Appeals court does what oil industry wants in Louisiana

If you know what you're doing in the legal world and you have plenty of resources, you can pretty much always find a judge, or judges, willing to do whatever you want. So it was no surprise Thursday when a federal appeals court in New Orleans enjoined the Obama administration from implementing a six-month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The three-judge panel upheld a judge's ruling last month that struck down the moratorium as too broad and unfair to the fishing industry, and agreed that it should not even be enforced during the months it will take for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, according to the New York Times. Lawyers for the U.S. Department of the Interior had argued that the catastrophic BP oil rig explosion and massive leak made the moratorium necessary; industry representatives contended the suspension of drilling was crippling economically and should not be enforceable while their lawsuit challenging it was pending. Of course, ordinary people may find it impossible to imagine a situation where immediate and drastic government intervention is more appropriate -- a highly technical operation on a mass scale gone awry, causing incalculable and continuing environmental damage. Ordinary people might think that such a situation is precisely why the government is necessary. But the oil industry is not ordinary people; apparently, neither is Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who opposed the stay on economic reasons even though the leak has rendered the Louisiana coast virtually unusable and, apparently, destroyed the Gulf fishing industry. Then again, the appeals court ruled that the Interior Department had not proven that it would suffer irreparable injury if drilling operations were not halted like the administration was demanding. It's hard to argue against that proposition, even though the sea bottom drilling operation that blew up and killed a dozen workers has so far resisted all efforts at repair. After all, there are 3,000 drilling platforms in the Gulf, and only one of them has ever exploded and caused a catastrophic oil spill.

Use of military contractors continuing in Afghanistan

How quickly they forget! News from Washington that a subsidiary of the private security company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide had been awarded a contract worth as much as $120 million to protect U.S. diplomats in two cities in Afghanistan should be a cause of alarm to people of principle everywhere. A U.S. State Department official confirmed Saturday that U.S. Training Center had won the 18-month contract, according to Cable News Network (CNN). It could very well be that, on some level, U.S. Training Center was the most qualified bidder, like the official said. But it doesn't take a genius to realize that hiring the former Blackwater to do anything else in U.S. war zones overseas raises the specter of the horrific 2007 shooting of 17 civilians by company guards in Baghdad. Military prosecutors are still pursuing criminal charges against five guards in connection with the shooting, which forced the military to reconsider the use of private contractors in Iraq. But, apparently, not seriously enough, if the military is using them in Afghanistan, too. Why the guards are even necessary has not adequately been explained, not with tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers on the ground, and soldiers of many other nations, in both countries for years. Americans who had hoped for more accountability from their government after the dangerously secretive Bush administration are surely disappointed by the new Obama administration's lack of candor about the continuing troop deployments. Employing another subsidiary of Blackwater, even though it changed its name to Xe Services. It's time for the U.S. government to come clean with the American people about how many contractors are operating in both countries and how much more money it is costing to use them instead of U.S. soldiers.

U.S. government starts making sense on Blackwater

Why it took a change in administrations in Washington to get top congressional officials to start thinking again is a little hard to understand, yet there we are. We're discussing, of course, letters sent to top Obama administration officials by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a fellow Democrat, asking whether controversial military contractor Xe Services, the former Blackwater Worldwide, should be barred from bidding on future Iraq contracts, according to the Washington Post. Blackwater, you recall, is the Myock, N.C., company that has been paid billions of dollars over the past 7 years to provide support services for U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. But several well-publicized shooting incidents in Baghdad, including one that resulted in the deaths of 17 civilians, made the company the object of scorn in Iraq and nearly brought down the newly restored Iraqi government. So, wouldn't you expect past performance to be at least one major factor in the selection of bidders for a new $1 billion contract to train a new national police force in Afghanistan? That's the context in which Levin (D-Michigan) wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the only Bush administration holdover in new President Barack Obama's cabinet. "The inadequacies in Blackwater's performance appear to have contributed to a shooting incident that has undermined our mission in Afghanistan," Levin told the Post in an e-mailed statement. It's been a long time since we've heard U.S. officials speak so honestly about the company. Last May's incident, in which two Blackwater contractors allegedly killed two Afghani civilians and wounded a third, damaged relations between the local population and U.S. forces. The military sees strong relations between troops and Afghani citizens as vital for securing the country and putting down a stubborn al-Qaida insurgency. A Xe Services spokesman said Levin's query was appropriate and welcome. "We are confident that Xe's record of service in training thousands of security personnel in Afghanistan demonstrates the company's strong record of supporting critical U.S. government initiatives in Afghanistan, which are essential in advancing the United States national interest," said the spokesman, Mark Corallo, in an e-mailed statement. The Pentagon's Bryan Whitman said there was no effort within the military to ban Xe Services, as far as he knew, and it would be legally allowed to submit a bid on the Afghanistan contract. Levin's second letter, to Attorney General Eric Holder, called for an investigation into whether Blackwater tricked the Army into awarded it a separate $25 million contract to train police in Afghanistan by creating a shell company named Paravant. Corallo said military officials knew Paravant was a Blackwater subsidiary when the contract was awarded.

