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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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 Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:36 am Post subject: LATEST OBAMADRAMA: ANOTHER CONFLICTED DECISION |
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President Barack Obama fancies himself another Lincoln but while the latter was often conflicted he made and stuck to decisions especially when they were related to matters of war. Not so our current Commander-in-Chief.
While his campaign hype promised a fresh start in Washington and looking ahead rather than back, it would appear that the latest Obamadrama does anything but that. Rather than stick to the high road, he's not undoing unstated policy for generations, namely, of not pursuing legal action against the outgoing administration. (And let's not forget that it was George Tenet, a Clinton appointee, who among others approved of many of these very same tactics).
I am, of course, speaking of his about-face on the issue most dear to the hearts of die-hard Leftists: bringing former Bush officials to "justice" for their roles in approving torture tactics.
Nevermind for the moment that the jury is definitely still out on whether waterboarding produced actionable intelligence--actually the Admiral in charge has said it worked, only that other tactics might have worked as well.
Obama said rather emphatically that he would not pursue criminal allegations against former Bush officials but now, caving in to the far Left wing, he is changing his tune, leaving it to his buddy Eric Holder at the Justice Department to decide. Nice, real nice--yet another reversed decision.
The only thing unequivocally tortured is the President's thinking it would seem.
And then the mainstream media White House Press Corp and PR staff start making a big deal about Obama's soft shoe approach at the Trinidad meeting perhaps having coaxed Raul Castro into putting human rights on the negotiating table with the U.S.
Only Fidel came out today saying our President assumes far too much and that no such prospect exists.
Beginning to sound familiar? The French President hails Obama only to gloat about getting the best of him later, and of course not committing more forces to NATO in Afghanistan. Ditto for the Lady of Deutschland. And those overtures to Tehran really got mileage, didn't they?
Stay tuned for the next episode of Obamadrama, "As the Stomach Churns." |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:42 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Obama said rather emphatically that he would not pursue criminal allegations against former Bush officials but now, caving in to the far Left wing, he is changing his tune, leaving it to his buddy Eric Holder at the Justice Department to decide. Nice, real nice--yet another reversed decision. |
The DOJ is independent. Unless the President issued pardons, it was always going to be the Attorney General's call anyway. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:44 am Post subject: Re: LATEST OBAMADRAMA: ANOTHER CONFLICTED DECISION |
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| While his campaign hype promised a fresh start in Washington and looking ahead rather than back, it would appear that the latest Obamadrama does anything but that. |
A fresh start would include accountability. Right? The laws applying to the lawmakers.
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I am, of course, speaking of his about-face on the issue most dear to the hearts of die-hard Leftists: bringing former Bush officials to "justice" for their roles in approving torture tactics.
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Sorry.
A USA Today poll from February -- headlined: "Poll: Most want inquiry into anti-terror tactics" -- found "two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants," and "four in 10 favor criminal investigations." A Gallup poll from mid-February found that between 60 to 70% of Americans favor investigations for torture, warrantless eavesdropping and DOJ politicization, and that majorities of Democrats (and more than 40% of all Americans and independents) favor criminal prosecutions. Only small percentages of independents -- between 25-38% -- oppose investigations for each of the three lawbreaking allegations.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll from January similarly found that a majority of Americans (50-47%) -- and an overwhelming majority of Democrats (69%) -- believe that the Obama administration should investigate whether the Bush administration's treatment of detainees was illegal. While polls can vary based on how the questions are asked, every poll shows substantial percentages favoring investigations.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Unless you think the "hard left" is 40% of the country.
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| Nevermind for the moment that the jury is definitely still out on whether waterboarding produced actionable intelligence--actually the Admiral in charge has said it worked, only that other tactics might have worked as well. |
The question of if it works is irrelevant to if it is morally correct behavior for the land of the free, and home of the brave.
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Obama said rather emphatically that he would not pursue criminal allegations against former Bush officials but now, caving in to the far Left wing, he is changing his tune, leaving it to his buddy Eric Holder at the Justice Department to decide. Nice, real nice--yet another reversed decision.
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Caving to the majority/near majority, you mean. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:48 am Post subject: |
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And then the mainstream media White House Press Corp and PR staff start making a big deal about Obama's soft shoe approach at the Trinidad meeting perhaps having coaxed Raul Castro into putting human rights on the negotiating table with the U.S.
