Today’s National Security Debate

Cheney is a true statesman.
Obama should learn from his experience and wisdom rather than trying to placate the far left and ultimately flying by the seat of his pants all the time.

Cheney is a true statesman.
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So why didn’t he go public with this statesmanship years ago?

Obama today:
“Guantanamo became a symbol that helped Al Qaida recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo, likely, created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained. So the record is clear. Rather than keeping us safer, the president at Guantanamo has weakened American national security.”
The record is clear? Because something “likely” happened? Where is the evidence for this assertion? This is why Obama has high ratings. Most of the media is simply not up to its job.
Obama is thoroughly dishonest.

ABC CBS NBC MSNBC..in full damage control as Cheney makes obama look like a”kid”
Dems squash Pelosi probe… Refuse to dicuss the lies pelosi told
Biden, Obama at odds with each other
LMAO the walls are tumbling down
Note to the BUSH administration…Great job and congrates to the FBI, the both of you worked hard for a year to bring down these terrorist today in New York.
I hope the Kid was watching and taking notes

Are you saying you agree that Cheney’s speech was that of a true statesman? Cool. Why do you think he is a statesman now but wasn’t “years ago”?
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I wouldn’t know, since I don’t like listening to amoral liars. He’s far from being a statesman, given his push for a war founded on deliberate lies and tampered intelligence. Obviously, he’s been affecting statesmanship, something I don’t remember him doing before, since he kept a below he radar profile as VP. I assume that was because of the secrecy, illegalities, and chicanery he was involved in.

There’s not really any debate at all. Obama has adopted every signifcant Bush policy of the War on Terror, choosing only to call things by slightly different names.
On Gitmo, he now finds himself trapped by a silly and wholly unnecessary campaign promise, and he is tying himself in knots try to keep it–again, all unnecessary.
Meanwhile, he has 600 men detained at Bagram, a facility whose capacity he is expanding to 1,100. He denied habeas corpus rights to all 600 until a judge ordered last month that some–but not all–of them do have such rights. As to the remainder, they get no access to the courts of the US. He has claimed the right to detain people indefinitely wihtout trial, and the courts have generally upheld that right.
What’s to debate? This man looks more and more like an overwhelmed fool every day?
I suppose we will have to wait until the Second Coming for some goofball to show up here and distinguish Bagram today from Guantanamo today. Obama offers no such distinction; no one ever asks him about it, and he obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.

“More important, since the day Guanatanamo opened there has been not a single attack on US soil.”
They don’t need to come all the way over here to kill Americans. They can kill our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Guantanamo became a symbol that helped Al Qaida recruit terrorists to its cause”
“Where is the evidence for this assertion?”
Without trying to check first to actually see, what do you want to bet that Gitmo got a lot of air-time on Arab TV?

From the NY Slimes:
“WASHINGTON — President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.”
Bush already had one. It’s called Gitmo.
Obama is going to change things. He’s going to change Gitmo’s name to “Snowflake.”

“Without trying to check first to actually see, what do you want to bet that Gitmo got a lot of air-time on Arab TV?”
What it got was a lot of Democrats falsely whining about Gitmo and Bush.

“What abuse, what torture took place at Gitmo?
This is a wholly disingenuous quote.”
It was the reason stated by the fighters not the interrogator. Why do you expect it to be accurate? This is a propaganda war as much as a military action. If we waterboard 3 guys they’ll say it was 300, if we say we have 250 people at Gitmo they’ll claim it’s 2500.

This is a wholly disingenuous quote.
Posted by: drjohn | May 21, 2009 10:24:49 PM
Where you there? Because HE was.

Fascist hyena,
Gitmo will be closed because it had been used as a recruiting tool against US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. To say we were being attacked before 911 is plain silly and shows how much you dont understand the issues at stake.
Gitmo will be closed! Senate democrats rejected the funding because they were afraid of the fear mongering coming from the republicans. The most stupid arguments that terrorist were going to be released in America when the number of people who have escaped a max security prison is ZERO!
And oh.. we already have 20 terrorists in these facilities that house murderers, rapists, serial killers and klansmen.
I blame dems for being too soft willing to sacrifice their values for political expediency.

drjohn: It is hillarious that you are seeking evidence now. I am sure you asked the same when cheney was lying straight face that “It has been confirmed” that Sadam is involved in 9/11 to gin up support for the KBR war that electrocuted many of our men and women and sacrificed thousands of our troops. Right? He is a proven pathological liar!

Killing 600,000 Iraqis, 4,000 American troops and torturing in a war based on fabricated evidence equals war crimes.
Send Cheney to the Hague.

