The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention and blocking the investigation of war crimes. Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department’s chief lawyer, has stated that it is a “policy question” whether acquitted individuals will be released or held indefinitely.
In May, President Obama announced that he supported indefinite detention of individual in violation of both domestic and international law. He has even found his detention policies to be a subject of jokes.
Liberals continue to be largely silent in the face of policies that they once denounced and protested. It is rare to hear any coverage or questions of the Administration’s refusal to investigate war crimes of torture, for example. Liberals seem to be quickly developing a cult of personality that has supplanted the most basic principles of human rights and international law. As with the Republicans under Bush, the Democrats are refusing to push the Administration to investigate torture or comply with international law. Before the inauguration, various generals and senators claimed that Obama and Holder assured them privately that no one would be investigated for torture. It now appears that these stories were likely true. Democrats must choose between their principles and their politicians — and they appear to be making the same choice as their Republican counterparts.
“That’s not change, that’s even worse than more of the same.”
Yep.
Jill-
Great points. I frequently hear a rewording of Nixon’s famous “when the president does it it’s not a crime” when people who vehemently opposed Bush’s practices now find them acceptable under Obama, as if “when Obama does it, it’s not a problem.”
I attended Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College a few years ago and he offered his opinion of the two parties by outstretching his arms and stating that while there were two parties they were both supplied and controlled by the same corporate heart. I disagreed with him then, finding what Bush was advocating to be the outgrowth of a radical interpretation of the Constitution and a new low for either party.
But I find what Obama is doing even more detestable as it provides what I once thought was unimaginable: a person elected on a platform of change actually giving legitimacy to the radical Bush policies.
Bush at least argued that he alone had the power to detain people without trial while Obama creates a false front of Due Process, followed by the ability to detain people after acquital. In other words, if the government somehow loses your show trial, you’re not still going anywhere. But we pretend you get Due Process along the way so it looks better from the outside.
That’s not change, that’s even worse than more of the same.
There is no “then again” to this story. We are a Constitutional govt. who follows the rule of law.
Having “Constitution Rights” has no meaning when the “president” claims the power to imprison the innocent. That was a tortured answer he gave. Check into the details and you end at where we started today.
But then again
July 8th, 2009 at 8:58 am
A former Guantanamo Bay inmate is leading the fight against U.S. Marines in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed Tuesday.
Mullah Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, surrendered in Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan in 2001, and was transferred to Gitmo in 2006. He was released in late 2007 to Afghan custody.
Now as the United States is pushing ahead with the massive Operation Khanjar in the southern province of Afghanistan, Zakir is coordinating the Taliban fighters. Some 4,000 U.S. Marines and hundreds of Afghan forces have faced some resistance as they sweep across the province, reclaiming control of districts where Zakir and his comrades were running a shadow government.
Obama’s Assistant Attorney General Tells Senate: Terrorists Captured on Battlefield Have Constitutional Rights
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50681
Uighurs that were recently released have got to be singing Oh wait a relief it is.
Obama’s song to Bush- Anything you can do i can do better, I can do anything better that you.
We’ve been down this road before. Detaining any human being indefinitely without a trial is a “policy question” only in the same sense that the legality of torture is a “policy question,” meaning not at all. Instead of eliminating the illegalities of the Bush administration which were so roundly and properly denounced during the campaign, the Obama administration appears to prefer simply wrapping them in nicer packages with brighter ribbons. Instead of changing the moral direction of this country, we are changing the descriptive euphemisms. This is a form of intellectual and moral dishonesty for which I was frankly unprepared.
I’m also stunned that anyone can justify imprisoning the innocent. As Gyges said, it is both immoral and illegal. We should just do away with the courts and save some money I guess. Is this what we’ve come to as a people?
Mespo:
Detaining the innocent is simply wrong. No amount of tortured logic can make it otherwise.
Further, Obama is not a creature of his advisors; they are his creatures. He appointed them & he can dismiss them. In reality, he has chosen the voices he wants to hear.
Do you really consider abandoning the Constitution a mark of “caution in matters of importance”. Here’s the context of the quote from Curtis LeMay:
“Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much at the time….I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal….every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 1966
To amend title 18, United States Code, with respect to cyberbullying.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 2, 2009
Sec. 881. Cyberbullying
`(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
`(b) As used in this section–
`(1) the term `communication’ means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and
`(2) the term `electronic means’ means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.’.
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 41 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item:
Previous comment was submitted hastily. The first paragraph should have read:
And there are other practices which were either expanded or started during the Bush/Cheney years that are ongoing. There is some sort of domestic operation going on that involves warrantless surveillance of individuals, including surreptitious home entries (”sneak ‘n peek searches”) and harassment.
