Glenn Beck Sets Man On Fire Claims Obama Destroying America
Beck and friends calling for Civil War in America to oust The Tyrant Obama?
( what about the last Tyrant George W. Bush and his henchmen Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Karl Rove , Douglas J. Feith, Abramoff, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Condoleeza Rice etc.)
"It’s no longer possible to mince words, or pretend we didn’t know. The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration’s so-called enhanced interrogation methods, used on “high-value” terrorism suspects, plainly constituted torture. The time for euphemisms is over and the time for accountability has arrived."
from article by Eugene Robinson
" As reported by NEWSWEEK, the White House last month had accepted a recommendation from Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify and publicly release three 2005 memos that graphically describe harsh interrogation techniques approved for the CIA to use against Al Qaeda suspects. But after the story, U.S. intelligence officials, led by senior national-security aide John Brennan, mounted an intense campaign to get the decision reversed, according to a senior administration official familiar with the debate. "Holy hell has broken loose over this," said the official, who asked not to be identified because of political sensitivities."
from article by Michael Isikoff ,Newsweek Web Exclusive ,April 3, 2009
Republicans and their Media thugs are going overboard in their fear mongering about the Obama administration
Meanwhile they defend the Bush legacy while everything on Obama
Are they inciting Americans to riot ?
Is it all a means of distracting Americans from questioning the motives and policies of the Bush administration ?
First more on Glenn Beck's Supposedly Rational Discussion of Obama's policies . In his latest piece of insanity Glenn Beck pretends to light a man on fire . Beck believes that this is essentially what President Obama is doing to the American people or at least those Americans who are Conservative & Republican or the Religious Right. These are the people whom Glenn Beck would claim are the "Real Americans " who are being tossed aside and being oppressed by the Obama administration.
What is the average American and especially those who are pissed off that Obama became president supposed to think and what might be their reaction. Is Glenn Beck going over the line from discussion & criticism of Obama to encouraging hate and an uprising peaceful or otherwise against President Obama.
More hate mongering by Glenn Beck. Is part of the agenda of Glenn Beck and other Republicans and Conservatives and their enablers in the American media to distract the American public from the disastrous legacy of the Bush administration. Are they trying to distract the public from the crimes committed by the Bush administration including the lies told to the American public in order to proceed with their unnecessary and disastrous war in Iraq which has led to the deaths of over 4,000 US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens. The Mainstream Media in the US still erroneously claims only some tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the invasion and occupation of the country and that most of those killed were Terrorists and Dead Enders and those killed in ethnic and religious conflict in Iraq.
The other crimes committed by the Bush administration include kidnapping , disappearing people (Extraordinary Renditions) into CIA Black sites and the abuse and torture of prisoners referred to as " detainees" . Other crimes include the use of warrantless wiretaps ; spying on thousands of American citizens the suspension of Habeas Corpus etc.
Would It Be Easier If President Obama Just Set Us On Fire?
Glenn Beck discusses the fact that President Obama now wants to give illegal immigrants amnesty. On his show 9 Apr 09.
also see:
Glenn Beck's Setting Himself on Fire by The Station Agent at Ice Station Tango.blogspot,April 10, 2009
and:
The Passion of Glenn Beck: Why Have "Manly" Conservatives Embraced a Man Who Cries? by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet.org , April 10, 2009.
Are Beck's crazy antics the logical conclusion of conservatives' grievance-based ideology? Or something else entirely?
and now from the one of the other Fear Mongers and hater of President Obama trying to stir up the American public to resist by whatever means necessary the Obama administration and its policies. He calls Obama's recent statements in his European Tour " pre-9/11 appeasement " and berates Obama for questioning " American Exceptionalism " & claims Obama's "approach to National Security that is a threat to the United States " and Hannity claims " the Mullahs are cheering". And this style of rhetoric Fox News calls " Fair and Balanced ".
Imagine the response if someone in the Mainstream Media had said this about President Bush in his first 78 days or so in power in 2001.
Hannity's High-Tech Lynching Of Obama-April 7, 2009
As this piece from Rachel Maddow points out there is now even more solid evidence of abuse and torture committed by the Bush Regime. Yet Dick Cheney and the Bush defenders claim that whatever they did was done legally and was morally and ethically defensible . But this was all just a matter of giving a legal veneer to criminal and immoral actions.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow: Torture "Black Sites" Exposed -Doctors Assisted Torture Personnel according to Red Cross Document- April 7, 2009.
