Obama Dishes Up A Cup Of Same Old Same Old

What a colossal disappointment. Remember when Barack Obama was going to severely curtail the use of the "state secrets" doctrine, throw the windows open, and let the sun shine in, dispersing Bushco's unnecessary secrecy? Forget about it. That was just eyewash.

Yesterday in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit the Obama Justice Department astonished the three judge panel by sticking with Bushco's "state secrets" argument in the case of Binyam Mohamed. The New York Times reports:

In a closely watched case involving rendition and torture, a lawyer for the Obama administration seemed to surprise a panel of federal appeals judges on Monday by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration.

In the case, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian native, and four other detainees filed suit against a subsidiary of Boeing for arranging flights for the Bush administration’s “extraordinary rendition” program, in which terrorism suspects were secretly taken to other countries, where they say they were tortured. The Bush administration argued that the case should be dismissed because even discussing it in court could threaten national security and relations with other nations. ... snip

...a government lawyer, Douglas N. Letter, made the same state-secrets argument [as Bushco made] on Monday, startling several judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“Is there anything material that has happened” that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.

“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied.

Judge Schroeder asked, “The change in administration has no bearing?”

Once more, he said, “No, Your Honor.” The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.

There you go. This is "thoroughly vetted." These are "authorized positions." It's the same old. It's not exactly change you can believe in, at least not in this case.

Said a spokesperson for the Obama Justice Department:

A Justice Department spokesman, Matt Miller, ... seemed to suggest that Mr. Obama would invoke the privilege more sparingly than its predecessor.

“It is the policy of this administration to invoke the state secrets privilege only when necessary and in the most appropriate cases,” he said, adding that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had asked for a review of pending cases in which the government had previously asserted a state secret privilege.

“The attorney general has directed that senior Justice Department officials review all assertions of the state secrets privilege to ensure that the privilege is being invoked only in legally appropriate situations,” he said. “It is vital that we protect information that, if released, could jeopardize national security.”

That review, folks, isn't worth a cup of warm spit. Evidently, it doesn't matter that the court papers

describe horrific treatment in secret prisons. Mr. Mohamed claimed that during his detention in Morocco, “he was routinely beaten, suffering broken bones and, on occasion, loss of consciousness. His clothes were cut off with a scalpel and the same scalpel was then used to make incisions on his body, including his penis. A hot stinging liquid was then poured into open wounds on his penis where he had been cut. He was frequently threatened with rape, electrocution and death.”

Evidently it doesn't matter that everybody in the world already has access to virtually everything about Binyam Mohamed's illegal extradition, torture, and continuous confinement. Pointing out how widely reported Binyam Mohamed's case has been, Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., told the judges that what the government was trying to keep secret by asserting the "state secrets" doctrine isn't secret at all. The details of the administration’s "extraordinary rendition program" (read: illegal extraditions) have already been told, as have how those facts applied directly to the plaintiffs. “The only place in the world where these claims can’t be discussed,” Mr. Wizner said, “is in this courtroom.”

Maybe the moderate/liberal panel of the Ninth Circuit that heard this case will overturn it. I hope so. But my disappointment at the position taken by the Obama Justice Department leaves me shaking my head in sorrow. This isn't change we can believe it. It's not old wine in new bottles. It's just the same old same old. And it still stinks.

The Finger Wags And Moves On

I'm afraid that, when all is said and done, I don't understand blog reactions and what makes something a big story on blogs and in the traditional media. And no, I'm not complaining about the response to my eight pieces about the federal death penalty or how many people signed the petition. This isn't about me. Not at all.

It's about something astonishing. Now appearing on the recommended list of docuDharma is a piece by Valtin, US-UK Torture Cover-up, While Conditions Worsen at Guantanamo (Updated). It's about the rendition and imprisonment and yes, torture, of Binyam Mohamed and the suppression of information in his UK legal case. It's extremely important to read the entire essay.

In the essay, I find alarming items about torture:

The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did," the official said.

This statement was in the original essay before it was updated and it remains there. When the essay was cross-posted at at GOS, I wrote as a comment in response to the quote:

How in the world can you have this line in a diary and have the diary receive as of this writing 21 comments and 27 recommendations? I don't get it. Why isn't this story all over dKos? Why isn't there a ruckus about it?

Maybe somebody can enlighten me.

The GOS diary ultimately received a total of 34 comments and 47 recommendations. It should have been on the recommended list and it should have had 1,000 indignant comments and recommendation. But, alas, it didn't.

I cannot understand or accept that.

When the diary was updated here at dd, it contained further information from Reprieve, a UK human rights group, about the torture of Binyam Mohamed:

On 21 July 2002, Binyam was rendered to Morocco on a CIA plane. He was held there for 18 months in appalling conditions. To ensure his confession, his Moroccan captors tortured him, stripping him naked and cutting him with a scalpel on his chest and penis. ...snip

Binyam's ordeal in Morocco continued for about 18 months until January 2004, when he was transferred to the 'Dark Prison' near Kabul, Afghanistan, a secret prison run by the CIA, which resembled a medieval dungeon with the addition of extremely loud 24-hour music and noise.

Speaking of his time in the 'Dark Prison', Binyam said:

"It was pitch black, no lights on in the rooms for most of the time. They hung me up for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb. There was loud music, Slim Shady [by Eminem] and Dr. Dre for 20 days. Then they changed the sounds to horrible ghost laughter and Halloween sounds. At one point, I was chained to the rails for a fortnight. The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night. Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors, screaming their heads off."

From there he was taken to the US military prison at Bagram airbase, and finally, in September 2004, to Guantánamo Bay, where he remains.

This is a report of horrific, brutal, barbaric, illegal treatment. There cannot be any debate about whether this is or is not torture. It's torture plain and simple.

Yet, I don't see the ruckus about it. I don't see it breaking through in the traditional media. I don't see a serious response of outrage on the blogs. If you google "binyam mohamed," you see that virtually no US media are discussing this case. I simply cannot understand or accept that.

I may be sorely out of step with others on this. So be it. As I've said before, I'd rather be out of formation than off course. I just don't understand how this kind of torture can be exposed, and how the US can suppress information about it in UK courts, and why we, that's you and I, aren't up in arms about this and pushing the story into the sunlight.