Change You Should Have Believed In!

It turns out Barrack meant change after all. He was far more sincere and committed to change than any of his followers could have possibly realized. Unfortunately, the change our dear leader was referring to was him changing every campaign statement/promise of substance.

We should have known, right?

He changed his take on warrantless wiretapping of Americans during the campaign. If you cannot recall this about face you can review the sad story here.

So let’s review the change Barrack really meant. The change we should have believed in:
•The Bush Administrations warrantless wiretapping of all Americans phone calls, e-mails, etc.
•Bringing American troops home from Iraq
•The unconstitutional “enemy combatants” classification to deny habeas corpus & due process to terror suspects
•The Bush administrations’ “Extraordinary rendition”, kidnapping people and sending them to black sites in other countries to be tortured
•That torture is wrong and that we should not torture people since it is against US & International law
•The Bush administrations’ use of executive signing statements to undermine the rule of law
•The promise that an Obama administration would mean an end to business as usual for Lobbyist in Washington DC – and he would not have any lobbyists in his administration

I bet I am missing one or two since I did not support this man for president. I would hope that maybe a reader could send any significant items I am missing to add to the list.

Let’s review these campaign statements/promises shall we?
The Bush Administration implemented a program that engaged in warrantless wiretapping of all Americans phone calls and e-mails you can read about it here.

This program was conducted by the NSA under the guidance of four-star general Michael Hayden. The NSA was given direct access to the fiber optic hubs by all major telecoms. By tapping directly into the fiber all data passing through these hubs was mined in its entirety by the NSA.

Actually, one company did refuse the request because it was against law and that company was Qwest. Shortly thereafter Qwest became the target of a federal investigation but of course this was not related in any way to the unwillingness to aid abet the NSA in this illegal program.

Once this program became public Congress stepped up to the plate to fulfill their oversight responsibility. As we would expect the honorable elected representatives of the people immediately took bold and decisive action. This was one issue that even politicians would not allow to be confused by any ambiguity. We are nation that holds dear the notion that Americans are ruled by no man however all men must submit to the rule of law.

Our honorable congress people responded to their call to duty by drafting legislation that would make the program completely legal. They also wanted to be sure no culpability was overlooked so they included immunity for all the companies that participated in the illegal program.

Sadly, this is the truth. Our politicians responded to this egregious violation of all Americans 4th amendment protection against illegal searches and seizures by gutting the 4th amendment. With the 4th amendment eviscerated and immunity for the participants our representatives sold us and our constitution down the river.

Seemingly to the rescue however came candidate and sitting senator barrack obama. He made a pledge here to a crowd in Wisconsin that he would filibuster this legislation, or any legislation that contained immunity for the telecoms. Yes, here was finally change you could believe in America. Or was it?

Not!

Of course this man running for the dictator of the American Empire could not actually follow the constitution. So he didn’t. Gullible Americans still bought the change mantra all the way to the polls.

The commitment to bring the troops is different and surely he could not back out of this promise, could he?

Upon taking office obama asked for a plan to remove all combat troops from Iraq. To date we have not seen the forces draw down in Iraq and come home. Some troops have left Iraq however they went to the AF-Pak front in the global war terror. Our dear leader is planning in escalating US troops in the F-Pak theatre by at least 30k, see the latest obama plan here.

During the transition from candidate obama to president elect, to president obama his statements around ending the Iraq conflict have followed a parallel transition. The political skill of semantics and clarification begin to weave a hazy cover preparing the American people for the fact that he has no intention whatsoever of ending this conflict. One of our generals says we will be in Iraq for another decade and I would be willing to bet he has a more informed understanding than our dear leader.

Now that he actually could end the war terms like “combat troops”, “residual forces”, are the construction materials for an executive about face. His rhetoric around the AF-PAK campaign sound very similar to that of “W’s” grandiose plans for spreading democracy in Iraq and surely will lead to an even more frightening level of destruction. I cannot read the man’s mind but the fact is casualties are rising. As long as more non-combat people die, American soldiers continue to die, and the occasional terrorist dies, nothing is being ended. It so sad to the America follow the footsteps of others into the graveyard of empires called Afghanistan.

During the campaign the Boston Globe published a Q & A found
here that addresses four of the bullet points above; torture, enemy combatants, rendition, and executive signing statements. The answers here are very clear and unfortunately most people felt they could take the candidate’s statements at face value. They believed him. Let’s look at the specific Q&As that deal with the four bullet points I listed at the start of this piece.