Torture Is a Crime That Must Be Punished By Eugene Robinson at Truthdig.com, April 10, 2009
It’s no longer possible to mince words, or pretend we didn’t know. The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration’s so-called enhanced interrogation methods, used on “high-value” terrorism suspects, plainly constituted torture. The time for euphemisms is over and the time for accountability has arrived.
The Red Cross report—published this week in its entirety for the first time by The New York Review of Books—is a stunning account of how the Bush administration spat on our laws, traditions and ideals. I realize that many Americans, given the scope of the economic crisis and the ambitions of the new administration, would rather look forward than revisit the past. The business of torture, however, is too unspeakable to be left unfinished.
After years of stonewalling, the Bush administration in October 2006 allowed the Red Cross to interview 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held and interrogated in the CIA’s secret prisons. Among them were several men who almost certainly played major roles in planning and executing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshib. Others, such as Abu Zubaydah, now seem to have had less involvement in the attacks than once believed.
The 14 men told remarkably similar stories. After being arrested—whether in Pakistan, Dubai, Thailand or Djibouti—they were blindfolded, shackled and flown to an interrogation center that all of them identified as being in Afghanistan. This was probably the prison facility at the U.S.-run Bagram air base north of Kabul. Twelve of the 14 said they were tortured.
...I have believed all along that we urgently need to conduct a thorough investigation into the Bush administration’s moral and legal transgressions. Now I am convinced that some kind of “truth commission” process isn’t enough. Torture—even the torture of evil men—is a crime. It deserves not just to be known, but to be punished.
From George W. Bush on down, individuals decided to sanction, commit and tolerate the practice of torture. They took pains to paper this vile enterprise with rationalizations and justifications, but they knew it was wrong. So do we.
On his visit to Turkey Obama stated ...that the United States will no longer accept the intolerance that marked so much of our cultural and political response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He implored the Turks to embrace “an enduring commitment to the rule of law” as the “only way to achieve the security that comes from justice for all people.”(see article below) given this statement will Obama take action against those in the Bush administration who abandoned the rule of law in their fight against terrorism. The kidnapped and disappeared people into the CIA Black site , tortured and abused detainees at those sites as well as at Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. If he takes no action then Obama's statement is just empty rhetoric and at worse hypocritical. Many still wonder if Obama will do the right thing or will he sweep these crimes committed by US personnel and orderd by the Bush/Cheney administration.
The Father of Guantanamo by Marie Cocco at Truthdig.com, April 8, 2009
On his visit to Turkey Obama stated ...that the United States will no longer accept the intolerance that marked so much of our cultural and political response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He implored the Turks to embrace “an enduring commitment to the rule of law” as the “only way to achieve the security that comes from justice for all people.”
Now that he is home, Obama has to show that his words have meaning.
He must immediately reverse his own inexplicable support for the Bush administration’s policy of indefinite and secret detention as the fate for more than 600 detainees now held at the U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan.
... And just a month after the president—with some fanfare—ordered the Guantanamo closing, his administration embraced the Bush administration’s position that the Bagram detainees should properly be held in what is effectively a legal no man’s land, barred from having a court hear their cases.
That premise, which the Supreme Court in several cases involving terrorism detainees already has rejected, now has been cast off by a federal judge hearing the claims of a handful of prisoners who were captured outside of Afghanistan—in Dubai and Thailand, for example—and taken to Bagram for detention. These prisoners, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ruled last week, are “virtually identical” to the Guantanamo detainees in whose favor the Supreme Court already has ruled.
“They are noncitizens who were (as alleged here) apprehended in foreign lands far from the United States and brought to yet another country for detention,” Bates wrote. Yet the administration, he added, advocates different treatment depending on whether it “ship[s] otherwise identically situated detainees to Guantanamo or instead to Bagram.”
Arguing that Bagram detainees are different from those at Guantanamo because they are held in a “theater of war” seemed particularly galling to Bates. The U.S. government itself is responsible for taking these detainees into the combat zone. “Such rendition resurrects the same specter of limitless executive power” that the Supreme Court has rejected and reinvigorates the concern that the president can move detainees “physically beyond the reach of the Constitution and detain them indefinitely.”