The government is really on trial in Padilla case

Word from San Francisco that the Obama administration is pressing for the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by an infamous terror suspect should come as no surprise to anyone. As everyone has seen in the past 12 months, last year's historic change at the top of the U.S. government did not mean that everything would be completely different from that point on. The government is involved in so many things, it is not possible -- nor desirable -- for all of them to change immediately. When it comes to lawsuits already in process, like the one filed by the family of Jose Padilla against University of California Professor John Yoo, the government cannot reverse positions without considerable legal maneuvering. Anyway, even if the government wanted to change course, it could, and maybe should, simply rely on the legal process to force that change. Even given that, it is not always clear what the government's best interest is. Take the Padilla case. You remember Padilla, right? He is the U.S. citizen accused of plotting with al-Qaida to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb in the United States in 2002. Padilla was declared an "enemy combatant" by the Bush administration and isolated in a U.S. Navy brig in South Carolina for more than three years. His and, his family's lawsuit alleges, was subjected to the kind of corporal mistreatment that Yoo, then a U.S. Justice Department lawyer, contended was not torture in a now infamous memorandum in 2002, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. According to allegations in the lawsuit, Yoo was subjected to sleep and sensory deprivation, kept for long periods of time in total darkness and blinding light, and threatened with the deaths of himself and his family if he didn't talk to U.S. interrogators. This is the kind of mistreatment the United States and scores of other nations agreed to eliminate in treaties signed after World War II. But Yoo's 2002 memo theorized how the Bush administration could possibly justify mistreatment of detainees while maintaining that the United States adhered to international treaties pledging that it would not engage in such conduct. The Padilla family lawsuit sought token damages against Yoo, contending that he had personally authorized the mistreatment, the Chronicle said. But the United States -- then the Bush administration, now the Obama administration -- contends that there is no legal right to sue lawyers who give advice to the president on issues of national security. That is not an insignificant point, and is probably correct. It will be interesting to see if the federal courts can resolve the question without deeply limiting access to the court system that citizens authorize and pay for. Yet the legal machinations are obscuring what is the fundamental issue here -- the United States mistreated detainees in violation of its own laws and its international obligations. The Obama administration is fighting the claim because that's what lawyers do when sued -- fight until and unless an honorable settlement becomes clear. And what about Padilla himself? The government withdrew the dirty bomb charges and put him on trial for an unrelated conspiracy, for which he was convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison, even though he likely has gone insane while incarcerated -- if he wasn't insane already. So, whether Padilla's family can sue or not, all the legal arguments in the world cannot change that the U.S. government's reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks went beyond the bounds of civilized conduct. The people have already spoken and replaced the Bush administration -- it's time for the legal system to stop obfuscating and start putting the responsible officials on trial.

U.S. wants additional two-month delay in terror trials

With the second of two U.S.-requested 120-day delays in the start of military trials for suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay prison, the Obama administration says it will request an additional two-month postponement, the Reuters international news service reported Wednesday. In a legal filing in a challenge brought by accused Sept. 11 conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., federal prosecutors asked for the delay on the grounds that the Military Commissions Act, under which the trials are being conducted, "may be substantially amended" in the next two months and because, Reuters said, the government may decide "to prosecute [Binalshibh] in federal court." Binalshibh is accused of being a go-between between al-Qaida leaders and the Sept. 11 hijackers. He was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and held by the CIA four years before being sent to Guantanamo Bay. He is scheduled for a competency hearing on Sept. 21 before a miltitary judge at Guantanamo to determine if he is mentally competent to stand trial and to represent himself, as he has requested. The federal appeals court filing was in response to Binalshibh's effort to block the competency hearing scheduled and to have the military commissions system declared unconstitutional. In it, the government contends that the appeals court cannot intervene in Binalshibh's case because there has not yet been a decision and, even if there was, he first must appeal through the system of military commissions set up by former U.S. President George W. Bush. Congress is considering proposals to overhaul the commission system to bar statements made under harsh interrogation and to limit to use of hearsay evidence. Of course, the legal moves reflect more than the usual maneuvering in court proceedings. They actually represent what is perhaps the most difficult task faced by the Obama administration -- maintaining the continuity required in federal prosecutions while trying to reverse the Bush administration's most ill-advised policies.

