CIA Memo's & Obama's Kangaroo Court

Kangaroo court

"An unfair trial in which the rights of the accused and precepts of justice are ignored and the outcome is usually known beforehand." (Cornell Univ. Law School)

Obama's unnecessary release of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel memo's to the CIA offering legal guidance on harsh interrogation techniques, and his comments that "We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.", are nothing less than a summary judgement of "guilty of torture" on the Bush Administration by the Obama Kangaroo Court.

In addition to Obama's tactic of unilaterally deciding what torture is (face slaps, pushing, sleep deprivation, waterboarding) as yet again, another attempt to disparage George Bush, his action does great harm to his own, and future Administrations.  The revelation of these tactics effectively makes permanent his Executive order suspending them.  As a result we now have the Army Field Manual tactics, intended only to be used by our military as a first line of interrogation on captured uniformed military opponants, as the only source of interrogation tactics available to use with hardened and determined professional terrorists.

Despite his statement that CIA interrogators who followed those guidelines would not be prosecuted, Obama's action will have a chilling and crippling effect on the CIA's effectiveness in extracting critical information from our adversary's, who now know exactly what to expect in their interrogation (they won't even be slapped, pushed, kept awake or waterboarded). What CIA operative in the future would be comfortable following new guidelines that could themselves be easily declared illegal by the next antagonistic Administration, potentially subjecting them to prosecution.  I'm sure the guys who behead, stone, eviscerate, poison and blow people up, will be severely anxiety-ridden and reduced to fingernail biting while in the fetal position, if facing interrogation by our new CIA tickle interrogators, Rocky and Bullwinkle.  

Obama's action in releasing these memos will create the exact same institutional timidity that led up to our inability to secure effective information prior to 9-11-2001.  And unfortunately, probably with the same results.

Some "Tea" ?

   

Jacksonville, Fl. "Tea Party" April 15, 2009

My last post was on April 2^nd.  After 419 continuous Lynch Report Post’s since July 30^th, 2008 (more than one a day), and a similar number on another blog that I started at the same time, I hit the wall…..

I started the Lynch Report simply as a way of learning about the medium, attempting to understand the technology and techniques. But, after eight months I came to feel that I was saying the same thing over, and over, again.  And, I virtually was……not because I had run out of ingenuity or creativity (well, then again, maybe I did), but because the stream of political issues simply seems to be a recurring and relentless assault on intellectual honesty, individual freedom and personal responsibility.  Pick up any of Shakespeare’s plays and you could be reading something similar to our daily news leads and feeds.

I must confess that another fatigue also developed; a conclusion that a significant number of our fellow citizens……are apparently ignorant of history (both recent and ancient) and complacent and compliscent in enabling politicians of both Party’s  to ‘hornswaggle’ us.  I know…it’s difficult to believe, but the more you focus on the political news, it becomes an inescapable conclusion –  many voters are ignorant of the basic facts, and incredibly naïve.  It also probably explains why the politicians do what they do….they know that they can get away with it, and the ignorant voter aspect clearly explains how Ted Kennedy and Rod Blagojevich managed to not only get elected in the first place, but re-elected.

Here’s a list of issue that I’ve just watched and not commented on.

-On March 2^nd, Reuters announced that Iran was setting the terms for any discussions with the US.  And, yesterday, the Obama Administration announced that it would meet with Iran without any requirement for them to stop enriching Uranium.  This allows Iran cover while they run out the clock on building a nuclear weapon.  North Korea announced that it was going back to step one, and reactivating it’s reactor, and resuming nuclear development activities.  Why not, it’s obvious that the US under an Obama Administration will only proffer carrots – no sticks.

-On March 22^nd, the Orlando Sentinel reported that 4,000 people attended a “Tea Party” rally expressing discontent with Washington’s "bailouts", spend, and tax policies.  Today, over 700 of those “Tea Parties” were held across the nation, with over a million or more people demonstrating their disapproval of the action coming out of Washington (disclaimer- I attended one today, and more about that later).  Yet the mainstream media either ignored it, or ridiculed it.

-China is building advanced attack jets , an aircraft carrier, and nuclear subs; Russia is planning to build an Arctic military force, while we’re throttling down our military development.  And, if Obama really wanted to stimulate the economy, while employing highly technical and sophisticated workers, not just guys with shovels building roads, this would be the sector to fund.