This was a fundamental breach of justice and morality when the Bush administration did it. It is precisely the same breach—made worse by the stench of hypocrisy—when the Obama administration does it.
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Limbaugh attacks US veteran for not being in favor of torture.
Rush Limbaugh If You are a Republican then as a Republican you must support torture. So for anyone to object to the use of torture and to agree that the torture and abuses committed by the Bush Regime were in fact crimes and therefore they should be made accountable like any other criminal for their actions. But Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity et al believe that whatever Bush did as President was necessary and because he was the President it was therefore legal. Yet on the other hand they are attacking Obama claiming he is UnAmerican and is acting against US interests and therefore the people have a right to do whatever they can to prevent Obama from enacting his policies. Again part of what they fear is that Obama will make individuals in the Bush Regime pay for their crimes. If that were to happen it would lead to a full investigation followed by indictments and if these led to convictions this would repudiate much of what the pro-Bush enablers have been arguing in favor of over the last eight years and this they can not allow.
Ditto Head Blasts Rush over Torture Stance-April 9, 2009
Obama administration afraid to release info on torture including Torture Memos. Obama too concerned with Bipartisanship and as Cenk Uygur points out that Obama likes to play " the nice Guy " and so he may not release more info on torture let alone go ahead with investigations and indictments. Republicans against the release of torture memos .
Afraid that CIA personnel would be embarrassed by the release of Torture Memos-
Which Obama Administration Official is Protecting the Bush Team? April 6, 2009- The Young Turks Cenk Uygur
GOP blocking nominees to protect torture memos
By David Edwards April 7, 2009
Many of President Obamas top appointments are being blocked by Congressional Republicans. Rachel Maddow is joined by The Nation Washington editor Chris Hayes
also see :Republicans blackmailing Obama on Torture Memos; they want to protect Bush administration and its legacy while preventing the truth being revealed - Republicans as usual are in favour of a secretive government when it is in their best interests and screw the best interests of the American People's Right to know or the rights of American citizens or the Rule Of Law.
" Republicans in Desperation Over Obama Releasing More Bush Torture Memos" By Scott Horton, The Daily Beast. April 9, 2009(AlterNet.org).
If the president releases more Bush torture memos, Republicans are promising to "go nuclear" and filibuster his legal appointments.
Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.
‘Holy Hell’ Over Torture Memos:Attorney General Eric Holder wants to release classified Bush-era interrogation memos. But U.S. intel officials are fiercely lobbying the White House to block him from moving forward. By Michael Isikoff | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Apr 3, 2009
A fierce internal battle within the White House over the disclosure of internal Justice Department interrogation memos is shaping up as a major test of the Obama administration's commitment to opening up government files about Bush-era counterterrorism policy.
As reported by NEWSWEEK, the White House last month had accepted a recommendation from Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify and publicly release three 2005 memos that graphically describe harsh interrogation techniques approved for the CIA to use against Al Qaeda suspects. But after the story, U.S. intelligence officials, led by senior national-security aide John Brennan, mounted an intense campaign to get the decision reversed, according to a senior administration official familiar with the debate. "Holy hell has broken loose over this," said the official, who asked not to be identified because of political sensitivities.
Report Calls CIA Detainee Treatment "Inhuman" by joby Warrick and Julie Tate, Washington Post April 7, 2009(TruthOut.org)
Medical officers who oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons committed gross violations of medical ethics and in some cases essentially participated in torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a confidential report that labeled the CIA program "inhuman."
Health personnel offered supervision and even assistance as suspected al-Qaeda operatives were beaten, deprived of food, exposed to temperature extremes and subjected to waterboarding, the relief agency said in the 2007 report, a copy of which was posted on a magazine Web site yesterday. The report quoted one medical official as telling a detainee: "I look after your body only because we need you for information."
New details about alleged CIA interrogation practices were contained in the 43-page volume written by ICRC officials who were given unprecedented access to the CIA's "high-value detainees" in late 2006. While excerpts of the report were leaked previously, the entire document was made public for the first time by author Mark Danner, a journalism professor, on the Web site of the New York Review of Books.
