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Obama's Legitimate Causes
Obama’s
comments
about "legitimate causes" of terror groups and "root problems of causes
and dangers" seems to echo little-noticed remarks the presidential
candidate made eight days after 9/11 in which he said the attacks were
carried out because of a lack of "empathy for others" suffering on the
part of al-Qaeda, whose terrorist ideology "grows out of a climate of
poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."
Obama went on to imply the Sept. 11 attacks were, in part, a result of
U.S. policy, lecturing the American military to minimize civilian
casualties in the Middle East and urging action opposing ‘bigotry or
discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle-Eastern
descent.’
"Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved
families, I must also hope that we, as a nation, draw some measure of
wisdom from this tragedy," Obama wrote in a piece about 9/11 published
Sept. 19, 2001, in Chicago’s Hyde Park Herald.
Obama may not be a Muslim, but he certainly is
sympathetic.
Obama Knew Of Release
Obama knew about the September, 2009, Lockerbie Bomber's release, and Clarice Feldman
says that Obama is not going to get away with blaming the Brits for
releasing him. At least not if Downing Street can
help it. The British say the White House and Secretary of State
Clinton were fully informed of the decision and are deflecting blame
onto the British now that the decision has proven to be unpopular.
(Of course, given how the American press hides stories, like Van
Jones', that reflect badly on Obama, unless Americans seek out alternate
media or read the foreign press the White House deflection will probably
work.)
Here is how the Daily Mail reported the Obama
administration's knowledge of the transfer of Megrahi:
British officials claim Mr. Obama and Mrs.
Clinton were kept informed at all stages of discussions concerning
Megrahi’s return.
The officials say the Americans spoke out
because they were taken aback by the row over Megrahi’s release, not
because they did not know it was about to happen.
"The US was
kept fully in touch about everything that was going on with regard
to Britain’s discussions with Libya in recent years and about Megrahi," said the Whitehall aide.
"We would never do
anything about Lockerbie without discussing it with the US. It
is disingenuous of them to act as though Megrahi’s return was out of
the blue."
It was Libya’s leader, Gaddafi,
who screwed the pooch by throwing a big "welcome home" party for the
"hero" at the airport when he returned.
Waterboarding
Obama is
preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh
interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow military rules
for questioning prisoners, according to two U.S. officials familiar with
drafts of the plans. Still under debate is whether to allow
exceptions in extraordinary cases.
The proposal Obama is
considering would require all CIA interrogators to follow conduct
outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the officials said. The
plans would also have the effect of shutting down secret "black site"
prisons around the world where the CIA has questioned terror suspects --
with all future interrogations taking place inside American military
facilities.
However, Obama's changes may not be absolute.
His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole
to the rules that could allow the CIA to use some interrogation methods
not specifically authorized by the Pentagon, the officials said.
They said the intent is not to use that as an opening for possible use
of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.
In other words, Obama is
retaining George Bush's policy of allowing "exceptions in extraordinary
cases," but he is lying about it. In 8 years, Bush authorized
waterboarding 3 times, in extraordinary cases -- and he saved American
lives.
If it was up to me, I would have
Hannibal Lecter
interrogate high-value terrorists
Enhanced Interrogation
Techniques
If you live
in L.A. and didn't die in a terrorist attack, you may owe it to the
CIA's use of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that are currently
under fire from Obama and his left-wing constituents.
In a compelling
Op-Ed in Tuesday's Washington Post, Marc A. Thiessen
disproves Barack Obama's hollow claim that such techniques "did not make
us safer." Rather than following the MSM lead and merely parroting the
Obots talking points after the release of previously-classified memos
this week, Thiessen actually examined the documents.
Thiessen
concludes that Obama's contention is "patently
false. The proof is in
the memos Obama made public -- in sections that have gone virtually
unreported in the media."
"...that have gone virtually unreported
in the media." No surprise there. The legacy media has proved to be
singularly un-inquisitive when it comes to facts that get in the way of
Obama talking points.
Thiessen specifically refers to a May, 2005
memo regarding two top al Qaeda operatives, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and
Abu Zubaydah:
"the CIA believes 'the intelligence acquired from
these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to
launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.' . . .
In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain
critical information from numerous detainees, including Khalid Sheik
Mohammed (KSM) and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques... Before
the CIA used enhanced techniques ... KSM resisted giving any answers to
questions about future attacks, simply noting, 'Soon you will find out.'"
But once the enhanced techniques were used, "interrogations
have led to specific, actionable intelligence, as well as a general
increase in the amount of intelligence regarding al Qaeda and its
affiliates."
In other words, the techniques worked when previous
interrogation methods had failed.
"as Abu Zubaydah himself
explained with respect to enhanced techniques, 'brothers who are
captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information
when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to
withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship."