Only Fidel came out today saying our President assumes far too much and that no such prospect exists.
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In analyzing the results of a summit, the statements of the participants themselves are of limited value. Regardless of what actually happened, Castro is not likely to come out and say "Yeah, Obama was holding all the best cards in our negotiations. I really got outplayed". Like all politicians, he has a reputation to uphold, and it's standard procedure to claim that your side managed to hold its ground.
I'm not saying Castro came out ahead, or that Obama came out ahead. Just that one side claiming victory really doesn't prove much. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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Lovers of torture unite!! It is the D.O.J.'s call period. You some how are making obama seem the guilty party in one of the most shameful episodes in american history. AS more is revealed aabout the joy these sorry degenerates took in the torture techniques that were used. It should be harder for conservatives to defend violations of American policy that stared with the revolutionary war.
Obama a few handshake and smiles a possibility of some open doors. Not bad. George W. Bush's drunken groping of the German Chancellor , humiliating. Oh by the way how many French and German troops did Bush get for the Afghan mission. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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| While his campaign hype promised a fresh start |
It's been three months of fun watching people on the right who have deluded themselves that they make up the middle alternate between being faux horrified/outraged at every change and being faux dismissive at everything that doesn't change as much as they feared. It reminds me of one of my favorite Republican quotes of all time: "I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican." (Dan Quayle) Keep telling yourself that.
The most impressive change so far is going from a deeply unpopular (28%) president to a deeply (68%) popular one. That's change enough right there.
And remember: The future will be better tomorrow.  |
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:23 am Post subject: |
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No surprises here: the kazoo band of first responders to my post conveniently overlook its MAIN POINT.
Whether one feels that waterboarding is illegal or immoral wasn't the main thrust of my post. I was instead criticizing Obama for going back on his plan to campaign promise to move the country forward and for reversing a decision from the day before not to pursue the matter in Congress or with a special prosecutor.
But that was before his B-ball bro buddy Eric Holder got on the horn to the Oval Office and said in his ever-so-sanctimonious tone that the DoJ answers to no one, not even the President. Of course, we don't know this for certain but even a lemming can connect the dots.
As for public opinion (as if that alone determined what is immoral or not), I suggest you review the following article from a few years back which was run on MSNBC, hardly a conservative mouthpiece.
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Poll finds broad approval of terrorist torture
The Associated Press
Dec. 9, 2005
WASHINGTON - Most Americans and a majority of people in Britain, France and South Korea say torturing terrorism suspects is justified at least in rare instances, according to AP-Ipsos polling.
The United States has drawn criticism from human rights groups and many governments, especially in Europe, for its treatment of terror suspects. President Bush and other top officials have said the U.S. does not torture, but some suspects in American custody have alleged they were victims of severe mistreatment.
The polling, in the United States and eight of its closest allies, found that in Canada, Mexico and Germany people are divided on whether torture is ever justified. Most people opposed torture under any circumstances in Spain and Italy.
�I don�t think we should go out and string everybody up by their thumbs until somebody talks. But if there is definitely a good reason to get an answer, we should do whatever it takes,� said Billy Adams, a retiree from Tomball, Texas.
In America, 61 percent of those surveyed agreed torture is justified at least on rare occasions. Almost nine in 10 in South Korea and just over half in France and Britain felt that way.
Accusations of torture, reports of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and claims of shadowy flights carrying terrorist suspects have further strained U.S. relations with some European countries.
Mariella Salvi, who works for a humanitarian organization in Rome, said: �Human beings, as well as their rights, have to be defended, no matter what individuals are suspected of, or charged for.�
The disagreements make cooperation on law enforcement and counterterrorism more difficult, said Lee Feinstein of the Council on Foreign Relations, a group of scholars and other specialists in foreign policy.
During a visit to Germany on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was peppered with questions about U.S. anti-terrorism policies, including the five-month imprisonment of Lebanese-born Khaled al-Masri and reports of secret CIA prisons and use of European airports and airspace to move terrorist suspects.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the United States had admitted making a mistake in the case of al-Masri, a German who contended in a lawsuit in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday that he was wrongfully imprisoned by the CIA and tortured.
Officials with the European Union and in at least a half-dozen European countries are investigating reports of secret U.S. interrogations in Eastern Europe.
