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Phil Carter's Resignation from Key Detainee Policy Post
Phillip Carter is a lawyer, a former Army Captain, a veteran of the Iraq War and a very harsh critic of the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies. He was a vigorous supporter of Barack Obama's campaign, and in 2008, became the Obama campaign's National Veterans Director. In April of this year, he was appointed the top Pentagon official for detainee affairs, but yesterday, he suddenly "quit without explanation just days after Obama confirmed in an interview with Fox News in Beijing that his administration would miss its Jan. 22 Guantánamo closure deadline."
Carter said he was resigning due to "personal issues," and -- like Greg Craig before him -- remained loyal to Obama by refraining, at least thus far, from publicly criticizing any administration policies. I have no idea what actually motivated Carter's abrupt resignation, but here's what I do know: so many of the detention and other "War on Terror" policies Obama has explicitly adopted were the very same ones which Carter (as well as Obama) repeatedly railed against during the Bush years, in Carter's case primarily in blogs he maintained both at The Washington Post and at Slate. Whatever else is true, the policies Obama has adopted in the last six months in the very areas of Carter's responsibilities were ones Carter vehemently condemned when implemented by Bush.
Last week, the Obama DOJ announced that it would deny trials to several Guantanamo detainees and instead send them to military commissions. In May, 2008, Carter condemned military commissions in general as "fundamentally and fatally flawed" and argued that "the rule of law will prevail only if they are perpetually blocked." He cited a trial in a "civilian court" (his emphasis) of accused terrorists that had just been held by France -- "using a combination of open and sealed (i.e., classified) evidence to prove the defendants' guilt in a six-day trial" -- and argued the U.S. should copy that model: exactly the "civilian court" model the Obama administration has decisively rejected for many, perhaps most, detainees.
More notably, in a separate post from April, Carter harshly condemned the Bush administration's decision to use a military commission to try Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, accused of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania. Carter suggested that trying detainees for "war crimes" for pre-2001 acts violates the Constitution's ban on ex post facto punishments (since the U.S. was not at war at that time), and independently, he objected to "the deliberate decision to take this case away from federal prosecutors," arguing that "our default choice for the prosecution of suspected terrorists should be federal court" because "the substantive and procedural due process granted by federal courts has strategic value -- it confers legitimacy on the outcome." While the Obama administration commendably sent Ghailani to New York to be tried in a civilian court, it just announced two weeks ago that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, whose case originated as a criminal investigation with the FBI, would now be turned over to a military commission for prosecution in connection with the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole -- raising all of the serious objections Carter voiced to the Ghailani case.
Carter had also voiced serious concerns over the Bush DOJ's use of the "state secrets" privilege as a means of evading vital constitutional and other legal questions -- only to watch the Obama DOJ do the same thing. He insisted upon a distinction between conventional wars of the past and the "War on Terror" when claiming presidential power -- pointing out that conventional wars have limits and come to an end and the "War on Terror" doesn't -- only to watch the Obama administration discard that distinction and instead adopt exactly the Bush/Cheney "war" theory as a means to detain people with no charges. During the campaign, he expressed excitement over what appeared to be Obama's stated willingness to prosecute Bush officials for war crimes, only to watch Obama, once elected, quickly insist that we should Look Forward, not Backward. Relatedly, Carter advocated real consequences for DOJ torture-approving lawyers such as John Yoo (specifically, his firing from Berkeley), only to watch the Obama administration take multiple steps to protects such officials from any legal consequences. He applauded the Bush Pentagon's cancellation of a key appointment of Gen. Jay Hood to Pakistan on the ground that Hood had presided over Guantanamo and was thus "tained by torture," only to watch Obama appoint the highly tainted Gen. McChyrstal as his commander in Afghanistan.
As I said, I have no idea whether any of this played a role in Carter's resignation, and it's certainly possible that loyalty to Obama would prevent him from voicing these complaints. He's a thoughtful analyst who is not easily pigeon-holed and I don't want to attribute ideas to him he hasn't expressed [for instance, Carter supported the work I did on the Pentagon's military analyst program but also defended Obama's vote for telecom immunity, though on the ground that the Government should be held accountable for illegal spying (another position the Obama administration has undermined)]. But what is abundantly clear is that many of the Bush/Cheney policies which Carter found most offensive are ones which the new administration has explicitly adopted as its own. Equally clear is that, following Greg Craig, this is now the second high-profile resignation of a relatively devoted civil libertarian in a short period of time. Combine that with the still-missing-and-unconfirmed Dawn Johnsen, and all of this leaves those who are indifferent or hostile to civil liberties values -- people like John Brennan and Rahm Emanuel -- with even fewer counter-weights than before.
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8 Comments so far
Show AllIt's a shame that we can't have these folks tell us the reasons for their departure. This applies not just to Carter, but others in the current and previous administrations. We learned a lot about the reasons for the political firings of US Attorneys only because one of them was so angry that he spoke up. We belatedly learned why General Peter Pace was not re-appointed to head the Joint Chiefs and Admiral William Fallon decided to take retirement.
