U.S Soldiers Are Waking Up!

“….  The manifestation of the problem in this example is what is tantamount to a lie of omission. By deliberately omitting the relevant facts in this story, by deceptively not focusing in on the real issue and explaining it clearly, an issue that is painfully clear to some of us, the controlled mass-media IS the problem. Not allowing a democracy to get full and complete, accurate, objective, honest, factual news, leads that democracy into uninformed opinions and faulty decisions. This is the hallmark of the controlled mass-media, the kosher-party-line, and it is propaganda, pure and simple. It is an example of lying by omission and those that control our mass-media know this full well….

—Media Lies: The Sin of Omission–“

The Gall of Galloway

Newspaper Self-Reflection

I’m glad they are looking deep within themselves for answers:

“The mischaracterization is intentional: Newspapers are trying to scare the public…. distort the discussion so completely that vital issues…. slip by without debate. Newspapers…. should have enough faith in their views to argue them squarely, without resorting to distractions and distortions.” 

I won’t be holding my breath.

Torture and the New York Times

“The NYT calls Iranian interrogation tactics “torture”

(updated below)

Today is the ideal day to celebrate America’s specialness, and America’s paper of record inspirationally leads the ritual:

Clark Hoyt, New York Times Public Editor, April 26, 2009:

A LINGUISTIC shift took place in this newspaper as it reported the details of how the Central Intelligence Agency was allowed to strip Al Qaeda prisoners naked, bash them against walls, keep them awake for up to 11 straight days, sometimes with their arms chained to the ceiling, confine them in dark boxes and make them feel as if they were drowning.

Until this month, what the Bush administration called “enhanced” interrogation techniques were “harsh” techniques in the news pages of The Times. Increasingly, they are “brutal”. . . . .

The word had appeared a few times before in this context, most recently on April 10, when the Central Intelligence Agency said it was closing the network of secret overseas prisons where interrogations took place. Scott Shane, who covers national security, said he and his editor in the Washington bureau, Douglas Jehl, negotiated over the wording of the first paragraph. Shane wrote that methods used in the prisons were “widely denounced as illegal torture.” Jehl changed that to the “harshest interrogation methods” since the Sept. 11 attacks. Shane said he felt that with more information coming to light, including a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the words harsh and even harshest no longer sufficed. He proposed brutal, and Jehl agreed. . . .

And why not, then, go all the way to torture? Jehl said that when the paper is discussing what is generally regarded as the most extreme interrogation method the C.I.A. used, waterboarding, “we’ve become more explicit in saying in a first reference that it’s a near-drowning technique” that Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and many other experts “have called torture.” But he said: “I have resisted using torture without qualification or to describe all the techniques. Exactly what constitutes torture continues to be a matter of debate and hasn’t been resolved by a court. This president and this attorney general say waterboarding is torture, but the previous president and attorney general said it is not. On what basis should a newspaper render its own verdict, short of charges being filed or a legal judgment rendered?” Jehl argued for precision and caution. I agree.

The New York Times today:

Top Reformers Admitted Plot, Iran Declares

CAIRO — Iranian leaders say they have obtained confessions from top reformist officials that they plotted to bring down the government with a “velvet” revolution. Such confessions, almost always extracted under duress, are part of an effort to recast the civil unrest set off by Iran’s disputed presidential election as a conspiracy orchestrated by foreign nations, human rights groups say. . . .

The government has made it a practice to publicize confessions from political prisoners held without charge or legal representation, often subjected to pressure tactics like sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and torture, according to human rights groups and former political prisoners. . . .

In 2001, Ali Afshari was arrested for his work as a student leader. He said he was held in solitary confinement for 335 days and resisted confessing for the first two months. But after two mock executions and a five-day stretch where his interrogators would not let him sleep, he said he eventually caved in.

“They tortured me, some beatings, sleep deprivation, insults, psychological torture, standing me for several hours in front of a wall, keeping me in solitary confinement for one year,” Mr. Afshari said in an interview from his home in Washington. “They eventually broke my resistance.”

