what happened to government transparency with gitmo?

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Lack of transparency and honesty about Gitmo is only a problem if Bush does it. If Obama does the exact same thing or makes it even more secretive, that's perfectly fine. :roll:

Who has made this argument?

I've noticed a pretty funny trend recently in threads about how Obama is endorsing policies that everyone hated under Bush. There are always people rushing in to yell about how now all of Obama's supporters must be okay with whatever bad action they condemned before because now it's Obama doing it instead of Bush. If you actually read the threads however, you see very little of that. Yet another straw man in a place that's already got far too many.

 

[alphatarget1]

Obama campaigned as someone who is above politics. If you libs (you libs meaning Obamabots) don't hold him accountable, then you're saying that it's OK for a politician to lie straight to your face as long as he supports your causes. Pathetic.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

It's amazing people still enlist for military service and are willing to risk their one life to basically promote the "phat man's" agendas, sold to them under the banner of honour, duty, freedom and democracy.

I find it surprising, too.

BOTH of the major conflicts the US is engaged in right now (afghanistan and iraq) have been piss poorly managed and cost many lives because of this poor management. They were simply not executed properly.

I completely agree, and it is because our leadership is broken. I refuse to serve such incompetents.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
Obama campaigned as someone who is above politics. If you libs (you libs meaning Obamabots) don't hold him accountable, then you're saying that it's OK for a politician to lie straight to your face as long as he supports your causes. Pathetic.

It would be nice to see a real Democrat Primary election in 2012.

Think that'll happen? I don't. Obama?s re-election will be the Dem?s ticket and then they?ll have to vote for him because they couldn?t risk a Republican getting into office. No room for accountability in our general two party elections.

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: Budmantom
The most transparent president and the most ethical congress.

how so?

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield

Originally posted by: waggy
i find it funny that people really expected "change" at all. what did people really expect? he is a politican he was telling the majority what they wanted to hear so he would get elected. now that he is in office do you guys really expec change?

I expected him to listen to his military advisors, something GW never did, he talked down to them and let them know that he knew better.

Obviously, the politician generals are there to stay while real world data doesn't matter one fucking bit to anyone in the white house.

Same fucking deal for another eight years, i'm just glad that i don't have to be a part of it.

sorta like how he is listening to General Stanley McChrystal?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
Obama campaigned as someone who is above politics. If you libs (you libs meaning Obamabots) don't hold him accountable, then you're saying that it's OK for a politician to lie straight to your face as long as he supports your causes. Pathetic.

It would be nice to see a real Democrat Primary election in 2012.

Think that'll happen? I don't. Obama?s re-election will be the Dem?s ticket and then they?ll have to vote for him because they couldn?t risk a Republican getting into office. No room for accountability in our general two party elections.

A primary wouldn't matter anyway. Obama is overwhelmingly popular with Democrats.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Lack of transparency and honesty about Gitmo is only a problem if Bush does it. If Obama does the exact same thing or makes it even more secretive, that's perfectly fine. :roll:

Who has made this argument?

I've noticed a pretty funny trend recently in threads about how Obama is endorsing policies that everyone hated under Bush. There are always people rushing in to yell about how now all of Obama's supporters must be okay with whatever bad action they condemned before because now it's Obama doing it instead of Bush. If you actually read the threads however, you see very little of that. Yet another straw man in a place that's already got far too many.

Perhaps you've forgotten the outrage at Gitmo when Bush was president, and yet now attitudes are meh?

A few searches turned up a few examples:

Originally posted by: Lemon law
And its precisely why GWB&co. won't close Gitmo----because its a way to get around our constitution and the location was chosen for that very reason.

Why does GWB hate our constitution?

Originally posted by: tweaker2
gitmo is like a runaway boil on the tip of the nose of bush's battered and bruised face. he looks bad enough with the cuts and bruises, but that festering boil will gain prominence the longer it remains.

