"Crimes Are Crimes – No Matter Who Does Them" from David Swanson

[man4allcats]

I received the following in an email from David Swanson:

In the past few weeks, it has become common knowledge that Barack Obama has openly ordered the assassination of an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, because he is suspected of participating in plots by Al Qaeda. Al-Awlaki denies these charges. No matter. Without trial or other judicial proceeding, the administration has simply put him on the to-be-killed list.

During this same period, a video leaked by whistleblowers in the military showing U.S. troops firing on an unarmed party of Iraqis in 2007, including two journalists, and then firing on those who attempted to rescue them – including two children – became public. As ugly as this video of the killing of 12 Iraqis was, the chatter recorded from the helicopter cockpit was even more chilling and monstrous. Yet the Pentagon said that there would be no charges against these soldiers; and the media focused on absolving them of blame – “they were under stress,” the story went, “and after all our brave men and women must be supported.” Meanwhile, those who leaked and publicized the video came under government surveillance and are targeted as “national security” threats.

Also during this period, the Pentagon acknowledged, after denials, a massacre near the city of Gardez, Afghanistan, on February 12, 2010, in which 5 people were killed, including two pregnant women, leaving 16 children motherless. The U.S. military first said the two men killed were insurgents, and the women, victims of a family “honor killing.” The Afghan government has accepted the eyewitness reports that U.S. Special Forces killed the men, (a police officer and lawyer) and the women, and then dug their own bullets out of the women’s bodies to destroy evidence. Top U.S. military officials have now admitted that U.S. soldiers killed the family in their house.

- snip -

In some respects, this is worse than Bush. First, because Obama has claimed the right to assassinate American citizens whom he suspects of “terrorism,” merely on the grounds of his own suspicion or that of the CIA, something Bush never claimed publicly. Second, Obama says that the government can detain you indefinitely, even if you have been exonerated in a trial, and he has publicly floated the idea of “preventive detention." Third, the Obama administration, in expanding the use of unmanned drone attacks, argues that the U.S. has the authority under international law to use such lethal force and extrajudicial killing in sovereign countries with which it is not at war.

More here...

[midnight]

1. Thanks David for your thoughtful consideration of how we went from

ending this stupid war to surging it for 100 bad men in Afghanistan. Just end this war and save our countries national security at home.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

2. "Crimes Are Crimes – No Matter Who Does Them" --

That needs repeating, loudly and often.

I spent years chronicling all the bad things that Bush was up to for my website and for the Bush Wall of Shame. I covered everything, from the appointments to the secret meetings to the Valerie Plame leak to the fabrications leading up to the illegal Iraq invasion to his perversions of the Constitution.

I have watched over the past year+ as way too many of those very same actions/policies have been replicated under the Obama Administration. It has been shocking, disturbing, and shaken me to the core.

What has been equally disturbing is watching many in the Democratic Party/on the left either approve of or make excuses for Obama's ugly Bush rerun.

"I trust him," "He knows things we don't know," "You just don't like Obama," -- and on and on and on, the very same excuses and rationalizations we heard from the RIGHT under Bush -- now applied to those who would expose Obama's wrongdoings.

I thought Democrats were supposed to be the "smart" ones, but it is appearing that the Democratic Party has just as many "sheep" as the GOP has. :(

[Michigan-Arizona]

3. You summed that up very well!!! Thank you

I had to laugh when my brother (he's a repug himself) said repugs don't like Obama's policies, my reply to him was which ones are different from Bush's.

[Cha]

4. I think that's so much bullcrap...it's not

obvious to me at all. What's obvious is people like david swanson can jump to conclusions while throwing red meat to those who eat it up while their knee are jerking off.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. Baaaaa....

That is all.