Virtually every tactic which the article describes the Iranians as using has been used by the U.S. during the War on Terror, while several tactics authorized by Bush officials (waterboarding, placing detainees in coffin-like boxes, hypothermia) aren’t among those the article claims are used by the Iranians. Nonetheless, “torture” appears to be a perfectly fine term for The New York Times to use to describe what the Iranians do, but one that is explicitly banned to describe what the U.S. did. Despite its claimed policy, the NYT has also recently demonstrated its eagerness to use the word “torture” to describe these same tactics . . . when used by the Chinese against an American detainee.

Notably, the NYT article today seems to take particular offense that the Iranian Government is putting people on trial using confessions they obtained via torture (“the government planned to put on trial several Iranian employees of the British Embassy — after confessions were extracted”). Just two days ago, The Washington Post reported:

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation.

“The government’s continued reliance on evidence gained by torture and other abuse violates centuries of U.S. law and suggests the current administration is not really serious about breaking with the past,” said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is representing Jawad in a lawsuit challenging his detention.”The government’s continued reliance on evidence gained by torture and other abuse violates centuries of U.S. law and suggests the current administration is not really serious about breaking with the past,” said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is representing Jawad in a lawsuit challenging his detention.

Just read the details of what we did to this adolescent to marvel at what the NYT (and, of course, NPR) refuse to call “torture” when done by us. Though the human rights abuses of the Iranian Government are well-documented and severe, there’s also no mention in the NYT article of these interrogation tactics being applied by Iran to teenagers (such as Jawad) or resulting in numerous detainee deaths (as happened during the Bush era).

During the presidential campaign, Rudy Giuliani was widely ridiculed for arguing that whether these tactics are “torture” depends, at least in part, on who uses them (it’s torture if They do it, but not when We do it). But he could take that definitive moral relativism to any leading American newspaper, become an Editor, and fit right in, since that’s exactly the editorial policy of our leading media outlets. What’s most striking about all this media behavior is that people around the world — outside of the U.S. — aren’t fooled by these sorts of blatant double standards, whereby the U.S. even claims the power to change the meaning of words based on whether it or another country is doing something. The target of this government and media behavior is purely domestic.

It’s not particularly unusual for a government to permit itself to do something that it prohibits others from doing. The U.S. is hardly the only country that does that. But when that country’s media collectively abets that government effort by molding its language to reflect that exceptionalism, it elevates the propaganda to a much different level. When I documented the American media’s obsession with journalists detained by other countries and its virtually complete blackout of much, much longer (and often more oppressive) detentions of foreign journalists by the U.S., that was the central point I tried to emphasize:

Pointing to other governments and highlighting their oppressive behavior can be cathartic, fun and gratifying in a self-justifying sort of way. Ask Fred Hiatt; it’s virtually all he ever does. But the first duty of the American media — like the first duty of American citizens — is to oppose oppressive behavior by our own government. That’s not as fun or as easy, but it is far more important. Moreover, obsessively complaining about the rights-abridging behavior of other countries while ignoring the same behavior from our own government is worse than a mere failure of duty. It is propagandistic and deceitful, as it paints a misleading picture that it is other governments — but not our own — which engage in such conduct.

Since the American Government has acted — and continues to act — overtly to protect and shield those who engaged in this conduct, will it condemn Iran for torturing detainees? As for The New York Times, at this point, they don’t even seem interested in pretending that they make these editorial judgments independently or with a pretense of objectivity. They’re perfectly happy to have you know that when the U.S. Government does X, it is called one thing, but when foreign governments do X, it is called something else entirely.

UPDATE: From NPR yesterday (h/t reader EI):

Meditations On Freedom: Refugee Finds Peace In U.S.

Musa Saidykhan had been a reporter in his home country of Gambia for more than a decade when he was arrested and later tortured by government officials. Following Saidykhan’s imprisonment, he fled the country with his family and now lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Saidykhan explains how he will commemorate freedom on this, his first, Independence Day in the U.S.

All the impediments that prevent American media organizations from using the word “torture” certainly do evaporate quickly when it comes to other countries.

—MORE–”

Let me tell you a little story about a guy I knew:

The guy I’m talking about used to look forward to getting his morning papers. He used to purchase the New York Times and Boston Globe every day and meticulously outlined the stories he would cover, marking them with red and blue ink. While understanding the biases of the MSM, he still believed they did report events as they happened. There was no reason to doubt the truth of America’s newspapers. Yes, there may have been some mistakes and omissions, but for the most part they did a decent job.

