The point is that Obama doesn't believe the same. I think they believe that what they have to do to correct all of the problems they inherited they don't need the all consuming media circus an investigation would be. For one thing they would lose all of the bipartisan support they have enjoyed so far.(this is intended to be a joke).

I don't think that any presidency has ever been co-oped by the corporate/military/industrial/wall street forces as quickly as this one has, even before they took office. It took Clinton a good year.

This is not just a moral issue, Merkin. The planners and perpetrators of these acts broke the law. They committed war crimes. The U.S. prosecuted and hanged people after WWII for the same crimes that now have suddenly become just “moral” issues, or not even that.

I'm not advocating hanging anyone. I oppose the death penalty just as I oppose torture. But the people responsible for designing and carrying out these acts should (and according to the law, MUST) be tried in court and, if convicted, punished accordingly. There's never a convenient or a good time for this. But there's really no other option unless the U.S. wants to continue to be an outlaw nation.

Thank you, Leonidas.

No Kathy, Thank you for bringing it to my attention and that of others. I am quick to criticize your arguments when I disagree, it would be hypocritical of me to remain silent when I fully concur.

he U.S. is apparently unable to govern itself and live up to the principles espoused in the Constitution.

Agreed. For me the first great failing was Marbury vs Madison where the US Supreme Court awarded itself unilaterally the power of “judicial review” without a Constitutional authority to do so, there have been many more since then.

We were attacked by terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. Terrorists such as these have two goals. First, to terrorize the civilian population, destroying their sense of security, forcing them to think every day about the terrorists and the possibility of another attack. And second, to provoke the authorities into overreacting to the attack to prolong its effect and justify it to the terrorists' true audience, in this case the Muslim world, and increase their base of support.

While there is little doubt the 9/11 terrorists accomplished both goals it is the second where they were most successful and that we are still dealing with today. Imagine, this ragtag group, with mere millions of dollars, forced the largest, most powerful country in the world to declare war on them, dramatically elevating their status, scope and support far beyond what they would have had as common criminals. .

The heights of evil our reaction elevated the terrorists to meant when we started the wars we didn't want to call those captured in them prisoners of war because they would have to be repatriated when the war was over, which we were certain would be just a few short weeks. And there was an ideological barrier to treating them as criminals since anyone with common sense can see that judges and the courts are soft and would just set them free to go out onto our streets where they would rape our women and destroy our manly essence. (Sorry, I have learned that some miss sarcasm unless you lay it on really thick)

So we decided to ignore the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions and ended up with enemy combatants, non-persons, who would be considered mistreated under either document.

And now we have to decide what to do with them. And we have decided to take the path of least resistance and go the way that involves continuing the fiction of the enemy combatant. And avoiding investigations and any trials of the people who dreamed up this mess, including civil suits.

I think this path has been taken because the thought is that there are enough other messes left to clean up, combined with problems put off far to long, to spend time wallowing in the past, no matter how satisfying it might be.

It is very important to re-establish the United States’ moral position. But I think in this case it has been decided to do this rhetorically, through moral leadership rather than action. The irony is that by resorting to the principle of pay attention to what I say, not what I do, the President is using the primary tool of his political opposition.

Personally I don't see how you avoid these problems in the future if you don't pursue the people responsible. But at every turn so far the President has been practical, taking what he can get, rather than ideological, stand on principle and get nothing.

It has taken me so long to write this I have missed the discussion. I redefine the word slow. Normally I don't post these when the discussion has gone so far past me but I think there are a few different slants in this post.

And I didn't include Bagram because I wanted to focus just on this particular decision in this post. There are different kinds of posts — some are more wide-ranging than others. I just wanted to write about this decision. Doesn't mean I don't know or understand about the continuing issues at Bagram.

Edited to add: I think maybe because of the “not persons under the law” part of the ruling, and the brazenness of saying we expect detainees to be tortured. I actually had not seen those sentiments expressed that baldly before. I was very upset, and I just wanted to focus on those particular arguments. It does really bother me that we seem to learn so little from history, from our own national experience. It's Dred Scott all over again. I just don't understand how that happens. It's like Americans forget everything that happened before their own conscious awareness, and the wheel has to be reinvented every damn time.

Let me say something I rarely feel inclined to do:

Good post Kathy.

P.S. You should have mentioned the Bagram issue as well.

The Huffington post makes the observation ster quoting the same section of the Obama speach as you do:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-shearer/the…

Very moving, until you read that paragraph again and notice the missing word. He boasts of ordering Guantanamo Bay prison, but leaves unsaid the name of the American prison where our detainees have not only been mistreated, but have been killed. The name is Bagram, our prison in the compound of our large Air Force base in Afghanistan. It has been remodeled and spruced up lately, but it is still a place that exists outside all law, not covered by the Supreme Court decision that “gave” habeas corpus back to Gitmo detainees.

The President's continued refusal even to say the word, to name the place, to include it in his fine-sounding call to an American role as a “standard bearer” renders the rhetoric empty, the nuance devious, the intellect derailed. He continues this country's recent tradition as a sub-standard bearer until he dares to confront the challenge of Bagram.