A Few More (Significant) Steps ...

... in reclaiming noble ideals of justice, civil rights, human rights and human decency.

Indeed, it looks like President Obama is quite serious and determined to make through on his pledge to close down Gitmo and other similar black holes of human decency and justice, as well as putting an end to renditions and indefinite detentions - in addition to having obtained already a moratorium on military commissions (emphasis added):

Obama signs orders to close Gitmo, shut secret CIA prisons

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed several executive orders that alter the Central Intelligence Agency's protocol for detaining suspects and interrogating them.

The move also ends the practice of secret CIA prisons (...).

Obama also signed an executive order to close within a year the US "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a White House official confirmed earlier.

White House counsel Greg Craig spoke to Democratic and Republican lawmakers late Wednesday and "told members of Congress to expect 'several' executive orders on Guantanamo Bay," the Washington Post said citing sources familiar with the briefings.

Reported the Post:

White House counsel Gregory B. Craig, who has spent the past several weeks drafting the orders, and discussed them with senior Democratic lawmakers in recent days, briefed House Republicans on Capitol Hill yesterday. Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) said Craig told members of Congress to expect "several" executive orders on Guantanamo Bay, including closure of the prison, but did not provide specific language.

(...)

Sources familiar with the briefings said Obama also will sign two executive orders altering CIA detention and interrogation rules, limiting interrogation standards in all U.S. facilities worldwide to those outlined in the Army Field Manual, and prohibiting the agency from secretly holding terrorist detainees in third-country prisons.

A revised version of the Army Field Manual was released in 2006, explicitly banning controversial techniques such as beating, using dogs to indimate them, electric shocks and waterboarding, which critics say is tantamount to torture.

The New York Times said the "orders ... bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years," and "also prohibit the CIA from using coercive interrogation methods."

However, loopholes may yet remain (emphasis added):

(...) an Obama spokesman told the New York Times that this won't prevent the CIA from capturing suspects and holding them in temporary detention -- leaving CIA policy slightly open-ended.

Which appears to be in step with the repugnant idea that there may be exeptions to allow torture.

Nonetheless, this overall constitutes a significant step in the right direction.

In the meantime, however, the usual suspects are not shy in showing their (strong) reluctance to let go of renditions, indefinite detentions and torture - by dishing out the fearmongering.

Here is one case in point (emphasis added):

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement that "there are important questions that must be answered before the terrorist detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay can be closed. The key question is where do you put these terrorists?"

How about in a regular maximum security prison should they be found guilty, you idiot?

Then there's this other "fine" example:

Unlike other conservatives, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has supported the goal of closing Guantanamo. However, on Fox News today, Graham whole-heartedly endorsed the “indefinite detention” of some Guantanamo detainees

GRAHAM: I do believe we can close Gitmo, but what to do with them? Repatriate some back to other countries makes sense, if you can do it safely. Some of them will be tried for war crimes. And a third group will be held indefinitely because the sensitive nature of the evidence may not subject them to the normal criminal process, but if you let them go, we’ll be letting go someone who wants to go back to the fight. … So we’ve got three lanes we’ve got to deal with: Repatriation, trials, and indefinite detention.

(...)

According to Graham, some detainees can’t be legally tried because of “sensitive evidence” holding them. In fact, as Ken Gude has explained, our criminal justice system is already equipped to hold full legal trials while protecting classified evidence and state secrets. Rather than a security concern, the real reason some detainees’ trials have been derailed is because the “evidence” against them was obtained through torture, and thus inadmissible.

Graham’s blunt language affirms his complete departure from his earlier, principled stance against the detention system set up by Donald Rumsfeld. In 2003, he joined Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in writing a letter to then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld urging him to immediately create a system “to formally treat and process the detainees as war criminals or to return them to their countries for appropriate judicial action.”

As late as last September, Graham supported at least some form of judicial process for military detainees, saying that “military commissions are the right approach to deliver justice and protect our nation in the War on Terror.” However, now Graham has apparently embraced the far-right notion that some detainees can be imprisoned forever, without legal recourse.

