Obama's anti-terror stance has some of his supporters fuming

Navarrette: Obama's anti-terror stance has some of his supporters fuming

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

When it comes to the war on terror, or what his administration has rebranded the "Overseas Contingency Operation," President Obama has matured quickly and has come to grips with some unpleasant realities.

Too bad the same can't be said about some of his disillusioned supporters, especially pundits and others in the media. They expected the president to repudiate George W. Bush's policies, not adopt them as his own. Yet they still don't feel comfortable criticizing Obama. So that requires some rhetorical finessing.

As an example, consider James Carville, a fixture on Washington Sunday talk shows. Asked during an appearance on ABC's "This Week" if he agreed with Obama's decision to reserve his earlier consent to releasing photos showing purported prisoner abuse at U.S. military facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democratic strategist insisted that he had no complaints.

"As a Democrat I'm very happy that he decided to listen to his commanders," Carville said, noting that Obama had made his reversal after military leaders said the photos could endanger U.S. soldiers on the battlefields.

I don't recall Carville looking so favorably on this argument when it was coming from conservatives such as former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Uneasy advocates

Obama's not getting as much sympathy from advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and others.

Those groups are furious now that the Obama administration is considering adopting a policy for which the Bush team was harshly criticized — suspending habeas corpus and holding terror suspects indefinitely and without trial. It's being marketed as part of a plan to improve upon the military tribunals conducted for prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Under this scenario, however, some of the prisoners would be held on U.S. soil since Obama has vowed to close the military prison.

Members of Congress cried foul over the prospect that terrorism suspects could be detained in their districts, so the administration tried a different tack. Attorney General Eric Holder recently told a congressional committee that if the administration had proof that a prisoner intended to harm the United States, "we will do all that we can to ensure that that person remains detained and does not become a danger to the American people." But the minute a government official says something like that, they're negating the possibility of a trial because trials sometimes end in acquittals after which the accused is free to go on his way. If the administration isn't prepared to risk that, there's not likely to be a trial.

'Illegitimate' ideas

The advocacy groups caught it. The ACLU said in a statement: "These military commissions are inherently illegitimate, unconstitutional and incapable of delivering outcomes we can trust." Human Rights Watch said: "By resurrecting this failed Bush administration idea, President Obama is backtracking dangerously on his reform agenda." Human Rights First added: "Reinventing commissions so deeply associated with Guantánamo Bay will merely add to the erosion of international confidence in American justice, provide more fodder for America's enemies."

This isn't the first time that the Obama administration has disappointed civil libertarians. Last month, after releasing Bush-era Justice Department memos spelling out the legal justification for enhanced interrogation techniques that some label torture, the president initially signaled that he wasn't interested in prosecuting the lawyers who wrote the legal opinions. Saying he wanted to look forward and not backward, Obama seemed ready to put the matter to rest. But, under pressure from the left, the president flipped and said the question of whether to prosecute was for Holder to decide.

Before that, Obama signed an executive order preserving the CIA's authority to carry out "rendition" — the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to other countries where some of them claim to have been tortured. The Obama Justice Department also took the position — identical to that of the Bush administration — that the 600 prisoners at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention and tried to quash — in another example of cutting and pasting Bush policy — a lawsuit challenging the government's rendition and warrantless wiretap programs.

These are the same policies that Bush's critics used to howl about because it made them feel morally superior. Now, as they continue to lend their support to a new president traveling down a familiar road, they should just feel foolish.

Ruben Navarrette Jr is a San Diego Union-Tribune columnist.