Originally posted by: eskimospy
the current situation at Guantanamo is simply abominable. It cannot, and should not be accepted by any civilized nation on earth.

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Topic: Obama Plans Guantanamo Close
Another sad chapter in our country's history comes to a close under the Obama Presidency. And although I would have preferred he took a stricter party line with the closure (close Gitmo and have ALL prisoners face trial in regular US courts), Obama decided to make a bipartisan compromise by having select prisoners prosecuted in courts designed to handle highly classified information.

It's still a far better solution than Bush's indefinite imprisonment and secret (sham) military tribunal system.

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
But where will we send GWB&Co for their war crimes?

Originally posted by: SirStev0
Thank god. Of all of them, this has been the biggest black mark against the supposed promise of freedom in the United States by the Bush Administration.

Obama wants to immediately remove the policy that made this illegal and ethically/morally repugnant prison and replace it with fair trials. He is also developing a way to release the some 250 individuals who were proved to have done no wrong yet the Bush Admin seems to not know what to do with.

Originally posted by: Craig234
Topic: Did we gave fairer trials and better treatment to Nazis war criminals after WW2 than to those we imprisoned at Gauntanamo?

Of course we did. The difference between the Nazis being treated as 'Prisoners of War' while the Bush Administration invented new legal terms to deny the same status to Guantanamo. Our government was decent then, and evil now, IMO.

Originally posted by: eskimospy
We could give them POW status tomorrow, the reason why we don't is that our government has decided it doesn't want to. The Geneva convention is NOT applied in a whole load of ways to these people. Specifically one of the reasons they aren't afforded POW status is so we can torture them for information.

Unfortunately since we've been getting information from a lot of these jokers by illegal means for awhile, it's tough for us to now prosecute them. Basically our government screwed itself by breaking the law and now they don't know what to do. They don't want to let these guys go, but they now don't have any legal means by which to prove their case.

There can be no argument here, they have to be tried on the evidence we're willing to present or let go. These people have already been held for 6 years without trial or hearing of any kind, and as Americans we can't let that stand. We have 3 choices, none of them good. We can let some dangerous people go (along with a lot of not-dangerous people), we can divulge some classified evidence to keep them prisoner, or we can shred the Constitution our country is based on. I'm not willing to shred the Constitution any more for temporary political or law enforcement expedience and neither should anyone else.

Originally posted by: BMW540I6speed
This is yet another example of applying wartime rationale to the "War on Terror," a fallacy which should have been vigorously challenged from the beginning. The phrase "War on Terror" is a contradiction on its face, as you cannot declare war on a feeling or, in the case of "Terrorism," a tactic or strategy.

What we should have learned from this reckless administration is that the 1984-like use of perpetual war is as much a risk from a radical right-wing government, manipulating a panicked and accommodationist Congress, as from any radical left-wing one. And we might ask ourselves why the lesson of Germany from 1933 to 1945 wasn't sufficiently instructive.

Originally posted by: Lemon law
As for Scalia, if you boil down his reason, he is simply saying the US constitution does not apply during a time of war even though the war is only in the imaginings of GWB.

Right now, GWB&co is saying they will comply with the SC ruling, but I bet you the lights with burn long after midnight in Cheney's office as they try to figure a way around the ruling.

Originally posted by: eskimospy
This is truly, truly dispicable. What a disgrace this place is. Bush should be ashamed of himself.

How many more do you want? I havent even posted Harvey's cut and pastes lol. Wheres all the outrage at Obama? Ive seen things like "disappointing" and the like, but wheres the calls for impeachment?

 

[Sclamoz]

Maybe the attitudes are "meh" (though I notice a lack of quotes from people talking about how gitmo is ok now...) because Obama has been shipping prisoners who don't belong there out and trying to find places to move the prisoners we need to keep. Also, the bill in the senate to close gitmo is being blocked so it's not exactly in the hands of the administration right?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

How many more do you want? I havent even posted Harvey's cut and pastes lol. Wheres all the outrage at Obama? Ive seen things like "disappointing" and the like, but wheres the calls for impeachment?

