Wow. Yet ANOTHER instance of me giving props to Pres. Obama

[Luddly Neddite]

Fact is, President Obama has been responsible for the deaths of more al queda and Taliban than any other president. He has caught more terrorists than any other president. Bush and company couldn't be bothered to go after bin Laden but Obama did and got him. While the pubs were busy talking amnesty and worrying about their own crabgrass and the cost of strawberries, Obama has deported more criminal illegals than any other president.

This is nothing more than the facts that Dems have been watching all along while the pubs/bags have been repeating the lies spoon fed to them by Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter and the MUSLIM ARAB who controls the programming at *****.

this is not a partisan issue.

it is a, OOOOPS it could happen HERE, issue.


HAHAHAHAHAHAH

That's not what the op said and that is what I was responding to. But, thanks for the input.

 

[dblack]

It sort of surprises me that we don't hear more neocons expressing appreciation for Obama. He's basically been a straight-up continuation of the Bush administration. You'd think they'd be pretty happy about that.

 

[Amelia]

No joke. Every once in a blue moon, I unceremoniously break with my general policy of unrelenting criticism of President Obama. Generally, I find him to be the Asshat in Chief.

HOWEVER, when he does something right, it seems only fair to acknowledge that, too.

I see (linked off of Drudge) that the President's lawyers have staked out a legal claim that Americans who take up arms with the likes of al qaeda against the Unite States are not immune from being targeted AS enemy combatants.

U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida, top national security lawyers in the Obama administration said Thursday.

The lawyers were asked at a national security conference about the CIA killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and leading al-Qaida figure. He died in a Sept. 30 U.S. drone strike in the mountains of Yemen.

The government lawyers, CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson, did not directly address the al-Awlaki case. But they said U.S. citizens do not have immunity when they are at war with the United States. * * * *

Obama lawyers: Citizens targeted if at war with US - Yahoo! News

Good for them and good for President Obama.

I say they (and the President) are exactly right on the mark!

How many people could the gov't have killed in the U.S. in the 60's and 70's with this policy in effect?


As tempting as it is to think about a nation without the likes of Bill Ayers in it, this scares me.

 

[Liability]

grey is BE, gray is AE.

the unlawful combatant travesty is manifest in gitmo, and bagram.
that was the prelude.

the next step is to declare a shoot to kill order for persons deemed to have taken up arms with al qaeda, or "the enemy".

it now extends to US citizens.

irrelevant to me actually.

i just observe that it just needs "someone" to declare another person to be "the enemy" to justify executing this person.

this solely depends on the "someone".

i don't trust "someone".

"someone" needs to be closely controlled.

Sometimes, outside those gray (or gray) areas, the answer is painfully obvious.

President Obama used to do cocaine. The best evidence of that? The asswipe SAID so himself.

al-Awlaki was an American who DID take up with al qaeda in time of war AGAINST America. The best evidence of that? Again, his own ******* words.

Now, steering you BACK to the question (and the hypothetical scenario which you seem to have ducked):

IF the guy is approaching you in the war zone, through that forbidden area, do you take the chance that he is going to blow the shit out of you and your comrades in arms with his al qaeda approved martyr vest bomb (ask for it by name!) OR do you shoot the guy from a safe distance?

Sometimes yes, it is outside the "gray area". Sometimes it's clear as day.

More often, it's not that clear. That's the whole point of our legal system - that's why we have trials, and lawyers, and juries - because it's very rarely clear.

As to your hypothetical, I would demand they stop approaching, and shoot them if they took another step.

Now here's a hypothetical for you: What would you do if a friend of yours was arrested in the middle of the night, held without charges or a trial, and no one would tell you why, or show you the evidence, or anything.

What if it happened to your spouse or child?

What if it happened to you?

The stop or shoot command with that specific follow through COULD get you killing an American, you treasonous ****. Can't take chances like that. MUST give him the benefit of American juridical protections! I mean, it's not like war and the legal system or separate and distinct or anything.

If I got arrested and held without charge or trial, and held without access to a lawyer or bail, I'd be -- incarcerated with no particular way of doing much about it.

And if they (you know who "they are) did such a thing to a member of my family, the question "what would I do?" is a silly question. Presumably, I'd be all pissed-off, but I don't know what anybody COULD do.

If your point is that a rouge government is a danger, congratulations. But we ALL already know that. That's why we HAVE a Constitution to LIMIT government. Nevertheless, it is one thing to assure the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers in a criminal setting BUT ANOTHER THING ENTIRELY to claim that the Constitution assures such a right to a combatant against us in time of war, on the other hand.

Any coherent arguments you wish to offer?

 

[L.K.Eder]

Sometimes, outside those gray (or gray) areas, the answer is painfully obvious.