(For more on his journey see A Lifetime of Lies Since 9/11)

After about a year of increasingly poor MSM coverage and exposure to the blogs, his commentaries became more and more strident. He couldn’t believe the scale of lies he was seeing, not just on Iraq and 9/11, but on every single issue (the weather fer cryin’ out loud). Such behavior led him to stop purchasing the New York Times. That was part of his New Year’s resolution for 2008 and it stuck. The strange part is that he found himself visiting the New York Times website less and less.

He kept purchasing a Boston Globe in the belief that it added a certain perspective and kitsch to his blog, an on-the-ground report on the MSM from his home base; however, their agenda-pushing propaganda — oddly(?), the New York Times owns the Boston Globe — just got worse and worse and worse and continues to this day. I guess that’s why newspapers are failing: when they can’t even please their most faithful purchasers, what hope do they have? They shouldn’t tell all those lies.

Anyhow, he decided to scrap purchases of the Boston Globe as his New Years’ resolution for 2009. Unfortunately, that resolution did not sick. I think you know who I’m talking about, readers.

Bush Administration Officials Convicted of War Crimes

Finally, some American justice….

“Men sentenced to life for torture, murder; Convictions took 4 trials, 5 years”

Why so many trials and so long?

Bush’s 9/11 Reaction

“Preached forgiveness in the face of violence.”

Results include your SearchWiki notes for bush ground zero speech. Share these notes

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That’s not the way I remember it.

Oh, those where heady times, weren’t they, America?

Don’t you miss them?

When you BELIEVED the LIE?

Rewriting the New York Times

“DOJ Torture Emails: How The Times; Could Have Reported The Story

by Zachary Roth – June 8, 2009

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Justice Department lawyers agreed in 2005 that harsh interrogation techniques were legal. The impact of the story — which was based largely on email messages written at the time by James Comey, then a high-ranking Justice Department official — has been, it seems, to bolster the Dick Cheney position in the ongoing torture debate in Washington.

But the Times also, to its credit, released Comey’s emails in full, allowing us all to make our own judgments about what they show. And after a close look at the emails, it seems clear that the paper could have used them to write a very different story — with a very different effect on the public debate.

Here’s the story the Times could have written:

WASHINGTON — Alberto Gonzales told Justice Department lawyers in 2005 that he was under great pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney to complete memos approving the use of harsh interrogation techniques, and that President Bush had also asked about them, according to emails written at the time by a top Justice Department official and obtained by the New York Times. The emails, written by James Comey, the deputy attorney general, make clear that Comey and other DOJ lawyers raised frequent and strenuous objections to the use of the techniques. They show Comey expressing the view that the White House placed extreme pressure on the department to approve the techniques without taking the time needed for a full consideration of the issues raised, and show him lamenting that department officials — including, it appears, Gonzales — had caved to that pressure. And they also suggest that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, tried to short-circuit a discussion among senior administration officials, sought by DOJ, about the wisdom of employing the harsh techniques.

Comey’s emails, written in April and May 2005 to his chief of staff, Chuck Rosenberg, suggest that Comey strongly objected to a DOJ opinion stating that the “combined effects” of using the various techniques did not amount to torture. Comey wrote that at a meeting with Gonzales and Steven Bradbury, then a lawyer at the Office of Legal Counsel, he had expressed “grave reservations” about the opinions, and later that he had told Gonzales that “some of this stuff is simply awful.”

Comey appealed to Gonzales to take a hard line by invoking the judgment of history. “In stark terms,” he wrote of a meeting with the AG, “I explained to him what this would look like some day, and what it would mean for the President and the government….I told him that it would all come out some day and be presented as I was presenting it.”

Comey’s emails also paint a picture of a Department of Justice under extreme pressure from the White House to approve the techniques. In response to Comey expressing his reservations about the opinion, according to one of Comey’s emails, Gonzales said that he had been under pressure from Cheney to complete the memos, with the vice president telling Gonzales “we are getting killed on the Hill.” Gonzales also said the president had asked about them.

The White House pressure didn’t stop there, apparently. Comey also wrote that a deputy, Patrick Philbin, had told him that Bradbury had received “similar pressure” from David Addington, and Harriet Miers, the top lawyers to Cheney and Bush respectively. Comey worried that having Bradbury serving as acting head of OLC, but wanting the position permanently, left him “susceptible to just this kind of pressure.”

