Actually I sound like Obama during his campaign. From the OP: You could argue, a la Major that Obama only promised to investigate - but if you read the entirety of the article in the OP you will find that such has also been shelved, and the wikileaks memos now reveal an active campaign to prevent investigation. Anyhow, the argument ad absurdum (a pattern of sort it seems) is noted. Yes, you're goddam right they should have been prosecuted. Yes, some were definitely worse than others. Etc. etc.
Rhad maybe this will make you feel better. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40478180/ns/world_news-africa Nigeria to charge Cheney in pipeline bribery scandal $180 million case involves former unit of oil services firm Halliburton LAGOS — Nigeria's anti-corruption police said on Thursday they planned to file charges against former Vice President Dick Cheney in a $180 million bribery case involving a former unit of oil services firm Halliburton. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday summoned the country chief of Halliburton and last week detained 10 Nigerian and expatriate Halliburton staff for questioning after raiding its Lagos office. "We are filing charges against Cheney," EFCC spokesman Femi Babafemi told Reuters, but declined to give any further details on what the charges were, or where they would be filed. Houston-based engineering firm KBR, a former Halliburton unit, pleaded guilty last year to U.S. charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the Niger Delta. KBR and Halliburton, which was once headed by Cheney, reached a $579 million settlement in the United States but Nigeria, France and Switzerland have conducted their own investigations into the case. Halliburton split from KBR in 2007 and has said that its current operations in Nigeria are unrelated. It has described last week's EFCC raid as "an affront against justice," said its offices were ransacked and personnel assaulted, and pledged to defend its staff against what it said were "completely false and outrageous actions." "As indicated in previous legal activity in the United States, one of the participants in the (Bonny Island) project was a subsidiary of Halliburton Company for part of that period of time," it said in a statement last week. "The Halliburton oil field services operations in Nigeria have never in any way been any part of the LNG project and none of the Halliburton employees have ever had any connection to or participation in that project," it said. Political connections Halliburton said last year it had "reason to believe" payments may have been made to Nigerian officials by agents of its TSKJ consortium, which built the Bonny Island facility. Albert "Jack" Stanley, a former KBR chief executive officer who had worked under Cheney when he headed Halliburton, pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges stemming from a scheme to bribe Nigerian officials for work on the Bonny Island plant. As well as KBR, the TSKJ consortium also included France's Technip SA, Italy's Snamprogetti — a unit of Italian oilfield services company Saipem, whose parent company is Eni — and Japan's JGC Corp. One senior employee each from Saipem Contracting Nigeria Ltd and Technip Offshore Nigeria Ltd were also questioned by the EFCC along with the 10 Halliburton staff after last week's raid. Babafemi declined to say whether any of those executives would have charges brought against them. Nigeria will hold presidential elections in April. Incumbent Goodluck Jonathan faces a challenge for the ruling party nomination from former vice president Atiku Abubakar, who was in office between 1999 and 2007. Some analysts have suggested the sudden revival of interest in the Halliburton case is no coincidence. Abubakar's opponents have in the past tried to link him to the case, allegations he has dismissed as a smear campaign. He was quoted in September as saying there was no evidence against him and that nobody in the United States or elsewhere had sought to question him on the matter. "This is just the work of political opponents who will stop at nothing in order to destroy your political career," he said.
But he also campaigned on getting stuff like healthcare done. Back during the election I asked Obama supporters what "Change" meant and got a variety of answers. Obama's campaign was nebulous which was both it strength and almost an inevitably a weakness once he actually had to govern. Obama like most politicians said a lot of things during the campaign and the nebulousness of his message meant a lot of things were projected on him. The unfortunate truth is that most presidencies only have a short window to get anything done and even before he got into office he realized that already and decided it was more important to get the stimulus, health care and a legislative agenda passed rather than investigate and prosecute the last Admin.. If you are someone like Rhadamanthus perhaps you would be willing to sacrifice possible legislative accomplishments but I doubt Obama would nor any President looking for their legacy.
I won't address the other Presidents, but why would Bush bother? The Republican Congress had done all "his" investigating for him before he ever stole the Presidency. We are about to see a return of Republicans in Congress investigating a Democratic President. Just wait and see if we don't. So is the current Democratic Congress and Democratic President blowing off serious investigations of possible illegal acts by the Bush Administration going to prevent that? If you believe it will, please let me sell you a bridge in New York. I let basso take the tolls for me, under Sam's supervision. mc mark can spend the money anyway he likes, OK?
Nice try to make Obama look gutsy risking his reelection. Obama thought this would be popular and help with reelection and it could have been if he had eschewed the cautious moderate GOP line you push.
Hey, nice attempt to rehabilitate your moderate credentials. I'm the moderate here. I pledge to vote for Obama if he has the Democratic nomination vs any conceivable Republican. Can you join me in the pledge? I haven't decided yet on whether to back a Dem progressive challenger to Obama in the primaries. I certainly intend to give no money or contribute any time to his campaign other than the 10 minutes to vote.
Ha Ha Ha. Ha. I am more moderate than you, you radical. Therefore I am more logical and correct in my opinions wrt to current issues than you are. I win!
I'll certainly agree with that "pledge," should he get the nomination in the primaries, an almost certainty, but if he caves on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, I'll be looking at serious alternatives during primary season. However, if (really when) Obama gets the nomination, I'll still contribute money and time for his reelection. We differ there. Any Democrat is better than any of the Republican possibilities. Who nominates the lifetime Federal judges is a decision that should trump any anger at a vacillating President, who can't seem to figure out exactly how he wants to promote the Democratic agenda, and how to go about fighting for it. I'm even beginning to wonder if he realizes there is an agenda worth fighting for. One would think that if he knew what it was and supported it, he'd be out there now raising hell, instead of still calling for a "bipartisan solution" to every problem, when the Republican leaders are openingly laughing at his calls for them to join Democrats to forge a solution to almost any of the multitude of problems needing urgent attention. They are NOT interested in bipartisanship. Surely that's penetrated the West Wing by now, you think?
