Bush's 'War' On Terror Comes to a Sudden End

[AlphaCentauri]

Friday, January 23, 2009; Page A01

President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the "war on terror," as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless.

While Obama says he has no plans to diminish counterterrorism operations abroad, the notion that a president can circumvent long-standing U.S. laws simply by declaring war was halted by executive order in the Oval Office.

Key components of the secret structure developed under Bush are being swept away: The military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration's lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.

It was a swift and sudden end to an era that was slowly drawing to a close anyway, as public sentiment grew against perceived abuses of government power. The feisty debate over the tactics employed against al-Qaeda began more than six years ago as whispers among confidants with access to the nation's most tightly held secrets. At the time, there was consensus in Congress and among the public that the United States would be attacked again and that government should do what was necessary to thwart the threat.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012203929.html

[EFerrari]

1. Do you think Obama knows we call it the War on Terra?

:)

[AlphaCentauri]

7. I hope he does n/t

[NYC_SKP]

2. He also referred to it as "the struggle against terrorism",

as told in an OP here yesterday, thus ending the propagandist use of the term "war on terror" as well.

:patriot:

[Why Syzygy]

3. We are strong again. Sweet Victory. nt k/r

[shintao]

4. OK! So what have we got?

What we got is left holding the bag!! We got America trillions of dollars in debt, thousands of dead, wounded and brain damaged US Troops, millions of innocent children masacred, a destroyed nation the size of Texas in chaos. And unfortunately, the survival of Bin Laden, the Taliban, the Al Quadea, and the republican terrorist RNC organization.

Notice how the Berlin wall came down on one persons word, and here one persons word an end to terrorist wars. It is all a state of mind people. All those dead is just from a state of mind.

[TexasObserver]

5. But his War on Syntax will continue from the pig farm.

[bottomtheweaver]

6. The flackers are fanning out.

Listening right now to some Bush stooge on BBC World bitching about how Bushler's Mengele regime saved us from ground zeroes high and lo, KSM revealed blah blah had it not been for these techniques blah blah death of thousands of people would have died scary scary barf. "Good people who are trying to protect the country and do everything necessary," "they're not torturers they're heroes," yeah right. Bush's speech writer, figures.