Q- “Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?”
A- “The Supreme Court has never held that the president has such powers. As president, I will follow existing law, and when it comes to U.S. citizens and residents, I will only authorize surveillance for national security purposes consistent with FISA and other federal statutes.”

Pretty clear answer to me. I think the point has been made the man deceived on this point. I keep coming back to this simply because this happened prior to the election.

Q-“If Congress defines a specific interrogation technique as prohibited under all circumstances, does the president's authority as commander in chief ever permit him to instruct his subordinates to employ that technique despite the statute?”
A- “No. The President is not above the law, and the Commander-in-Chief power does not entitle him to use techniques that Congress has specifically banned as torture. We must send a message to the world that America is a nation of laws, and a nation that stands against torture. As President I will abide by statutory prohibitions, and have the Army Field Manual govern interrogation techniques for all United States Government personnel and contractors.”

It is humiliating to me as a Father and an American that this is even something that we could debate. If we do not prosecute the crimes of torture that have been committed than we are absolutely condoning torture and this would be another campaign “Change” that we should have believed in…

Lastly, it will start on terrorists or other bad people that we can all agree are horrible. Once the concept is approved it is only a matter of time before we will be tortured. The state only expands its power and reach. This will expand as well.

Q- “Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?”
A- “No. I reject the Bush Administration's claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.”

Again, not any ambiguity found in this response. This Q&A piece is from the Dec 2007, lets look at a recent obama take on the enemy combatants’.
At first glance it is very encouraging to find that obama is still absolutely in opposition to the concept of “enemy combatants”. The problem is he wants to create the legal framework and institutionalize, making it routine if you will, a concept he calls “preventive detention”.

This would still deny habeas corpus and due process. Who seems like the only voice of reason from the left anti-war movement left Glenn Greenwald does an excellent job walking through the facts of this disturbing concept here. The key points to preventive detention (PD), are that this allows someone to be imprisoned without being charged with a crime forever.

How could we ever trust as government with this type of power? History is filled with the results of this type of totalitarian legislation. God help us if this is really were we have come to as a nation.

Q-“Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?”
A-“Signing statements have been used by presidents of both parties, dating back to Andrew Jackson. While it is legitimate for a president to issue a signing statement to clarify his understanding of ambiguous provisions of statutes and to explain his view of how he intends to faithfully execute the law, it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability.”
“I will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law. The problem with this administration is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation. The fact that President Bush has issued signing statements to challenge over 1100 laws – more than any president in history – is a clear abuse of this prerogative. No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives; unfortunately, the Bush Administration has gone much further than that.”

I do not read any doubt in the response to this question in candidate obama’s response. As of march 11th, here obama takes on a few issues through the signing statement process. He reserves the right as dictator to bypass certain disputed provisions in the $410 bil spending bill and a Public Lands bill. See a great summary here, & here.

This leaves the issue of rendition that I believe obama called unconstitutional.

Well he intends for rendition to continue and that is a crime.

There are real terrorists in this world however I think there are better ways to deal with them. One for example is try them in abstentia. Then we use letters of marqe and reprisal and go arrest them. No wars of war on terror. This was the way Jefferson dealt with the Barbary pirates. We do not need a preemptive invasion of a country to battle terrorism. We are so far from the path that is becoming a constitutional republic it is terrifying as it seems each new step forward takes us closer to a cliff.

Then two other pledges that that candidate obama made were no lobbyist in his administration, and that Americans would have 5 days to review the bill online before he signed it into law. These have already gone to the wayside in his first 100 days. It is par for the course.

In closing I want to say I do not have any particular distaste for our dictator. He truly is no better or no worse than his predecessor. That is exactly the problem. The democrats and the republicans play a no win game against us. This fake left right paradigm is a trap. The one thing that bush proved is that republicans are not conservatives. Where was the fiscal responsibility, the humble foreign policy, the limited role of government in your private life? These supposed principles were forgotten when the republicans could have actually accomplished this things.

Whatever obama is don’t bet he will bring our troops home nor do anything less than continuing to grow government, attack civil liberties, everything that bush started, barrack will finish.

Turn off the TV and read. The internet is living on borrowed time so take advantage of the free access to alternative information while you still have it. Rediscover the concept of freedom.

In liberty,
C2084