In yet another slap at civil liberties and civil libertarians, President Barack Obama signed an executive order Monday that will resume military tribunal proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Obama has ordered the resumption of these trials — denounced both domestically and internationally as trumped up proceedings designed to make convictions easier by omitting core constitutional and procedural protections. Indeed, these tribunals are being heralded as guaranteeing swift punishment — an implied recognition that we could not convict some of these individuals in a fair federal trial.
It is a cynical calculation by the Administration that civil libertarians have no where to go in the next election — a calculation that has been reaffirmed by many liberals who complain about Obama’s anti-civil liberties policies but still say that they have to support him. This support is continuing despite Obama’s blocking of any prosecution for torture or investigation of alleged war crimes.
The Republicans have complimented Obama on his decision and drawn the fair and obvious conclusion that he has once again reaffirmed Bush’s policies. Rep. Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, observed “the bottom line is that it affirms the Bush administration policy that our government has the right to detain dangerous terrorists until the cessation of hostilities.”
The Obama Administration’s position is perfectly incomprehensible. As with Bush, Obama will now choose Caesar-like between those who will receive a fair trial in federal court and those who are sent to military tribunals. The decision will be made on the need for the tribunals to secure conviction under “special” rules that deny the defendant core protections and rights.
Source: The Washington Post
Jonathan Turley
Blouise,
I am going to get into a snit if you don’t agree with what I am saying before nest week….It was also very unclear about when next week…. Can you be more specific when addressing this…. Also, I am unsure if I want to by your propaganda…. Are you part of the secret covert operation that Elsine is involved in on this blawg….. We used to affectionately refer to her as Elaine….Now I am wondering how long she as been known as Elsine and if she was actually training future terrorists…….rather than really teaching school…. Maybe she had a flight school….do you know if she has a permit to operate a aircraft…..
Remember I am only disseminating information… to you all that are involved in a cult…
I wanted to mention another important aspect of Koh’s talk wherein he laid full responsibility for the detainee policy, including indefinite detention, on the administration. During Q and A, he vigorously defended this policy to questioners, one of whom is involved in detainee cases.
We need to also look at the pattern of the administration. For example, the treatment of a child soldier(?) Omar Kadhr. By international law he was owed our rehabilitation, not our torture and a phony trial.
From the beginning of the administration Obama kept in place both war and financial criminals. He kept or expanded most of Bush’s policies in nearly every area. So, how realistic is it to say Obama is just naive, a victim, lacks a backbone etc.? These are statements used to keep his base in the fold but when looked at factually, they cannot be true.
We cannot forget that his largest single financial contributor was GS (people who fill his cabinet, whom he admires as savvy businessmen) nor that he consistently has appointed war criminals to run his military campaigns, the people who gave him quite a bit of funds for his election. In fact Scahill pointed out that the MIC shifted funds from Clinton to Obama later in 08. GS and the MIC knew who they were getting with Obama. Now it’s time for supporters to understand who they got.
Anonymously Yours
1, March 9, 2011 at 12:08 pm
………………….
“You all just quit propagandizing me while I am trying to just disseminate information favorable to my beliefs….”
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Ok … next week?
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position.
As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare.
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You all just quit propagandizing me while I am trying to just disseminate information favorable to my beliefs….
Bob,
I have been thinking about your e-mail and I think it all comes back to ego defense. And to be clear, I don’t mean coping strategies either, but rather the range of behaviors as defined by Dr. George Vaillant. He grouped ego defenses into four categories. The behaviors in question, however, seem to primarily fall into the categories he labeled as pathological and neurotic. From the pathological category, I’ve seen almost the full spectrum of behaviors – denial, distortion, splitting and extreme projection – but from the neurotic category the primary behaviors I’ve seen on the left is rationalization and intellectualization. This is to distinguish it from the primary neurotic reactions I’ve noticed from the right, namely displacement. This should come as no surprise though, Bob. We were all raised to believe in the “American Dream” of liberty and justice for all. When those put in positions of power and responsibility not only abuse said power but compound the injury by rubbing it in our collective faces presents us with some ugly truths. 1) Either we’re as bad as they are for allowing them to remain in power and unpunished or 2) we’re all suffering from the tyranny of evil men and the Dream is a lie. These are merely my layman’s observations though and I would welcome Mr. Spindell’s take on the subject.
I want to address the idea that this is the work of “evil Republicans in Congress”.
On Nov. 11th, 2010 I went to hear a speech given by Harold Koh at the U. of Michigan law school. In that speech, (and there is a record of it that you may obtain to verify what I am saying here) Koh laid this very policy out as the policy of the Obama administration. The administration feels it is justified by the AUMF. There was no mention of evil Republican Congress members as the origin of the policy–Koh laid the detention and trial policy out as the sole doing of the administration.
