President Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize

[NJS 4389]

I still think he has a long way to go to match Kissinger (and probably a few others) in being the most inappropriate recipient.

[Happy Face 29]

 

 

Not any war in particular, just the concept.

[Happy Face 29]

Defending his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Mr Obama said: "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies,"

 

What a strange comparison to use when Hitlers army was the invading/occupying force.

 

Good of him to justify the armed struggle of the resistance.

[Guest alex]

I think it was John Donne who said comparisons are odious. Seems apt on this occasion. Bit of cultcha on a Thursday afternoon for yas there.

[ChezGiven 0]

Defending his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Mr Obama said: "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies,"

 

What a strange comparison to use when Hitlers army was the invading/occupying force.

 

Good of him to justify the armed struggle of the resistance.

 

The Taliban actively supported Al Qeada, financed and protected it, didnt they?

 

Its not a good comparison but its just about passable isnt it?

 

Have you noticed i'm turning statements into questions?

 

If anyone knew why we were in Afghanistan and what our objectives were then perhaps he could have justified it. The decision to send more troops has nothing to do with either of these though unfortunately for Obama.

[Guest alex]

Defending his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Mr Obama said: "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies,"

 

What a strange comparison to use when Hitlers army was the invading/occupying force.

 

Good of him to justify the armed struggle of the resistance.

 

The Taliban actively supported Al Qeada, financed and protected it, didnt they?

 

Its not a good comparison but its just about passable isnt it?

 

Have you noticed i'm turning statements into questions?

 

If anyone knew why we were in Afghanistan and what our objectives were then perhaps he could have justified it. The decision to send more troops has nothing to do with either of these though unfortunately for Obama.

J69 syndrome is the medical term I believe. Can develop into full-blown SIMA if you're not careful.

[ChezGiven 0]

Defending his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Mr Obama said: "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies,"

 

What a strange comparison to use when Hitlers army was the invading/occupying force.

 

Good of him to justify the armed struggle of the resistance.

 

The Taliban actively supported Al Qeada, financed and protected it, didnt they?

 

Its not a good comparison but its just about passable isnt it?

 

Have you noticed i'm turning statements into questions?

 

If anyone knew why we were in Afghanistan and what our objectives were then perhaps he could have justified it. The decision to send more troops has nothing to do with either of these though unfortunately for Obama.

J69 syndrome is the medical term I believe. Can develop into full-blown SIMA if you're not careful.

Thats me telt.

[Happy Face 29]

Defending his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Mr Obama said: "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies,"

 

What a strange comparison to use when Hitlers army was the invading/occupying force.

 

Good of him to justify the armed struggle of the resistance.

 

The Taliban actively supported Al Qeada, financed and protected it, didnt they?

 

Its not a good comparison but its just about passable isnt it?

 

Have you noticed i'm turning statements into questions?

 

If anyone knew why we were in Afghanistan and what our objectives were then perhaps he could have justified it. The decision to send more troops has nothing to do with either of these though unfortunately for Obama.

 

It's passable if you're George Bush.

[Park Life 71]

Defending his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Mr Obama said: "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies,"

 

What a strange comparison to use when Hitlers army was the invading/occupying force.

 

Good of him to justify the armed struggle of the resistance.

 

The Taliban actively supported Al Qeada, financed and protected it, didnt they?

 

Its not a good comparison but its just about passable isnt it?

 

Have you noticed i'm turning statements into questions?

 

If anyone knew why we were in Afghanistan and what our objectives were then perhaps he could have justified it. The decision to send more troops has nothing to do with either of these though unfortunately for Obama.

J69 syndrome is the medical term I believe. Can develop into full-blown SIMA if you're not careful.

 

[ChezGiven 0]

Defending his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Mr Obama said: "There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies,"

 

What a strange comparison to use when Hitlers army was the invading/occupying force.

 

Good of him to justify the armed struggle of the resistance.

 

The Taliban actively supported Al Qeada, financed and protected it, didnt they?

 

Its not a good comparison but its just about passable isnt it?

 

Have you noticed i'm turning statements into questions?

 

If anyone knew why we were in Afghanistan and what our objectives were then perhaps he could have justified it. The decision to send more troops has nothing to do with either of these though unfortunately for Obama.

