Jeri: In case you have not noticed, Bush’s watch is over. I am sure there is a memo somewhere from some intelligence agency warning about Muslim terrorists hunting US soldiers right here in the USA. Why was it ignored? Don’t you see the hypocrisy?

We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss.

I refer here to Obama’s plan for “preventive detentions.” If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in “prolonged detention.” Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama’s shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.

In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.

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 George 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. That the president of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.

Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won’t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.

“Prolonged detention,” reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon “terrorism suspects who cannot be tried.”

“Cannot be tried.” Interesting choice of words.

Any “terrorism suspect” (can you be a suspect if you haven’t been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried.

What they mean, of course, is that the hundreds of men and boys languishing at Guantánamo and the thousands of “detainees” the Obama administration anticipates kidnapping in the future cannot be convicted. As in the old Soviet Union, putting enemies of the state on trial isn’t enough. The game has to be fixed. Conviction has to be a foregone conclusion.

Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners “cannot be tried”?

The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this “entirely new chapter in American law” in a boring little sentence buried a couple of paragraphs past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: “Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted.”

In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a “lack of evidence” are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, “tainted evidence” is no evidence at all. If you can’t prove that a defendant committed a crime — an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime — in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.

It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush’s lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.

9/11 was Bush’s folly! OBL is still free because Bush and Cheney wanted war against Iraq more than to get the guys that attacked and killed US citizens!

9/11 was directly tied to Ronald Reagan’s quisling withdrawal of Marines from Lebanon after the barracks was suicide bombed (the first time such a tactic was used against Americans—it worked!)! Reagan pulled out rather than level the terrorist training camps in the Bekaa Valley where the guys what did us were trained. Same as Bush/Cheney!

I don’t want anything to do with any “Republican” taking care of my safety. After I’m dead, they’ll remove all our troops near the guys that did it, start a war somewhere else so KBR/Halliburton can make more untold billions from heroes’ blood!

Ted Rall, good for you!

Hopefully all the regular liberals/Democrat citizens will start to understand just how lied to and used and abused they have been.

This country is headed down a path of such BS fascism it’s not even funny. Their lies are grotesque. Wrap it in a flag, say you love the USA, do any lipservice BS to sell it to the unsophistcated in this “fly-over” country. That’s the way they operate in DC and NY nowadays.

Ted Rall and So obvious.

If Ted is correct about preventive detention, is it not the next logical step after warrant less wire taps? Yet your side saw no problem with those.

Yet I believe Ted is wrong. I have heard the term, but only applied to those that are at GitMO that we feel cannot be released. So where did Ted get his information that it applied to US citizens?

Let us say that Ted is correct and Obama wishes to apply this to US citizens. Is Ted suggesting that the courts will roll over and allow this? Does he suggest that between all the Federal Judges and State Judges this will go unopposed? Does he suggest that the Federal and Local police will just blindly cooperate?

What simplistic and conspiratorial views that the right wing has, you guys are making your side look ridiculous.

Tim Hogan: You conclude that the terrorist movement is prominent because of Reagan pulling our troops out of Lebanon, and ignore the Somalia disgrace. You then conclude Bush and Cheney are why OBL is alive and ignore the fact that Bill Clinton declined to end this terrorist’s life when we literally had him in our crosshairs. I can’t imagine your analysis of anything is worth reading.

Bob, I think Ted was trying to state that once the American people accept this garbage against “terrorists” who have not been charged with any crime, then there is a strong possibility it will extend to our country. Go back through history and see how dictatorships form. This is SOP.

Regardless, it’s ridiculous even at Gitmo. To hold someone because you “think” they may be a “terrorist” is against the principals of our nation. If you cannot see that, then I cannot help you.

As far as having faith in our justice system, again that’s ridiculous. Time and time again they pass Draconian legislation. Just recently, The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a landmark 1986 ruling that forbid the police from questioning suspects without their attorney present.

Finally, you obviously need to brush up on your reading comprehension. Last paragraph from Ted:

“It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush’s lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.”

Right wing conspiracy theorist? Since when do those guys castigate the Bush regime on anything? Stop looking at things from a right vs. left perspective. They are different sides on the same coin. You have been fooled. Take corrective action.

So obvious

Thanks for explaining things to this guy. I thought I was pretty clear on things, particularly my indignation towards the Bush regime. I will consider the audience the next time I write on this blog.

So obvious and Ted

If I miss understood then I apologize.

However, while there are bumps in our justice system I still have faith that it does get it right in the end. If for no other reason it gets it right because we do have judges for life and we have multiple levels of police. Do it is impossible to pack the system.

Cheney admits there was never any evidence tying Iraq, 9/11

Oops.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney wants a do-over. After being party to an administration that repeatedly sought to tie the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks with Saddam Hussein, he’s ready to let that assertion go.

In an interview with Fox News’ Greta van Susteren Monday, Cheney said there was no evidence tying Iraq and 9/11 — and that there never was.

“On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that,” he told the Fox host. “There was “some reporting early on … but that was never borne out… [Former CIA Director] George [Tenet] … did say and did testify that there was an ongoing relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but no proof that Iraq was involved in 9-11.”

Cheney’s comments are a marked shift from those he made in 2003. Pressed to disavow assertions that Iraq was in any way involved with the attacks, the then-VP claimed the administration was learning “more and more” about al Qaeda-Iraq ties.

Now, after 4,308 US service members have lost their lives in Iraq, and no longer in office, the vociferous GOP hawk has appears to have changed his mind.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/02/cheney-no-evidence-iraq/