Pentagon Roughs Up Obama

Here go the Washington games.

Yesterday, it became known that our President-elect may intend to issue an Executive Order during his first week in office which would order the closure of the Guantanamo Bay Military Prison.  According to Reuters, this information comes from an Obama transition adviser.  It’s a leak, pure and simple, but who knows if it was intentional.

What’s interesting is that the leak came on the same day after President George W. Bush was asked pointed questions about the degradation of America’s “moral standing” in the world during his administration.

Day Two

Today, another illuminating story from Reuters shines the light of political hardball played Washington-insider style.  This dispatch details comments made by Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell regarding the numbers of former Guantanamo inmates who returned to their alleged terrorist ways:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed and 43 suspected of “returning to the fight.”

He said the figures, updated at the end of December, showed a higher rate of recidivism than seen in a previous report showing 37 former detainees as active militants.

He provided no details about the detainees or their countries of origin.

“The overall known terrorist re-engagement rate has increased to 11 percent” from about 7 percent, Morrell said.

I guess you could call this the first Republican salvo in the war over who will become king of homeland security mountain.  If Obama were President today, the Pentagon wouldn’t be releasing such information.  It’s meant to have an effect.

The problem is, can we believe anything these guys say?  They trot out the number “61,” yet there are only 18 they say are confirmed to have returned to the fight.  What does the number of 43 suspected to have returned to terrorism mean?  If we could prove they were terrorists in the first place, would they have been let go?  There are other detainees at Guantanamo who are ready to repatriated but the U.S. cannot find a country willing to accept them.  These 43 were obviously accepted somewhere.

These numbers mean nothing in the absence of information regarding specific detainees.  This was raw politics.  One might consider it somewhat un-patriotic.  We have the guy who is almost president talking about a potential policy move.  A mere hours later you have the Pentagon casting doubt on the policy with numbers seemingly pulled from the air.

Welcome to Washington Barack Obama.  First order of business, fire Geoff Morrell.  Second order of business, call Secretary Gates for a dress-down on whose in charge.

Bush’s Last Stand – Or, You Won’t Have Bush to Kick Around Anymore

Bush Tells ‘Opiners’ to Pound Salt

Uh, Mr. President, it’s not just the media elite and a few Norwegians and Swedes over there in Europe who feel your Administration has eviscerated America’s moral authority.

The Real Clear Politics average approval rating for George W. Bush stands at 27%.  Check out the Pew Research World Opinion Map.  It doesn’t look like Mr. Bush is popular anywhere except for Tanzania and for some reason, India.

I only got to hear a bit of Bush today on the radio at work.  What I heard didn’t completely sound like the usual Bush newser.  There was a bit of wistfulness, but there was still a great deal of that Bush defiance.  Damn those who don’t agree with him, he’s right — just ask him.  You can check out the transcript here.

This was so much better than the sit-down interviews he’s done on all the networks.  Someone actually asked him, directly, what he thinks about President-elect Barack Obama and others who have said there is a lot of work to be done to restore America’s moral standing in the world. In part, he answered:

I’ve heard all that. My view is, is that most people around the world, they respect America. And some of them doesn’t like me, I understand that — some of the writers and the, you know, opiners and all that. That’s fine, that’s part of the deal. But I’m more concerned about the country and our — how people view the United States. They view us as strong, compassionate people who care deeply about the universality of freedom.

The first thing I thought when I read, “they respect America” is that perhaps the healthy respect you have for a beloved member of the family who is always there for you has been replaced by the fearful respect you have for the neighborhood bully when you’re a kid.  When I was surfing around looking for info on world public opinion I found this piece from The Guardian, a newspaper in London, U.K.  The story is about a group of newspapers around the world that banded together to do a world opinion survey during the latter days of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign.  This part was interesting when it comes to the fear factor:

Many people now fear rather than warm to America. In France 25% of voters say relations with the US are tense, against 38% who say they are friendly and 39% who think they are neutral. In Japan only 16% say friendship and 19% tension, with 62% neutral. In no country does a majority think relations should be described as friendly.

Even America’s two neighbouring states are sceptical of US intentions. Only 23% of Mexicans describe relations as friendly and 28% say they are tense. In Canada, which has just re-elected a Conservative minority government, voters are strongly supportive of a Democratic presidency; 43% say relations with the US are friendly and 14% tense.

Today may have been Bush’s Last Stand with the media, but America, brace yourselves, the long goodbye continues on Thursday night when we hear the 43rd President’s farewell address.  Let me guess, he’ll tell us that he’s right and the rest of us are wrong.