 

It's passable if you're George Bush.

 

Accused of being J69, Sima and Geore Bush all in one day!

 

My work here is done.

[Happy Face 29]

Reactions to Obama's Nobel speech yesterday were remarkably consistent across the political spectrum, and there were two points on which virtually everyone seemed to agree: (1) it was the most explicitly pro-war speech ever delivered by anyone while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize; and (2) it was the most comprehensive expression of Obama's foreign policy principles since he became President. I don't think he can be blamed for the first fact; when the Nobel Committee chose him despite his waging two wars and escalating one, it essentially forced on him the bizarre circumstance of using his acceptance speech to defend the wars he's fighting. What else could he do? Ignore the wars? Repent?

 

I'm more interested in the fact that the set of principles Obama articulated yesterday was such a clear and comprehensive expression of his foreign policy that it's now being referred to as the "Obama Doctrine." About that matter, there are two arguably confounding facts to note: (1) the vast majority of leading conservatives -- from Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich to Peggy Noonan, Sarah Palin, various Kagans and other assorted neocons -- have heaped enthusiastic praise on what Obama said yesterday, i.e., on the Obama Doctrine; and (2) numerous liberals have done exactly the same. That convergence gives rise to a couple of questions:

 

 

Why are the Bush-following conservatives who ran the country for the last eight years and whose foreign policy ideas are supposedly so discredited -- including some of the nation's hardest-core neocons -- finding so much to cheer in the so-called Obama Doctrine?

 

How could liberals and conservatives -- who have long claimed to possess such vehemently divergent and irreconcilable worldviews on foreign policy -- both simultaneously adore the same comprehensive expression of foreign policy?

 

 

Let's dispense first with several legitimate caveats. Like all good politicians, Obama is adept at paying homage to multiple, inconsistent views at once, enabling everyone to hear whatever they want in what he says while blissfully ignoring the rest. Additionally, conservatives have an interest in claiming that Obama has embraced Bush/Cheney policies even when he hasn't, because it allows them to claim vindication ("see, now that Obama gets secret briefings, he realizes we were right all along"). Moreover, there are foreign policies Obama has pursued that are genuinely disliked by neocons -- from negotiating with Iran to applying some mild pressure on Israel to the use of more conciliatory and humble rhetoric. And one of the most radical and controversial aspects of the Bush presidency -- the attack on Iraq -- was not defended by Obama, nor was the underlying principle that produced it ("preventive" war).

 

But all that said, it's easy to understand why even intellectually honest conservatives -- including neocons -- found so much to like in "the Obama Doctrine," at least as it found expression yesterday. With the one caveat that Obama omitted a defense of the Iraq War, the generally Obama-supportive Kevin Drum put it this way:

 

 

I really don't think neocons have much to complain about even if Obama didn't use the opportunity to announce construction of a new generation of nuclear missiles or something. Given that he was, after all, accepting a peace prize, it was a surprisingly robust defense of war and America's military role in the world. Surprisingly Bushian, really . . .

 

 

Indeed, Obama insisted upon what he called the "right" to wage wars "unilaterally"; articulated a wide array of circumstances in which war is supposedly "just" far beyond being attacked or facing imminent attack by another country; explicitly rejected the non-violence espoused by King and Gandhi as too narrow and insufficiently pragmatic for a Commander-in-Chief like Obama to embrace; endowed us with the mission to use war as a means of combating "evil"; and hailed the U.S. for underwriting global security for the last six decades (without mentioning how our heroic efforts affected, say, the people of Vietnam, or Iraq, or Central America, or Gaza, and so many other places where "security" is not exactly what our wars "underwrote"). So it's not difficult to see why Rovian conservatives are embracing his speech; so much of it was devoted to an affirmation of their core beliefs.

 

The more difficult question to answer is why -- given what Drum described -- so many liberals found the speech so inspiring and agreeable? Is that what liberals were hoping for when they elected Obama: someone who would march right into Oslo and proudly announce to the world that we have a unilateral right to wage war when we want and to sing the virtues of war as a key instrument for peace? As Tom Friedman put it on CNN yesterday: "He got into their faces . . . I'm for getting into the Europeans' face." Is that what we needed more of?

