War Crimes: Obama Refuses to be Judge and Jury

During President Obama’s third press conference tonight he was once again asked if waterboarding was torture or not?

Obama did not directly say whether he believed the Bush administration “sanctioned torture,” but he came close to endorsing that viewpoint.

“What I’ve said, and what I will repeat, is waterboarding violates our ideals,” he said. “I do believe waterboarding is torture.”

Stopping such practices, he said, “will makes us stronger and will make us safer over the long term.”

Obama said he is “very comfortable” with his decision to ban interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which he called torture.
The president called the practice a recruiting tool for terrorist groups like al Qaeda, citing World War II-era British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who also rejected such “enhanced interrogation” techniques.
“Churchill understood that if you start taking shortcuts, over time that corrodes what’s best in a people,” Obama said. “It corrodes the character of a country.”

Asked about the previous administration, he said, “I think that whatever legal rationale were used, it was a mistake.”

Political pundits are saying that the President is once again refusing to say whether or not war crimes have been committed, that he’s trying to “move on” and hopes the subject will fade away.

I couldn’t disagree more. After hearing his words tonight (I’ve been skeptical in the recent past) I’ve decided what the president is actually doing is leaving the door open to what ever happens — he’s ’staying out of it’, sort of speak.

He’s decided not to give the GOP and other Bush supporters the ability to say that President Barack Obama started a ‘witch hunt‘ from the moment he took office against the Bush administration and the Republican Party to find anything and everything he could to ‘get’ former President George W. Bush and VP Dick Cheney convicted of war crimes.

As he pointed out once again, he believes waterboarding IS torture.  This in itself is answering the reporter’s question — Bush did indeed, “sanction torture”.

President Obama knows about the Constitution and our rule of laws.  He also knows about the agreement that former President Ronald Reagan signed in 1984 saying that, “Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”

Therefore, what the president is doing is, he’s letting the “chips fall where they may”.  He’s stepping aside and letting ‘others’ do the debating of which method of investigating should be done and by whom, to see if war crimes have indeed been committed and if so, how the guilty should be punished.

President Obama is, in his own way, taking the high ground — until further notice.

If some committee, special prosecutor or the attorney general himself finds that crimes have been committed, you can bet your bottom dollar the President will come out swinging; but at this time he doesn’t plan on being the judge and jury as most of use were hoping he would do (including myself).  He’ll let others do that.

FIRST 100 DAYS in OFFICE:

Please go and check out all the pictures that have been taken of the Obama family and some in his administration the past 100 days.

Whether you like him or not, agree with his policies or not, you must admit he certainly ‘looks’ awfully busy and very presidential.

Another Repub Agrees War Crimes Should be Prosecuted:

Perhaps President Obama should watch this video.  It proves that not just Democrats think we should investigate our past and find if war crimes were committed and if so have the guilty prosecuted.

War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, “I was just following orders.”

Add to this Bush’s comments made after the abuse of Iraqi prisoners story came out in an interview with Al Arabia:

BUSH: First, I want to tell the people of the Middle East that the practices that took place in that prison are abhorrent and they don’t represent America. They represent the actions of a few people. Secondly, it’s important for people to understand that in a democracy that there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth.

In our country, when there’s an allegation of abuse — more than an allegation in this case, actual abuse, we saw the pictures — there will be a full investigation and justice will be delivered. We have a presumption of innocent until you’re guilty in our system, but the system will be transparent, it will be open and people will see the results. This is a serious matter. It’s a matter that reflects badly on my country. Our citizens in America are appalled by what they saw, just like people in the Middle East are appalled. We share the same deep concerns. And we will find the truth, we will fully investigate. The world will see the investigation and justice will be served.

Let’s see now, that makes two former presidents (Ronald Reagan and now George W. Bush) and one former speaker of the House (Newt Gingrich) all agreeing that torture (war crimes) should be investigated and if found to have happened, the guilty punished.

MORE GOOD NEWS!

WATERFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Tinker Bell has been reunited with her owners after a 70-mph gust of wind picked up the six-pound Chihuahua and tossed her out of sight.

Dorothy and Lavern Utley credit a pet psychic for guiding them on Monday to a wooded area nearly a mile from where 8-month-old Tinker Bell had been last seen.

This is amazing!  How that dog didn’t get hurt is beyond me.   Just another one of those miracles you hear about.

GOOD NEWS FOR ONCE

Consumer confidence in April soared to its highest level of the year, indicating that U.S. consumers may feel the worst of the economic downturn is behind us.

A report issued by private research group the Conference Board showed that confidence levels in April rose to a higher-than-expected 39.2, easily beating economist estimates of 29.0.

Consumer confidence this month well exceeded March’s revised rate of 26.9, and April’s numbers were the highest recorded since last November.

HOTDOG! This is GOOD NEWS.

Do you know why it’s good news?  Because this means if consumers feel more confident they will start BUYING again and their new buying will only serve to ‘help‘ our sluggish economy.

Obama Using Flu Pandemic For Political Gain?

