Because it’s obvious you still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Did you miss out on a basic American civics class?
Cenk Uygur speaks of “this bill” as if NDAA was something new and cruel and unusual. In fact, the National Defense Authorization Act is the Department of Defense budget. Congress has passed it 48 years in a row. It’s what they call “must-pass” legislation, like the debt limit, and so congresscritters often attach riders to it. There is a reason Congress is called the “sausage factory.”
The 2012 NDAA doesn’t “allow” indefinite detentions, it codifies indefinite detentions that are already going on. Gitmo! Hello? Nothing in the NDAA exempts American citizens from indefinite detention — because American citizens were never exempt from indefinite detention in the first place. Click here to see Americans being detained indefinitely.
I’m not defending the controversial sections of NDAA; they’re a shit sandwich. But Cenk, like an abysmally large fraction of the netroots, suffers from a delusion that someone in the White House ordered this shit sandwich off a door hanger menu from the John Yoo torture restaurant. Congress makes the NDAA sausage. This shit sandwich, like all shit sandwiches in Congressional sausage, came out of a committee.
In this case, that would be the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). And this is where a knot of confusion has formed, because during the Senate proceedings on NDAA, Senator Carl Levin said some things that have been used to turn the bill into OMG OBAMA HATES FREEDOM. Levin explained that the White House had requested removal of language that exempted American citizens from indefinite detention — because presidents can already detain Americans indefinitely during time of war (see: Constitution, Commander in Chief).
The White House threatened to veto the bill without changes. Senators had included language requiring military custody for all terror detainees, for example, an idea that makes as much sense as taking a stray dog to the National Guard armory instead of the pound. As the president’s signing statement on NDAA says, the indefinite detention provisions are an interference in Constitutional executive power.
What should have been the story of NDAA — Congress violating the separation of powers — became a very different story in the hands of a progressive media leveraging Obama’s name for false outrage and attention. Cenk has doubled down on his story; let him keep talking, because his tale doesn’t square with the very public war between president and Congress.
Said conflict is particularly destructive when it comes to indefinite detention. Someone wanted Obama to eat a shit sandwich on indefinite detention, and believe it or not there are Democrats involved. Yes, Cenk, Democrats can fight hope and change, too, but the Democratic president is not this problem.
The NDAA sections at issue were penned by Senator Jim Webb. Let us recall his greatest hits: he nixed resettlement of innocent Uighurs, thinks no detainees should come to the United States, lobbied for military commissions instead of civilian courts, and has actively pursued legislation to prevent civilian trials. His pals on the committee include Joe Lieberman, James Inhofe, and Lindsey Graham. Carl Levin is actually among a minority of SASC members who didn’t want to go there with NDAA, but opposition to Obama’s plans to close Guantanamo has enjoyed broad bipartisan support.
Eighty seven senators voted for NDAA. About eighty four percent of Americans appreciate the president’s laserlike focus on the destruction of al-Qaeda. Remember, the entire issue of indefinite detention begins and ends in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) — the United States has technically been at war for a decade. Everyone wants the war to be over, right? And while Cenk keeps talking, so does the president:
Now we’re turning the page on a decade of war. Three years ago, we had some 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, we’ve cut that number in half. And as the transition in Afghanistan continues, more of our troops will continue to come home. More broadly, around the globe we’ve strengthened alliances, forged new partnerships, and served as a force for universal rights and human dignity.
In short, we’ve succeeded in defending our nation, taking the fight to our enemies, reducing the number of Americans in harm’s way, and we’ve restored America’s global leadership. That makes us safer and it makes us stronger. And that’s an achievement that every American — especially those Americans who are proud to wear the uniform of the United States Armed Forces — should take great pride in.
This success has brought our nation, once more, to a moment of transition. Even as our troops continue to fight in Afghanistan, the tide of war is receding. Even as our forces prevail in today’s missions, we have the opportunity — and the responsibility — to look ahead to the force that we are going to need in the future.
At the same time, we have to renew our economic strength here at home, which is the foundation of our strength around the world. And that includes putting our fiscal house in order. To that end, the Budget Control Act passed by Congress last year — with the support of Republicans and Democrats alike — mandates reductions in federal spending, including defense spending. I’ve insisted that we do that responsibly. The security of our nation and the lives of our men and women in uniform depend on it. (Emphasis mine)
If the president declares mission accomplished, al-Qaeda destroyed, and the terms of AUMF fulfilled, watch as the Senate does its utmost to keep the war on terror going. And then we can talk about where the freedom-hating warmongers have lived these last three years (hint: it’s not on Pennsylvania Avenue).