 

Yesterday's speech and the odd, extremely bipartisan reaction to it underscored one of the real dangers of the Obama presidency: taking what had been ideas previously discredited as Republican or right-wing dogma and transforming them into bipartisan consensus. It's not just Republicans but Democrats that are now vested in -- and eager to justify -- the virtues of war, claims of Grave Danger posed by Islamic radicals and the need to use massive military force to combat them, indefinite detention, military commissions, extreme secrecy, full-scale immunity for government lawbreaking, and so many other doctrines once purportedly despised by Democrats but now defended by them because their leader has embraced them.

 

That's exactly the process that led former Bush DOJ official Jack Goldsmith to giddily explain that Obama has actually done more to legitimize Bush/Cheney "counter-terrorism" policies than Bush and Cheney themselves -- because he made them bipartisan -- and Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin made the same point to The New York Times' Charlie Savage back in July:

 

 

In any case, Jack Balkin, a Yale Law School professor, said Mr. Obama’s ratification of the basic outlines of the surveillance and detention policies he inherited would reverberate for generations. By bestowing bipartisan acceptance on them, Mr. Balkin said, Mr. Obama is consolidating them as entrenched features of government.

 

"What we are watching," Mr. Balkin said, "is a liberal, centrist, Democratic version of the construction of these same governing practices."

 

 

Most of the neocons celebrating Obama's speech yesterday made exactly that point in one way or another: if even this Democratic President, beloved by liberals, announces to the world that we have the unilateral right to wage war and that doing so creates Peace and crushes Evil, and does so at a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony of all places, doesn't that end the argument for good?

 

Much of the liberal praise for Obama's speech yesterday focused on how eloquent, sophisticated, nuanced, complex, philosophical, contemplative and intellectual it was. And, looked at a certain way, it was all of those things -- like so many Obama speeches are. After eight years of enduring a President who spoke in simplistic Manichean imperatives and bullying decrees, many liberals are understandably joyous over having a President who uses their language and the rhetorical approach that resonates with them.

 

But that's the real danger. Obama puts a pretty, intellectual, liberal face on some ugly and decidedly illiberal polices. Just as George Bush's Christian-based moralizing let conservatives feel good about America regardless of what it does, Obama's complex and elegiac rhetoric lets many liberals do the same. To red state Republicans, war and its accompanying instruments (secrecy, executive power, indefinite detention) felt so good and right when justified by swaggering, unapologetic toughness and divinely-mandated purpose; to blue state Democrats, all of that feels just as good when justified by academic meditations on "just war" doctrine and when accompanied by poetic expressions of sorrow and reluctance. When you combine the two rhetorical approaches, what you get is what you saw yesterday: a bipartisan embrace of the same policies and ideologies among people with supposedly irreconcilable views of the world.

 

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...bama/index.html

Edited December 14, 2009 by Happy Face

[Happy Face 29]

Ok, will Guantanamo still be open when Obama's presidency comes to an end? Do you believe it will still be open? Will that mean that the same torture policies inside the prision will be being followed as under Cheney/Bush?

 

Its significant that getting a vote on the Senate floor on this issue came with months of him being President.

 

It might be. The prisoners could be moved elsewhere, and he'll have rectified that failure, but there'll still be torture and rendition to a host of other locations.

 

As predicted....

 

The Obama administration announced today that it will create a new "supermax" facility in Thomson, Illinois, and will transfer to it many of the detainees currently held at Guantanamo. Critically, none of those moved to Thomson will receive a trial in a real American court, and some will not be charged with any crime at all. The detainees who will be given trials won't go to Thomson; they'll be moved directly to the jurisdiction where they'll be tried. The ones moved to Thomson will either (a) be put before a military commission or ( held indefinitely without charges of any kind. In other words, they'll have exactly the same rights -- or lack thereof -- as they have now at Guantanamo.

 

William Lynn, Obama's Deputy Defense Secretary, sent a letter today (.pdf) to GOP Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois, answering multiple questions Kirk had posed, and made clear that all Thomson detainees will either have military commissions or indefinite detention without charges; none will get real trials.