And here's yet another one (emphasis added):

With a new Washington Post-ABC News poll showing that support for closing Guantanamo is running at 53% to 42%, Fox & Friends has apparently decided that the best way to drum up opposition to closing the detention center is to terrify Americans with the prospect of terrorists being housed in their own backyards.

Even if it means spinning the news that their own network already reported correctly.

"I think this is going to be a case of 'be careful what you wish for,'" conservative columnist Michelle Malkin began on Thursday. "Obama pledged to have this done by the end of the year, then made sort of public announcements that in fact it would be much harder than he originally thought."

"This caused a huge backlash among a lot of the nutroots on the far left," Malkin continued, "and now we're seeing that the closer this nightmare becomes reality, the more there is public opposition to having these people in your own backyard. ... I think as more people have to reckon with the reality of these people being brought into their backyards and the very concept of jihadi recidivism becomes clear to them ... the opposition will grow."

Malkin focused in particular on a recent statement by Rep. Jack Murtha that "there's no reason not to put them in prisons inside the United States and just handle it the way any other prisoner's handled."

When a reporter asked if he would accept the detainees in his own district, Murtha replied, "I don't have a federal prison, I have a minimum security prison, but sure I'd take them. They're not more dangerous in a prison in my district than they are in Guantanamo."

Although even Fox acknowledges in its online reporting that Murtha clearly meant to say, "I'd take them in my district if I had a federal prison," the Fox hosts were quick to twist Murtha's words. Steve Doocy suggested mockingly, "Just put them in a minimum security work camp in a tent or something like that just outside Philly."

"Let's put them in Jack Murtha's house," Malkin added brightly, "and see how welcoming he is then."

"About Jack Murtha's constituents, I'm sorry, I just can't have any sympathy for them," Malkin continued, apparently already envisioning the prospect of jihadis freely terrorizing the Pittsburgh suburbs. "They're the ones who put this guy back into power. ... You reap what you sow."

Host Brian Kilmeade went even further than Malkin in adding the prospect of detainees from secret CIA prisons overseas and the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan being poured into the US legal system, as well.

"How soon do we hear of the secret prisons that should be shut down with al Qaeda and Taliban's worst?" Kilmeade asked. "How soon till we find out about the Bagram Air Base, with 800 of guys like this shut down? ... And how do we arrest people in the future if we're going to have to deal with these very sticky trials?"

Very sticky trials ...

Because, or course, due process, the law and the justice system overall are such a drag, such a waste of time, dontcha know.

And never you mind that the so-called jihadi recidivism is nothing more than pure, fear-driven fabrication.

Yet, there you have the essence of the madhating, savage "mob-rule" mentality.

Nothing new here from these primitive minds and their ilk, indeed.

As I said before, the uncivilized barbarians and their savage followers are still among us, folks.

Hence, we still have a long way to go ... a very long way to go.

One more case in point, right here in Canada (emphasis added; see also here):

Peter MacKay, commenting today on the latest developments in regards to Omar Khadr. “Clearly Canada, Mr. Khadr’s counsel and everyone involved in these cases will be reassessing their positions.”

The Prime Minister’s office, commenting shortly thereafter on same. “There’s no change in our position.”

And then today:

For the first time, the Conservative government is quietly budging from its vehement refusal to act on behalf of Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, with Defence Minister Peter MacKay saying the government is "reassessing" its position.

(...)

After the comments by Mr. MacKay - who went further than other federal officials on the matter - a government official explained that the Defence Minister was simply pointing out that Canada is "watching what the U.S. administration is saying very closely."

Senior federal officials said the Canadian government is still waiting to hear the Obama administration's final word on Guantanamo, pointing out that the 120-day delay does not fundamentally alter Mr. Khadr's trial. However, the Obama administration made its overall intent clear yesterday, circulating a draft executive order that calls for the Guantanamo Bay detention camps to be shut down within one year.

That is Prime Minister Harper dropping the ball - as expected for the utter incompetent that he keeps on demonstrating himself to be.

A long way to go, indeed ...


(Cross-posted at TWWL)