At this point refer back to my previous comment.
And other practices which were either expanded or started during There is some sort of domestic operation going on that involves warrantless surveillance of individuals, including surreptitious home entries (”sneak ‘n peek searches”).
I wouldn’t be surprised if the NSA is behind it all, given the phone and e-mail surveillance that’s come to light. When it comes to the fore, “it will be worse than Watergate”, as John (Jon?) Dean has said in reference to the abuses during the Bush years. Given my Kafka-esque experiences, I would agree. Yep. “Worse than Watergate.”
These goons never leave any evidence, but are definitely up to something that many (and, hopefully, most) Americans would never condone. I don’t know the exact role of law enforcement, but some are involved — there’s no doubt about it. If one dares to speak up about these sadistic, Machiavellian practices, one is quickly dubbed “crazy” or delusional. Well, Martha Mitchell was thought to be “nuts” when she complained about widespread corruption in the Nixon White House. We know how that turned out…
These operations/practices are buried in the world of mental illness. Some of those who are being targeted and surveilled are definitely mentally ill, some have been pushed in that direction and others are stone-cold-sane — at least as sane as the next guy and certainly more stable that those conducting these cruel programs of harassment. If all this sounds like something that someone who is absolutely “nuts” might “dream up”, think again. This is why it works and continues. Who would ever believe it? Well, someone had better or we’re totally screwed in this country.
Bury the “warrantless surveillance(and worse)” of dissidents; whistleblowers; the mentally ill; perhaps those whose names were spit out by a faulty fusion center algorithm; those who oppose the war in Iraq and God-only-knows-who-else — bury it in what will be thought of as a “nutty conspiracy theory” and no one will ever believe it. It’s brilliantly cruel and decidedly unAmerican. It goes against the grain of the rule of law. It must be exposed and stopped.
(Are these COINTELPRO programs?? Something’s seriously amiss and I would challenge someone to step up to the plate and blow the whistle on something that is pure “madness.” And this ain’t in my head! If only it were!)
Buelah,
Might I suggest that mespo’s mild taunt was rooted in an initial lack of clarity caused by the brevity of your post. The statement/question “Since when do we need another political pussy as POTUS?” is open to interpretation whereas your clarification afterward was not.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/browse/
Out of the 515 campaign promises Obama made, he’s taken NO ACTION on 387 of them. That’s 75% of his promises he’s done nothing at all about. The bulk of these are related to health care reform, but include promises to end warrantless searches and seizures in the form of wiretaps and other “unimportant” civil rights like that.
A lie can be passive just as an attack can be lest you forget the warning of Burke for what is required for evil to flourish.
Of his 32 promises kept, they are all “easy” by DC standards – not a challenge in the lot. But it includes such useful promises kept as assigning at least one Republican to his cabinet and buying the girls a dog.
Yeah, that’s the record of a change maker.
The 6 promises he’s broken outright aren’t important either. Nothing important like tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials or tax cuts for businesses that create American jobs.
Stellar showing! If you’re a lying jackass.
And his stalled promises? Anyone shocked they are almost all about restoring the rule of law and punishing any criminals within the system.
Fear? Hardly. There’s some whinging out there, but I’m hearing a lot more than that lately. Anger? Yep. It’s readily available at almost any blog or news site on the net or corner bar where talking politics isn’t considered taboo. People are simply tired of the government giving them the finger and it’s only going to get worse.
There is a difference between fear based rhetoric and just anger at being screwed with by equivocating fascist scumbags who take your money and sell you and your rights out to foreign powers and corporations. Some people only learn that lesson the hard way.
If anyone should be afraid, it’s Washington. Their survival in power is not guaranteed or a divine gift that cannot be taken from them.
Life is circular. All energy and mass are conserved.
This is where we started:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
And this is where we’ll be back to shortly absent some real deep change in DC and but soon.
Symmetry. But not fear.
Excuse me: “…this long we should at least feel that it has begun to turn…” and “…stopped being by, for and of…”
Well we could have a real tough guys like Kim Jung Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Which do you prefer?
Will you write just anything to obfuscate a point?
Or are you that oblivious?
You knew precisely what I meant, but if you didn’t:
We do NOT need a POTUS (or any elected official) who simply says anything to appease whomever the audience is at the time, which leads to political expediency that changes as often as your underwear (assuming you shit yourself every time you write such drivel as your response).
In other words (and this may be excruciatingly difficult for you to comprehend), I want someone who tells the truth. Someone who is NOT a liar.
Now, do you understand or should I break it down into pre-teen ideas?