The emails also portray Gonzales, the attorney general, as unwilling or unable to stand up to such pressure even when warned by deputies that not doing so would put the department’s reputation at risk.

Comey wrote that, after his initial concerns about the issue of “combined effects” were not adequately addressed, he sought out a private meeting with Gonzales, where he told the attorney general that signing off on that opinion “would come back to haunt him and the department,” and asked him directly to stop it. Gonzales agreed, saying he would pass on the concerns to Miers, and asked Comey to alter the opinion to address Gonzales’ and Comey’s concerns.

But after meeting with the White House, according to Comey, Gonzales gave word that the changes needed to be completed in two days. Comey and Philbin objected that this wasn’t nearly long enough to conduct the additional fact-finding that was necessary. Referring to a conversation with Gonzales’ chief of staff, Ted Ullyot, Comey wrote: “I told him that it could be made right in a week, which was a blink of the eye, and that nobody would understand at a hearing three years from now why we didn’t take that week.”

But Gonzales stuck to the expedited schedule, leaving Comey to write: “It leaves me feeling sad for the Department and the AG.” He added that he hoped that blame for approving the techniques would fall on “those individuals who occupied positions at OLC and OAG and were too weak to stand up for the principles that undergird a great institution.”

The episode left Comey nostalgic for the leadership shown by the previous attorney general — not usually seen as an antagonist of the Bush White House. “People may think it strange to hear me say I miss John Ashcroft,” wrote Comey, “but as intimidated as he could be by the WH, when it came to crunch-time, he stood up, even from an intensive care hospital bed. That backbone is gone.”

Another of Comey’s emails suggests that Rice, the secretary of state, sought to avoid a full high-level discussion of whether the harsh tactics were advisable. Comey writes that, in a sit-down to prep Gonzales for a meeting on the issue with the National Security Council, the attorney general said that Rice’s attitude was that “if DOJ said it was legal and CIA said it was effective, then that ended it, without a need for detailed policy discussion.”

Later that day, according to the email, Gonzales reported back on the meeting, saying that a full policy discussion had occurred, but that the principals at the meeting nonetheless approved the full list of techniques at issue. Gonzales did not give further details.

Ok, maybe not quite Times style, but you get the idea. The impact of a story like that on the ongoing torture debate would be quite different, one would think.

It’s worth noting, of course, that the Times writes that its story is based not just on the Comey emails, but also on “interviews and newly declassified documents.”

But, leaving aside (sort of) the issue of the Times‘ news judgments, it’s by no means clear that the key information that’s been uncovered acts to vindicate the Bush administration’s torture proponents. Indeed, it seems more like the emails cut in the other direction — by adding to our understanding of the way that the nominally apolitical Justice Department was pressured by the White House to override the concerns of high-ranking officials and approve the use of harsh and shocking techniques.

—MORE–”

Related: Tortuous Immunity

Obama Joins the War Criminals

Why not? He’s working for them.

“Mr. Obama, Bring Down the War Criminals!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Among several sticky tar babies Bush left Obama the worst are: Guantanamo, torture, capital war crimes! The clock is ticking for Obama. The time for ‘good faith’ is running out! Unless Obama moves to close Guantanamo now and end the practice of torture while bringing war crimes charges against Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney et al., he risks being so charged himself!

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people’s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can’t control, what Orwell called “thoughtcrime” -contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.Locking up people who haven’t done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to “preventive detention” is an outrage.–Ted Rall, Resign Now

One hundred days have come and gone!

*******************

I am sick to death of talk, spin and propaganda! I want action! The world demands action! The world demands an immediate end to this bullshit! Mr. Obama, TEAR DOWN THESE ILLEGAL PRISONS! MR. OBAMA, BRING TORTURERS AND MURDERERS TO TRIAL!MR. OBAMA, STOP THE WAR CRIMES, STOP THE MURDERS, STOP THE TORTURE! NOW! A list of broken promises continues to grow! These crimes are but a continuation of Bush administration policies.

Mr. Obama –you were NOT elected to be Bush-lite!You were elected to UNDO Bush’s many failures!

You were elected to RIGHT the many wrongs that had been done by Bush!

You were elected to UPHOLD the rule of law!