The most stupid arguments that terrorist were going to be released in America when the number of people who have escaped a max security prison is ZERO
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That’s not the whole story.
I, for one, am fine with terrorists going to SuperMax in Co. Our FBI director doesn’t love it, though.
But there is reportedly an option that the Uighers would be released in Virginia as free men.
They are not anti-US terrorists, but rather anti-Chinese trained terrorists.
I did not hear President Obama mention them at all today.

The most stupid arguments that terrorist were going to be released in America when the number of people who have escaped a max security prison is ZERO!
Posted by: Brian
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I don’t think anyone is making that argument because it is incoherent. How do you release someone to max security prison?
Do you have any thoughts to share on the actual serious arguments against closing Gitmo. You can read more of Mr. Tapper’s blog if you haven’t heard any of them.

Couldn’t one of Cheney’s bunkers could be utilzed as a holding center for terrorists?

I don’t think anyone is making that argument because it is incoherent. Foghorn Leghorn
I believe Sen. John Thune made that very argument,
Gitmo terrorists would walking around the streets.

I don’t think anyone is making that argument because it is incoherent. Foghorn Leghorn
I believe Sen. John Thune made that very argument,
Gitmo terrorists would walking around the streets.
Posted by: Man O Man
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The argument I referred to was this…
Brian:
“The most stupid arguments that terrorist were going to be released in America when the number of people who have escaped a max security prison is ZERO!”
I have no idea what Thune said but I am certain he could not have said anything like that.

FL- Sorry, I’m incredulous that any proof exists that can substantiate torture saving thousands of lives. It’s a grandiose claim made by liars, with one of them posssibly facing serious internatiol or domestic charges, if that’s not circumvented. Good night.

“Killing 600,000 Iraqis”
The number of Iraqis killed in that war since 2003 is 109,000. The Hague has no jurisdiction to prosecute Mr. Cheney, and in any event he has committed no prosecutable offense.

“Why do you guys keep giving Cheney a podium, microphone and tv cameras?”
The left hates it when a guy recites actual facts while their hero gets up there and gives a speech any high-schooler could give about how difficult the issues are. No kidding–difficult issues? You started running for president three years ago; maybe you should have given some thought to how, if at all, you were going to come up with different solutions than the one Bush reached for those very same difficult issues. Thus far, nothing.

Fascist Hyena: you are way behind the curve. The newest talking points from the rightwingers is not that it wasn’t torture. The talking points has been for months now that it WAS torture but that it was necessary to “keep America safe”.
Get with the program. It is less embarrassing for you.

Cheney: omissions, misstatements and lies
what a tangled web he weaves, but accuracy of 8 years of malfeasance will be revealed.
A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general’s investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.
FBI Director Mueller Robert Muller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn’t think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.
Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, “strongly supported” Obama’s decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that “we do not need these techniques to keep America safe.”
Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld .
Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed’s alleged role in 9-11.
Cheney made no mention of al Qaida operative Ali Mohamed al Fakheri , who’s known as Ibn Sheikh al Libi , whom the Bush administration secretly turned over to Egypt for interrogation in January 2002 . While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq’s links with al Qaida , which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.
the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA , which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.
The effort to shut down the facility, however, began during Bush’s second term, promoted by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates .
Cheney didn’t explicitly repeat the contention he made repeatedly in office: that Saddam cooperated with al Qaida , a linkage that U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly.
A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad , at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no “direct operational link” with al Qaida .

It’s curious that the republicans/conservatives really don’t seem to care that Bush & Cheney got Iraq wrong, … more information seems to keep coming out that not only did they plan to invade Iraq long before 9/11,.. but they manipulated intelligence reports and outright lied to support a pre-emptive war.
Posted by: Time
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You left out the part about how Bush and Cheney knew about 9/11 and let it happen.

Obama hasn’t changed that many of Bush’s policies on the war on terror or the international contingency plan on man made disasters. Being president is different than running for president. That’s what makes this torture debate so transparently politically motivated. And if the truth must come out (if that is really what this is about) then Obama should release all of the memos and all of the photos. Not pick and choose what is only beneficial to his poll numbers. Obama either wants a full blown investigation or he is playing games.

Oh, if only that were true for Joe Biden. But everyone has the right to speak, even VPs who give away security secrets and those you disagree with.

