The Lucid Line

In what  is swiftly becoming  a characteristic behavior, on March 1, President Barack Obama, via a Supreme Court victory, successfully danced around yet another pressing national issue to avoid confrontation before midterm elections.

Since his presidency began, Obama has been faced with the problem of dealing with Guantanamo detainees who, for one reason or another, have been cleared of all charges but are still too dangerous to enter into the mainland U.S.. Most recently, a group of seven Chinese Muslims (known as Uyghurs), detained in Gitmo but acquitted of all charges, appealed to the Supreme Court to allow them to entry into the United States. The detainees, all of whom have been offered asylum in other countries and five of whom have refused those offers, desire entry into the U.S. for a variety of reasons, but mostly for the protection offered against their own communist government, which will likely torture them as terrorists should they return to their homelands.

As pressing an issue as this is – it is simply unjust to have acquitted people in custody for seven years – Obama recently suggested that since these detainees have been offered asylum, the fundamental facts of the case have changed and the issue being appealed is now moot or unworthy of consideration at this time.

Moot points in the Supreme Court are tricky, and it seems the court uses moot point arbitrarily. Roe vs. Wade was an abortion appeal by a woman who had already given birth, to give one example. So we must ask: Why has the Supreme Court chosen, in accordance with the administration’s wishes, to dismiss this particular case (Kiyemba vs. Obama) on these particular grounds, when the issue of releasing detainees will likely have to be considered again anyway when the other 200 need to be released?

Well, we know what the president’s motivations are: He would like to avoid the hot issue of releasing detainees into U.S. territory because midterm elections are looming. His party is not likely to win any seats as it is, let alone if it has to withstand the heat of national security hawks should he allow such detainees into the U.S. A Supreme Court decision allowing this to happen would anger independents and Republicans; forcing them back to China would alienate the Democratic base. Obama has no good recourse except avoidance.    

Does Obama’s advocacy of dismissing this case make the president a coward? Probably. To be sure, the president did not create this problem: President Bush was dealing with it for years before Obama had even begun campaigning. However, the grim fact remains  that many detainees are locked up in Gitmo, some of them unjustly, and we need a decision as to where those detainees can go, who can send them there, and when they can do so. The president has shown that his administration, which has the constitutional authority to admit or refuse foreigners, is not willing to make such a decision at this time largely for political reasons, and would rather leave that duty up to the Supreme Court, which seems all too willing, in this case, to complicitly skirt the issue.

Obama is selling out for his party. The wise voter would do well to keep this cowardly incident in mind when Obama inevitably harks on his bipartisan, independent appeal once again in 2012.