You put your hand on a black book and swore to protect and defend the Constitution! That act meant nothing to Bush. We had hoped it meant more to you!

To read the rest of this post, go HERE

Also read: Too Obvious To Mention: Obama-Era Lies Protect Bush-Era Crimes

Obama the Neo-Con

“The Obama administration is morphing into the Bush administration….  Obama’s decision to revive the military tribunals completes “a perfect mosaic of hypocrisy“

And you thought you voted for change!

“On first trip to Mideast, Obama has delicate task; Seeks to open dialogue, avoid democracy lecture” by Farah Stockman, Globe Staff  |  June 3, 2009

WASHINGTON – Behind the scenes, however, Obama has opted to continue signature Bush-era democracy programs and is on track to greatly increase their funding.

Related: PNAC

Clean Break

Yup, they are still running the show, Americans.

And the same MSM that lied you into these wars of conquest for Israel still has the chutzpah to call these mass-murdering aggressions “democracy programs?”

“They want to be less vocal on their democracy efforts,” said Kent Patton, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs under Bush. “They believe the Bush administration was too vocal, that was coun terproductive. . . . But I do believe that they see the value in these programs and in the broader effort. Right now, they are just shifting the means to achieve the same ends that President Bush was trying to achieve.”

Obama’s 2010 budget proposal seeks $86 million for the Middle East Partnership Initiative, a program developed in 2002 by Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of the former vice president, and that promotes training of government officials, entrepreneurs, and activists, up from $50 million in 2009.

So all that bric-a-brac flak betweeen the two is really a load of crap, isn’rt it?

Obama’s budget also seeks to nearly double, to $1.4 billion, funding for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a program started in 2004 that uses aid as an incentive for government reform in the developing world. He also wants an increase in US contributions, from $3 million to $14 million, to a United Nations fund aimed at strengthening civil society and democratic governance around the world.

Yeah, we really have money to throw around here in America: 

“the deficit for this year will soar to an astronomical $1.84 trillion“

Obama’s budget request tracks closely with Bush’s requests last year, but analysts say the Democratic-controlled Congress is poised to grant more of Obama’s requests….

Just like they funded all the wars, those antiwar Democrats!

So politics is nothing but s*** fooleys for the s***-chomping AmeriKan citizen, ‘eh?

Obama defended his low-key approach in a series of interviews on the eve of his trip, even as he said he wanted to promote human rights as a universal value and American values of “democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion.”

This kind of talk is just offensive coming from a nation and its leaders that have launched mass-murdering wars of aggression on lies and runs black-site torture chambers all over the globe.

“We’re not going to get countries to embrace our values simply by lecturing or through military means,” Obama said on National Public Radio on Monday. “The danger I think is when the United States or any country thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture,” he told the BBC.

Just hot fart mist, that’s all it is.

Many presidents have had to walk the line between supporting allies that are powerful, autocratic regimes, or advocating for their oppressed people. 

Yeah, leave the U.S. hypocrisy for an uninvestigated, uncontextualized sentence.

For decades, the US government has given military protection and economic aid to autocratic governments, believing that the stability they bring is in US interests, particularly in the turmoil-prone Middle East.

And NO PROBLEM, ‘eh, AmeriKan jewsmedia?

But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration saw democracy as the best antidote to Islamic radicalism.

When they PEDDLE SUCH OBFUSCATING RUBBISH, who can blame me for getting angry?

In 2005, Bush delivered a message that year at the National Endowment for Democracy, declaring that “Islamic radicalism” will be defeated by freedom, because “free peoples will own the future.”

Bush’s message, coupled with his new programs, met with some initial success, as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held the country’s first multiparty elections and other countries allowed unprecedented political participation.

But Bush’s democracy push – never popular with Middle Eastern governments – eventually alienated ordinary people, as he used it to justify the war in Iraq, and lost steam during his final years in office as Islamists began winning elections.

After the Muslim Brotherhood won seats in the Egyptian Parliament, the White House stopped pressuring Egypt to reform. When the anti-Israeli militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah won elections in Gaza and the West Bank, and Lebanon, respectively, the Bush administration actively undermined them.

Well, HOW DID THEY DO THAT, MSM?  Yeah, just leave it there!

I can’t tell you how unhappy I am about the AmeriKan jewsmedia and their garbage. I think I’m going to stop reading them altogether now.