There are a lot of things wrong with this debate. Why is Cheney even talking anymore? He had his chance for 8yrs and did nothing that enhanced the American people’s life. We have a failing economy, and 2 wars that are killing are soldiers. The Bush adminstration, including Cheney should go away in seclusion. The CEO’s of failing companies, and people that were money managers are killing themselves for the terrible job they did. How is it that Cheney feels that anything he says should have weight, he should be a little more humble after the situations they have all got us into. President Obama has not been in office for a full year and people are treating him like he is useless. We gave Bush eight years to ruin us, we can’t even give Obama a year to try to save us? The fact that republicans(Newt, Cheney, Cheney’s daughter, and the senate) act like they are the top patriots is a joke. I was in the military during their adminstration and our every day life was almost unbearable with the sacrifices the people around me had to make. They treated are military leaders as a pawns in the game that they were playing, and absolutely did not treat them with the respect that they deserved. The point I am trying to make is that this adminstration should not be as bold as to think that they have a strong platform to stand on going against Pres. Obama, he is now fixing or at least has to repair the damage THEY made. Last thing why is Cheney’s daughter going on talking about National Security against a former Chief of Staff? Besides being Cheney’s daughter, what is her qualification? What above top secret information has she been exposed to?

Concerned in OH – Why would either happen? You must have him confused with the previous admin. That should have been the question you asked of them!

Obama’s speech was like all his other speeches.
Bragging about himself and blaming Bush.
Obama’s speechwriter has an easy job.

Cheney has really knocked Obama off course.
Obama would rather be talking about soaking the taxpayers so he can spend more.
Or reminding us dumb Americans that he doesn’t want to run car companies–as he takes over GM and Chrysler.
Americans should thank Cheney for forcing Obama to get tougher on national security.

I guess Obama didn’t see the poll that said over 60% of Anericans think he should stop blaming Bush.
Kind of hard for Obama to “look forward” when he is obssessed with the Bush administration–blaming them and keeping many of their policies.

Obama is on the defensive because he made a huge mistake by promising to close GITMO without any kind of plan.
I guess he thought our allies overseas were so in awe of him–they would jump at the chance to take detainees.
He got fooled and has egg all over his face. Not only did our allies refuse but the US doesn’t want detainees either.
The clock is ticking and still no plan.

Meggie
Sorry Wrong President Obama Governs from the MIDDLE Unlike the last guy Who only Catered to the Far right!Thats why Moderates Are Running not Walking away from the Republicans Its the Presidents Job to be President to all the People not Just Ones Political Party!

Why didn’t Obama mention the NYC terrorist plot foiled by the FBI?
Is he hoping Americans will think we are safer now that he is in office?
Obama has said GITMO will close.
He has denounced torture–he trashes Bush and apologizes for America.
I know Obama thinks we are dumb–but does he really think terrorist will leave us alone because he is POTUS?

Obama needs to understand.. we don’t expect him to keep his campaign promises.. chances are, if the economy rebounds, which it probably will do, with or without a lot of executive office interference.. he’ll get re-elected anyway.
Go easy on yourself POTUS, you are the only one who is keeping yourself on the campaign promise hook.. we don’t care.
Do what’s best for you and us now, all we want is a positive result..

- Lots of ‘why’s’ here about Obama, which is understandable as he hasn’t fixed the economy, the 2 wars, health care and everything else in 4 months…..
Cheney omitted, misstated and lied in his security speech…….. it’s funny that all the ‘errors’ are easily researched and found. Republicans and even Dems haven’t realized yet that there is no hiding from the internet’s vast volume of info.
Republicans and the rest of America look back at Bush and Cheney’s 8 years and expect a higher standard of accomplishment for Obama.
Amazing to hear Republicans speak about new policies and looking towards the future when they have Newt and others making the claims they have to ‘get back’ to Reagan….
re: ‘He needs to grow up’: by riley
maybe Obama can take a lesson from the RNC and spend time to rename the Republicans as:
the ‘War Mongering Lying Dopey Boys’.

“We created more enemies in the world by straying from our constitutional morals.”
Hate to burst your bubble John but the world doesn’t give two cents for our consitution. The world wants two things from us, our money, and our compliance with their wishes. When we don’t do those two things, they spit on us. I have worked in foriegn affairs for the last 6 years and I can garantee you this is true. Obama will garner friends all over the world promising those two things. Question is, is that what you want our government doing. If thats your view, have at it, applaud him. I personnally believe we do whats right for us and by us, because thats exactly what the rest of the world does. May sound selfish and stingy, but its the only thing that will garantee the interests of our great nation are protected.

If it’s not true, why are there so many reports saying it is? You really should try getting your facts from someplace other than Olbermann or MSNBC in general.

