Abu Anas al-Liby Meets Obamalaw

Dear Mr. President,

Reading an article in today’s NYT (“How the U.S. Is Interrogating A Qaeda Suspect” p. A9) is like falling down the rabbit hole. When is invading another country not a crime of aggression? When Obama says it isn’t. When is a prisoner of war not a prisoner of war? When Obama says he isn’t. And when do the Geneva Conventions apply? When Obama says they do. So here’s Abu Anas al-Liby, indicted on criminal charges in NYC, an alleged high value Al Qaeda target, a citizen of Libya living in Libya, kidnapped by U.S. commandos off the street in Tripoli and spirited away to the waiting U.S.S. San Antonio in the Mediterranean where he’ll be interrogated without a lawyer present and without being informed of his rights. All this, the raid, the kidnapping, the rendition, the incarceration at sea, violates the Geneva Conventions, violates the sovereignty of another country, violates U.S. law and violates basic human rights. Your Nobel Peace Prize does not put you above the law, Mr. President. How is your refusal to abide by the Geneva Conventions any different than Assad’s? Or any other tyrant? You threatened to bomb Syria for Assad’s violation of the Geneva Conventions when his troops used chemical weapons on August 21. All that self-righteous talk about enforcing international law and the Geneva Conventions and yet you violate them every day with your targeted assassinations and drone strikes and 164 Guantanamo prisoners still held without charges. And now the case of al-Liby shines more light on your arrogant disregard of law. In your twisted logic, no laws protect al-Liby. He’s a member of Al Qaeda and therefore an “enemy combatant,” a category invented by Bush neocons to indefinitely incarcerate and brutalize prisoners. Holding prisoners of war at sea is explicitly forbidden by the Geneva Conventions; but you say al-Liby isn’t being held, he’s on a troop transport “in transit.” (Never mind it took more than 2 months to transit Warsame while he was being interrogated.) And while in transit a special team of agents is interrogating him with no witnesses or legal representation and when they finish with him, what the FBI calls a “clean team” of fresh agents will go through the interrogation process again, this time offering legal representation and informing him of his rights so they can use it in a court of law if they decide to prosecute. Or maybe they’ll take him straight to Guantanamo. Welcome to the world of Obamalaw. Welcome to the rabbit hole.