Obama Pushes Back on McCain Camp Terrorism Attacks

The Democrats should just make Osama Bin Laden a US citizen.
Then he could be treated as badly as the rest of us- totally ignored by our members of Congress.

Be careful. Obama may be whistling up skirts on some issues but the Geneva Conventions are not one. If we are not careful, our own soldiers can and will be held in prisons without due. It has happened before and we sometimes can do little about that without the cooperation of the international community. Keeping Gitmo makes it much more difficult to get that cooperation.
We do need to act more as an international partner and less as the international police. Bush Inc did real damage to us. I don’t think Obama is the cure, but we won’t make our lives any safer by continuing to ignore the court of world opinion on this matter.

I want to know why obama will not agree to the 10 town hall meeting with mccain?
obama and mccain should be together and have regular citizens ask both questions.
everyone please call for obama and mccain to debate together.

smith
if bush would have actually read the intelligence reports at all there wouldnt have been an attack on 9-11
LOL
cmon what are you talking about

Good point Len although beheadings are outside the scope of Geneva.
Obama may be a better lawyer than McCain and thats fine, but I would like to see his brief defining a “modicum of due process”
And lets not forget that the recent supreme descision addressed 2006 legislation, as in passed by a democratic congress.

There he goes again, making sense. He is so arrogant thinking we can restore America’s standing, return to a nation of laws, without fighting a war in Iraq.

It sounds like another he be she be we be by Obama. What a joke. Shame on the DNC.

“Be careful. Obama may be whistling up skirts on some issues but the Geneva Conventions are not one. If we are not careful, our own soldiers can and will be held in prisons without due.”
Yeah, Al Qaida has really been good about honoring the Geneva Convention.
Time to wake up, len.
When’s the last time the Geneva Convention actually protected an American?

Jake
Isn’t McCain kind of digging his own grave with this – he is accusing Obama of having a pre 9-11 mindset – his aides are saying that its the court process for terror suspects that led to 9-11 (I think Woolsey said this today) – in other words they are blaming the Clinton administration for this; at the same time they are trying to woo Clinton (Hillary this time) supporters, who, we should expect will be rah-rah Clinton administration supporters.
What do you think about this ?

“if bush would have actually read the intelligence reports at all there wouldnt have been an attack on 9-11
Posted by: bhrandon”
You mean if Clinton had read the 4 Dec 1998 PDB there wouldn’t have been an attack on 9-11.
That was the telling one.

I think as President one is supposed to defend the Constitution. How does one defend the Constitution by trampling on it?

Joe hits the salient point. If China captured a bunch of folks from Hawaii we would have recourse, War with China, governed by the Geneva Convention, or at least a state to state negotiation. Stateless terrorism does not fit in that picture

Ok then smith if you want to stop Islamic extremist wouldn’t you want to stop prevoking them? Wouldn’t you want to show them that their is a better way? If we do these kind of things then we turn ourselves into terrorist. That is why we as a nation follow laws not throw them in the toilet.

Obama knocks the Bush administration for not coming up with an adequate plan without actually producing one of his own.
So far, he proposes moving the prisoners from Gitmo to US soil (why?) and providing “some modicum of due process” that doesn’t have to be in a US District Court.
OK….what would this look like on American soil under an Obama presidency?
Surely the earlier comparison to the 1993 WTC leads one to believe he means in Federal criminal court.
I’m not frightened that I’m going to be killed by a terrorist and I’m not frightened I won’t be popular in Europe. I just want to know what Obama wants to do if he actually gets elected.

My question was actually for Jake Tapper!!

“I’m not frightened that I’m going to be killed by a terrorist and I’m not frightened I won’t be popular in Europe. I just want to know what Obama wants to do if he actually gets elected.”
He doesn’t know — his corporate sponsors haven’t told him yet.

Conservative cowards at that! If it wasn’t for us “librals” you wouldn’t have an america today

“But even worse, they ['tens of thousands of Islamic extremists all over the world'] are in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.”
Even scarier, the U.S. HAS an over-supply of WMD — the misdirection of six of which to Barksdale, Louisiana just resulted in a high-level shake-up of the military. Worry about THAT, why don’cha?