That wasn't my post at all. I responded to someone stating that now that Obama was not being transparent that pro-Obama people thought it was okay. I haven't seen a single person make that argument.

Your post had some fundamental dishonesties in it, ones that I'm quite certain you are aware of. First, you are conflating the policies of indefinite detention with a lack of press access. While I most certainly think that Obama should be permitting the press access to Guantanamo, I care about that about 1/100th as much as I do about him indefinitely detaining people there in the first place. So really, none of your quotes applied to what is being discussed here.

In addition, I (and others) have repeatedly condemned Obama's position on civil liberties relating to the war on terror. If you want to get in to a discussion about who used meaner words and when, I'm not interested. It's the same game that the right on here has been trying to play for months when they say 'I know you oppose Obama in this the same way you opposed Bush, but you used mean words when Bush was in power SO IT'S DIFFERENT'. Meh indeed.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: blackangst1

How many more do you want? I havent even posted Harvey's cut and pastes lol. Wheres all the outrage at Obama? Ive seen things like "disappointing" and the like, but wheres the calls for impeachment?

That wasn't my post at all. I responded to someone stating that now that Obama was not being transparent that pro-Obama people thought it was okay. I haven't seen a single person make that argument.

Your post had some fundamental dishonesties in it, ones that I'm quite certain you are aware of. First, you are conflating the policies of indefinite detention with a lack of press access. While I most certainly think that Obama should be permitting the press access to Guantanamo, I care about that about 1/100th as much as I do about him indefinitely detaining people there in the first place. So really, none of your quotes applied to what is being discussed here.

In addition, I (and others) have repeatedly condemned Obama's position on civil liberties relating to the war on terror. If you want to get in to a discussion about who used meaner words and when, I'm not interested. It's the same game that the right on here has been trying to play for months when they say 'I know you oppose Obama in this the same way you opposed Bush, but you used mean words when Bush was in power SO IT'S DIFFERENT'. Meh indeed.

Fair enough.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Budmantom

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

Originally posted by: Budmantom
The most transparent president and the most ethical congress.

id take what we have now over your incompetent neocon leadership any day.

Words just words, listen to what obama says and ignore it, his actions speak louder than all 300+ speeches.

he has done 300+ speeches since being president or from when? hell anymore when i hear him i think of the peanuts cartoon and their teacher - blah, blah blah, blah blah, blah or whatever it was. he is so overexposed, if he is on anything i happen to turn on, off it goes.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
Obama campaigned as someone who is above politics. If you libs (you libs meaning Obamabots) don't hold him accountable, then you're saying that it's OK for a politician to lie straight to your face as long as he supports your causes. Pathetic.

i think you mean lies to you about supporting your causes.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
It's part of his "change" strategy. Which is, not changing at all.

If you want real change, you'll have to overcome this fact.

 

[Grunt03]

The way things are going I would'nt hold my breath.
He can't even solve the VA problems being unable to pay GI Bill payments for the military members.

 

[Jhhnn]

It's shameful that the new Admin feels it must continue to act within the constraints of fearmongering and lies perpetrated by their predecessor.

When and if the day comes that these show prisoners are transferred to American soil, they'll have rights, just like the rest of us. And what we'll find out is that there's basically no evidence against many of them, only suspicion, and that no legal case can be made against many others, the whole process having been hopelessly botched by the arrogant greed and callous incompetence of the Bushistas. They created the near perfect catch-22, exploiting 9/11 in ways truly profound. even people who normally have a healthy suspicion of big gubmint have become eager fluffers, believing strongly that there are Terrarists! everywhere, and that the answer is to accept big security and all that it entails. Otherwise, the Osama baby-raper, the boogeyman, the chupacabra will kill 'em in their sleep...