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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"So what's the justification for Obama's inflammatory and seemingly baseless claim on national television that Iran is "pursuing a nuclear weapon that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race" when the consensus of American intelligence agencies is that they are not doing so?"
His justification is that he has a "new" centrism and non-ideological philosophy that enables him to accurately, somehow, read in that report what's not there? Or, perhaps he has better, different and more reliable information, that's of course secret, from the Bush administration that shows Iran doing exactly what the American Intelligence agencies say it's not?
The real answer is that there is no justification. And the Obama apologists know it.
I guess we're in for another four years of accepting whatever our leaders tell us.
Sigh.....
Maybe George is not familiar with the latest NIE? Which is not a defense at all, it would be appalling.
Another hypothesis: Could Obama be ratcheting up anti-Iran rhetoric in order to be able to deal effectively, somehow, with Israel by claiming to be tough on one of their enemies?
These are wild and hopeful imaginings, perhaps, but trying to figure out the gambit here, if it's a gambit at all. I mean, he's already WON THE ELECTION. What's he trying to prove? Or does he actually believe this stuff?
...and we see that we're going to be extremely disappointed, not to say outraged, by what obama will and, more to the point, won't do.
he was always a rorschach candidate, and never very progressive. the fisa vote told you all you needed to know during the campaign. and now, we are going to see him dismiss the very issues that drew him support.
remember when we took such heart from his statement that if crimes were committed they ought to be investigated? don't bet the rent on that one. or on closing guantanamo. or on green energy (unless you include his support of nuclear and clean-coal technologies). and now we see that he is going along with whatever the conventional washington belief system is on the middle east.
lower your expectations while there's still time.
"Change we can all believe in that really isn't change at all."
I know that's a lot more words than the campaign actually used, and it didn't fit neatly on slogan signs, but that's what they were really talking about. Don't you remember that, Glenn? They clearly opaquely and without reservations announced that with reservations when Obama caved on FISA after saying he wouldn't cave on FISA.
Look for this behavior in everything he does for the next 4 years. There will be so much triangulation that Rubik's will invent a new puzzle and the Olympic rings will go all Delta on us....
This is exactly why, IMO, something more radical than "training better democrats" is needed to turn this country around. It's like throwing antacid tablets into a vat of sulfuric acid the size of an olympic swimming pool.
I had hoped Obama would surprise us, but it appears not. I had been waffling about voting for him, but his betrayal of principles in voting for the revised FISA law decided the matter for me: I did not vote for Obama. I stood in line for an hour in order to vote for a candidate I knew would not win: Ralph Nader.
I have had enough of voting for the "lesser of two evils." As Marcel Duchamp said of bad art, (i.e., "bad art is still art just as a bad emotion is still emotion"), the lesser of two evils is still evil.
Obama is a mediocrity and although he is obviously preferable to George Bush/Dick Cheney, we can see he will be, if perhaps less overtly barbarous or lawless than the swine he's replacing, a diligent tool of empire.
Perhaps Obama will still surprise us in the small good things he may do, but they will be small and incidental to the great good things that demand to be done. Thus are we undone.
Maybe there is a Department of Special Plans in the transition team, and they have a "different view" of the intelligence on Iran....
And maybe this is all "close to the vest" and there will be some sorely needed clarifications and announcements in the Inaugural Address.
It's sure shaping up in a less than encouraging manner in the run-up, though. Here's hoping we don't find ourselves centricised into a continuation of same old.
... but I'm curious: does this mean that the USA is now part of the Axis of Evil?
I mean, think about it; if having a neutered, corrupt, deceitful, and obedient press, a gerrymandered judiciary, an executive that enriches its cronies at the expense of everyone else, and a wreckless expansionist policy of military adventurism abroad, while propagating transparently false ideological figleafs as a pretext for all the foregoing, made the USSR an "evil empire" ... well, then what precisely is the USA?
I ask only for information ...
I trust you will forgive me for bringing this thread over to today's post, as it is still on-topic.
If we do what Obama wants, we'll be announcing the world that we're a country that believes that it's fine to use torture-obtained evidence whenever the tortured suspect is sufficiently (and allegedly) dangerous. Why would that reasoning be confined only to past cases and not future cases where detainees are tortured?
As you like to say, we should refrain from criticizing Obama for things he hasn't yet done, let alone for things he hasn't even proposed.
In the Obama quote you published he is explicitly speaking of the already-extant Guantanamo cases he is inheriting from the Bush administration, and the problems that already exist with those cases. In your comment, above, you accuse him of wanting to set up a procedure that will be used for new cases going forward. What can I say to that? Of course I don't think he should do that. Should he propose it. Which he hasn't. The reasoning should be confined only to those cases and not future ones because he's talking about the ones that the Bush people have already screwed up.
Glenn, you say there is no good reason why all these cases can't be immediately transferred to regular court for adjudication. Let ask you an "interest of justice" question:
If the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as it stands now, suffers from a Constitutional violation severe enough to warrant dismissal - in other words, that transferring his case to US district court would result in automatic dismissal and his freedom - do you think the interests of justice will have been served?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