Koh further laid out a bizarre religious metaphor to explain Obama’s legal policy–that people did not yet fully understand it, but all would be revealed in time.
To my mind, it is revealed. Koh is one of the highest ranking members of the administration and he was speaking on its behalf, laying out the policy you see here. It therefore seems like propaganda to keep the base blaming anyone but Obama for what is clearly his own decision and own doing. I suggest people not believe propaganda.
“Mankind has not evolved an inch from the slime that spawned him.”
“What the public has been led to believe about the events of 9/11 is most fully encapsulated in the report of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission”
So, in regards to the whole two and a half pages devoted to flight 11, how is the reader expected to proceed further than the 8:41am mark where Flight attendant Sweeney specifically said that the passengers in Coach were under the impression “it was a routine medical emergency?”
How is it that both flight attendants Ong and Sweeney explained that all the passengers from first and business were forced back to Coach and were oblivious to everything that was happening?
So I’m supposed to believe that the passengers in Business and First class, i.e. 21 witnesses to stabbings and victims of mace spray, felt compelled to tell their new friends in Coach that they merely cut themselves shaving? Or was AAL11 magically converted into a charter for the Helen Keller Society? (I want to believe; really I do.)
Uno absurdo dato, infinita sequuntur.
One absurdity begin allowed, an infinity follow.
But Bob, I hear you say, you’re just as crazy to question this as to question Obama’s or Bush’s loyalty to the constitution.
Still in the Dark About 9/11
Posted on Mar 8, 2011
By Robert Scheer
Ignorance is the real victor in the president’s reluctant decision to abandon the effort to bring the alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attack to account in civilian court. The significance of a fair and public trial would be to reveal to the world the motives and makeup of those we must defeat, and yet the very people in this country who claim to be the most militant in combating terrorism have been the most energetic and effective in stifling that inquiry.
It must be said that Barack Obama deserves credit for attempting to show the world that truth will triumph and justice will prevail when even the most dastardly offenders are given their day in court. But faced with a shrill Republican-led opposition in Congress that succeeded in banning the trials on U.S. soil, the president reluctantly reversed the decision he had made upon taking office to halt military commission trials of those detained at Guantanamo. The announcement Monday by Defense Secretary Robert Gates rescinding the ban on the military trials also called for the indefinite imprisonment of those Guantanamo inmates thought to be too dangerous to be released but against whom the government doesn’t have enough evidence to obtain convictions. The shortcomings of the military commission trials was denounced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who said such proceedings fall “far short of core constitutional values by failing to provide judicial review of cases considered by the review board’ and to guarantee “meaningful assistance of counsel” to those accused.
But it is not the rights of the accused, important as they are, that should be the main concern here. Rather it is the right—indeed, need—of the American public to learn the truth about the motives, financing and methods of those who are alleged to have torn at the heart of our social fabric. What led 15 solid citizens of our ally Saudi Arabia to hijack those planes under direction of their Western-educated leaders is still murky. How did our allies in the war against Soviet communism in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, come to mastermind that savage attack on America? It is startling that, almost a decade after the attack, we still must rely for our understanding of what happened on a narrative informed not by the full disclosure revealed by the evaluation of a vetted record and robust cross-examination in open court of the key witnesses but rather by the unexamined and unquestioned reckoning of the facts supplied by the government officials who interrogated and indeed tortured the prisoners, most significantly Mohammed.
What the public has been led to believe about the events of 9/11 is most fully encapsulated in the report of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, appointed by President George W. Bush. But the Bush administration denied the commission access to the prisoners whose testimony, elicited after torture, provided the basic narrative as to how Sept. 11, 2001, came to be. That fatal flaw in the investigation was clearly conceded in a box on Page 146 of the official 9/11 Commission report containing a disclaimer that the key chapters “rely heavily on information from captured al Qaeda members” and admitting that the commission was dependent on hearsay reports from the interrogators as to what those witnesses actually said.
“We submitted questions for use in the interrogations but had no control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify ambiguities in the reporting. We were told that our requests might disrupt the sensitive interrogation process.”
Much of that story was derived from the waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was slated to be tried in Manhattan in civilian court until Congress derailed that possibility. As a result, the mystery of what led him from a small North Carolina Baptist college to fight alongside the United States in Afghanistan and then turn against this country may never be known—along with who financed and directed his journey and that of the hijackers he is said to have guided. For a decade, we have been obsessed with a terrorist enemy that we still barely comprehend. Ignorance is not bliss.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/still_in_the_dark_about_9_11_20110308/
Elaine, I guess they think Holder is letting the the detainees hire too many attorneys. They want to shut that off.
Swarthmore mom,
I missed your last post. Sorry about that.
