As many of us expected, President Obama’s decision to block any investigation or prosecution of war crimes has led Republicans to rehabilitate George Bush’s legacy. The latest claim came from former Vice President Dick Cheney who previously boasted about the torture program in public — unconcerned about any prosecution from Attorney General Eric Holder. Now, Cheney is boasting that Obama has “learned from experience” that some of the Bush administration’s decisions on terrorism issues.
Cheney stated “I think he’s learned that what we did was far more appropriate than he ever gave us credit for while he was a candidate. So I think he’s learned from experience. And part of that experience was the Democrats having a terrible showing last election.” He added “I think he’s learned that he’s not going to be able to close Guantanamo . . . That it’s — if you didn’t have it, you’d have to create one like that. You’ve got to have some place to put terrorists who are combatants who are bound and determined to try to kill Americans.”
Obama opened himself up to his unwanted alliance when he decided to protect Bush officials from prosecution despite the obligation of his Administration under existing treaties to investigate and prosecute acts of torture. Just last week, a senior former Justice official denounced the Administration for its complicity and said that it would leave a lasting stain on the country.
Cheney also called Obama a one-term president. If so, Obama has earned both Cheney recommendation and his loss of a second term. As promising the Senate that he would not continue his political conduct from the Clinton years at Justice, Holder proceeded to make the ultimate political act by blocking prosecutions after Obama promised that CIA officials would never be prosecuted for the alleged war crimes. It was the triumph of politics over principle — even war crimes principles were not enough to risk alienating the right. Politics should not have been part of the equation, but it also proved to be a remarkably illogical choice since the right never warmed to Obama despite a series of compromises from the White House. The result is that Obama is both unpopular and unprincipled in this area.
Source: The Hill
Jonathan Turley
Feints and counter feints…
What happens when the people decide they don’t like Obama siding with Bush and Cheney…they will tell him…
What will Obama say when the people speak out? “I believe in the people, so let’s change it.”
Sorry Dick, you’re getting played, but it’s only what you deserve.
Transparency is the Apocalypse.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Investigate-Bush-Administration-for-war-crimes/173691299341053
I agree with Jill. In addition to perpetuating the illegal policies of Bush, he’s now voluntarily shoved his head so far up the asses of the corporate behemoths that he’ll never find it again. Back when the bank bailout was up for a vote, I was one of the 90+% who called my congressional delegation urging them to vote no, because I knew that if these corporations were allowed to fail, the backlash would force dramatic changes that would limit corporate power. I was afraid that if the bailouts were given, we’d end up right where we are today, with these corporations exerting even more power over our government with no end in sight. It was the only time I can think of when I was on the side of republicans. Sadly, many of them decided that their principles didn’t mean much after all and voted for the bailout. Mark my words, that was our one great opportunity to change the system, and we missed it. I’m hoping that if a tea partier gets elected, he/she will make enough unpopular decisions to allow us to revisit the role of corporations in our supposed democracy, but I’m not holding my breath.
Oops, this was totally off topic. But so is God, I guess. 🙂
Obama administration expanding use of Guantánamo Bay: report
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/obama-administration-expanding-guantnamo-bay-nyt/
Tootie,
I’ll stop mocking you when you quit spreading bad ideas worthy of mockery.
You hold the key.
Or you would if you were capable of critical thought, which you are demonstrably not.
Alexander:
Good advice. I’ll take it.
Harris
I remember reading about some Harvard (?) research that the best studying students can do is by scanning and reading the things (in their textbooks of course!) which interest them most.
So I guess that is similar to what you said. But it wouldn’t matter how interested I was in a subject, I’d have to pound it into my thick skull.
I have a rotten memory. At times that can be good (I forget I’m mad at people). At times its very very bad (I forget to send in a bill).
🙂
Tootie:
he cannot help it, it is in his nature.
Just ignore the posts.
Although sometimes he does say something interesting, not often but sometimes.
Buck:
Gotcha.
What I meant was that all of them have committed, what I think are, very serious criminal acts. Though they have (allegedly) committed different ones.
My mistake. Sorry for not being clear.
My point is that Obama won’t let the investigations go through because he has to protect himself from being investigated.
Glenn Greenwald has the best goods on these guys. So does Antiwar.com (Justin Raimondo).
Buddha:
Stop being hateful.
Again.
Tootles,
First, what a hateful homophobic theocrat thinks of my humanity means nothing to me. Your opinions, founded on fundamentalist belief and not evidence, are as worthless as they are damaging to society by being divisive by their very nature.
Second, I get it. You operate off of a belief in the unprovable. This is the operational parameter of the superstitious and children. And the delusional.
Third, I can prove love to you. But since you’re proof resistant? Why bother. It is, however, a biological fact and an observable psychological process.
Fourth, I don’t want to arrive at “your God” by myself or by your feeble attempts at coercion. Your “God” is narrow minded and hateful, with his followers using distortions of parables to justify discrimination and scientific illiteracy in order to maintain a control mechanism over the weak minded. I have no interest in being their slave.
