WASHINGTON, D.C. — I just finished reading an article from MSN News Services, via Reuters and the AP on the so-called Bush-era torture programs/enhanced interrogation techniques during the early days of the War on Terror and I must say I am experiencing and have been experiencing a myriad of emotions, a veritable roller coaster ride of feelings on this pending report for the last two weeks.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what, respectfully, Mr. Obama & Co. are hiding? Why the need to delay, and deny the American people, their right to know? Additionally why the need to provide cover for the Intelligence Community? Finally why, in this article I read, was a pending report from out of the White House, “accidentally emailed” to an Associated Press reporter?
These are but some of the many questions some of the many points of emotion I have been wrestling with, and again, for the last two weeks.
And so it goes…
I learned something this week and I also want to correct, publicly now, a record of standing I have long-held against a former President of these United States, Dwight Eisenhower. I contended that it was former President Eisenhower who started the C.I.A., it was not. It was in fact Harry Truman who started the C.I.A., BUT and his later years he, like so many of us do, had a change of heart on all things Central Intelligence Agency. Here, is where the change of heart began.
And so it goes…
I said all that to say this. The White House, more importantly this President, Barack H. Obama, II., and the honorable, had better come clean. He has but two whole handfuls of months left in his presidency to serve. He has a real opportunity. A real chance to level the playing field to correct the record as it were for the good of all mankind. To become something far more than what I have titled him under this #blogpost as, an ‘ACCIDENTAL’ Statesman.
President Barack H. Obama, II, 2012 Democratic National Convention…
Because, and I will close with this. Comments such as these from online news articles, though good and very informative, WILL NOT suffice,
“The report does not draw the legal conclusion that the CIA’s actions constituted torture, though it makes clear that in some cases they amounted to torture by a common definition, two people who have read the report said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the still-classified document publicly by name.
The Senate report, the State Department proposes to say, “leaves no doubt that the methods used to extract information from some terrorist suspects caused profound pain, suffering and humiliation. It also leaves no doubt that the harm caused by the use of these techniques outweighed any potential benefit.”
Those methods included slapping, humiliation, exposure to cold, sleep deprivation and the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.
The White House document is significant because it also reveals some of the State Department’s concerns about how the CIA’s tactics will be portrayed around the world.”
COMMENTS like these, for me at least, add up to duck and cover, run and hide, that age-old game of cat and mouse, that has been played throughout history both time and memorial by our fathers, grandfathers and forebears. The Cold War is over folks!
Yet Barack Obama, it appears wants to do nothing more than allow the Intelligence Community to play with the lives, fortunes and sacred honors of We The American People. It would appear to me, in the very least, that ,his attitude and actions of late, the Constitutional Law Professor has an obligatory disdain for the Rule of Law. It says, by his actions, that the Intelligence Community could give a fat rat’s rectum less about the Rule of Law OR that they only care about the Rule of Law when it is more than conveniently necessary for them to do so.
Such an attitude, such an approach toward governance and toward the everyday people who elected him to high office amounts to what Hollywood calls, “creative license”. And creative license will not cut it Mr. President! Respectfully.
Peace.
–Rhett.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, SHARE! PLEASE? THANK YOU. COME AGAIN.
ITS been a fortnight since I last posted anything here. Alas my temperament of late and just the desire to catch a breath has overtaken me. In as many days, since I last posted here, a lot has been happening in the world and in many respects it’s a good thing. Good conversations, discussions and debates to be having SO, I applaud you all. HOWEVER I am perplexed, just a bit, ONLY BECAUSE I KNOW THE TRUTH AND WILL SHARE IT HERE AND NOW, as to what I’m calling, “#Iraq 2.1/2: Mission Creep, Slightly, Revisited…”
TODAY, President Obama stood before the White House Press Corps and the free world and said, “We are going back into Iraq… (although not militarily)…” (emphasis mine)
BUT, we need to look to the last 48 hours here in America and around the world but, mainly here in America for the answer to this issue. Recently, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney and a daughter Liz Cheney penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about President Obama’s foreign policy. Responding to the recent upheaval in Iraq with the terrorist group ISIL or ISIS. So terrorist, its my understanding, is ISIL that Al Qaeda rejects them. Now, that’s bad!