President Obama used to do cocaine. The best evidence of that? The asswipe SAID so himself.

al-Awlaki was an American who DID take up with al qaeda in time of war AGAINST America. The best evidence of that? Again, his own ******* words.

Now, steering you BACK to the question (and the hypothetical scenario which you seem to have ducked):

IF the guy is approaching you in the war zone, through that forbidden area, do you take the chance that he is going to blow the shit out of you and your comrades in arms with his al qaeda approved martyr vest bomb (ask for it by name!) OR do you shoot the guy from a safe distance?

Sometimes yes, it is outside the "gray area". Sometimes it's clear as day.

More often, it's not that clear. That's the whole point of our legal system - that's why we have trials, and lawyers, and juries - because it's very rarely clear.

As to your hypothetical, I would demand they stop approaching, and shoot them if they took another step.

Now here's a hypothetical for you: What would you do if a friend of yours was arrested in the middle of the night, held without charges or a trial, and no one would tell you why, or show you the evidence, or anything.

What if it happened to your spouse or child?

What if it happened to you?

The stop or shoot command with that specific follow through COULD get you killing an American, you treasonous ****. Can't take chances like that. MUST give him the benefit of American juridical protections! I mean, it's not like war and the legal system or separate and distinct or anything.

If I got arrested and held without charge or trial, and held without access to a lawyer or bail, I'd be -- incarcerated with no particular way of doing much about it.

And if they (you know who "they are) did such a thing to a member of my family, the question "what would I do?" is a silly question. Presumably, I'd be all pissed-off, but I don't know what anybody COULD do.

If your point is that a rouge government is a danger, congratulations. But we ALL already know that. That's why we HAVE a Constitution to LIMIT government. Nevertheless, it is one thing to assure the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers in a criminal setting BUT ANOTHER THING ENTIRELY to claim that the Constitution assures such a right to a combatant against us in time of war, on the other hand.

Any coherent arguments you wish to offer?

you are mentioning coherency after your presentation?

you practically conceded.

 

[Liability]

Sometimes yes, it is outside the "gray area". Sometimes it's clear as day.

More often, it's not that clear. That's the whole point of our legal system - that's why we have trials, and lawyers, and juries - because it's very rarely clear.

As to your hypothetical, I would demand they stop approaching, and shoot them if they took another step.

Now here's a hypothetical for you: What would you do if a friend of yours was arrested in the middle of the night, held without charges or a trial, and no one would tell you why, or show you the evidence, or anything.

What if it happened to your spouse or child?

What if it happened to you?

The stop or shoot command with that specific follow through COULD get you killing an American, you treasonous ****. Can't take chances like that. MUST give him the benefit of American juridical protections! I mean, it's not like war and the legal system or separate and distinct or anything.

If I got arrested and held without charge or trial, and held without access to a lawyer or bail, I'd be -- incarcerated with no particular way of doing much about it.

And if they (you know who "they are) did such a thing to a member of my family, the question "what would I do?" is a silly question. Presumably, I'd be all pissed-off, but I don't know what anybody COULD do.

If your point is that a rouge government is a danger, congratulations. But we ALL already know that. That's why we HAVE a Constitution to LIMIT government. Nevertheless, it is one thing to assure the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers in a criminal setting BUT ANOTHER THING ENTIRELY to claim that the Constitution assures such a right to a combatant against us in time of war, on the other hand.

Any coherent arguments you wish to offer?

you are mentioning coherency after your presentation?

you practically conceded.

Yes. Indeed. That was me mentioning "coherency" to an incoherent asshat.

And I DID address that topic after my own presentation.

You got that whole temporal thing goin' ON, mah brutha!

But, no. I did not practically concede anything EXCEPT, perhaps, a minor quibbling point.

I do concede that there are grey (gray) areas. I never said, suggested or implied otherwise.

That doesn't make the policy articulated by the President's lawyers any less valid. For, if you'd take off your tin-foil blinders for a second, you MIGHT see that neither those lawyers NOR the President (not even THIS President) have said that the willingness to view American enemy combatants AS enemy combatants entails -- in all cases -- the unilateral proposition that all who are suspected of being enemy combatants will be determined to BE enemy combatants.

Your general knee-jerk reaction AGAINST the expression of ANY power or authority by the government is a demonstration of your flawed thinking.

I'll say it again. It's like a theme.

I AGREE that the government should be closely monitored. There is, as a general rule, very poor reason to simply "trust" that the government is "right" or is even trying in all cases to be "right."

This is why we have a government of LIMITED authority and why we have a Constitutional Republic that sets up a VARIETY of checks and balances against governmental excesses.

Even so, however, when we set this whole thing up, we did not then intend to create a Eunuch. While we have a generally sound principled basis to proceed with caution and a degree of mistrust of government, and the historical antecedents favor such skepticism, NEVERTHELESS we did not elect to proceed by crafting a government that is incapable of DOING the very things we WANT governments to do.

