Key coordinator of detainee policy quits

[chill_wind]

Source: WAPO

Key coordinator of detainee policy quits

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

A key official in the Obama administration's effort to remake detention policy and close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay has resigned.

Phillip Carter, who was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy in April, said in a brief telephone interview that he was leaving for "personal and family reasons" and not because of any policy differences with the administration. He tendered his resignation Friday, Pentagon officials said.

Carter, a lawyer and Iraq war veteran, was responsible for coordinating global policy on detainees.

He has helped craft policies that will allow hundreds of prisoners held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan to challenge their indefinite detention under a new review system. Carter was also involved in the administration's effort to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which holds 215 terrorism suspects.

His departure comes at a critical moment for the administration, which is trying to find a location in the United States to stage military tribunals and place some of the Guantanamo inmates in indefinite detention. He spoke last week at a community forum in Thomson, Ill., the site of a maximum-security state prison that the administration is seriously considering to house some detainees from Guantanamo.

(...)

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/24/AR2009112402503.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[chill_wind]

1. Glenn Greewald commentary

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x498181

[pattmarty]

2. Oops!! Starting to look more and more of "change we CAN'T believe in".........................

And, he gave the standard "personal and family reasons" defense. Whenever ANYONE in any administration gives that excuse, you can bet it WASN'T for THAT REASON.

[sudopod]

3. HAHAHAHAHA

"change we can't believe in," jeebus you're a clever one!

[pattmarty]

4. I wasn't born rich, so I guess I have to depend on "clever", right?

[Igel]

8. I'm not so sure.

True, people change, but he was smart, driven, and disciplined. And also a firm believer in saying nothing if he couldn't say the truth. It made him a formidable opponent when he was a UCLA Bruin reporter, and while we really, really wanted him to just move to another country and take up roof thatching as a profession the only complaint we could have was that he was everywhere, relentless, and merciless. Which made him a dandy reporter at the time.

He wasn't one to take a bullet for no reason when I knew him a long time ago. It had to serve a really important purpose. Just covering for Obama is probably not important enough. Advancing something he truly believes in would be--and while Carter believes in Obama, I don't think he reveres him. There sort of was that aspect to his personality, and it could have grown. But the burden of proof is on the person saying it *has* grown to demonstrate this. The people he all but revered he revered because of what they did or were doing, not their status as a symbol.

If the words that he left for personal and family reasons came out of his mouth, I can't just assume that he's another mealy-mouthed politician like the rest of them in DC, saying whatever is politically expedient, revising "spin the bottle" to "spin the truth"--with the first one left naked losing.

[EFerrari]

5. I wonder if this is related to the Blackwater program in Pakistan. n/t

[chill_wind]

9. I wonder, too.

Very abrupt. Several accounts that he stop reporting to work, catching the PR people a little flat-footed. And he's not talking.

[EFerrari]

11. Or, it could be more simply Gitmo related. Thanks for putting up the story.

[chill_wind]

12. I've been reading his older essays and past positions

on lots of key issues in the Bush Era at Intel Dump, trying to get a handle on him.

Yes, he condemned on some vital points and policies, but I'm not exactly ready to lionize him yet, on certain closer readings.


Still reading...

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/inteldump/

[chill_wind]

6. The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/guantanamo/story/1350400.html

[chill_wind]

7. NYT, UPI, McClatchy, Wired

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/us/25gitmo.html

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/11/25/Man-handling-Gitmo-closing-resigns/UPI-94911259160836/

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/washington/story/79479.html

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/why-phil-carter-left-the-pentagon/

[chill_wind]

10. Did this just get *unrec'd?* A top policy official in the Obama admin

resigns, stops showing up for work, the WH has no statement-- and this is not acceptable LBN news or stuff for reading or comment?

:wtf:

[Solly Mack]

13. K&R

Isn't this the 2nd one to quit? Not from the same position but both dealing with detainee policy...

[chill_wind]

15. Yes. And it could just be he couldn't deal anymore with the Bush whacks

after watching Craig go down, too.

"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."

(Glenn Greenwald-- link upthread-- wrote more)

[Solly Mack]

16. Thanks!

[chill_wind]

17. The Fall of Greg Craig...

and his final days. (3 pages)

It's a pretty depressing narrative.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1940537-1,00.html

[chill_wind]

18. ps thanks, Solly Mack.

[libodem]

14. Dollars to doughnuts

We have a few permanently insane, physically broken, shells of human beings that we can't foist back out into the world. Say, like the guy they put into a barrel of freezing water until his lower extremities froze off. Where do we send him, his skate board and tin cup? I heard of him in a story about fully armed, jack-booted, shielded guards, going into a cell to get him, his stumps in bloody, puss-laden filthy bandages, 6 big guards going in to kick his ass, and drag him from a cell.

I'm sure the list goes on.