Rice defends tactics
Rice aggressively defended U.S. tactics against terrorism as tough but legal. She has refused to comment publicly on the reports of secret CIA prisons.
In the poll, about two-thirds of the people living in Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Spain said they would oppose allowing U.S. officials to secretly interrogate terrorist suspects in their countries. Almost that many in Britain, France, Germany and Italy said they felt the same way. Almost two-thirds in the United States support such interrogations in the U.S. by their own government.
The Bush administration has taken the position that some terrorism suspects are �enemy combatants� not protected by the Geneva Conventions, international treaties on the rights of prisoners of war.
�The Bush administration policy is against torture of any kind; it�s prohibited by federal criminal law,� said John Yoo, a University of California-Berkeley, law professor. As a Justice Department lawyer, he helped write internal memos in 2002 designed to give the government more leeway in aggressive questioning of terrorist suspects.
�The debate is whether you can use interrogation methods that are short of torture,� he said. �Some who have been critical of the Bush administration have confused torture with cruel, inhumane treatment.�
McCain seeks outright ban
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is among those pushing to ban the use of torture as well as �cruel and inhumane treatment.� His legislation was approved in the Senate by a wide margin and will be considered in House and Senate conference committees as an amendment on two defense bills.
The polls of about 1,000 adults in each of the nine countries were conducted between Nov. 15 and Nov. 28. Each poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. |
Now, the last time I checked John McCain was still a conservative and a Republican and yet he opposed waterboarding back then. Yet we've got the cabal of kooks on this forum who want to paint all conservatives as closet medieval dungeon and dragon types.
And, Ya-Ta Boy & Company, perhaps you haven't noticed that dozens of Democratic lawmakers over the course of no less than 30 debriefings from the Bush Administration were apprised of the "torture" tactics back in 2002 and 2003 before it became a big poltical football. So will they be the target of a probe too?
I'm telling ya, bruddahs, this is going to come back and smack Obama in the face if he lets this witchhunt continue. And that's what it is--a witchhunt by the rabid leftwingers on par with anything Nixon attempted in the House Un-American Activities Committee back in the 1940s and 1950s.
As for me, I have zero qualms about using the method on known terrorist operatives especially when it can produce actionable intelligence in a timely fashion. And I don't lose one wink of sleep worrying about whether it diminishes our stature as a bastion of democracy because of it. Our enemies aren't going to give a shit either way.
And that's a fact, Jack. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 9:08 am Post subject: |
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| SteveintheMcMiddle wrote: |
| And, Ya-Ta Boy & Company, perhaps you haven't noticed that dozens of Democratic lawmakers over the course of no less than 30 debriefings from the Bush Administration were apprised of the "torture" tactics back in 2002 and 2003 before it became a big poltical football. So will they be the target of a probe too? |
I hate to agree, but it is absolutely true that most of the Demoblicans were aware of and went along with the waterboarding, which for the life of me I can't fathom.
I much prefer snowboarding. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 9:57 am Post subject: |
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/23/prosecutions/index.html?source=rss
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Three key rules of media behavior shape their discussions of "the 'torture' debate"
Karl Rove on torture prosecutions:
It is now clear that the Obama White House didn't think before it tried to appease the hard left of the Democratic Party.
Gloria Borger on Karl Rove:
When Rove speaks, the political class pays attention -- usually with good reason.
Chuck Todd on Obama's concession that the DOJ decides whether to prosecute:
There does seem to be a little bit of a reaction to how this was received on the left. . . frankly this feels like a political food fight now. . .. The hard left, the hard right, fighting over this in the blogosphere.
Chris Matthews on the same topic:
This whole torture debate is likely to tell us a lot about the kind of president Barack Obama intends to be. Will he buckle to the left, the netroots, and pursue an investigation into torture having said he didn't want to? Or will he go post-partisan and leave the past to the historians?
David Gregory on what he calls (with scare quotes) "the politics of the 'torture' debate":
What [Obama officials] got on their hands is a highly politicized and very partisan issue about the treatment of 9/11 prisoners. . . . At a time when the administration and the President will already be under scrutiny for being tough enough, is this a fight they really want to have? I would also point you to, if you haven't see this already, the Wall St. Journal Editorial Page today, which I think raises some really tough points about not only what signal you're sending to the rest of the world, but also to potential Terrorists out there, about just what it is that U.S. interrogators would do and not do, but also the point that's raised there is: did the Bush administration go out of its way to make sure they were adhering to the law and not crossing over that bridge when it came to getting into torture?