Additionally, the Cheney Family is a skewed with foment and war hawk like lather at President Obama’s lack in the foreign policy department. Translation: Why won’t you go to war, militarily, like we want you to Barack?
Such, would be fine with me, were it not for a little discussed thing called FACTS.
FACT #1: George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney lied us into Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.
FACT #2: George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney profited, personally, off said Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.
FACT #3: George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney were given Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Cards by President Barack H. Obama, II. and the Congress of the United States of America for their lies and for their profit getting off the Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.
I could go on but I’d rather expand and expound on these three points and keep my political powder dry for the rest later.
It is a FACT that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney are guilty of crimes against humanity in the form of Wars. It is also a FACT that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney are complicit in crimes against humanity as far back as Iran-Contra and as recent as the police action undertaken by former President William J. Clinton in Mogadishu, Somalia.
BUT, and rather than arrest, detain, and prosecute Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney Barack Obama and the Congress of the United States of America, who hates him so, got together and cooked the books for these two gentlemen out of a sense of duty and the continuation of the club.
I am, and have been reading a fascinating book by journalist Glenn Greenwald called, “With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and (to) Protect the Powerful…” (emphasis mine)
A SIDE NOTE: I whole-heartily recommend that you get this book and read it through and through thoroughly it will open your eyes, ears, nose and throats to a lot of happy horse crap emanating from a place called Washington, D.C. U.S.A. … I profoundly agree with and express openly Mr. Greenwald’s sentiments in this particular book. Period. Full Stop. …
In this book Mr. Greenwald lays bare the club and the club’s use or I should say abuse of power in order to facilitate profit. From as far back as Watergate to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan every modern American President and Vice President has committed crimes and atrocities for which they should have been made to render an answer before the American people and the world but for and out of a sense of loyalty to the club said is given what amounts to a Get-Out-Of-Jail Free Card to escape that explanation by their predecessors.
What’s more the press, in the Greenwald book it is explained that the press, the media, both at home and abroad, are duplicitous themselves for not calling the club out on the carpet. Not speaking up and speaking out against the club for their crimes and their profits gained against humanity writ large.
Woodward and Bernstein be damned!
For years, decades frankly, the club, according to Greenwald, has gotten away with their high crimes and misdemeanors by way of a duplicitous media leading them down the prim rows path to prosperity, health, and happiness. WHY? Greenwald asks. Because they to have profited off the misfortunes of others and have laughed themselves all the way to the bank in the process.
All have forgotten, entirely and completely, what it is like to be a human being. To care about something greater and be a part of something greater than themselves. Money rules them. Power rules them. Consequences? Consequences are for the little guy!
I guarantee you all one thing. If it were you or I who declared War on sovereign nations like Iraq or Afghanistan those in power and those in the elite media would have us not just in jail but under it. And they would be there to see that the sentence was carried out.
YET, all continue to lament. Lambast. Wax long and poetic against the other all the while knowing that they helped the other in the most shameful game of duplicity possible. All are culpable in the highest crimes and highest of misdemeanors known to both God and Mammon. YET, they persist with near fortnight situational ethics about how they were right and the other guy, well, he’s just plain wrong. And so it goes… The debate of the ages to see who can makes ones self feel better faster about their political, social and ecumenical prejudices. It amounts to, for me at least, peeing in one hand and wishing in the other to see which one fills up faster. Either way the dead are still dead. The wounded are still wounded. And the world is still no freer and no more liberated than it was the day we went to war.
We are still going back to Iraq.. just not militarily.
September the 11th 2014 is just around the corner folks. Iraq! ISIL! Ready or not here we come….
–Rhett.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, SHARE! PLEASE? THANK YOU. COME AGAIN.
We’re just inviting you to take a timeout into the rhythmic ambiance of our breakfast, brunch and/or coffee selections. We are happy whenever you stop by.
Say What News?! 