his predecessor's policies after having been his harshest critic. Apparently, either Obama has concluded that Bush was right and he was wrong, or that the difference between him and Bush was more personal, that is to say, that the policies are good as long as Obama is the one who implements them, instead of Bush.

I should note that the military tribunal reversal comes just days after Obama reversed himself on the publication of photographs of excessive interrogations (not the enhanced interrogations currently in controversy, but ones that went beyond the legal limit, for which the perpetrators have already been punished) during the Bush Administration, apparently coming to the conclusion that the concerns expressed most vociferously by Dick Cheney, and echoed by the military's top generals responsible for the War on Terrorism, were valid.

Obama's decision on the photographs comes after his decision not to prosecute Bush Administration lawyers for their advice that the enhanced interrogations would not constitute torture. Both decisions disappointed liberal critics of the Bush Administration, although there remains the concern that Obama's consideration of prosecutions of interrogators and even lawyers (the latter of which would have been unprecedented) were sufficient to have a chilling effect on intelligence agencies, even though he eventually came to the right decision.

Obama's vindications leave only one significant policy change in the War on Terrorism remaining -- his elimination of aggressive interrogations and his publication of what techniques are permissible. But one change could be all the terrorists need in order to carry out their next successful attack.