 

The administration has already announced that it will rely on the Bush/Cheney theory to justify its indefinite detention power -- that Congress implicitly authorized that when it enacted the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force. But because Congress has banned the transfer of any Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for any reason other than to be tried in a court, the administration will now seek express legal authority to transfer detainees inside the U.S. to hold them without charges indefinitely. Former White House Counsel Greg Craig said back in February that it's "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law." One no longer needs to "imagine" it; it's soon to come.

 

Particularly Orwellian was Lynn's response to Kirk's inquiry about which detainees will be given the gift of an actual trial:

 

 

How perverse. Lynn is right that prosecutions traditionally occur only "when admissible evidence or potentially available admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction." But traditionally, what happens when such evidence is insufficient is not that the state just imprisons them anyway with no trial or puts them before some less rigorous tribunal; what's supposed to happen when the state cannot convict someone is that the individuals are not charged and therefore not imprisoned. But here, the Obama administration is turning that most basic principle on its head: only those who it knows it can convict will get trials, but the rest will be shipped to Thomson -- Gitmo North -- to be put before a military commission or simply imprisoned without charges of any kind.

 

The sentiment behind Obama's campaign vow to close Guantanamo was the right one, but the reality of how it's being done negates that almost entirely. What is the point of closing Guantanamo only to replicate its essential framework -- imprisonment without trials -- a few thousand miles to the North? It's true that the revised military commissions contain some important improvements over the ones used under Bush: they provide better access to counsel and increased restrictions on the use of hearsay and evidence obtained via coercion. But the fundamental elements of Guantanamo are being kept firmly in place. What made Guantanamo so offensive and repugnant was not the fact that it was located in Cuba rather than Illinois. The primary complaint was that it was a legal black hole because the detainees were kept in cages indefinitely with no charges or trials. That is being retained with the move to the North.

 

There is, I suppose, symbolic value in closing Guantanamo. But what made Guantanamo such an affront to basic liberty and the rule of law was far more than symbolism, and it certainly had nothing to do with its locale. If anything, one could argue that it's now more dangerous to have within the U.S., on U.S. soil, a facility explicitly devoted to imprisoning people without charges. Even worse, by emphasizing that Thomson will be an even more "secure" supermax than the utterly inhumane hellhole at Florence, Colorado -- even boasting that it will be the most secure prison "of all time" -- it's likely that individuals who have never been charged with any crime will be held indefinitely in a facility even worse than Guantanamo.

 

Are we really supposed to believe that the Muslim world -- at whom this symbolism is supposedly aimed -- is so simplistic that they'll be happy because Muslims are now being indefinitely imprisoned with no charges in Illinois instead of on a Cuban island? In many ways, this move is classic Obama: pretty words, rhetorical appeals to lofty ideals, self-congratulatory preening, accompanied by many of the same policies that were long and vehemently condemned by him and most of his supporters.

 

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero had this to say today:

 

The creation of a "Gitmo North" in Illinois is hardly a meaningful step forward. Shutting down Guantánamo will be nothing more than a symbolic gesture if we continue its lawless policies onshore.

 

Alarmingly, all indications are that the administration plans to continue its predecessor's policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial for some detainees, with only a change of location. Such a policy is completely at odds with our democratic commitment to due process and human rights whether it’s occurring in Cuba or in Illinois. In fact,

while the Obama administration inherited the Guantanamo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative adoption of those policies.

 

 

It's hard to argue with that.

 

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...itmo/index.html

[ChezGiven 0]

You really do buy into the Republican clap-trap dont you?

[Happy Face 29]

You really do buy into the Republican clap-trap dont you?

 

Republican?

[ChezGiven 0]

You really do buy into the Republican clap-trap dont you?

 

Republican?

 

The anti-Obama agenda isn't controlled by the far left, its the far right that feeds them.

Edited December 17, 2009 by ChezGiven

[Happy Face 29]

You really do buy into the Republican clap-trap dont you?

 

Republican?

 

The anti-Obama agenda isn't controlled by the far left, its the far right that feeds them.

 

This story hasn't been concocted by the Republican party.

 

It's the Obama plan.

[ChezGiven 0]

You really do buy into the Republican clap-trap dont you?

 

Republican?

 

The anti-Obama agenda isn't controlled by the far left, its the far right that feeds them.

 

This story hasn't been concocted by the Republican party.

 

It's the Obama plan.

