XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: just.a.cheap.quota.punk@harvard.edu   
      
   Michael B. Mukasey was U.S. attorney general from 2007 to 2009.   
      
   The seeds of what blossomed grotesquely in the Rose Garden last   
   weekend — a celebration of the release of five senior Taliban   
   military leaders in exchange for a U.S. sergeant purported to be   
   a deserter — were sown a long time ago: on the second and third   
   days of President Obama’s first term, to be precise.   
      
   On his second day in office, the president signed an executive   
   order directing that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be   
   closed.   
      
   You can watch the cringe-inducing video of the signing ceremony   
   on YouTube, as the president stumbles through a reading of the   
   order to close the facility “consistent with the national   
   security and foreign policy interests of the United States and   
   the interests of justice,” signs with a flourish, and asks then-   
   White House counsel Greg Craig, whether there is a separate   
   executive order describing what is to be done with the   
   Guantanamo detainees; Craig is heard to reply off camera that “a   
   process” will be set up, whereupon the president repeats   
   solemnly into the camera that “a process” will be set up.   
      
   The following day, the president met with congressional leaders   
   to discuss his economic stimulus. When Republican House whip   
   Eric Cantor offered some suggestions, the president reminded him   
   and others of the vanquished who were present that “elections   
   have consequences” and “I won.”   
      
   The president apparently hadn’t thought through how he would   
   accomplish the goal and serve the interests he had announced.   
   But he had indeed won.   
      
   Fast forward, and characteristically the Obama administration   
   has apologized only for the least of the president’s   
   transgressions in this sorry affair: his failure to consult   
   Congress 30 days in advance of freeing any Guantanamo detainees,   
   as required by the National Defense Authorization Act.   
      
   At the time the president signed that law he issued an   
   accompanying signing statement taking the position, I believe   
   probably correctly, that the law is unconstitutional as a   
   restriction on his Article II executive powers.   
      
   However, his own criticism of his predecessor for alleged misuse   
   of executive authority apparently left him diffident about   
   relying on that, so he relied instead on two excuses with   
   neither legal nor factual basis: concern for the rapid   
   deterioration of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s health, which does not   
   explain why no notice was given; and simple neglect due to the   
   rush of events, which contradicts the first.   
      
   It is difficult to believe that the president actually   
   understood last weekend the enormity of what he had done. All   
   the details of how Bergdahl left his unit may have to be teased   
   out in the setting of a court martial, but it has long been   
   known that he was a malcontent who had sent his belongings home   
   well before the day in June 2009 when he left his unit in   
   Afghanistan, that he wrote that the army he served in was a   
   “joke” and that he was ashamed to be an American.   
      
   Was the president perhaps not aware that desertion is an act   
   viewed with such seriousness under the Uniform Code of Military   
   Justice that in wartime it can carry the death penalty?   
      
   Every one of the five detainees released from Guantanamo, as   
   reported by Tom Joscelyn in The Weekly Standard, is not only a   
   senior Taliban official, but also someone who has trained with   
   and coordinated fighting with al-Qaeda before 9/11.   
      
   Which is to say, at precisely the time when his administration   
   is trying to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in a way that at   
   least will not threaten the safety of those who remain behind   
   until the end of 2016, if not beyond, the president has provided   
   skilled strategic planners to the Taliban; at the time when it   
   is the administration’s announced intention to separate the   
   Taliban from al-Qaeda, the president has provided the Taliban   
   with military leaders who have a history of close ties with al-   
   Qaeda.   
      
   Was he aware of that when he presided over a Rose Garden   
   celebration?   
      
   In one respect, however, the freeing of these five with the   
   retrieval of Bergdahl as a cover makes the goal the president   
   announced on his second day in office easier to achieve,   
   although it is hard to think that he would have been so cynical   
   as to have consummated this ghastly transaction with such a   
   thing in mind. Because these five are by far the worst Taliban   
   detainees housed at Guantanamo, the freeing of the remainder   
   could be seen as a trifle in comparison.   
      
   What can be done about all of this? I think not much.   
      
   One of the “consequences” that elections have is that there are   
   now available only three ways to deal with executive misuse of   
   its actual authority. One is the power of the purse. However,   
   there is no expenditure that Congress could deny or undo that   
   would undo the damage that has been wrought.   
      
   The second – closely related to the power of the purse – is the   
   oversight authority to look into how government resources are   
   being used and whether legislation is necessary. Congressional   
   hearings ordinarily might be expected to have at least the   
   benign effect of embarrassment, but that presupposes the   
   capacity for embarrassment.   
      
   The third is impeachment, which cannot be seriously undertaken   
   absent a national consensus for it, and none seems now to exist.   
      
   It looks like all that is left is providence. It’s long been   
   said, although by whom is uncertain, that God protects   
   drunkards, little children and the United States of America.   
   Let’s pray that whoever said it was right.   
      
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-b-mukasey-the-   
   ghastly-transaction-that-freed-sgt-bowe-   
   bergdahl/2014/06/04/325d9780-ec04-11e3-93d2-   
   edd4be1f5d9e_story.html   
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)