Dealership closure decisions prompt Congressional investigation

The extraordinarily complex undertaking that is the restructuring of the U.S. automobile industry was in full view today when a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on dealership shutdowns negotiated by General Motors, Chrysler and the Obama administration. At issue is both the thinking behind the decisions to close more than 3,000 dealerships and a pending bill that could reverse all or many of those decisions, according to Cable News Network (CNN). The head of the administration's Task Force for the Auto Industry, Ron Bloom, a former investment banker, testified today that the closures were critical to the restructuring effort, CNN said. But some members of the subcommittee have objected to some of the individual shutdowns and raised the specter of unfairness or worse. "They had a criteria, but I don't know what their criteria was, what the data was," said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee), according to CNN. "Some were profitable, and there's even concern that there might even be others open in areas where they closed them." Given the unfortunate tendency of Washington politicians to speak in semitruths, it is difficult to tell whether the Congressional concerns are legitimate or just part of seemingly relentless Republican Party efforts to discredit the administration. Indeed, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), said his concerns included some of the closures but went beyond them to the future of the U.S. economic system. "Every day, I guess I get a little more concerned about what the administration is doing in regard to the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies," he said. "It seems to me that literally the administration is declaring war on capitalism." Rep. Dan Maffei (D-New York), who authored the bill, said he was concerned about the owners of the dealerships that were ordered to close. "It's really an issue of fairness and whether these dealers, given that they've got these big taxpayer-paid-for bailouts for GM and Chrysler, whether the dealers who employ 50 people each on average and are big parts of local communities, shouldn't have some sort of say over how these dealer networks are going to be reorganized," Mattei said, according to CNN. "We felt it was not fair for these dealers, given that the bankruptcy was negotiated in part by the federal government and with federal money, that the dealers would have to not be able to have their rights." Not all dealerships forced to close were left with nothing, CNN said. GM offered its franchises up to $1 million in closing payments and gave them over a year to sell their inventories. GM also reversed dozens of closing decisions after dealers appealed to the company. But Chrysler didn't offer any payments, forced dealerships to shut down within three weeks and had no appeal process.

General Motors emerges from bankruptcy after crash diet

The rich elite in the United States must be different from ordinary folks. How else to explain the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that brought the largest U.S. automaker, General Motors, out of bankruptcy in a lightning-quick six weeks and lighter by tens of billions of dollars in debt. With the completion of the sale of assets Friday to a company set up solely to liquidate them under bankruptcy court supervision, GM returns to the competitive world of automobile designing, building, servicing and selling -- largely under the same management that led the company's decline, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Of course, there'll be some major differences -- GM is now more than 60 percent owned by the U.S. Treasury. In addition, by the end of next year, the new GM will also be lighter by tens of thousands of jobs and thousands of dealerships across the country. "This is an exciting day for General Motors, one that will allow every employee, including me, to get back to the business of designing, building and selling great cars and trucks and serving the needs of our customers," GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson said, CNN reported. "We deeply appreciate the support we've received. We'll work hard to repay the trust, and the money, that so many have invested in GM." But Henderson, who took over the top spot at GM after the Obama administration forced out then-CEO Rick Wagoner as a condition of loaning the automaker as much as $50 billion, faces a daunting challenge. GM lost most of its market share, now 20 percent of the U.S. market, in the last few decades, was overtaken by Toyota Motor Co. of Japan as the world's largest automaker, and even lost its standing as a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. GM also will be losing its Saturn, Saab and Hummer brands, and previously decided to drop Pontiac. Henderson even said that he didn't know if GM would be able to repay the billions it borrowed from the treasury, according to CNN, but probably wouldn't have to borrow more next year. "This is a precious second chance," he said. "There are no third chances." Even if there were, who could afford them? GM has lost $88 billion since 2005 while its debt rose to $54 billion, CNN said. Bondholders who loaned money to GM before the bankruptcy will end up with around 10 percent of the new company, CNN said, but shares will not traded until next year at the earliest.

Hard to see what negotiations with Iran can accomplish

It probably can't hurt, but it's hard to see what further negotiations can possibly accomplish given the state of relations between the United States and Iran. The word from Washington is that the United States will, for the first time, take part in talks between Iran, the European Union and other U.N. Security Council members over Tehran's nuclear program, according to the Cable News Network (CNN). According to the U.S. State Department, the Obama administration has asked the EU to invite Iran to new negotiations, in which Washington has previously refused to participate, CNN said. "If Iran accepts, we hope this will be an occasion to seriously engage Iran of how to break the logjam of recent years and work in a cooperative manner to resolve the outstanding international concerns about its nuclear program," said Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman. But Iran has repeatedly refused previous Security Council demands to stop enriching uranium, which Tehran claims is needed to fuel nuclear power plants. The United States accuses Tehran of secretly trying to build a nuclear weapon, a claim the UN is still unable to resolve. The decision to enter the talks is seen as a further move by the new Obama administration to engage the Iran diplomatically after nearly three decades without formal diplomatic ties. But whether regimes like Iran and North Korea can afford to be more involved with the West is an open question, because such involvement brings with it a host of international responsibilities that those those countries don't seem to be mature enough to live up to.