The CIA documents reveal specifically that the enhanced techniques:
"led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the 'Second Wave,' 'to use East
Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into' a building in Los
Angeles... information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of
Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the
Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the
'Second Wave.'"
Further, the memo states that KSM might never
have been captured, and the information he revealed never learned,
without enhanced interrogation techniques used against Zubaydah.
"...Zubaydah -- again, once enhanced techniques were employed --
furnished detailed information regarding al Qaeda's 'organizational
structure, key operatives, and modus operandi' and identified KSM as the
mastermind of the September 11 attacks."
The 'Second Wave' attack
planned by KSM, thwarted by the use of enhanced interrogation
techniques, would have hijacked a jetliner and crashed it into the
Library Tower in Los Angeles, the tallest building on the West Coast. Thiessen points out, "without enhanced interrogations, there could be a
hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York."
But the impact would have been far worse than the physical devastation
to L.A and the resultant thousands of casualties. The nation was reeling
after 9/11, deadly anthrax was being delivered through the mail, the
economy was in trouble. A follow-up attack on the West Coast would have
meant that, potentially, no one was safe. The effect would have been
devastating.
Even Obama's hand-picked CIA Director, has admitted
that he might consent to enhanced interrogation techniques under a
"ticking time bomb" scenario. And that is exactly the scenario in which
the techniques were used during the Bush administration.
Oh, and
one more thing -- Congress, including some of its loudest Democratic
critics, approved of these "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Britain Did Torture
During
Obama's 100th-day presser, he said he had recently read an article about
Winston Churchill during the London blitz. "Churchill said, 'We
don't torture,' when the entire British -- all of the British people
were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat," Obama said.
"And then the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking
short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people.
It corrodes the character of a country."
The anecdote wasn't
true. Churchill may well have said that Britain did not torture,
but British archives show clearly that captured Nazis were subjected to
harsh treatment in order to extract information during World War II.
This morning, Michael Tomasky points to this 2005 story in the Guardian
about a secret World War II detention center called the "London Cage":
The London Cage was used partly as a torture centre, inside
which large numbers of German officers and soldiers were subjected to
systematic ill-treatment. In total 3,573 men passed through the
Cage, and more than 1,000 were persuaded to give statements about war
crimes. The brutality did not end with the war, moreover: a number
of German civilians joined the servicemen who were interrogated there up
to 1948. . . .
Barack Obama suggested last night that removing Osama bin Laden from
the battlefield was
no longer essential and that America’s security goals could be
achieved merely by keeping al-Qaeda "on the run".
"My preference
obviously would be to capture or kill him," he said. "But if we
have so tightened the noose that he’s in a cave somewhere and can’t even
communicate with his operatives then we will meet our goal of protecting
America."
His comments, in a CBS interview, represent a
significant watering down of the "dead or alive" policy pursued by
President Bush since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. They also
appear to contradict Obama’s own statements made in the election
campaign.
As recently as October 7, in a presidential debate,
Obama said: "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to
be our biggest national security priority."
Obama must have a mouse in his
pocket when he says, "But if we
have so tightened the noose..." He is describing a situation that
he had nothing to do with. George Bush is the man who tightened
that noose and Obama was against the president's actions the whole way.
Now he takes credit for it. A frequent practice of Obama -- taking
credit for the work of others.
Obama's A Con Man
Dan Farber
says Obama came into office with a promise to change how Washington
works. It hasn't worked out well so far, and many of his
supporters who helped to catapult him into office are frustrated, at
least according to various polls.
During a nationally televised
press conference on Friday, Obama was asked if he had changed
Washington.
He responded first with some of his administration's
accomplishments, but then blamed the lack of a more cooperative spirit
in Washington on the dire economic situation he inherited and the
Republicans.
"Now, if you're asking why haven't I been
able to create a greater spirit of cooperation in Washington, I
think that's fair. I'm as frustrated as anybody by it. I
think part of it has to do with the fact that when we came into
office, we came in under very tough economic circumstances, and I
think that some of the Republican leaders made a decision: We're
going to sit on the sidelines and let the Democrats try to solve it.
And so we got a lot of resistance very early."
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is
apparently really frustrated with Obama. The respected politician
has taken criticism to a new level of insult, describing Obama as a
"con" man who is "authentically dishonest."
Speaking to the
National Review Online, Gingrich said:
"This is a person who is fundamentally
out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a
wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president."
"I think he worked very hard at being a
person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent,
accommodating -- none of which was true. In the Alinksy
tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to
achieve the position he needed to achieve... He was
authentically dishonest."
On Fox News Sunday,
the former Speaker criticized Obama's economic policy by merely saying:
"The thing that the president doesn't
understand and the thing that Keynesian economics get wrong is real
simple: Do you want people to have enough money to invest to create
jobs? If they have a surplus of income so they can create
jobs, that's somehow bad and the president wants to take away the
income. That means he's leaving them with no money to create jobs."
