From the Washington Post today (link):
President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the "war on terror," as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless.While Obama says he has no plans to diminish counterterrorism operations abroad, the notion that a president can circumvent long-standing U.S. laws simply by declaring war was halted by executive order in the Oval Office.
Key components of the secret structure developed under Bush are being swept away: The military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration's lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.
No more torture
First and foremost, it gives us hope that the United States will no longer explicitly and publicly engage in actions which constitute torture in the mind of any objective observer. Furthermore, by dismantling the infrastructure which has allowed rendition and illegal detentions to take place, Obama is institutionalizing America's commitment to the rule of law and providing a public accounting of our nation's attempt to regain a position of moral clarity.
The question of executive power
Obama is seen as entering office with a great deal of power despite the challenges facing him. He won the election by seven million votes and six percent, as clear a mandate as any president has had in recent history. He has a solid Democratic majority in the House and a nearly veto-proof majority in the Senate. His approval rating is hovering at around 80 percent. And on a more intangible level, it seems clear that many of his supporters backed him because he was such a compelling, powerful, inspirational, and regal figure - because he seemed to embody leadership itself. As such, the country is emotionally ready to have a president who acts powerfully, especially at a time rife with both economic crises and national security challenges.
And yet at the same time, one of the major questions to be answered by Obama involves a legacy of the Bush administration: the question of executive power. In the wake of 9/11, (and probably in private beforehand), Dick Cheney and Bush promoted the idea that the president was hardly bound by anything - that he was in essence above the law. It was not unlike Louis XIV's famous invocation that he was the law - "L'etat, c'est moi," or "I am the state." Cheney went so far as to promote the idea of a "unitary executive" who had unchecked power, and even said that his office was outside of the Executive branch so as to avoid having to report who he was holding conversations with.
Bush also sought to literally make himself exempt from laws passed by Congress through the use of so-called "signing statements," which he issued far more often than past presidents. Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe reported on this phenomenon as far back as 2006.
And of course, all of this supposed executive power, coupled with the leeway in public opinion following September 11th, enabled Bush to implement a broad-reaching regime of abduction, detention, and torture that involved hundreds if not thousands of terrorism suspects in numerous countries spanning nearly seven years. It was the most grievous example of his style of government and his belief that the President of the United States could take any necessary action if he deemed it necessary to protect national security. It should be noted that similar actions by past presidents - such as Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus during the Civil War and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II have been judged extremely harshly by history and by future public opinion.
Obama campaigned directly and stridently against Bush's disavowal of the rule of law and cavalier approach to civil liberties. As such, he faces the challenge of having to reign in his own branch of government despite coming to power at a moment in history in many ways conducive to an expansion of that power.
Yesterday's news makes it clear that he may very well make the right decision. He seems willing to begin the reigning in process by once again making the president beholden to the same laws as everyone else. It's a greatly encouraging sign. And he's phrasing it in a way that makes the rule of law look more powerful the Bush's anarchy - which, of course, it is. As he said yesterday (link):
"We think that it is precisely our ideals that give us the strength and the moral high ground to be able to effectively deal with the unthinking violence that we see emanating from terrorist organizations around the world," Obama continued. "We intend to win this fight. We're going to win it on our terms."
Are we still at war?
The third issue raised by Obama's recent actions involves the very idea of a "war on terrorism," or the more grammatically inaccurate and intellectually vaguer "war on terror" so often espoused by Bush. The concept itself has never faced enough scrutiny, although some have spoken out against it. In March of 2007, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote an editorial in the Washington Post which articulately and succinctly took it to task:
The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.
It was therefore of some note that Obama did not use the phrases "war on terrorism" or "war on terror" during his inaugural address. But this in and of itself does not mean that what Dana Priest writes today - that the "war on terror" is officially over - is correct.
Firstly, with all of the numerous challenges facing us abroad, from global warming to hunger, disease, and poverty, the public's psyche must be re-introduced to a world in which efforts to prevent terrorism do not constitute the singular thrust, focus, and objective of American foreign relations and domestic security operations, as was the case under Bush.
Furthermore, Obama must begin to break down the siege mentality put together by the previous administration, in which for year after year, the White House told us that another attack was imminent unless its policies were accepted whole-heartedly - and that even then, we might still be hit.
And finally, combating terrorism must by reintroduced as a goal rather than the desired outcome of a "war." As many commentators and analysts have written, terrorism is a tactic, and tactics can't be defeated in the same way as armies can. There is no "terrorist army" to defeat - terrorist organizations don't count. As such, a "war on terror" has no end, and could extend in perpetuity, extending justifications for an assault on American morality and liberty in perpetuity as well. Bush wasn't the first to use the "war" paradigm - just think of Johnson's "war on poverty" or Reagan's "war on drugs." But what was different this time was that while previous presidents had used "war" to mean "struggle" - not unlike the meaning of the Arabic phrase jihad, as has been noted by some - Bush actually used "war" to mean war. He invaded countries, set up detention facilities, and acted as if a foreign force was massing on the horizon. And he wanted the American people to see their silhouette and be afraid.
Besides taking legislative actions like those just implemented by Obama - disavowing torture and closing Guantanamo, for example - and besides changing military and intelligence gathering policies to shift the struggle against terrorism away from its wartime footing, disassembling the walls of this intellectual cage requires the use of language as well.
Humorist David Sedaris once mocked the phrase "war on terror" by noting that if we were now conducting wars on emotions, then perhaps a war on shyness would be next. Indeed, it is long past time to retire these words. Obama didn't say the offending phrase two days ago, but he has used it constantly in the past, as have his surrogates. And when White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked yesterday at his first press conference whether we should read anything into Obama's linguistic decision, he flatly rejected the idea. Such a response is regrettable. Obama's the greatest political communicator of his generation. This is a chance for him to use his abilities to a much needed effect.
In just 48 hours, the President has already taken great strides towards freeing our minds from the past. But it remains to be seen just how free he intends to help make the American body politic. His language and actions during the coming months and years will provide an answer.