By the time Bush left office, many Arabs saw US democracy promotion as a code word for imperialism. The approval rating for US leaders last year was just 6 percent in Egypt and 12 percent in Saudi Arabia, according to a Gallup poll released yesterday. Under Obama, US leaders already have higher ratings, with 25 percent and 29 percent, respectively, the poll said….

I no longer believe MSM polls — or anything else they claim. Too many lies for too long.

J. Scott Carpenter, a fellow at the conservative-leaning Washington Institute who headed the Middle East democracy promotion effort under Bush, said: “…. Obama doesn’t talk about human rights. He doesn’t talk about democracy, as if those are Bush words. But they are not. They are American words.”

Placed in their mouths by Zionist Jews.

—more–”

“Obama to restart military tribunals, with more rights” by Lara Jakes, Associated Press | May 15, 2009

WASHINGTON – President Obama will restart Bush-era military tribunals, reviving a fiercely disputed trial system he once denounced.

Obama’s decision to resume the tribunals is certain to face criticism from liberal groups, already stung by his decision Wednesday to block the court-ordered release of photos showing US troops abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan – a reversal of his earlier stand on making the photos public.

Yeah, we are getting used to the broken promises.

It’s also possible that some could continue to be held indefinitely as prisoners of war with full Geneva Conventions protections, according to another senior official.
—more–”

“Obama keeps tribunals, draws ire; Reversal angers some backers” by Joseph Williams, Globe Staff | May 16, 2009

WASHINGTON – President Obama’s decision to overhaul and restart the Bush administration’s military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay terrorism detainees won support from congressional Republicans yesterday, but deepened his estrangement from the liberal activists who helped sweep him into office.

He could care less about you.

In a statement yesterday, Obama said he was reviving the tribunals for a small number of the 241 Guantanamo inmates because the commissions “are appropriate for trying enemies who violate the laws of war, provided that they are properly structured and administered.”

The White House asserted that Obama was not embracing the Bush system because he was adding significant legal protections for detainees, such as not allowing statements obtained through waterboarding and other extreme interrogation tactics. Like Bush, Obama is trying to walk a fine line between adhering to the rule of law and ensuring that dangerous, avowed enemies of the United States remain behind bars.

“This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values,” said Obama, a former constitutional law professor.

As he violates the hell out of ’em!

But civil liberties groups, among his staunchest allies on the political left, vowed to fight the move and lashed out at the president, accusing him of turning his back on his own ideals and reneging on another campaign promise. They also questioned whether, after just four months in office, Obama is caving in to Republicans who have openly challenged him on the issue of national security.

“It’s disturbing,” said Tom Andrews of Win Without War, a coalition of groups opposed to the US troop presence in Iraq. “It’s not just one episode, it’s a clear trend that’s emerging.”

Andrews said he and other liberal activists are dismayed and angered by Obama’s reluctance to investigate what they consider the use of torture during interrogations of detainees, his decision to retain the power to place terrorist suspects in secret overseas prisons, and his reversal earlier this week in which he announced he would fight the release of a new batch of photos showing US personnel abusing detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Now, he’s going to revive a [tribunal] system that has no credibility at all in the world,” said Andrews, a former member of Congress…. 

Whatever, liberals; I’m still waiting for you guys to smell the 9/11 Truth.

The rest of the 241 Guantanamo detainees will, potentially, held indefinitely as prisoners of war. A Guantanamo inmate, who helped establish detainees’ rights to challenge their detention in a case that went to the US Supreme Court, was freed and arrived yesterday in France, which agreed to take him in a gesture to the Obama administration, the Associated Press reported. Lakhdar Boumediene, suspected in a bomb plot against the US embassy in Sarajevo, was arrested along with five other Algerians in 2001 in Bosnia, but was later cleared of any terrorist activity and is expected to live with family.

That’s because TERRORISM is GOVERNMENT-CREATED, -FUNDED, and DIRECTED!

Though it was a major policy decision, Obama did not announce it in person. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president will give a speech about the tribunals and other related issues on Thursday.

Gibbs told reporters yesterday that the tribunals will ensure “certain justice” for the detainees as well as “live up to our values.” Asked about alienating the administration’s core supporters, he said that national security was “first and foremost” on Obama’s mind.

