Monday, May 18, 2009

May 18 -- "buds" on the Birches

Things I  talk about and take positions on because I'm a long-time voter in the world's greatest democracy.

The decision  by Obama to go ahead and use Military Tribunals to try some of the Guantanamo prisoners is not acceptable to this voter.  Yep, I believed we would have a resolution to the whole Guantanamo thing long before this, and along the lines he campaigned on: trials or release.  
This is just one of several areas where Obama has disappointed me, personally, as one of his voters. Another one is his abandoning of the single-payer health care concept.  Am I going to stop supporting him?  Not yet, despite the disappointments.  But if he calls and asks me how he's doing, I'll give him a B-minus on credibility.
===
Why does Arlen Specter give me the feeling that I should run and get the antibacterial soap?  Possibly it's because he's such a grungy, creepy guy. 
===
Could Nancy Pelosi be lying about what she knew about water-boarding?  
Could the CIA be lying?  
 
To be honest (will I be considered a freak for this?) I don't believe either of them, and I don't care to start parsing the degree to which either is truthful.  Why has my government been torturing people?  Why didn't everyone know  - politicians, bureaucrats, sneaky spies, and all the citizenry?  We should have been told, period, and our officials should at least have had the wherewithal to find out about it.  This  is what we should expect and demand. This is a democracy and I want my government to behave like it! 
Now stop the torture! 
===
I have thought a long and (in-so-far-as possible)  hard time about what our friend Sparty said concerning putting on trial everyone who might have known about or participated in water-boarding. I've been fully in favor of a thorough investigation -- by an independent commission.  I have accepted Obama's decision to not pursue any of the operatives.  I want the policy makers.  This crime does not rise to the level of what we saw in World War II.  I simply don't accept that comparison. But, I hope we - through a commission - go after the top decision makers - whoever they are. 


Click on cartoon to enlarge it.
CLICK for Booth website

1 comment:

Sparty said...

I, too, am frustrated and disappointed by the president's decision to continue with the Bush military tribunals, although he has added some ingredients of procedural due process.

I am not disappointed by his failure to support a single-payer health system because I never expected him to propose such a system since he had opposed it during his campaign.

An appointed commission to investigate the use of torture during the Bush regime is better than nothing - I suppose. While nobody would argue that the methods used were the equal of those used by the Nazis and Japanese during WW II, that shouldn't be the threshold for punishing those who engage in establishing and carrying out a system of extreme interrogation methods. If it is, then it's not likely that anybody could ever be held responsible for such methods as water boarding. I want those who used these practices punished, whether they were following orders or not. BUT, I also want their superiors punished, and that includes the lawyers such as John Yoo who created the legal justification for the use of torture.

If we fail to hold people responsible for acts in violation of U.S. treaties and international law this time we are establishing the rationale for future use of similar methods.