Sword and Sextant

From Politico:

–When feasible, try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts.

–When necessary, try those who violate the rules of war through Military Commissions.

–When possible, transfer to third countries those detainees who can be safely transferred.

The first is an arduous argument that I lack the will to wage currently. Suffice it to say, Obama and AG Holder almost certainly believe they are the only men around that can determine the feasibility of extending the rights of common criminals to men who seek to the destroy our lives just to do it. Call it the audacity of arrogance.

The second is much more palatable, but there’s another flaw in ethics here. The flaw is that Obama damns the Bushies for their practices, but again retains the right to enact them whenever he wants. Its like banning gambling, but playing poker in the den that night with your buds. Its okay though, trite notions like consistency and logic are for the little people.

The third will be interesting. Currently, we have no third countries willing to take the most dangerous criminals in the world, and we’ve been rebuffed a few times. Cuba, as it were, was willing/had to, but we’re closing that prison, BECAUSE KEEPING TERRORISTS AT THAT PLACE HURT OUR NATIONAL SECURITY, according to the President.

So what now? Keep them in a different country and this all goes away? Is it just the soil in Cuba? What kind of thinking is that? This is the momentous programme he had for us? Sorry, not worth turning away from Cheney tearing you limb from limb.

Hey ladies and gents: the government would like to introduce its newest zombie bank!

Really, the last several bailouts and federal overthrows of private banking have gone so well its time to strike up the band again. Can’t you just feel the twisted, pestilent claw of the US gov’t ripping away any notion of banking freedom/accountability as each day passes?

LET. THESE. MOTHA. EFFIN’. BANKS. GO. BANKRUPT. Can’t be any clearer than that. For over a century, businesses have gone under. They go bankrupt and close down. Now, the government, under the guise of protecting us from their failures, is grabbing more and more federal control of our money system. Hell, they’re even standing in the way of letting the “fixed” banks become whole again, so lets throw the notion that they’re trying to help right out the window. You go to bankruptcy, make the best of it, sell the assets that have value, and move on. You DON’T remove all fallibility of employees that took on risks they shouldn’t have, and/or reward them for poor business practices by subsidizing them.

According to the Treasury and the White House, there hasn’t been one bank good enough to be “cured” yet, so why do they keep taking on new patients? If it were some cancer drug that was in trials, but not curing anyone in the process, the gov’t would surely stop it from harming new patients, but not so when the lurch of total control of the financial system is at hand. This is “change”, America.

We’re literally having our financial system torn away from us by the lawless TARP program at the hands of a man who didn’t pay his own taxes before entering the Cabinet. Not only that, but as I’ve written previously, he’s turning a hungry eye on venture capital firms and hedge funds, two entities that had nothing to do with the housing mess.

The idea of a father government that can care for all our needs can be appealing to those afraid to orchestrate their own affairs, but it is much less so when its not so much a “father” government as a “crazy drunken uncle” government.

You know you’ve got the President by the balls when you schedule a speech on a given day, and the POTUS scrambles to speak atop you so that you can create a diversion.

Anyhow, I’m so tired of Obama’s sermons, he didn’t have a shot at my attention span this time. Dick Cheney, the former VP spent about 30 minutes completely eviscerating Obama’s petty, wrongheaded, and hurtful (to our security) position on “torture”, euphemisms for terror, waging a time war with the previous administration for political disagreement, and underhandedness in what he chose to release and redact in his quest to avert attention from the economy he’s failed to fix in any fashion.

Cheney’s even tone, matter-of-fact manner, and logic won applause from his audience, and this blogger. The fact is that Obama thought he could get the media to report whatever he gave them in whatever fashion it was supplied. He had no reason to believe it would be any different, to be honest. They even believed the 95% no taxes thing, although that ship sprung small leaks in November 2008. Anyhow, Obama forgot that the stalwarts who enacted the policies he seeks to lead witch-hunts against are still around, and they understand the debate far more than he. Obama also forgot that the American people may not side with Bush often, but they do side with our soldiers and operatives working for the flag.

Obama missed this, and he’s probably still confused by the ticking bomb that his own myopic mission has turned into. Not only has he got his own appointee, Leon Panetta, calling him out, but George Tenet, the CIA as a monolith, several editorial boards of major papers, and two men who wield the political machete as well as any: Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Through editorials in the WSJ, and speeches or interviews on TV, these two men have made the case for EITs as well as you can. We didn’t feel safe, and we had captured high value terror assets. We waterboarded three men in all, and gained information which the Obama administration redacted to write their twisted narrative. Several high level sources have publicly said as much, although the President mysteriously won’t let that information out.

Lost in all this mess, but not to VP Cheney, is the fact that Obama made sure to retain the powers that Bush had to waterboard somebody if he had to. I agree with this policy, but it stands loudly skew to his stance on the Bush administration. He seeks to revile Bush and Co. for a policy he fought to maintain for himself. This revealing anecdote shows us that our President, even whilst recognizing a weapon he must have against terror, is willing to incite mobs against those who used it in the past. We can only hope you receive equal treatment, Barack.

Finally, our EITs were within the laws of the Constitution. In fact, they are techniques we use to train some of our own troops for combat, waterboarding included. In this light, revealing such non-lethal techniques to our enemies largely renders them useless going forward. It is entirely possible that in the next “Jack Bauer” scenario that befalls this great nation, Obama or another POTUS will have to order more severe methods to extract vital knowledge. I will be the first to admit that I am less squeamish about torture than most, but I’m going to have an inward laugh if Obama has to pull out fingernails next time because they don’t respond to waterboarding. I will not have an inward laugh if his faux-conscience gets in the way and some bomb detonates on our soil.

In summary, the former VP has dealt a major blow to Obama in this debate, regardless of his attempts to divert attention. I can only hope the MSM decides to report it at all.