Obama’s Pentagon review: Gitmo meets the standards of the Geneva Conventions

posted at 4:35 pm on February 20, 2009 by Allahpundit

When does the military’s compliance with international law qualify as bad news? When you’re a new president desperate for excuses to follow through on a dopey campaign promise that’ll please your nutroots base and no one else.

Oh well. Back to the “it just looks bad” argument.

A Pentagon review of conditions in the Guantanamo Bay military prison has concluded that the treatment of detainees meets the requirements of the Geneva Convention but that prisoners in the highest-security camps should be allowed more religious and social interaction with each other, according to a government official who has read the 85-page document.

The report, which was ordered by President Obama, was prepared by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations, and has been delivered to the White House. Obama requested the review as part of an executive order on the planned closure of the prison at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba…

Walsh concluded that … force-feeding, which involves strapping prisoners to feeding chairs and forcing tubes down one nostril and into their stomachs, is in compliance the Geneva Convention’s mandate that the lives of prisoners must be preserved, the government official said.

Actually, insofar as this gives The One a handy alternative to expanding our renditions program, it does mean good news for him — or rather, it would if the left still cared about renditions, which they haven’t since January 20th. Exit question: With opposition to closing Gitmo already near majority levels, the media had better keep this as quiet as possible, huh?

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davidk on May 20, 2013 at 6:20 AM

I’m starting to believe there isn’t anything too far fetched to believe with this administration. I remember the Jack Ryan incident. The crazy part? The Illinois GOP powers-that-be backed away and then destroyed their own candidate. The Dems play for keeps. The GOP doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to fight them.

Ajackson, great information and analysis, as usual.

I still just sit here and shake my head. This is crazy, futuristic dystopian stuff going on in this administration and so many people are oblivious to all it. And, Obama’s minions find it “offensive” to challenge him. *shaking my head*

Fallon on May 20, 2013 at 8:31 AM

I’m starting to believe there isn’t anything too far fetched to believe with this administration.

Fallon on May 20, 2013 at 8:31 AM

Fast and Furious alone already told us this, and that’s just one head of 0dumba’s hydra!

Keep your popcorn ready – there’s more to come!

Anti-Control on May 20, 2013 at 8:36 AM

Senate Judiciary – Immigration amendments
http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/

House Gov. Reform Oversight Hearings – IRS Wed. 5/23
http://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-announces-irs-hearing-next-week/

Commerce (HHS)
http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/look-ahead-committee-announces-hearing-schedule-week-may-20

workingclass artist on May 20, 2013 at 8:45 AM

davidk on May 20, 2013 at 6:24 AM

Could Borowitz actually parody Zero with those QUOTES, and get away with it ?
Did Preezy truly say those things ?
Praps I need to suffer through the address, to know for sure ?

pambi on May 20, 2013 at 9:11 AM

Bingo: Obama and the IRS: The Smoking Gun?

According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st.

This scam is being run through the greedy-union management structure, which thanks to an Executive Order signed by the REB, cannot be FOIA’d.

The Republicans have to put the greedy-union org structure on the wall and work their way through it like Mafia investigators do.

slickwillie2001 on May 20, 2013 at 9:15 AM

President Obama’s professed ignorance of the targeting of conservatives by one government agency and his support of tracking journalists’ sources by another highlight one of the great paradoxes of his presidency: Sometimes he uses his office as aggressively as anyone who’s held it; other times he seems unacquainted with the work of his own administration.

I nominate this one for the Butterfield Effect award.

Maybe we should help the writer out?

It’s called plausible deniability. He uses the office more aggressively than anyone who’s ever held it, then pretends ignorance when caught. Fortunately, absolutely no one is so stupid as to buy the innocent act.

Oh, wait…..

There Goes the Neighborhood on May 20, 2013 at 10:19 AM

Just four months after his second inauguration, the president is buffeted by gushing investigations, smug and deranged Republicans, and cat-who-ate-the-canary conspiracists. The man who promised in 2008 to make government cool again is instead batting away charges that he has made government “Nixonian” again…

It turns out that Treasury officials knew during the 2012 campaign that an investigation into the targeting was going on. But, enhancing his image as a stranger in a strange land, the president said he learned about it from news reports on May 10. Then he waited three days to descend from the mountain and express outrage…

The president should try candid; wistful and petulant aren’t getting him anywhere. The Republicans who are putting partisan gain above solving the country’s problems deserve a smackdown.

Speaking of awards, this one ought to win Maureen Down an “unintentional humorist” award. The president targets his political enemies, and the only outrage she can muster is those nasty Republicans who are, in her mind, taking advantage of the scandal.

There Goes the Neighborhood on May 20, 2013 at 10:22 AM

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