Gingrich's more inflammatory comments on Obama's
character were in response to a similarly inflammatory
article by
Dinesh D'Souza published in Forbes, contending that the president
channels the "anticolonial ideology of
Barack Obama Sr." and "is trapped in his father's time machine."
D'Souza concluded:
"Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled
according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This
philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the
world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions,
is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his
dreams in his son."
Obama Can’t Keep His Osama Stories -- Or
Anything Else -- Straight
Michael Oberndorf
says the current occupant of the White House and his unindicted
co-conspirators can’t seem to get their lies straight. Their
versions of the alleged killing of Osama bin Laden are conflicting,
contradictory, and constantly changing, and the biggest lie of all is
that Obama-Soetoro had anthing to do with the operation. In one of
the most disgusting displays of narcissistic braggadocio I have ever had
the bad fortune to witness, the Prevaricator-in-Chief gave one of his
most egregious I-Me-I-Me harangues, claiming total credit for the
obvious hard, patriotic work of many of his betters, including the hated
George W. Bush.
Then, he claims he doesn’t want to offend the
sensibilities of Muslims by releasing pictures of the dead murderer of
3,000 Americans. This from a provocateur who, in 2009, had to be
begged to reverse his decision to release 2,000 pictures of detainee
abuse (incidents which had already been punished). These pictures
were guaranteed to get the Islamists rioting in the streets again, far
more that pictures of a dead, symbolic has-been.
This killing
succeeded in distracting Americans concerned about the Usurper’s
destruction of America -- the tail wagging the dog -- at a time when the
Head Fool’s popularity was in the tank. The Clown-in-Chief, it has
been reported, has known since last August that bin Laden was in
Abbottabad, but chose to wait until now to do anything. He thinks
he can amateurishly create diversions that will make people think he’s a
macho patriot, instead of the anti-American buffoon that he has shown
himself to be.
With the economy on the brink of the second dip
of a double dip recession, brought on by the looting of the Treasury and
wild, uncontrolled borrowing and spending by the government, the
Oh-So-Clever-One thinks he can distract the public into not noticing our
imminent demise as an economically viable nation. This winner of
the Nobel Peace Prize -- who has a war going in Iraq, a war going in
Afghanistan, an undeclared war in Libya, who tried to murder a foreign
head of state there but only succeeded in murdering Qaddafi’s son and
grandchildren, and has just unilaterally invaded a sovereign nation, and
by his administration’s account, did so without its consent or knowledge
(although this smells like more big lies) to murder a foreign national
-- wants us to believe he’s an honorable hero acting in the best
interests of the American people? Why, then, when the military
decided the time was ripe to take bin Laden out, did it take Mr.
Brilliant 16 hours to decide to act?
Only the ObamaMedia have
less credibility than Pinocchio on the Potomac.
One of the issues
Obama-Soetoro and his Marxist lackeys fear most is that people will
realize that the high gas and oil prices that are driving inflation are
the direct result of Democrat policies. A tip off might be the
Energy Secretary publicly stating that he really, really, wants to see
gas prices at least at $8.00 a gallon. Another might be a long
proclamation commemorating "Earth Day," a Democrat religious holy day,
but not a peep to American Christians on Easter. Environmentalists
and Marxists (sorry, I repeat myself) have nearly ruined the country.
Obama-Soetoro wants to distract us from the fact that, based on some
estimates, the U.S. has more oil reserves than the rest of the world
combined. We have enough untapped oil resources to supply our
energy needs for the next 2,000 years, and then some.
Unfortunately, through the hard work and persistence of radical
environmentalists and their Democrat fellow-travelers, exploiting these
sources has been put, statutorily, off limits. We could be totally
energy self-sufficient, but we have been conned into passing laws that
have allowed activist left-wing judges and environmentalist Democrats to
make this illegal.
Instead, the sleight of hand liars in the
White House and the appallingly corrupt Eric Holder and his "Justice"
Department are trying to attack the oil companies. The American
people are to blame, by driving pickup trucks and SUVs, using
incandescent light bulbs, and not keeping the air pressure in our tires
at the precisely correct level.
I am sick and tired of being
constantly and blatantly lied to by my government. I am sick and
tired of being marginalized, insulted, and ignored by the radical
Marxists and neo-fascists who have taken over my government -- e.g.,
amnesty is back; we are in a new, undeclared war that is not our
interests; they are about to raise the debt ceiling, even though it will
likely bring down the entire economy; they are pandering to the gay
lobby, Big Unions, and the UN; the "Justice" Department is going after
the people who made Obama-Soetoro’s only positive accomplishment --
finding bin Laden -- possible; and there is constant, unconstitutional
meddling in the affairs of the sovereign states.
My government
is no longer mine, nor is it my friend…