It could be a ******* dangerous thing to have a government capable of usurping our personal rights and protections at whim without check. It would also be a ******* dangerous thing to have a government so fully restricted, stymied, hand-cuffed and hampered that it couldn't perform the basic DUTIES we created it to DO. The phrase "checks and BALANCES" does not end with the word CHECK.

 

[Jackson]

Yes, but who determines whether they are committing an act of war?

If you are not supporting unions and waivers for union in the Health care Reform Act, you are committing and act of war against the nation. Think I heard Obama say that. LOL.

 

[R.C. Christian]

Yeah, let's just throw 130 years of law down the toilet. Might as well put up military checkpoints too and hire soldiers to police the streets while we're at it. You never know when a terrorist might strike!

 

[dblack]

Yeah, let's just throw 130 years of law down the toilet. Might as well put up military checkpoints too and hire soldiers to police the streets while we're at it. You never know when a terrorist might strike!

Everytime I read one of these threads with people cheering for the police state, I'm reminded of the 'witch trial' seen from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g]She's a witch! - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Dragon]

The problem with this, of course, is not that the government is empowered to take action against terrorists. The problem is that it is empowered to take action against accused terrorists, which comes down to saying that it can take action against anyone it says is a terrorist or affiliated with terrorists, and that means anyone, for any (real) reason, as this pretext cannot be checked or verified.

As a rule of engagement in war zones, it's not so much of a much, but the new defense appropriation bill that Obama says he will veto (watching that closely) makes the whole world into a war zone and authorizes detention without due process of anyone, including U.S. citizens, anywhere.

It would authorize President Obama (for example) to build a concentration camp and detain therein anyone who has ever engaged in Tea Party activity on the claim of being linked to terrorism. Those detained would have no more recourse to legal protections than political opponents locked up by the Nazis in Germany. It's astonishing that those who most vehemently oppose the president, and are not unlikely choices for his victims should this come to pass, seem most in favor of handing this power over to him.

I voted for the man, as many of you did not. But no way would I trust him with that kind of power. If there is anything that liberals have learned the hard way over the centuries we have struggled against kings, nobles, and capitalists, it's that government is not to be trusted with arbitrary power. That's why we have protections for civil liberties. They must never, never, NEVER be given up in the name of national security. That way lies tyranny.

 

[dblack]

The problem with this, of course, is not that the government is empowered to take action against terrorists. The problem is that it is empowered to take action against accused terrorists, which comes down to saying that it can take action against anyone it says is a terrorist or affiliated with terrorists, and that means anyone, for any (real) reason, as this pretext cannot be checked or verified.

Exactly. Which is why I posted the "how do you know she's a witch" skit. People in favor of skipping out on due process when it comes to terrorists usually make the irrational leap of assuming that we know who the terrorists are beforehand. But the whole point of due process is to protect people up until that determination is made. I'm not interested in protecting the rights of terrorists. Once we've determined they are involved in terrorists activities - kill 'em dead. I'm fine with that. But the question is "how do we know she's a witch?" - and that requires rules of evidence and the all the due process that our constitution requires.

It's astonishing that those who most vehemently oppose the president, and are not unlikely choices for his victims should this come to pass, seem most in favor of handing this power over to him.

I don't find it that astonishing because, as I've mentioned, Obama is essentially a neocon dressed up as a liberal. I frankly don't understand why the Bush conservatives oppose Obama. (Actually, I suspect that the folks pulling the strings behind the scenes don't oppose him at all - the whole D vs R thing is pure puppet theater).

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Wow. Yet ANOTHER instance of me giving props to Pres. Obama

That you agree is proof Obama is wrong on this one.

Or, once again, why the right doesn’t love Obama remains a mystery; he’s kept much of GWB's policies – foreign and domestic – intact.

 

[Liability]

Wow. Yet ANOTHER instance of me giving props to Pres. Obama

That you agree is proof Obama is wrong on this one.

Or, once again, why the right doesn’t love Obama remains a mystery; he’s kept much of GWB's policies – foreign and domestic – intact.

Adam_Clayton, mah brutha! How da **** are ya?

That I agree with President Obama on THIS ONE is proof only of my objectivity.

One cannot simply claim that because even that jackass says something, it must be wrong. It is either right or wrong independently of his ascribing to it.

In THIS particular case, he ascribes to it AND he happens (almost coincidentally) to finally be right about something. It doesn't happen often.

I detest almost all things done by President Obama because he is a nearly Marxist asshat.

You would give him a blow job upon request primarily BECAUSE he is, in most regards, a near Marxist.

You get pissy about him to the rather limited extent that a FEW of his official decisions happen to (more or less) agree with the GENERALLY very different political positions of President Bush.

In short, Adam_Clayton, you got it entirely wrong. Again.