Isn’t it amazing Mr Tapper and al.
Senator Obama was called irresponsible when he said that he will bypass the Pakistani government to go after Bin Laden and his buddies. The GOP and Mc Same who i think are the best allies that Bin Laden could have wish for, accused him of being reckless. While we are bogged down in Iraq , Bin Laden can only hope that Mc Bush and the GOP will keep the white house and guarantee him another eight years of impunity.
From Madrid to London bombings and let’s not forget 9/11, all investigations have led to one place the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Senator Obama at least has a plan. Redeploy our troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to go after those who have attacked us. What is Mc Bush and the GOP plan?
As for the ruling of the court, no one is talking about freeing prisoners, why not follow the same principals that we followed after world war II while dealing with Nazi prisoners(they were not American citizens). What are we so afraid of?
I’ll recommend every one to read George Will in the WAPO today, at least there is still some voices of reason in the conservative movement today.

SOODD: Same old Obama, different day!

GOP terrorism with words thats why they are secretly funding terrorist so they have something to use to make weak minded people vote for them. Thats why we haven’t captured bin ladin the GOP couldn’t win an election if we did.

Don’t rush off Joe. I understand the argument that says we provoke extremists, but then there will always be extremists and provocation. What is the provocation you suggest eliminating? Israel? The west’s thirst for oil? Christianity? Judaism? Atheism? Snoop Dog? Madonna? Apple pie? Beer and wine?
Let us know. I like all of the above but have an extremist dislike of terrorist attacks on the USA.

Just wait. Obama will say something entirely different very soon. You’ll be able to tell whether he’s been told what to say by the number of ‘ugh’s.

Joe.
Many of the terrorists themselves will tell you that it doesn’t make ANY DIFFERENCE what our policies are – since we are not like them we are the infidels and we must die!! THA”T IT – NOTHING ELSE!!

Why should we waste our tax money on giving the foreign terrorists our Constitutional rights?

George, Yeah its free to detain them in Gitmo, wakenzup

George, detaining should be much cheaper than hiring expensive trial lawyers and flooding our already-crowded court systems. Think with your brain.

Ah, Poor Obama always the victim…
This is what happens when you want to appease every thing we do not believe in. I guess That’s the CHANGE he was talking about.

The reason Obama would not accept the McCain proposal of ten town-hall meetings is simply that, in his wisdom, he smells a diversionary ploy, and would rather authentically stick to his own plans. For instance, to keep the US diverted from Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda puts out a call to toughen its fight with the US in Iraq. Now, unlike McCain who thinks his adversary’s intentions are gospel and is singing wildly in agreement, Obama correctly smells the ploy, and declines to continue to be diverted away from the real tangible front in the war on terror. Obama may be young biologically, but he is hardly what you call a novice intellectually. You never let the opponent pick the place and time for battle, especially, when it is to the detriment of your own calculated, well-thought-out plan of engagement.
Ps:
I think the word is rather “insulated”, not “inculcated”

TK: The reason Obama doesn’t want a town hall meeting — well, remember the ABC interview when he looked like the clown he is? This guy is as dumb as a rock!

A,
I’m glad you read my take. Now, whether you understood it or not is another matter…I doubt you did.

WOW someone is finally questioning Obama with some real questions. Not questions like do you want a pillow. And Obama is very confused now

What the heck are they scared of. didn’t saddam get a day in court. wasn’t he the biggest terrorist in iraq.
GOP you make me want to throw up. Stop being so stupid.

Why isn’t it a terrorist act when we bomb a neighborhood in Iraq in the middle of the night? If someone did that to us thats what we would call it..
New word… Christian terrorisum thats what we are doing in Iraq and thats what Mcsame wants us to be. Christan terrorists!

Krissy that is not what he is saying.. Its like a murder case that hasn’t happend yet. You collect evedenc then arrest and bring to trail..Since it is illegal to build bombs you don’t have to wait untill the murder.. But once again if the gop was doing there job on immgration at the time all this wouldn’t be an issue.

LIVE ON, GITMO!!

It all comes down to whether or not you think we should continue the bush policies. If you think the war should continue indefinitely, while we spend $10,000,000,000 a month, and you think that bush has done well with the economy then mc-more-war is your man. If you think that it’s time we start to get out of iraq and do some positive things for the average American instead of just the top 5% then vote for Obama.