Not surprising since I basically agree with Major on this issue. Is it revolting? Perhaps but context is important. That is why I brought up inspector Javier. To uphold the principle of justice it was absolutely correct that Javier pursue Jean Val Jean but he did so completely ignoring any other context. While you might have be willing to accept Obama going after the previous Admin. at the costs of passing a legislative agenda but I doubt that many of even Obama's most ardent supporters would. I will also head off the response that as things turned out the Republicans didn't cooperate Obama. Keep in mind when these things were being weighed was prior to knowing how fully the Republicans would obstruct. Now if you are saying that Obama did a terrible job selling his legislative agenda I fully agree with you but that is the subject of other debates.
No, it's just revolting. While in other instances, I'd say you have a point, the concept of "context" here is completely misused. We are talking about taking action against those responsible for the USA condoning and systemically implementing the removal of habeas corpus and the use of torture...or...a pseudo-effective and highly inflammatory health care bill. I know which one I would choose. But it's really much more than that. So let's just get it out in the open: For all intents and purposes, Obama has not achieved, enacted, or accomplished any significant change to the abominable civil rights abuses concocted under the Bush Junta. Guantanamo is still open. Iraq and Afganistan are still chock-full of US troops. Warrantless wiretaps are still being used courtesy of the renewal of the PATRIOT act (and the Obama DOJ is defending them with Bush admin language to boot), torturers and the leaders that enabled them are not being prosecuted, punished or otherwise held accountable. Habeas Corpus is still a vague sort-of right...etc. And yes, this is a flash point of sorts for me. These things I complain about here and in the wiretapping thread strike at the core of what America should and could represent, and what it has been struggling (holy hell - struggling) since inception to create. To just casually throw it all away because of some nebulous argument of context is repugnant and (often, given the folks involved) intensely hypocritical.
obama campaigned on alot of stuff that he ended up backtracking on... he campaigned for a public option, but as the ny times reported, he compromised on it before the debate even began. he promised to end warrantless wiretapping, but expanded the program. he campaigned on openness, but fought to prevent the release of millions of bush era-emails and fought the release of torture evidence. he promised nobody w/ ethics issues would serve in his administration and that he would have no lobbyists, but his treasury secretary is a tax cheat and his administration is full of lobbyists. he promised to close gitmo, but it remains open still. iraq has been handed over to private contractors and mercenaries, who now outnumber u.s. military by at least 2:1.
Agreed. That sort of silliness would turn us into some sort of crazy third world country where the current leader is perpetually criminalizing the preceding one. In a nutshell, Obama The Candidate campaigned as a child in a fantasy world while Obama The President has governed as an adult confronting real world issues.
I am eternally grateful that I live in a country where people willingly undertake to get their hands dirty protecting your right to make a complete ass of yourself. This ain't some game of grade school dodge ball. We have to take the world as we find it and protecting America ain't always going to be pretty. If we ever start prosecuting people for protecting America, then we have allowed the terrorists to start determining our elections as they do in Spain.
So ask yourself: If you don't like the CIA tactics that led to the capture and interrogation of al-Qaeda operatives, do you think it's better to vaporize the militants from 10,000 feet? And if this bothers you, what's the alternative? Link
Obama restarts Guantanamo trials <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oIA_araGCtE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> President Obama Issues Executive Order Institutionalizing Indefinite Detention March 7, 2011 Administration Also Announces It Will Use Military Commissions For New Terrorism Cases FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org NEW YORK – President Obama today issued an executive order that permits ongoing indefinite detention of Guantánamo detainees while establishing a periodic administrative review process for them. The administration also announced it will lift the ban on bringing new military commissions charges against detainees that don’t already have ongoing cases in the substandard system. The American Civil Liberties Union has long called for Guantánamo to be shut down and opposes the indefinite detention of prisoners there, some of whom have been imprisoned by the U.S. without charge or trial for nine years. The ACLU has also long called for an end to the illegitimate military commissions and for the government to prosecute terrorism suspects in the federal criminal courts. The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU: “The best way to get America out of the Guantánamo morass is to use the most effective and reliable tool we have: our criminal justice system. Instead, the Obama administration has done just the opposite and chosen to institutionalize unlawful indefinite detention – creating a troubling ‘new normal’ – and to revive the illegitimate Guantánamo military commissions. “While appearing to be a step in the right direction, providing more process to Guantánamo detainees is just window dressing for the reality that today’s executive order institutionalizes indefinite detention, which is unlawful, unwise and un-American. The detention of Guantánamo detainees for nine years without charge or trial is a stain on America’s reputation that should be ended immediately, not given a stamp of approval. Moreover, the procedures for providing more process are flawed as they vest too much discretion and power in the Secretary of Defense, essentially asking the fox to guard the hen house. “Even with recent improvements, the military commissions rules are inadequate under established criminal law and international law. Where credible evidence exists against Guantánamo detainees, they should be charged and prosecuted in our federal courts, which have a proven record of prosecuting terrorism suspects and are the only way to provide the fair and reliable outcomes that Americans deserve. “The only way to restore the rule of law is to put an end to indefinite detention at Guantánamo and the broken commissions system, and to prosecute terrorism suspects in federal criminal courts. Today’s announcement takes us back a step when we should be moving forward toward closing Guantánamo and ending its shameful policies.”