The Obama administration’s actions to respond to the outbreak of swine flu, including its declaration of a public health emergency, smacks of an attempt to cover up this week’s Senate vote on the confirmation of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) as secretary of Health and Human Services, a prominent anti-abortion-rights activist told the Washington Independent.

“Some people think that declaring a state of emergency about the flu was a political thing to push the Sebelius nomination through,” Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright told the website’s Dave Weigel….

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins weighed in via an e-mail sent to supporters Monday. “[L]iberals are already scheming how they can use the health scare to win the confirmation of pro-abortion extremist Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kans.) as Secretary of Health and Human Services,” he writes.

Mexico City is all but shut down, their economy will be hurt even more during the worst recession since the depression and these people are claiming Obama and Democrats are using the pandemic for political gain?

Give me a break.  Are the GOP desperate to gain traction again in anyway they can — or what?

GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness

Well, as it turns out, volcano monitoring wasn’t the only worthwhile public safety program that was deemed extravagant in the stimulus package, funding for pandemic preparation was axed as well. And playing a critical role was Susan Collins — for whom the necessity of obtaining her vote is in inverse proportion to the intelligence she shows in policy making:

Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: “Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not.”

Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate’s version of the stimulus measure.

While I understand where my fellow Democrats and Independents are going with this bit of news, I think they are being unfair attacking Senator Collins on this. (more…)

Limbaugh: “What you said is Evil”

Rush Limbaugh’s comments about the hijackers of the Maersk Alabama ship: “Now, just imagine the hue and cry had a Republican president ordered the shooting of black teenagers on the high seas,” later joking, “If only President Obama had known that the three Somali community organizers are actually young black Muslim teenagers, I’m sure he wouldn’t have given the order to shoot.”

Yesterday, Shane Murphy, the second-in-command of the Maersk, returned home and sharply criticized Limbaugh’s remarks:

“It feels great to be home,” Murphy said. “With the exception of Rush Limbaugh who is trying to make this into a race issue. It’s disgusting.”

“The president did the right thing. It’s a war. It’s about good versus evil. And what you (Limbaugh) said is evil, that is hate speech. I won’t tolerate it,” Murphy said.

Thank you Shane, you’ve once again served you nations well by standing up to hate speeches.

Swine Flu or Encephalitis Epedimic?

(CNN) – The United States government declared a public health emergency Sunday as the number of identified cases of swine flu in the nation rose to 20…

No one has died in the U.S. from swine flu, officials said Sunday.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said eight students at St. Francis Prepatory School in Queens have tested positive for swine flu. More than 100 students at the school were absent with flu-like symptoms last week, he said.

State public health officials in Ohio confirmed one case of swine flu on Sunday. There have been seven confirmed cases in California, two in Kansas, and two in Texas, Besser said.

The World Health Organization advised all countries to be on the lookout for “unusual” outbreaks of flu, after an emergency meeting Saturday as the seriousness of the outbreak became clear.

By Sunday, 81 deaths in Mexico had been deemed “likely linked” to swine flu. Viral testing has confirmed 20 cases, said Dr. Jose A. Cordova Villalobos, Mexico’s health secretary…

Symptoms of swine flu include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite, coughing, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, according to the CDC

April 22, 2009

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Missing vials of a potentially dangerous virus have prompted an Army investigation into the disappearance from a lab in Maryland.

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command agents have been visiting Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, to investigate the disappearance of the vials. Christopher Grey, spokesman for the command, said this latest investigation has found “no evidence of criminal activity.”

The vials contained samples of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, a virus that sickens horses and can be spread to humans by mosquitoes. In 97 percent of cases, humans with the virus suffer flu-like symptoms, but it can be deadly in about 1 out of 100 cases, according to Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman for the Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. There is an effective vaccine for the disease and there hasn’t been an outbreak in the United States since 1971.

Symptoms of Encephalitis are fever, fatigue, sore throat, stiff neck/back, vomiting, headache, confusion, irritability, drowsiness, seizures, muscle loss, memory loss, paralysis.

Swine flu and encephalitis sound an awful lot alike.

Makes one wonder if these two stories are related some how – I pray not; but it sure seems odd that they’d both happen around the same time.

Pres. Ronald Reagan’s Views on Torture

From his signing statement ratifying the UN Convention on Torture from 1984:

“The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”

Looks like the man each and every Republican Candidate that repeatedly quoted their hero, President Ronald Reagan, all during their campaign for the Presidency in 2008, as well as many other Republicans, has just popped up from his grave and kicked them all right smack in the butt for ignoring the United States rule of law and ‘his’ signature expressing opposition to torture.

UPDATE:

Newt Gingrich against TORTURE too – ONCE APON A TIME

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OCTOBER 30, 1997

SPEAKER’S STATEMENT ON VISIT OF PRESIDENT JIANG
Washington, D.C. — House Speaker Newt Gingrich released the following statement today following his meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

“As I said in China this spring, there is no place for abuse in what must be considered the family of man. There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention. There is no place for forced confessions. There is no place for intolerance of dissent.” “While we walked through the Rotunda. I explained to President Jiang how the roots of American rule of law go back more than 700 years, to the signing of the Magna Carta. The foundation of American values, therefore, is not a passing priority or a temporary trend.”