(By the way: can someone tell me what a "9/11 prisoner" is?; and is there anything less surprising than the fact that Gregory looks to The Wall St. Journal Editorial Page for guidance on such questions?)
* * * * *
For years, media stars ignored the fact that our Government was chronically breaking the law and systematically torturing detainees (look at this extremely detailed expos� by The Washington Post's Dana Priest and Barton Gellman from December, 2002 to get a sense for how much we've known about all of this and for how long we've known it). Now that the sheer criminality of this conduct, really for the first time, has exploded into mainstream political debates as a result of the OLC memos, media stars are forced to address it. Exactly as one would expect, they are closing ranks, demanding (as always) that their big powerful political-official-friends and their elite institutions not be subject to the dirty instruments that are meant only for the masses -- things like the rule of law, investigations, prosecutions, and accountability when they abuse their power.
The rules for how media stars behave are vividly evident as they finally take part in what they are calling The 'Torture' Debate. Here are three key rules for Beltway media behavior that, as always, are shaping what they say and do:
(1) Any policy that Beltway elites dislike is demonized as coming from "the Left" or -- in this case (following Karl Rove) -- the "hard Left." Media stars recite that claim regardless of how widely accepted the belief is in American public opinion and regardless of whether there is anything "leftist" about the view in question. For years, withdrawing from Iraq was demonized as the view of the "left" even though large majorities of Americans favored it.
Identically, roughly 40% of Americans favor criminal prosecutions for Bush officials -- even before release of the OLC memos -- and large majorities favor investigations generally. The premise of those who advocate prosecutions is the definitively non-ideological view that political elites should be treated exactly like ordinary Americans when they break the law and commit serious crimes. Individuals such as Gen. Antonio Taguba, Gen. Barry McCaffrey and former CIA officer Robert Baer advocate investigations and/or prosecutions of Bush officials. But no matter: the Beltway opposes the idea, and it is therefore dismissed by media stars as coming from the "Hard Left."
(2) Nobody is more opposed to transparency and disclosure of government secrets than establishment "journalists." Richard Cohen wrote of the Lewis Libby prosecution: "it is often best to keep the lights off." ABC News' Peggy Noonan said this week of torture investigations: "Some things in life need to be mysterious. Sometimes you need to just keep walking." The Washington Post's David Ignatius, condemning Obama for releasing the OLC memos, warned: "the country is fighting a war, and it needs to take care that the sunlight of exposure doesn't blind its shadow warriors." And the favorite mantra of media stars and Beltway mavens everywhere -- Look Forward, Not Backwards -- is nothing but a plea that extreme government crimes remain concealed and unexamined.
This remains the single most notable and revealing fact of American political life: that (with some very important exceptions) those most devoted to maintaining and advocating government secrecy is our journalist class, of all people. It would be as if the leading proponents of cigarette smoking were physicians, or those most vocally touting the virtues of illiteracy were school teachers. Nothing proves the true function of these media stars as government spokespeople more than their eagerness to shield government actions from examination and demand that government criminality not be punished.
(3) The single most sacred Beltway belief is that elites are exempt from the rule of law. Amidst all the talk about how prosecutions would destroy post-partisan harmony and whether torture "works," it is virtually impossible to find any media star discussions about the fact that torture is illegal and that those who order, authorize or engage in torture are committing felonies. That is because -- other than for fun sex scandals and other Blagojevich-like sensationalistic acts -- the overriding belief of the political class is that elites (such as themselves) have the right to break the law and not be held accountable.
Amazingly, when it comes to crimes by ordinary Americans, being "tough on crime" is a virtually nonnegotiable prerequisite to being Serious, but when it comes to political officials who commit crimes in the exercise of their power, absolute leniency is the mandated belief upon pain of being dismissed as "shrill" and extremist. Can anyone find an establishment media pundit anywhere -- just one -- who is advocating that Bush officials who broke the law be held accountable under our laws? That view seems actively excluded from establishment media discussions.