Fifth, in re “cruelty”. Is it cruel to skewer the hateful and divisive tropes of fundamentalism and their attendant sub-beliefs like homophobia? Not in the slightest. If you don’t like your ridiculous ideas being ridiculed? Get better ideas. What you find “cruel”? Most people capable of independent thought find either funny, true or both. The creation of an objective and rational understanding of reality requires the destruction of irrational and socially irresponsible beliefs. Cruelty? What part of sarcasm and mockery don’t you understand aside from all of it? It is may not be your fault though. Religious zealots of all stripes tend to be humorless people. I am cruel to the few to be kind to the many. That you are too dense to realize that mechanic is because you are so inured to your fairy tale superstitions and the manipulations of those arrogant enough to think they can definitively speak for a god is your problem.
Finally, the pursuit of truth is a goal in and of itself. The truth leads to enlightenment, such as the recognition that human rights apply to all, not just those “chosen” based upon Iron Age superstition. To seek delusion is as well. However, its goal in and of itself is self-deception and self-rationalization for irrational beliefs and behaviors.
Buddha:
You still don’t get it. I cannot prove God to you. You have to arrive there yourself.
I cannot prove love to you either.
And you don’t need to make excuses for why your moral code, or alleged logic, or scientific mind and methods causes you to be a cruel and vicious monster.
Your means for determining the truth appears to have added nothing good to your humanity.
So what is your pursuit of truth for (if you pursue it)? To be better at being evil?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47885.html Palin aides are having meetings in Iowa.
Tootles,
“What is it that you don’t get about the word “faith”?”
____
What is it that you don’t get about the word “proof”?
Apparently the same thing you get about the word “logic”.
Which to be clear is “all of it”.
One cannot make a logical argument based on belief and have it remain logical for the aforementioned logical fallacies which you choose to ignore. Just like you choose to ignore the abundance of proof in support of evolution.
All because it doesn’t comport to your version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
It’s funny how “ignoring” facts and logic is a key component to “ignorance”.
Oh, I could easily live without your kind of religious mania in the world, Tootles.
A man’s got to have a hobby. I like to smash stupidity and ignorance in all its forms. Your absence would create no loss of targets.
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” – Albert Einstein
Jill
1, January 19, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Blouise,
I will not read your posts and you should not read mine.
=============================================================
I’m blackballed again … (sigh) … time for a cuppa …
Tootie
My mistake. I was going by the following posts on this thread.
——————————————————
Jill
1, January 18, 2011 at 8:54 am
Obama agreed to abstain from prosecuting torturers in the Bush administration before he was even elected. Further, Obama didn’t learn anything, he has always on board with The Big Dick on using torture, keeping Gitmo open, extraordinary renditions, the police state etc.
Tootie
1, January 18, 2011 at 8:59 am
Obama has to do this because HE is guilty of the same crimes.
——————————————————-
Jill
As to torture, I have posted this info so many times here. But here’s where to look: Glenn Greenwald, Scot Horton, Andy Worthington and Jeremy Scahill. Those will get you started on current cases of torture. You should also check the Guardian and put in Binyam Mohammed. CCR and ACLU have info as well.
————————————————————-
Jill/Tootie
Been there done that. Give me one, just one, link out of all those names that the Obama administration is routinely torturing prisoners as the Bush/Cheney administration did. As before, if you can’t I will quit asking and hopefully you will quit labeling the Obama administration as torturers.
BTW Do you think Dennis Kucinich will bring impeachment charges against President Obama? If Obama is a torturer, that could be included. If Obama is refusing to do his duty about prosecuting war crimes that could also, be included. Maybe your information will convince him (Dennis), if not me.
If not Kucinich, who will be so brave? You? Citizen’s arrest, anyone?
RE: Tootie, January 19, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Harris:
Do you have a photographic memory?
############
I believe the technical term is “eidetic memory.”
To some extent, apparently, yes. About fifty-five years after moving from Butte, Montana, to Seattle, Washington, in 1999, I took a trip which included visiting Butte, Seattle, and Eureka, California.
Before going on the trip, I made notes about minor details that would usually be deemed insignificant, aspects of buildings that might still be there, and other details.
Every detail which I remembered and which was still there to be seen was indistinguishable from what I remembered. Details, for example, of the original United Congregational Church building in Butte, now used as a residence. Details of the kindergarten room at Columbia School, in Seattle, still a kindergarten room in 1999.
Because much of the work I do depends critically on accuracy of memory, and because I am very familiar with the false memory work of Elizabeth Loftus and others, I have been scrupulous about what I say of what I remember and very diligent in avoiding contamination of earlier memories with later ones.
There are numerous psychology papers in which it has been noted that people who function as I do tend to have notably more accurate recall than is typical.
Yet eidetic memory is not exactly 0 percent nor 100 percent accurate.
There are tests showing different “emotional states” in terms of facial expression. I understand women as a group tend to score much higher than men as a group. On such tests, I tend to get every emotion and facial expression “correct.”
My reply, above, may be misunderstood in one way. I remember rather accurately things which I experienced as important when they happened. Ask me for details about, say, that building in Butte, and ask me whether some detail I do not recall on my own is there, and I would guess that I do not know.
It is time for a break.
it* lunges
Harris:
But there are no strings attached.
I move and it follows. I breathe and it swirls. I blink and lunges.
It’s creepy, but it cannot seem to live without me.
I appear to be its oxygen.