Full ICRC Report Further Underscores Extent Of Torture And Abuse By U.S. Officials
Justice Department Should Appoint Independent Prosecutor And Turn Over Torture Memos, Says ACLU, NewsWire.org , April 7, 2009
NEW YORK - April 7 - A full report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) made public late Monday on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody further underscores the extent of the systemic and far-reaching use of torture by American personnel and provides further evidence of the need for accountability for government officials who broke the law.
In light of this report – the newly revealed portions of which emphasize the role played by medical personnel in torture and abuse – the American Civil Liberties Union renews its call for the Justice Department to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the authorization of torture at CIA prisons and for the release of several legal memoranda used by the Bush administration to justify it. The memos, authored by former Office of Legal Counsel officials Steven Bradbury and Jay Bybee and demanded as part of an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, supplied the legal framework for the Bush administration's interrogation program. The deadline for the government to release the memos or justify withholding them is April 16.
The ACLU, through its John Adams Project with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, has worked with under-resourced military lawyers to provide legal counsel for several of the Guantánamo detainees whose treatment was addressed in the ICRC report.
The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project:
"The ICRC report provides further confirmation of the systemic use of torture against prisoners in CIA custody and underscores that the CIA's torture program was endorsed and authorized at the highest levels of the Bush administration. The Justice Department must now make good on President Obama's commitment to transparency by making public the legal memos that supplied the basis for the CIA's torture program. It's also imperative that the Justice Department appoint an independent prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation. Government officials who violated the law should not be shielded from investigation. Transparency and accountability are critical to the restoration of the rule of law."
Obama, the ICRC Report and Ongoing Suppression by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, April 7, 2009
Following up on the latest extremist Cheney/Addington/Yoo arguments advanced by the Obama DOJ in order to shield Bush lawbreaking from disclosure and judicial review -- an episode I wrote about in detail yesterday, here -- it's worthwhile to underscore the implications of Barack Obama's conduct. When Obama sought to placate his angry supporters after he voted for the Bush/Cheney FISA-telecom immunity bill last June (after vowing the prior December to support a filibuster of any such legislation), this is what he said (h/t notavailable):
[The FISA bill] also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.
So candidate Obama unambiguously vowed to his supporters that he would work to ensure "full accountability" for "past offenses" in surveillance lawbreaking. President Obama, however, has now become the prime impediment to precisely that accountability, repeatedly engaging in extraordinary legal maneuvers to ensure that "past offenses" -- both in the surveillance and torture/rendition realm -- remain secret and forever immunized from judicial review. Put another way, Obama has repeatedly done the exact opposite of what he vowed he would do: rather than "seek full accountability for past offenses," he has been working feverishly to block such accountability, by embracing the same radical Bush/Cheney views and rhetoric regarding presidential secrecy powers that caused so much controversy and anger for the last several years.
And note the pure deceit on the part of Senate Democrats who justified telecom immunity by continuously assuring the public that the Bush officials who ordered the illegal surveillance (as opposed to the telecoms who broke the law by enabling it) would still be subject to legal accountability. It was obvious at the time (as was often pointed out) that they were outright lying when they said this -- because all sorts of legal instruments had been invoked (such as "state secrets" and "standing" arguments) to protect those government officials from that accountability (legal instruments Democrats knowingly left in place), and now it is Barack Obama who is leading the way in ensuring that the assurances given by Senate Democrats -- don't worry that we immunized the phone companies because Bush officials, who were the truly guilty parties in the illegal spying, will still be subject to legal accountability -- never materialize.
Justice Extends to Bagram, Guantánamo’s Dark Mirror by Andy Worthington CommonDreams.org.April 7, 2009
Since coming to power in a blaze of reforming glory, promising to close Guantánamo within a year, to stop the CIA from running offshore torture prisons, and to restore the Geneva Conventions to prisoners seized in wartime, the Obama administration has proceeded to make a number of poor decisions in relation to its predecessors' reviled "War on Terror" policies.
One was the decision to invoke the state secrets privilege to quash a lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen for its role as the CIA's travel agent in a case brought by a number of prisoners subjected to "extraordinary rendition," although this was understandable if the floodgates were not to be opened with regard to everyone involved in the Bush administration's lawless policies rather than, say, the senior officials who authorized the crimes. Another, I believe, was the refusal to substantially redefine the terms of reference for "enemy combatants," while the administration was scoring a propaganda point by dropping the use of the term...
and so it goes,
GORD.
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