The two speeches can be summed up as a professor’s long winded myopic lecture verses a statesman’s oration containing wisdom gained through experience.
Now, if only more statesmen and women would emerge to speak to the hasty and feckless mistakes that are being made by the Obama administration and in Congress.

Vice Presidents should be seen and not heard, ex-Vice Presidents should be neither.
Posted by: Pfarm
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Another shot at algore

“It’s not “unknowingly”.”
It is my hope that it is not true. I like to believe that in his mind, he thinks it is the right thing to do, or that he is just that much of a rookie at this.

go to McClatchy News: and read
‘Cheney’s speech ignored some inconvenient truths’
I certainly am not going to convince you to change your mind, but if you want to read a ‘different’ source of info, try it…….
by the way just because K.O. covers a story doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inaccurate.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why don’t you go to CBS news and watch the video from the moringing show. Bob Schefer calls the game Cheney +1, Obama= 0.
It’s pretty funny you say just because Olbermann reports on a story “doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inacurrate”. Yeah, them’s the kind of odds I want when relying on the accuracy a story. Bawahahahahaha.

The U.S. will surely be attacked again.It is only a question of ‘when’.
The President will have a difficult time explaining to Americans why treating our enemy as if they were common criminals was the right strategy.
I’d like Jake to ask the President “If we can send hellfire missiles into suspected AQ compounds without a hearing or trial, why is it so prohibitive to use ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on those we have captured and are believed to have info on coming attacks?”
Is it any more humane to obliterate them without questioning and in the process, kill innocents living with them?

Go Cheney! Keep pushing for declassification of memos that describe effectiveness of EIT (that Obama – not the CIA – is blocking).

Release the memos, Mr. Obama. You claim you have read the memos and that they do not effectively demonstrate that EIT was effective. Let the public form their own conclusions. Keep your promise to be “transparent” in your deeds and decisions.
Release the memos! Let the public draw their own conclusions!

There have been some comments regarding the possible relocating of Gitmo detainees to maximum security prisons in the United States. This is a terrible idea! Not because our maximum security prisons might somehow not be secure enough, but because so many prisoners currently incarcerated in our prisons are already being converted to Islam. Bringing al Qaeda members or their supporters into the American prison population will only turn our prisons into al Qaeda recruiting centers. Then when these new converts have served their time, THEY will be released in neighborhoods near you. Do you really want to take that chance?

Give Harry R. credit…he’s right on this one.
The only difference between a US supermax and Guan. is one is in Cuba and the other isn’t.
Harry was imagining European human rights orgs coming down on the ‘conditions’ in US prisons, now they had moved off Cuba.
Thinking about US prisons being reported in the NYT as ‘recruiting centers’ for jihadists.
(or Harry was thinking about a jihadi double truck bomb attack to spring KSM and his boys from a supermax)
Either way, I’m with you Harry in bucking the WH on this one.(pssst…and I know the election is coming up)

Jake,
Could you please ask the Prsident ‘Do habeas corpus rights extend to AQ suspects in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
If so, then why aren’t we closing Bagram prison, instead of expanding it?’
Why aren’t we bringing them to trial in the US?
How can we fire missiles into AQ suspect’s houses without reading them their rights?
And finally, how an we justify killing innocents with hellfire missiles but shirk at harsh interrogation methods that save American’s lives?
Which do you believe is morally right, Mr. President?

“Thinking about US prisons being reported in the NYT as ‘recruiting centers’ for jihadists.”
Supermax is total isolation.
Right wingers are so desperate to scare Americans.
I would not be surprised for some Ashley Todd wannabe right winger to try and fake a terrorist attack.

I’m sure the gov of Colorado can’t wait for KSM and his buddies to be sent out to Florence, CO on the President’s orders for indefinite detention without trial.
When a truck bomb goes off in Denver, will we hear that the President really ‘inherited’ this problem?

KR,
That was EXACTLY the policy under Clinton (rendition program). CIA routinely sent AQ suspects to Morocco, Egypt, Syria, etc. where we KNEW they would be tortured (you know, the beatings and electrocution kind).
Go to CSPAn Rep. Delahunt’s rendition hearing and listen to Micheal Scheuer, who ran the program at CIA.
He calls Clinton, Berger, Clark and others liars for denying they approved that policy, under oath.Classic.
Do you hear Europe, Congress or the media criticize that admin for allowing torture?
The whole point is, they know we can’t send them back because WORSE will happen to them.

“The whole point is, they know we can’t send them back because WORSE will happen to them.”
Thats precisely why we should send them back. Who are we to tell other nations how to intern and punish their own people?