“[Obama] has been the only candidate in the 2008 field of presidential candidate to say explicitly that he’ll go after Bin Laden even if it means to ignore Musharaf who has signed a peace deal with tribes sheltering Bin Laden at the border with Afghanistan.”
Cheap “patriotic” posturing for the soldier-cult, that: who’s he going to send? The letter carriers?

What I thought what sperated us from terrorist was that we followed our laws abd constitution… Now it appears that we don’t we therefor could be considered terrorist. At least if MCsame get the vote anyway.

JIMBO we were my great grandfather fought.. Diffrence here is we are not fighting nations we are trying to fight a criminal organization with our military… I don’t thing we fight the mafia that way. Just an observation.

And I still suggest that repubs stop with the liberal accustation being a liberal isn’t a bad thing. Look it up in the dictionary if it wasn’t for us Liberals you conservitves wouldn’t have an america to call home… FYI

im just shocked that anyone would have a problem with giving them a fair chance to prove any innocence? lets say they are guilty do you think that getting a chance to defend yourself is going to change the outcome?
i know alot of people are saying they chose to do us harm what do we owe them? and your right nothing but its really in my mind not about them as much as it is US.. now i know our government acts like buffoons sometimes but i hope this year will change all that and make people take back the government they work for us not us for them…
Every thing WE do reflects who WE are not who THEY are!!!!
how silly do we look when bush says he went into iraq because people were not being treated fair and then act like we dont have laws and fair shots for people here? thats what he said hussain was doing accusing someone of something and punishing them with out a fair process then we do it?? come on we know we cant act like that…what are we so afraid of?

Isn’t it GREAT to see an average American really make it big. Obama was raised by his single-mother with the help of his grandparents. He worked Hard, got a good education, and turned down large sums of money to go to work for the average American. What a great story. He raised his large sums of money for his campaign, not thru big corporate donors like many others, but thru average Americans giving $10 or $20 at a time. I suspect he is going to go down in history as one of the great presidents of all time. Obama will be Great in 2008!!!

Jake,
Awesome!! I am impressed. Carville may bestowe one of Hillary’s honorary, (umm how best to say this?) ‘jewels’ on you for this one.
The messiah is tangled in his cape. Keep pressing. He is so close to saying nothing I can taste it.

Geneva Conventions consist of four treaties formulated in Geneva, Switzerland, that set the standards for international law for humanitarian concerns.

For certain, we’ll be taking a lot less prisoners.

Hey LIBS!! While you have been sitting in the classroom, listening to your airhead professors, your brothers and sisters have making it possible for YOU to do just that without fear of being blown up. They have kept the bad guys OVER THERE!! For their age they are a hell of a lot more mature than YOU. Go ahead – elect Obama – REALITY WILL COME HOME SOON MAN!!

The reason Obama would not accept the McCain proposal of ten town-hall meetings is simply that, in his wisdom, he smells a diversionary ploy, and would rather authentically stick to his own plans. For instance, to keep the US diverted from Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda puts out a call to toughen its fight with the US in Iraq. Now, unlike McCain who thinks his adversary’s intentions are gospel and is singing wildly in agreement, Obama correctly smells the ploy, and declines to continue to be diverted away from the real tangible front in the war on terror. Obama may be young biologically, but he is hardly what you call a novice intellectually. You never let the opponent pick the place and time for battle, especially, when it is to the detriment of your own calculated, well-thought-out plan of engagement. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/06/obama-pushes-ba.html?cid=119221258#comment-119221258
jake,
Can you hear yourself say
“ncvoter, Bill Clinton WAS pre-9/11. Things changed and Obama is not smart enough to understand. It is not an attack on Clinton it is simply “changing” with the times?”
And you hope to call yourself a journalist someday?

JIMBO JIMBO JIMBO.. Once again accusing us of things that aren’t up to snuff. My friends are the ones over their dying! Whos age group is over their mine. My generation! I know what it is over there! If we had enforced our imagration laws the people that flew those planes into those towers wouldn’t have even been in the country so now bush stirred this thing up to cover his own short commings. I think me and you agree on a lot more than you think.

Joe. Then why aren’t YOU over there?? This IS NOT JUST ABOUJT IRAQ – DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT!!!

Jimbo: Joe lives in a world of assertions. Don’t confuse him with facts.

T? Have we met before??

eyes wide open: You’re correct. The same as protection they afford us.