They were both forced out because they kept interfering with the neo-con plan to attack Iran. The nation owes them a great debt of gratitude. We are lucky that the nation still has enough people who are willing to dig deep enough to find the true motives for sudden resignations or departures.
Their loyalty should be to the country, not the president. It just perpetuates the good ole boys club.
"Combine that with the still-missing-and-unconfirmed Dawn Johnsen, and all of this leaves those who are indifferent or hostile to civil liberties values -- people like John Brennan and Rahm Emanuel -- with even fewer counter-weights than before."
I doubt that. I'm sure they resigned because they were hobbled from the get-go; they were never allowed to be counter-weights to Brennan and Emanuel so why bother sticking around and collecting the salary? Their resignations were probably the strongest statement they were allowed to make and, unlike their advice inside the WH, this was public.
I honestly struggled to "take to" candidate Obama, especially because at the time someone who seemed to share my vaguely radical politics jumped on the Obama bandwagon and urged me to jump aboard.
During that period, I hadn't yet firmed up my nagging presentiment that Obama is a corporate lawyer on the make.
As I explained to the "someone"-- thus precipitating an unforeseen, unprecedented, and still-uneasy hiatus in our political dialogue-- my wedged-open mind slammed firmly shut when Obama castled behind his right rook after winning the primary, as I saw it, and began "reaching out" exclusively to neoliberal Clintonista hawks to fill his prospective administration.
This was before Obama's embrace of repressive FISA legislation-- and both the banksters and the bailout(s) they rode in on.
My optimistic interlocutor had become imbued and enthralled with Pragmatism at this point. It imparted a methamphetamine-like ability to spew forth supporting rationalizations: Obama is "Jackie Robinson", and doesn't dare put a foot wrong; Obama has to "consolidate the party", and can't afford to associate with "left"ish politicians and thinkers; remember, people like us are really an infinitesimal part of the electorate, and Obama has to reassure the troubled yahoo masses and their formidable bloc of Elected Misrepresentatives and media demagogues...
It's not that all of the above is mere nonsense. It's all valid "inside politics" analysis, as far as it goes. However, my interlocutor used these rationalizations to buttress the still-popular fantasy that beneath the calculation, Obama is a Good Man with a Sophisticated Intellect undertaking a selfless, altruistic quest to restore Amerika to a virtuous, law-abiding nation.
I'm not sure if he's since considered the disconcerting and inconvenient truth that for Obama, there is no "beneath the calculation"-- that despite the illusion of depth of intellect and character, Obama is as much of an amoral realpolitik narcissist as his predecessor.
So: it may be that Carter resigned to Spend More Time with His Family©, as his beer-and-sushi buddy linked in a comment here affirms.
But IMO, my Obama-friendly interlocutor proved to be quite wrong in his first guess that Obama was merely seeding his administration with reactionaries and sucking up to Republicans, wingnuts, and yahoos as a "first step".
In fact, it seems to be turning out that it's the mildly-progressive, civil-libertarian, unorthodox members of the administration who were tacked on to woo progressive support, and who have systematically been hung out to dry ever since.
Dawn Johnsen may be the exception that proves the rule, and I suppose that if she is at long last miraculously appointed-- no thanks to her boss-- Glenn will accordingly Praise Obama despite the prospect that the manner in which she's been left to twist slowly in the wind has vitiated her authority and perhaps fatally compromised her effectiveness right out of the gate.
I'm still rooting for Dawn, but more as one rooted for the 1979 Iran hostages to be set free-- come what may, at this point it's a stretch to see this appointment as a Triumphant Dawn.
IMO, the steady drip of left-leaning and unorthodox persons from the Obama maladministration is no coincidence. Matt Taibbi has pointed out that Obama
has done the same thing with his economists: after Obama's wholesale embrace of the bankster class, "innovative" economists, e.g. Austan Goolsbee and even Paul Volcker were internally banished to Siberian committees in favor of neoliberal Wall Street financiers.
It's become obvious that Obama's decision to castle behind his right rook was no temporary campaign-based strategy. Obama loves the castle, and is pleased to be our King.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Well, there's something to be said for having someone so articulate as Greenwald speak in one's stead, but if Carter brought 0bama into office and now knows better, he owes it to a lot of people to
find
------ his
----------- voice.
Sioux Rose
What's the name (Vance?) of the fellow that left his post monitoring environmental developments? He, too, was too principled for a position that requires adherence to a dance macabre series of minuets of protocol, all motions lacking substance. I think it shows that some still own moral fiber that they can walk away from these high-status positions because the price of their souls goes beyond what any mundane salary can counter.
"Sioux Rose"
I think you are referring to Van Jones.
Back in the Carter administration, Cyrus Vance, then Secretary of State, resigned when Carter began playing "Mr. Macho".
It is cold, but the volunteer calendulas are still blooming.
Sioux Rose
BIRDBRAIN: Yes. It's Van Jones. Anyone who's genuinely honest AND principled has no place in the Obama free-fall/free-trade/free warfare/free big pharma/free bankers' rights ONLY administration. Thanks for refreshing my memory.