-Right after Obama announce that he was lifting the ban on Federal funding for new embryonic stem cells, Reuters announced that scientists at the University of Wisconsin had discovered a safer way to coax skin cells into behaving like embryonic stem cells, eliminating the need to destroy embryos.  This had to have been known by Obama, but not lifting the ban would have antagonized his abortion-rights supporters.  So now we have people at “Tea Party’s” because they don’t want their money supporting the death of embryos

-Obama has proposed a 3.5 Trillion Dollar budget that demands the highest tax increase the nation has ever seen.  If allowed to go through, the Cap-and Trade portion will be the most regressive of all taxes ever experienced; will throttle down our economy quickly and disastrously, and will put our nation in a more precarious position regarding foreign energy suppliers.  Even if Obama’s plan to grow “green” and “renewable” energy sources increased the current supply by a hundred-fold, it would still represent less than 5% of our nation’s energy requirements.  But we will have foreclosed our ability to increase our domestic supply of fossil fuels, and artificially increased our total cost for energy significantly.  This would be a disastrous plan in the best of times, but insane when we’re attempting to rebuild our economy.

-Obama’s Health Plan must be noted here, but really demands a separate discussion.  However, here’s proof that when something is free, people will use and abuse it.  “ In the past six years, eight people from Austin and one from Luling racked up 2,678 emergency room visits in Central Texas, costing hospitals, taxpayers and others $3 million”

-The press went wild over the Bush Administration’s firing of ten U.S. Attorney’s (forgetting that Clinton fired ‘em all), but said nothing about Eric Holder’s action regarding the Democrat legislation granting the District of Columbia representation in Congress. “overruling an Office of Legal Counsel opinion that we're told is rooted in Justice Department analysis going back to the JFK-LBJ Administrations. It is also extraordinary for an AG to so blatantly politicize the Solicitor General's office, which is the home of lawyers who argue cases before the Supreme Court. Imagine if Alberto Gonzales had tried that one”.

-The NY Times spiked a story linking ACORN corruption to Obama’s campaign.  “A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”  So much for their masthead slogan “All the news that fit to print”, but then again, I guess that they didn’t think it was fit to print.  It may have cost Obama the election…..

-Oh, that leads to another, more recent example of the NY Times selectivity in providing the news.  In its coverage of the indictment of Governor Blagojevich, it failed to mention the link between Rod Blagojevich and Obama’s friend and political mentor, Tony Rezko, despite Rezko being named over 100 times in the 75 page indictment.  “ a Chicago Sun-Times article from two years ago  also pointed out that: "Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko's low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems -- including squalid living conditions, vacant apartments, lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers."  The report noted that "Obama has been friends with Rezko for 17 years"and detailed a relationship in which Obama continued to do legal work for Rezko's various entities even after Obama became a state senator.  It added that, "As a U.S. senator, Obama grew closer to Rezko... Over the years, Rezko, (Rezko partner Daniel) Mahru, their wives and businesses have given more than $50,000 to Obama's campaign funds, records show. And Rezko has helped raise millions more."

Well, a lot's happened in the past two weeks, and we haven’t even gotten to comment on Obama’s European trip, his actions there, and the European’s response to him; the revitalization of the “Comprehensive Immigration Plan” and the problems of Mexico and it’s Drug Baron’s; Iran’s nuclear bomb; Castro, Cuba, the Congressional Black Caucus, and Obama’s executive order to allow more visits and money to flow there; North Korea’s missle launch in violation of the UN accords, and its subsequent repudiation of previously agreed to halt in its nuclear program; Janet Napolitano’s Homeland Security’s report to the nation’s law enforcement agencies indicting Pro-Lifer's, veterans, and sundry other conservatives who don’t believe in the Federal Government as the source of our solutions, as potential radical extremists who pose a potential threat to the country; as well as today’s 700+ “Tea Party” reenactments.   

Wait, I will comment on the Tea Party that I participated in.  I spent a few hours today at the Jacksonville, Florida Tea Party. A lot of people were there. There were two aspects of the group that made an impression on me: There were a couple of thousand normal and normally non-demonstrative people there attempting to demonstrate – an interesting group dynamic to observe; they were rather quiet, very orderly, but very serious in their opposition to the both the bail-outs and the spending bills that have been passed, as well as those that are in the process of being passed. The second aspect that struck me was that it appeared that most of  the people who were demonstrating, normally wouldn’t even think about doing anything like that. Aside from couples standing together, this group appeared to just be thousands of individuals who were upset and angry with their government, not clubs, or people affiliated with some group – political or otherwise. No Republican or Democrat politicians were present either. In fact, the people who spoke were critical of both of the Party's.

The 2010 election is going to be very interesting….

Thanks for your continued interest, and they’ll be more to come soon….


NOTE:  My apologies for the awkward structure  of this post.  I can't seem to get the editor function to work the way it should.