WE are NOT THEM… we can not change who we are and what we stand for because others dont follow .. its not about them.

melissa. Last year I took Greyhound from Cleveland to Austin, TX. Met and talked to many returning Iraq vets to home bases. BACKED BUSH 100 PERCENT. WILL REENLIST. IRAQ IS NOW SAFER THAN CHICAGO. GET UJPDATED!!

I’m not saying I’m right I’m saying the ones I know.. The ones I know that re-enlist do so because they can’t find work in the crappy economy. Just what I have heard from the vets I know.

At least I turned off the caps lock

I forget, who was President on 9/10?

WOW! it ain’t me you guys are really good at hammering my ideas so what do you think? We should just hold people in Gitmo untill they die? why don’t we just shoot them? much cheaper since you repub conservative types are all about saving money

“IRAQ IS NOW SAFER THAN CHICAGO.”
Whatever THAT means.

Any students of the Geneva convention around? What does the convention say we should do with captured combatants? What if they are combatants but not in uniform. What does this esteemed agreement say about habeus corpus?
What habeus provision were made pre trial for the Nurenberg defendents by the tribunal of victors?
What proceedures did we use with captured German Troops imprisoned in the US during WW11

Brush Lintball, actually I already gave the answer. But let me try again. This is WAR. You don’t want the enemy to know what you know. And in these civil trials everything is public. The defendants have a right to see all of the evidence. When they see the evidence, it is not long before the information gets to their leaders. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing trials is a great example of that. The names of 172 unindicted co-conspirators had to be made public during the trial. They are unindicted because they cooperated with the authorities and probably became informants. But once their names were made public Usama bin Laden knew who he could no longer trust. In addition, it was during this trial that it was made public for the first time that we were actually listening in on Usama bin Laden’s cell phone calls. When that became public he shut it down and we lost track of him for a period of time.
Again this is WAR. During WWII we didn’t tell the Japanese that we had deciphered their communication codes. Had they learned of that they would have changed their codes. Instead we were able to intercept and decode every message. So we knew the who, what, when, where and how of what was being planned. The war was shortened by several years because we knew their every move.
THAT IS THE RISK OF LETTING THESE TERRORISTS HAVE THEIR DAY IN COURT.

James Danley. Touchdown!!!!

Either these men are POWs who get treated under the rules of the Geneva Conventions, or they are accused criminals who get their day in a US court. If you don’t want them to go to court, then make them POWs.
Republicans just want them to be held indefinitely without a trial
or rights even if they might be innocent.
If they do this to them, then they can do the same thing to American citizens too. Don’t you get it?
McSame is wrong!

Enemy combatants who are allowed a public trial could through testimony be aiding and abetting the enemy – which could result in more American deaths and a prolonged war. NO, I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE SUPREME COURT DECISION. I EXPECT THIS TO BE OVERTURNED IN THE NEAR FUTURE!!

Karen:
McCain isn’t saying these prisoners shouldn’t have their day in court.
He’s saying the US courts are not the ones in which they should be having their day!
Big difference!

Re: “He’s saying the US courts are not the ones in which they should be having their day!”
Well which courts then? Some secret Kangaroo Court where the accused don’t get to defend themselves? The Supreme Court said those are illegal.
This is why we have the Geneva Conventions and POW status.
But the Chimp wants to do away with all laws and just get to hold people indefinitely without any proof of their guilt.

Re: “Karen. Sorry. No. I don’t get it. I think that you are stretching it out!!”
No, I’m not. The Founding Fathers lived under tyranny and wanted to make sure that future generations of Americans would always remain free. If you eliminate habeus corpus, the foundation of our system will crumble.
Why do you think that educated people understand that a vote for Obama means protecting our freedom, while uneducated, ignorant people are for McSame?
Educated people have studied history and the constitution and recognize that we losing what the Founding Fathers fought for. The uneducated people are ruled by fear and ignorance, and think that they can’t lose their rights because they are white. Read a history book. It can happen.
No McSame!

Re: “Karen, the Geneva Convention provides a very specific definition of a “prisoner of war.” And these terrorists do not fit that description.”
Yes, they do fit that description, but the Chimp created a new category called Enemy Combatant. He did this to avoid having to follow the rules of the Geneva Conventions.