 

Aye, whatever. You think Samuelson is feeding off far left rhetoric?

 

Between Barack Obama and Tiger Woods, it wasn’t such a good December for idolised, lean, brown golfers. Tiger, however, can hide. Barack, alas, cannot. The venom against Obama has been right up there with that directed against, well, Bush, Clinton, Nixon, Johnson ... America is, after all, a tough political arena.

 

The right treated the Senate passage of health insurance reform — a bill that essentially subsidises private health insurance for the working poor — as if it were the new dawn of bolshevism. Actually, that would be too mild. “Two-thirds of the country don’t want this. And one-third of these jihadists, these healthcare jihadists, do,” opined the Republican commentator Mary Matalin.

 

The left, however, was no kinder. Many leading liberal lights called for the bill to be killed because it gave too much to insurance and drug companies and failed to provide a publicly funded alternative to private insurance. The columnist Arianna Huffington lamented: “If the miserable Senate healthcare bill becomes the law of the land, it’s only going to encourage the preservation of a hideously broken system.”

 

My favourite splutter came from the Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson, who declared the entire bill an encomium to Obama’s self-centredness. “It is about him: about the legacy he covets as the president who achieved ‘universal’ health insurance,” Samuelson inveighed. Then — hilariously — he added: “To be sure, the [proposals] would provide insurance to 30m or more Americans by 2019.” What did the Romans ever do for us?

 

The bill is not perfect and will need work in the next few years — on cutting some entitlements and controlling costs in other ways. But the law remains largely what Obama promised in the campaign.

 

As with most attempts to judge Obama, a little perspective helps. So let’s review, shall we? This is the biggest single piece of social legislation in 40 years. The Congressional Budget Office predicts it will indeed insure 30m people.

 

And this is only the end of year one. In the stimulus package in the spring, Obama invested an unprecedented amount of federal money in infrastructure, with an unsung focus on noncarbon energy sources. He engineered a vast and nerve-racking banking rescue that is now under-budget by $200 billion because so many banks survived.

 

He organised the restructuring of the US car industry. He appointed Sonia Sotomayor, a Latina Supreme Court justice, solidifying his non-white political base. If market confidence is one reason we appear to have avoided a second Great Depression, then the president deserves a modicum of credit for conjuring it. Growth is edging back into the picture.

 

No recent president has had such a substantive start since Ronald Reagan. But what Reagan did was to shift the underlying debate in America from what government should do to what it should not. His was a domestic policy of negation and inactivism, and a foreign policy of rearmament and sharp edges.

 

Obama has, in a mirror image of 1981, reoriented America back to a political culture that asks what government will now do: to prevent a banking collapse, to avoid a depression, to insure the working poor, to ameliorate climate change, to tackle long-term debt. The point about health insurance reform, after all, is that it represents a big expansion of government intervention in the lives of the citizenry — and that’s a game-changer from three decades of conservative governance.

 

Abroad, the shift has been even more marked. From his Cairo speech to his resetting of relations with Russia, an era of polarisation has ceded to one of intense engagement. We have had the supplanting of the G8 by the G20, a dramatic upgrade of public opinion towards America across the globe, an overhaul of the war in Afghanistan, an end to torture as an instrument of US government and the slow unwinding of Guantanamo.

 

On Iran, Obama held out what he called an open hand, managed to dislodge Russia a few inches from its usual anti-sanctions approach, busted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations on the Qom nuclear site, and held tight as the coup regime was assailed from within. If Tehran’s international position has veered between rank belligerence and confused drift, it is because the regime itself is far weaker than it was a year ago, and may not last another year.

 

The disillusioned are those who weren’t listening in the campaign or not watching closely in the first year. The right has failed to register his steeliness and persistence and the left has preferred to ignore his temperamental and institutional conservatism. Both sides still misread him — hence the spluttering gloom. And there is indeed something dispiriting about the relentless prose of government compared with the poetry of the campaign. But Obama is a curious blend of both: a relentless pragmatist and a soaring rhetorician.

 

In time, if the economy recovers, if black, young and Hispanic voters see the benefits of their new healthcare security, if troops begin to come home from Iraq in large numbers next summer, if jobs begin to return by the autumn, then the logic of his election will endure.

