Thursday, November 19, 2009

Obama may sound more reasonable than Bush the Lesser, but ...

... Obama's unconstitutional imprisonment and kidnapping policies for anyone his administration doesn't like is the same. Maybe, perhaps they aren't torturing them. But secrecy and injustice lead to lies, so who knows. And any nation that regularly tortures its own citizens with Tasers is hardly to be believed on this issue.

As Glenn Greenwald writes:
Does that remotely sound like a "justice system"? If you're accused of being a Terrorist, there's not one set procedure used to determine your guilt; instead, the Government has a roving bazaar of various processes which it, in its sole discretion, picks for you based on ensuring that it will win. Even worse, Holder repeatedly assured Senators that the administration would continue to imprison 9/11 defendants even in the very unlikely case that they were acquitted, citing what they previously suggested was their Orwellian authority of so-called "post-acquittal detention powers." Is there any better definition of a "show trial" than one in which the defendant has no chance of ever being released even if acquitted, because the Government will simply thereafter assert the power to hold him indefinitely without charges?
and
The administration should have the courage of its convictions and defend jury trials as a linchpin of American justice, which would entail giving them to all Terrorism suspects not captured on any battlefield. But by refusing to do so -- by exhibiting the very cowardice of which Holder accused Republicans, i.e. denying Terrorism suspects a trial -- the administration has no cogent argument to make in its own defense. It's just another case of the administration wanting to bask in the rhetorical glory of "the rule of law" while simultaneously trampling on it for petty political convenience.
That is IF this administration has convictions. This Democratic Administration has become Republican Lite. Now that's really scary ...

The Republicans at least have a goal, a creed. Perpetual war, perpetual dominance of the world, ensuring the 'haves' have all and the 'have-nots' are effectually slaves. It's very direct, very simple minded. What you say today only applies to today. Justice is a word like any other.

Republican Lite, one the other hand, is an attempt to appease. A cowardly approach with no principals behind it that can be defended.

Is Obama trying to be Solomon? Now that the Thugs have demanded that he split the baby, and he's actually tried, what is he going to do next? I think the lesson of Solomon and the baby is one that the Thugs understand and Obama does not. Solomon wished to identify the real mother. Obama's actions are more like negotiating with the fake mother and pushing the real mother out of the way.

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