Mr. Obama has an annoying habit of throwing out a statement like “Gitmo has been used as a recruiting tool by terrorists….” blah, blah…. He does NOT back this statement up with any type of factual data.
BHO should release the memos referred to by VP Cheney and let the people decide for themselves whether or not waterboarding was worth it. I think he’s afraid to release them because he knows what they contain and it is exactly as Mr. Cheney detailed in his speech. What happened to all your “transparency” Mr. Obama?

“Ninety right-wingers in the US Senate just voted down Obama’s self-inflicted nonsense.”
Can’t speak for the Republicans but the Senate Democrats acted out of political cowardice.
Of course after Obama made his epeech their tune has changed somewhat.
Always good to have a popular President seeking the best for this country contrasted with a despised bitter man tried to rehab his legacy.

“The ways the right wing seeks to avoid the rule of law is astounding.”
Rule of law on the battlefield is what?
Law of Armed Conflict
Geneva Convention
Neither of which protect these individuals at GITMO and both documents classify them as unlawful combatants.
And are you saying the Jordan and Saudi Arabia do not abide by a rule of law?

“Rule of law on the battlefield is what?”
It wasn’t on the battlefield, you were speaking of people’s already captured.
In fact the plan you suggested was specifically to avoid any legal entanglement.

“Neither of which protect these individuals at GITMO and both documents classify them as unlawful combatants.”
Wrong.
After the Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on June 29, 2006 that they were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention
Following this, on July 7, 2006, the Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners would in the future be entitled to protection under Common Article 3.
The detainees currently held as of June 2008 have been classified by the United States as “enemy combatants”.

Let’s list some taints:
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Iraq
Israel
Saudi Arabia
Iran
The Crusades
British Colonialism
American Imperialism

“They are our prisoners at that point so yes.”
Prisoners of a foreign land captured under armed conflict can be returned to their country of origin at any time.
Written specifically for prisoner exchange. We have every legal right to return them to their own lands for prosecution. There is nothing anywhere that says we also put forth conditions for which they will be treated. Terror is a crime in every nation except Palastine, the Sauds, Jordanians, and Iraqi’s have laws to prosecute them… so why not let them.

If there were ANY attacks stopped as a result of their unlawful “techniques” we would have heard about them over and over again.
Sorry boys, that dog don’t hunt.

“Let me be the first one to inform you that the brooklyn plot that was disrupted had one of its goals to free your esteemed Egyptian cleric, who was being held in NYC at the time.”
The 2003 Brooklyn bridge plot by a guy who thought he could take it down using a blowtorch?
What is far more likely is the following scenario.
In 1997, members of his group Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya conducted two attacks against European visitors to Egypt, including the massacre of 58 tourists at Deir el-Bahri in Luxor. In addition to killing women and children, the attackers mutilated a number of bodies and distributed leaflets throughout the scene demanding Rahman’s release.

Dewde:
I am well! Thanks for asking. And yourself?
Placing the Gitmo detainees into isolation would probably be considered “torture.” They currently enjoy plenty of outdoor recreation.

It reminds me of the state legislature here. They pass laws that ‘prescribe’ judgment to law enforcement, like chosing NOT to arrest people in certain situations, if they want to. Very stupid legislatures to expect law enforcement not to take the most aggressive course possible. Similarly, what is the purpose of trials for detainees when the remainder will be incarcerated without them? Very stupid.

“It wasn’t on the battlefield, you were speaking of people’s already captured.”
The circumstances from which they are captured are most likely the only evidence that exists against them. When the US military raids a suspected safe house of terrorists in Iraq or Afghanistan and captures those occupying it, there isn’t a forensic team there to gather evidence to ship back to a US court. If that house is filled with bomb making material, its disposed of, not kept in an evidence room for trial later. This is the lunacy of trying to apply civil law to uncivil warfare, you shoot yourselves in the foot. The objective is to kill or capture the bad guys not ensure sufficient evidence exists for some dead beat lawyer in the US to pick apart.

In the words of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (April 2004) at the 9/11 Commission:
“The terrorist threat to our Nation did not emerge on September 11th, 2001. Long before that day, radical, freedom-hating terrorists declared war on America and on the civilized world. The attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the rise of al-Qaida and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, these and other atrocities were part of a sustained, systematic campaign to spread devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans.” – IF WE HAD BEEN MORE AGRESSIVE ON TERRORISM BACK THEN RATHER THAN TRYING TO BE “POLITICALLY CORRECT” AND WORRYING ABOUT HURTING SOMEONE’S FEELINGS. THIS WOULD BE A MUTE TOPIC.