TPMDC (3/8/2011)
Republicans Move To Strip Detainee Authority From Holder And Future Attorneys General
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/mckeon-bill-would-exclude-holders-from-detainee-decisions.php?ref=fpa
Excerpt:
Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are teaming up with Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to write legislation that would take decisions about trying detainees out of the attorney general’s hands and hand that power to the secretary of defense.
In the wake of the White House’s new executive order allowing Guantanamo detainees to be held indefinitely, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) unveiled legislation that would, among other things, affirm the military’s right to detain, hold and interrogate detainees at its discretion without Department of Justice or Attorney General Eric Holder involvement.
McKeon said he was working with McCain and Graham to craft a bill that would try to gain traction in both chambers.
Such legislation could attract significant Democratic support, considering Democrats’ willingness to buck Obama’s attempts to shutter Guantanamo Bay and Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian court in New York City, a decision that was later reversed after prominent Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) vigorously opposed the move.
John McCain and Lindsey Graham are preparing legislation which moves to strip Holder and future AG’s of detainee authority and hand the power to the Secretary of Defense.
A new GOP candidate has entered the race as announced on “The Daily Show” last night:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-8-2011/indecision-2012—indecision-edition—reagan-os-911
sb Kirtland … my apologies to all cult members in Kirtland ….
SwM,
“Back to Glee” … I don’t think I’ll join the Celibacy Club though “Afternoon Delight” was very well done and I do like the “bad boy” on guitar! 🙂
“We didn’t win too many friends around here with our support of Pelosi, either.” … yeah, but now we have the permanently inebriated, crying Orange man which is a much better deal for those who want to get stuff done the old fashioned way … better the penis you know …
“I guess I will have to come to Ohio as it is a swing state or we could meet in New Mexico.” … we are getting some really good work done up here so you wouldn’t be wasting your time. If it weren’t for the fact that all the kids and grandkids live here, I’d move to New Mexico tomorrow!
“We will figure out our garb later or we can wear what the other members of the cult are wearing.” … right now the garb is mainly jeans, sweatshirts, and down vests. Warm hats are in along with scarves and gloves. Oh, and everybody has a clipboard and a pen plus registered voters lists. I did see two guys the other day picking up their clipboards and they both were wearing badges that read, “I’m a lost republican; take me to your leader”. That sounds pretty cultish.
Charles Manson was born in Cincinnati … it’s rumored that there were many satanic cults around Athens, home of Ohio University … The Mormons, when they were called a cult, spent some time in Kirkland back in the 1830’s … there’s more but I’m tired …
When the one best reason to vote for Democrats is that they’re not Republicans, that at least the Democratic candidate isn’t as [fill in the blank] as the Republican, then the Democrats have just become a collection of the other, the not Republican. They lose any positive definition.
Hard to get excited about Mr. I’m not them.
Mr. I’m not them almost always loses. Unless he has the good fortune to come up in a round following a G. W. Bush.
Jill,
Do some more reading…..Please and share your thoughts with people that buy into that hysterical mind thought….But it has been my experiences with Cults and Cult Culture that the Democrats are too damned disorganized to be perceived as a cult…..Lets face it….the closest thing you have to a cult in America in some measurable numbers would be the Hasidic sect….and they are of Jewish Origin…. If the Democrats in your definition are a cult then why are there so many divergent untypical beliefs and thoughts…… Trying to control a democrat is a lot like herding cats…Try it all you want …. but in your definition we blawging at Turley are a cult… You are trying mind control….fear…and what ever else you may think of….think about it….
Here is the definition of Cult from Wiki….The word cult pejoratively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre.[1] The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. The narrower, derogatory sense of the word is a product of the 20th century, especially since the 1980s, and is considered subjective. It is also a result of the anti-cult movement which uses the word in reference to groups seen as authoritarian, exploitative and that are believed to use dangerous rituals or mind control. The word implies a group which is a minority in a given society .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult
From Webster…..
Definition of CULT
1: formal religious veneration : worship……
Too many varied opinions….
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents……
We could all be classified under this definition….Are you a follower of the TV…. maybe that is a cult….
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
Oh….Now I am scarred….Turley is the Grand PooPaw…. Uttt Ohhhhhh….
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator
Other than recipes…and the related articles on parents and child and necessary medical care….where do you stand…..
5a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b : the object of such devotion c : a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion….
Is the work of words you are reading included herein…..It appears that you are in a cult…. learning the art of politics is the creative deflection of the right angle of the smoke and mirror….Ronnie had this down well….Clinton did it for personal issues….and W…did it to lead us into an unwinnable, untennable war…..all to get the Butcher of Iraq because he made a threat against Daddy…..
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult
Therefore in my opinion I conclude that you are grossly wrong in calling the Democratic Party a cult….
SM,
I never knew I was in a cult!