President Obama, despite his many campaign attacks on the "lawless" Bush-Cheney regime, has continued those same Bush policies….
From a Washington Post piece, March 5, 2010….
An interagency review of all cases at Guantanamo Bay concluded that about 50 prisoners will have to be held in some form of prolonged detention without trial, because the evidence against them was obtained through the use of harsh interrogation methods or because its revelation in court would compromise intelligence gathering. The government says the detainees are too dangerous to release.
Detaining people in American prisons, indefinitely and without trial, was once considered by candidate Obama as an evil, anti-American, practice horribly abused by the rogue leadership of King George Jr. and his trusty Dick. Now, that same anti-American practice is fully embraced by the Democratic President Obama.
Two presidents, one from each political party….each, now, have justified and made into conventional wisdom the lie that the U.S. can no longer follow the U.S. Constitution. It is no longer safe for America to follow the U.S. legal contract.
Indefinite detention without trial is not the only Bush-Cheney policy which Obama has now embraced. Presidential power to order assassinations of U.S. citizens is presently embraced by the Obama administration.
Dana Priest, Washington Post article…
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. The evidence has to meet a certain, defined threshold. The person, for instance, has to pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests," said one former intelligence official.
The Obama administration has adopted the same stance. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, "it doesn't really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them," a senior administration official said. "They are then part of the enemy."
Now let me be clear about the implications here. Taking the neo-conservative bullsh*t seriously for just a moment….isn't it true that the bogusly named 'war on terror's' battlefield is the entire world? By definition, then, U.S. soil is included as part of this battlefield. Therefore, I can't find any reason why an American president couldn't order the assassination of a U.S "terrorist" citizen on U.S. soil. If there is an argument to the contrary….I'd like to hear it.
See if you can find any potential dangers in the following Obama policy….
Washington Times, February 4, 2010….
The U.S. intelligence community policy on killing American citizens who have joined al Qaeda requires first obtaining high-level government approval, a senior official disclosed to Congress on Wednesday.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said in each case a decision to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen must get special permission. . . .
He also said there are criteria that must be met to authorize the killing of a U.S. citizen that include "whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved."
See any potential dangers? Think it might be possible for a future radical U.S. presidential administration to start offing "dangerous supporters of al-Qaeda" inside the U.S? Do you think that such a policy of assassinating U.S. citizens on U.S. soil on the order of the president just might be open to abuse?
When was it, exactly, that U.S. citizens gave up their constitutional rights to a fair trial…..gave up their right to be presented with charges before a jury of his or her peers?
Have all political leaders in America simply given up on…..America?