 

His care to keep the tone civil, to insist on impure change rather than ideological stasis has already turned the Republicans into foam-flecked nostalgics for a simpler, whiter, easier period and has flummoxed those left-liberals who wanted revenge as much as reform. Both are part of an embittered past that Obama wants to leave behind. His clarity on this, and his refusal to take the bait of divisiveness and partisanship is striking. That takes an enormous amount of self-confidence and self-restraint.

 

He has failed in one respect: the political culture is still deeply partisan, opportunistic and divided. But this, I believe, is not so much a function of his liberal pragmatism as it is a remnant of an American right in drastic need of new intellectual life and rhetorical restraint. In this respect, Obama has made the right crazier, which may be a necessary prelude to it becoming saner.

 

It’s worth remembering that America is a vast and cumbersome machine, designed to resist deep change. That this one man has moved the country a few key, structural degrees in one year, and that the direction is as clear and as strategic as that first embraced by Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (in the opposite direction) is under-appreciated. But the shift is real and more dramatic than current events might indicate. I wouldn’t bet on its evanescence quite yet.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle6968384.ece

[Park Life 71]

Unless he presides over a quantum sea change in the way America works it is doomed. It can't carry on spending and carrying legions of unemployed while supporting wars on two real fronts and six virtual fronts. America as we know it will not exist with a decade. Obama could be the one presideing over the new world or the last failure of the 'free world'.

[ChezGiven 0]

Unless he presides over a quantum sea change in the way America works it is doomed. It can't carry on spending and carrying legions of unemployed while supporting wars on two real fronts and six virtual fronts. America as we know it will not exist with a decade. Obama could be the one presideing over the new world or the last failure of the 'free world'.

 

The article is entitled 'Inch by inch, Obama is moving mountains'.

 

My point has always been the same. These things take time.

[Park Life 71]

Unless he presides over a quantum sea change in the way America works it is doomed. It can't carry on spending and carrying legions of unemployed while supporting wars on two real fronts and six virtual fronts. America as we know it will not exist with a decade. Obama could be the one presideing over the new world or the last failure of the 'free world'.

 

The article is entitled 'Inch by inch, Obama is moving mountains'.

 

My point has always been the same. These things take time.

 

That's one commodity they are fresh out of.....

 

Oil price spikes linked with another finacial manhole will be the end.

 

Sell the can, the kids and move to Norway..

[Happy Face 29]

If that's your response to my post, there's only one mention of Guantanamo in the article, torture is said to have been stopped, which is a strange thing to comend him for, like giving a dog a bone for shitting on the floor as long as it doesn't piss too. Torture is a small aspect of the human rights abuses the US have performed recently, many more continue.

 

I've never said Obama is an abject failure, I'd agree with a lot of the credit that article gives him and he's still much preferable to Bush. In the healthcare thread, I said the bill that goes before him will be better than nothing. But as I've also said elsewhere, the idea anyone should be silently grateful for whatever scraps he throws is ridiculous. Obama is a politician. He will respond to the most vocal responses to his actions. There should be constant pressure on him to do better from the left, because the right won't let up.

[ChezGiven 0]

If that's your response to my post, there's only one mention of Guantanamo in the article, torture is said to have been stopped, which is a strange thing to comend him for, like giving a dog a bone for shitting on the floor as long as it doesn't piss too. Torture is a small aspect of the human rights abuses the US have performed recently, many more continue.

 

I've never said Obama is an abject failure, I'd agree with a lot of the credit that article gives him and he's still much preferable to Bush. In the healthcare thread, I said the bill that goes before him will be better than nothing. But as I've also said elsewhere, the idea anyone should be silently grateful for whatever scraps he throws is ridiculous. Obama is a politician. He will respond to the most vocal responses to his actions. There should be constant pressure on him to do better from the left, because the right won't let up.

 

From a personal perspective, if the fuckers are guilty, am not arsed if they pull their fingernails out with pliers. The moral calculations are complex though; is 'innocence + torture' a greater suffering than a plane load of dead people? Probably. Is 'guilty + torture'? Not sure. I'm not someone who subscribes to religious style morality, so 'thou shalt not torture' holds no water with me, if you excuse the pun.