The OLC memos that were released last week reflect a deeply corrupted, criminal and morally depraved political class (see this video clip for a strangely affecting demonstration of that fact), but our media stars are a vital reason why that has happened. It cannot be overstated the extent to which they are nothing but appendages of, servants to, political power (as one Twitter commentator said today about this painfully vapid video from the painfully vapid David Gregory: when media stars say "my reporting," what they usually mean is: "this is what I was told to repeat"). These three media rules repeatedly shape how they talk about government actions, and these rules are particularly pronounced as the establishment media now is finally forced to discuss what to do about the fact that our highest political leaders repeatedly broke our most serious laws.
* * * * *
As a testament to the positive effect media criticisms can have, Columbia Journalism Review's Charles Kaiser has been tenaciously criticizing The New York Times for failing to challenge -- and instead mindlessly adopting -- the claim of Bush officials that torture "worked" by producing valuable intelligence. Yesterday, a NYT Editor told Kaiser that he agreed that more attention needed to be paid to this issue, and today, the NYT published a very potent Op-Ed from an FBI interrogator at Guantanamo who aggressively disputes the claim that torture "worked."
Also: I'll be on Warren Onley's To the Point program today at 2:10 p.m. EST (along with The New Yorker's Jane Mayer and National Review's Cliff May) to debate the question of investigations and prosecutions. Local listings and live audio feed can be found here (the segment will be posted to their website later today). |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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No surprises here: the kazoo band of first responders to my post conveniently overlook its MAIN POINT.
Whether one feels that waterboarding is illegal or immoral wasn't the main thrust of my post. I was instead criticizing Obama for going back on his plan to campaign promise to move the country forward and for reversing a decision from the day before not to pursue the matter in Congress or with a special prosecutor.
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So your main point was to make it all about Obama. I don't think anyone was all that surprised...or impressed with that tack. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Does it not bother the pro torture group that our torturing of "enemy combatants" almost certainly guarantee the torture of our soldiers when captured? More amd more reports are coming out that torture gained little useful information. I believe in traditional American values that we are different and play by the rules. How is that left-wing. Some of it was done because they just wanted to: that's a fact jack! |
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No_hite_pls
Joined: 05 Mar 2007
Location: Don't hate me because I'm right
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| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Another Republican defending torture, and you wonder why your party has gone to S--T. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:07 am Post subject: |
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| OP, what was your opinion of the Clinton impeachment? |
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:27 am Post subject: |
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hite reported:
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| Does it not bother the pro torture group that our torturing of "enemy combatants" almost certainly guarantee the torture of our soldiers when captured? More amd more reports are coming out that torture gained little useful information. I believe in traditional American values that we are different and play by the rules. |
First of all, you presume that it's torture. There were explicit directives by which the interrogators operated in conducting waterboarding. Moreover, the frequency with which it could be employed was restricted. A doctor was on hand to monitor, etc.
You're conveniently forgetting that these were highly selected targets--people who were known terrorists. It's very easy to take the high moral ground when you're not the one confronted with the duty of protecting the American people from Muslim fanatics. Armchair judgment is easy--personally I have no qualms about its use under extraordinary circumstances and neither should you. Even Obama now admits that actionable intelligence was obtained and, frankly, who gives a rat's ass about these bastards, anyhow?
Holder has opened Pandora's Box and set a precedent. What if Bush had acquiesced to the DoJ investigating the Clinton White House on its failure to track down Osama bin Laden, or his failure in Somalia? This will all come back to haunt, Obama, mark my words.
P.S. I don't abide by Party lines as I've said many times on this forum. But if it helps you to label me to indict those you despise, be my guest. It doesn't make you any less clueless.
rollo:
And if you think that for one moment terrorists are going to be impressed by our taking the high moral ground in this matter, then you are sadly mistaken.
mises:
Clinton perjured himself, which should have been handled through the courts. I strongly disapproved of the impeachment proceedings, especially given the situation which caused it. It was opportunistic; but what the Dems are doing now also endangers national security, which is unforgiveable in my view, especially giving the hypocrisy of some of its champions.
Obama balked when Holder called him. Not surprised. So much for fence-mending rhetoric. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 7:27 am Post subject: |
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What "fence mending"?
If you're a member of the gigantic underclass and you sell a little blow the legal system will thunder down on you. You'll be sent to one of the rape camps, get exposed to HIV and have your ass whopped day after day after day.
If you're a member of the controlling elite, well shit. You can do anything. No matter how violent, inhumane, illegal. And you will get away with it.
Is this the country you want? The new guy must "mend fences" by ensuring that nobody with power is held to account? |
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