Obama is more worried about our credibility to the rest of the world but could care less that TERRORIST flew jet airplanes into buildings over 300 mph loaded with passengers. How does that make America look to the rest of the world Obama you fool. Now Obama wants to treat these viscous TERRORIST like they are petty thieves in our court system. How does that look to the rest of the world Obama.
The rest of the world fears America and with good because if you mess with the best your country will get destroyed like IRAQ and pretty soon IRAN.

Obama use to drive a very wasteful car that only got about 2 miles to the gallon. But Obama’s political posturing when he decided to run for president traded his car in for a more fuel efficient one.
How is that for POLITICAL POSTURING that Obama is blaming everybody else for. Obama will return to his wastefull car and life style 1 minute after the GENERAL election

I am so mad i am going to hold my breath because someone keeps talking bad things about my lord and savior Obama

Karen.
An EDUCATED person is one whom is is aware of the possible consequences of his acts and non acts and responds accordingly. This surly would include voting for the most qualified candidate. OBAMA – IS NOT Qualified, is a Marxist and has a trainload of bad baggage.

But if we only invaded Afghanistan like Obama wanted. Iraq would of been covertly fighting us by supply rocket and missile attacks on American troops from Iraq and enforcing terrorist attacks by funding them world wide. Keeping the whole WORLD unstable.
When your digging out an infection in a wound you have to take out the surrounding tissues or the infection will come back. And Iraq was full of bad issues for our soldiers just to invade Afghanistan alone.
IRAN is a drop in the bucket compared to what IRAQ would of been doing if we did not destroy THEM.

when you stop a minute to really think about it.
it is to bad the choices we had for POTUS, was such a poor group to pick from, that these two came out on top.
if none of the above-was on the ballot
none of the above- would win in a landslide.

I didn’t say that ‘whistling up skirts’ is the right way to handle terrorism. I said we can’t ignore the court of world opinion forever. I do recognize the Geneva Conventions mean nothing to the terrorists.
The point is the Bush Administration created and publicly enjoyed the image of America The Coyboy, and so does the public (yippee cayayee MF?)? But it works against us when we need the cooperation of other nations that have legitimate and immediate needs to ally with us yet have to also be elected.
Democracy is double-edged because as the framers of the Constitution pointed out, far too often the masses react emotionally and are not well-informed. That is why America is a Republic. It is just as arrogant to believe that our system works as well elsewhere, but the facts on the ground are that we do live in a global community and we do have to act in concert with out allies.
We don’t have to like it but we do have to use our values in support of our goals and we can’t hobnail our way through international situations. We need cooperation at every level among our allies including government support, intelligence, law enforcement and so on. We have to make sure our informants are protected, our assets aren’t outed for political gains, and that we keep the secrets we must keep.
No free lunch here. We won’t elect Obama and then magically, everyone will like us. In fact, his arrogance could take us into even deeper troubles abroad. That is why he is back-pedaling on Israel.
We can’t become thugs fighting thugs. It hasn’t worked for the Israelis and it won’t work for us. We have to actually reduce the threat and to do that, we have to find ways to cut off support for global terrorism as a means to achieve political ends.

Brooklyn Democrat, you misrepresented what VP Cheney said. He NEVER claimed that Iraq was involved in 9/11. On Meet The Press, back in December 2001, VP Cheney was asked a question regarding th Czech interior minister having said, that very day, that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Mohammed Atta just five months before 9/11. VP Cheney’s response was: “Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that’s been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don’t know at this point. But that’s clearly an avenue that we want to pursue.”
The 9/11 Commission acknowledged that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but there was no evidence of a “collaborative relationship.”
And your second point is also inaccurate. WMDs was just one of several reasons for invading Iraq. First and foremost was the fact that Saddam Hussein failed for 12 years to comply with the conditions of the 1991 cease fire to which he had agreed. One of those conditions was if Iraq no longer had WMDs he had to prove he no longer had WMDs. But instead, Saddam Hussein wanted his neighbors (and by extension the rest of the world) that he had WMDs. Only after we invaded did we prove that Saddam Hussein did not have WMDs. But what most of you forget is that Iraq fired missiles at our planes on numerous occasions (an act of war!). And on at least one of these occasions our plane was in Kuwaiti airspace at the time. Also Saddam Hussein was harboring and supporting terrorists: He allowed al Qaeda training to have a training camp in northern Iraq; and he gave over $10 million to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

i want to know how obama can pass a back ground check with all his highly questionable associations.