As civil liberties groups blasted Obama for the decision to build on what they called Bush’s flawed, hastily constructed system, Republicans praised him for recognizing reality, saying that becoming commander in chief has forced Obama to set aside campaign positions….

One top Democrat, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also supported Obama. “I objected to the military commissions that were created by the Bush-Cheney administration because they stripped away critical protections in our laws,” Leahy said in a statement yesterday. “People in American custody must be treated fairly, humanely and in accordance with our laws. I look forward to reviewing the Obama administration’s proposals for providing a fair system of military commissions.”

The tribunal system was designed to deal with enemy combatants captured by the US military on the battlefields of Afghanistan starting in late 2001. But human rights and legal organizations repeatedly challenged the system because it denied defendants most of the basic rights they would have been granted in a civilian courtroom or a traditional military court martial.

Civil libertarians have argued that the detainees’ cases belong in US federal court, where the government has won dozens of cases against suspected terrorists – including Zacharias Moussaoui, the so-called “20th hijacker,” now serving a life sentence in prison.

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, said yesterday that Obama’s decision to revive the military tribunals completes “a perfect mosaic of hypocrisy” that began with his decision to accept the Bush administration’s position on a lawsuit filed by five men who claim they were kidnapped and tortured by the CIA. Obama’s lawyers are seeking to dismiss the suit, arguing that it would reveal government secrets and threaten national security.

“The Obama administration is morphing into the Bush administration on these important issues,” Turley said.

Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said his agency intends to fight the decision in court, which could take years. “Ultimately, this is very likely to be found to be another illegal scheme,” he said.

Andrews said he believes Obama’s decision is an overreaction to Republican criticism that Democrats’ antiterror policies would bring Guantanamo detainees to US prisons, and to former vice president Dick Cheney, who has taken to the airwaves to argue that Obama has made the nation less safe. “It’s about whether terrorists are going to show up in your neighborhood, and see a terrorist mowing the lawn next door. It’s outrageous,” Andrews said of Cheney.

What, Bush out mowing his yard again?

Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst, said that politically, Obama seems to have taken a calculated risk: make national-security decisions that will mollify Republicans, even if it means taking intense heat from liberal Democrats in the short term.

“His gamble is that the left will stay with him. I think that gamble will pay off,” Sabato said.

Sadly, so do I.

—more–”

And seeing as Obama is moving the same aganda forward as Bush, this stinks of fooleys, doesn’t it?

“Obama and Cheney clash on fight against terror” by Joseph Williams and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | May 22, 2009

WASHINGTON – Meanwhile, Obama also drew fire from some civil liberties groups by suggesting yesterday that he would continue to hold some terrorism suspects indefinitely….

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat, praised Obama for “being honest with the American people” while avoiding fear-mongering, while her Republican counterpart, John Boehner, said that the president dismissed the concerns of the American people and a strong bipartisan majority that does not want Guantanamo detainees brought to their communities.

On the Senate side, Senator Patrick Leahy – a Vermont Democrat who has proposed a truth commission to get to the bottom of controversial Bush administration decisions on handling terrorists – agreed with Obama, saying, “It’s time to act on our principles and our constitutional system.”

This type of talk is disgusting when you consider that EVERYTHING THEY ARE APPROVING is CONTRADICTORY to OUR VALUES!! OUR VALUES, not GOVERNMENT’S VALUES!!!!

But Senator John Cornyn, an influential Texas Republican, asked:

“Are we really going to insist that the jihadist with a suitcase nuke captured in Times Square be read his Miranda rights, potentially closing off the chance to garner valuable intelligence that might save hundreds or thousands of American lives?” he asked.

Oh, ANOTHER FALSE FLAG in the works, ‘eh?

Is it going to be something like this, to be blamed on them?

Civil libertarians, who have sued the government on behalf of detainees held for years without charges or trial, embraced Obama’s dedication to constitutional principles but were dismayed by his plans to create a version of indefinite detention for some terrorist suspects.

“The president wrapped himself in the Constitution and then proceeded to violate it,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human rights group….

—more–”

Of course, IT ALL STINKS like S*** because 9/11 was an INSIDE JOB performed primarily by the CIA, MOSSAD and America’s DUAL NATIONAL ZIONIST TRAITORS in GOVERNMENT!!