By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
May 24, 2009
I realize that I don’t know everything, nobody can. I will say though, when it comes to this so-called “debate” between former VP Cheney and President Obama, It is true that I was born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. I also know that when you hold a debate, the debate must be “framed” by the debaters. In this case, both Cheney and Obama were arguing for just about the same thing. Let me take their arguments apart.
Obama said that there are those that want to do everything imaginable to keep America safe and there are those that want an independent prosecutor to review everything the previous administration has done in regards to torture. He says that the country has the elements under the Constitution to take care of any indiscretion that has occurred.
Cheney on the other hand says that the last administration shouldn’t have to worry about prosecution from the new administration over “policy differences”. Both men seem to be talking about the same thing. Some debate.
The rhetoric coming from both men is disingenuous. The real problem is that America is fighting a war in Iraq based on lies and deception. We are fighting a war for resources and empire. Therein lays the rub. The entire discourse between the two men is based on a violation of the Geneva Conventions against “wars of aggression”. No matter how you slice it, we shouldn’t be in Iraq or Afghanistan to begin with. Both wars are in violation. This is what a special prosecutor should be investigating.
When it comes to a special investigator, that decision should come independently from the U.S. Attorney General. Eric Holder, under the U.S. Constitution, shouldn’t be waiting for his boss to give him the green light on an investigation. That is his call and his call alone. It seems that Holder has taken the route of Alberto Gonzales, and instead of doing his job for the nation, he turns out to be nothing more than Obama’s lawyer. This situation brings back memories of the Bush Administration, and that Obama’s Administration is following, after a few good decisions that he has mostly reneged on, like ending the war in Iraq in 16 months and stopping military commissions to try suspected terrorists, as well as stopping “enhanced interrogation techniques” that have been reported since Obama came to power.
Nothing else withstanding, the torture of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi should also be investigated. This was the “smoking gun” used to justify a war on Iraq. His testimony was crucial to the war and it came out of torture so unendurable, that the man killed himself. This isn’t all that is happening that is much like the Bush Administration. The NSA is still eavesdropping on American citizen’s phone calls and computers. From writer Stephen Lendman:
“Worse still is the DOJ’s assertion that the US government is immune from illegal spying litigation even when in violation of federal privacy statutes, an unprecedented claim exceeding the Bush administration citing “sovereign immunity.” Obama is going Bush one better by saying the Patriot Act immunizes the government from being sued under surveillance provisions of the Wiretap Act, Stored Communications Act, and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) enhanced warrantless wiretapping powers in cooperation with complicit telecom providers. In other words, Obama’s DOJ absolves itself and its corporate allies of accountability under existing federal statutes that prohibit illegal spying on Americans.”
Even the headlines in the news now smacks of the Bush Administration. After FBI officials looked for recruits from a mosque and paid them money as well as supplied them phony c-4 and a phony “Stinger” ground-to-air missile, when the four ex-cons they recruited took their advice and tried to blow up synagogues that had been suggested to them, the mainstream media reported that a “terrorist cell” had been thwarted. This is a case where you wonder if there would have been a crime if the FBI hadn’t masterminded it, or would these “wanna-be terrorists” just gone their merry way. It makes you wonder about the timing of their arrests. Was it so Obama would find it easier to back-pedal on military commissions?
It is apparent that the American people have been duped into believing that the Democrats are any better than the Republicans. I wrote an article in January 2006 where I said that Barack Obama would be our next President. How did I know? All one had to do was to go to The Center for Responsive Politics website Opensecrets.org and see who was getting the lion’s share of the contributions, especially from investment banking houses and hedge fund managers. The truth is that Obama was anointed way back then to continue the same policies of the Bush Administration.
Even though the nation is in a terrible recession, Obama has increased the military budget by 4% to over 800 billion dollars. You would believe that continuing the “empire-building” would have stopped by now. Obama may be the environmentalist’s choice, but people that want America out of these protracted wars that are bleeding us to death and causing millions of people to lose their homes and their lives would trump the environment. While they clamor for fresh air, the DU is spreading from South Asia throughout the entire planet.
So when do we as Americans say enough already? How many more years are we going to put up with being spied upon and watching the United States acting like a rogue state? When are we going to learn that the politicians selected by the two major parties in this country are just as bad as each other? “Yes We Can!” has turned into “No We Won’t!” We won’t stop the wars and we won’t stop working for an imperial presidency. When people believe either one of the two major political parties it will be just more of the same. Our liberty is in the balance. Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I only wish more Americans understood that.
see
It’s Not Too Late to Save America By Timothy V. Gatto
Internet Threatened by Censorship, Secret Surveillance, and Cybersecurity Laws by Stephen Lendman
Vince Warren: Obama’s “Preventive Detention” Plan Goes Beyond Bush
Michael Ratner: “Absolutist” to defend the law?
The Obama-Cheney “debate” and the threat of dictatorship in America
Two Experts Cast Doubt On Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi’s “Suicide” by Andy Worthington
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Bravo!!
So much of the stuff I was thinking , but, unable to articulate…
The ‘terror plot” in NYC had me going, “oh no, just when Obama is trying to do a further lock-down..this is suspicious, to say the least”.
I wonder if USAns have considered that, once a govt decides it can do certain things, it always seeks to “expand” whom they can do them to??
Also, USAns should note that the anglo translation of “si se puede” is actually, “yes, it can be accomplished” (“but we wont do it, so dont hold your working class breath, just turn blue….”, as with so many things anglo—hey, I’m half, so I’m not being a bigot).
Yes!! The ENTIRE IRAQ WAR WAS ILLEGAL—but, Obama’s Dem friends voted to allow it, so…that is HIS rub…will he do the right thing or the politically expeditious thing?
I think that I can guess…
Never Dem again….
Thanks, KDelphi, good points. One of the main reasons I did not vote for Obama was because he was pro-war during the campaign. How other anti-war citizens could have missed that glaring point, I don’t understand?
The Dems are just as complicit as the Repubs as they (most of them) voted for the continued funding of the illegal war(s). All Congress needs to do is STOP the funding. But they won’t do it. Many of them are making money off it.