 

I only put that article up because i think between the bashing he gets from the right and the left you'd think the bloke was some sort of twat, instead of the erudite inspirational leader that the world has been crying out for.

[Happy Face 29]

If that's your response to my post, there's only one mention of Guantanamo in the article, torture is said to have been stopped, which is a strange thing to comend him for, like giving a dog a bone for shitting on the floor as long as it doesn't piss too. Torture is a small aspect of the human rights abuses the US have performed recently, many more continue.

 

I've never said Obama is an abject failure, I'd agree with a lot of the credit that article gives him and he's still much preferable to Bush. In the healthcare thread, I said the bill that goes before him will be better than nothing. But as I've also said elsewhere, the idea anyone should be silently grateful for whatever scraps he throws is ridiculous. Obama is a politician. He will respond to the most vocal responses to his actions. There should be constant pressure on him to do better from the left, because the right won't let up.

 

From a personal perspective, if the fuckers are guilty, am not arsed if they pull their fingernails out with pliers.

 

This is the exact point. They're held without charge. over 50% were eventually released without charge after several years. It's barbaric.

 

The moral calculations are complex though; is 'innocence + torture' a greater suffering than a plane load of dead people? Probably. Is 'guilty + torture'? Not sure. I'm not someone who subscribes to religious style morality, so 'thou shalt not torture' holds no water with me, if you excuse the pun.

 

You see opposition to torture as a religious position? I'm as atheistic as they come and I'm dead against it, especially prior to trial and determination of guilt.

 

I only put that article up because i think between the bashing he gets from the right and the left you'd think the bloke was some sort of twat, instead of the erudite inspirational leader that the world has been crying out for.

 

I think expectations have been dropped so low by Bush a lot of people are glad just to have the "erudite inspirational leader that the world has been crying out for". But that should be a given. The most powerful man in the world shouldn't be a drunken hick zealot. He should be able to string 2 sentences together as a bare minimum and be judged on actions rather than words.

[ChezGiven 0]

If that's your response to my post, there's only one mention of Guantanamo in the article, torture is said to have been stopped, which is a strange thing to comend him for, like giving a dog a bone for shitting on the floor as long as it doesn't piss too. Torture is a small aspect of the human rights abuses the US have performed recently, many more continue.

 

I've never said Obama is an abject failure, I'd agree with a lot of the credit that article gives him and he's still much preferable to Bush. In the healthcare thread, I said the bill that goes before him will be better than nothing. But as I've also said elsewhere, the idea anyone should be silently grateful for whatever scraps he throws is ridiculous. Obama is a politician. He will respond to the most vocal responses to his actions. There should be constant pressure on him to do better from the left, because the right won't let up.

 

From a personal perspective, if the fuckers are guilty, am not arsed if they pull their fingernails out with pliers.

 

This is the exact point. They're held without charge. over 50% were eventually released without charge after several years. It's barbaric.

 

The moral calculations are complex though; is 'innocence + torture' a greater suffering than a plane load of dead people? Probably. Is 'guilty + torture'? Not sure. I'm not someone who subscribes to religious style morality, so 'thou shalt not torture' holds no water with me, if you excuse the pun.

 

You see opposition to torture as a religious position? I'm as atheistic as they come and I'm dead against it, especially prior to trial and determination of guilt.

 

I only put that article up because i think between the bashing he gets from the right and the left you'd think the bloke was some sort of twat, instead of the erudite inspirational leader that the world has been crying out for.

 

I think expectations have been dropped so low by Bush a lot of people are glad just to have the "erudite inspirational leader that the world has been crying out for". But that should be a given. The most powerful man in the world shouldn't be a drunken hick zealot. He should be able to string 2 sentences together as a bare minimum and be judged on actions rather than words.

 

There isnt much to reply to that as i agree with your fundamental point.

 

Just to clarify, there are two basic types of morality, rule based and outcome based. Religions use rule based morality e.g. thou shalt not.... torture.

 

Outcome based morality says, torture is acceptable if the ends justify the means. This morality is a bit grey around the edges and leads to some sticky issues.

 

Can i also remind you that Obama was defeated by the Senate in April (?) when trying to get funding to sort out the mess in Guantanamo.

[Rob W 0]

i see we are tying up school kids and shooting them now - hearts and minds eh?