White House Won’t Release Detainee Photos; Thank the Lord!
Time to give credit where credit is due. I’m glad to see that Obama had the sense about him to reverse his original notion to release the detainee photos which would have caused greater damage to our nation, our troops, and our national security, on top of the CIA memo release:
In a dramatic and high-profile reversal for his young administration, President Barack Obama is seeking to block the release of 44 photographs depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Justice Department had already agreed to release the photos by May 28 in response to a lawsuit, but Obama is shifting course.
“Last week, the President met with his legal team and told them that he did not feel comfortable with the release of the DOD photos because he believes their release would endanger our troops, and because he believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court,” said a White House official who asked not to be named.
“At the end of that meeting, the President directed his counsel to object to the immediate release of the photos on those grounds,” the official said.
At least some of the polling data that is decent, such as the majority of Americans disagreeing with the photo release decision, is being listened to.
Obama’s reversal is sure to set off an outcry on the left, which has pushed the Obama administration to come clean about interrogation policies and other actions carried out by the Bush administration.
I better see some of those “coexist” people and the liberals who protest every single aspect of war, protesting this and Obama. I don’t much care for hypocrites so I hope they stand true to their principles and are upset about the change of heart… I won’t hold my breath, although I think some of the true progressives will protest just about anything (code pink?)
Obama endorsed such openness during the campaign – and even released memos detailing interrogation practices critics call torture.
Obama has come nowhere near keeping his promise of transparency in the government. He has had several opportunities to do so, not just regarding national security items, and he has chosen the opposite.
All I can say is that I am pleased with this decision from his administration at least!
San Fran Nan Piglosi ~ Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
We all knew that Ms. Piglosi was lying from the get go when new information came to light regarding who was privy to the CIA briefing about interrogation methods, namely waterboarding. She came up with a Bill ‘Clintonesque’ to attempt to confuse anybody who can’t read or surf the net.
She admitted the CIA briefed her and others on interrogation methods, including waterboarding, on suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay prison. BUT her excuse was she didn’t know that they would ACTUALLY use those methods on the terrorists. She then asked what the definition of IS, is.
Most of us were not born yesterday, so it was obvious she was grasping at straws during her press conference. However, there was no proof, only “he said, she said,” of the briefing; that is until the CIA released their briefing report yesterday.
Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.
In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered “EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah.” EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique. Zubaydah was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured and the first to have the controversial tactic known as water boarding used against him.
*EITs = Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
Human Events obtained the list of those who were briefed and privy to the interrogation techniques in 2002 – and not surprisingly, Democrat after Democrat is listed on this document:
- Nancy Pelosi
- John Rockefeller
- Harry Reid
- Dianne Feinstein
- Jane Harman
- Babs Mikulski
- John Murtha
- Adam Schiff
- Carl Levin
- Russ Feingold
- Evan Bayh
- Bob Graham
They are going to need another made up CRISIS to get out of this one!
House Representative, Schiff (D-CA), Exclaims We Should Give Terrorists Due Process Like Our Troops
Sheer insanity I tell you! We are living in the twilight zone… All for the sake of political correctness?
We should give terrorists due process and treat them just like our soldiers? The same guys that plotted to kill innocent American citizens? This is just nuts.
The Wall Street Journal tends to take issue with due process for terrorists based upon national security reasons and documents that would have to be disclosed.
“How will judges prevent the public disclosure of classified material? What about Miranda rights, or evidence obtained under battlefield conditions?
“Such questions nearly scuttled the Justice Department’s case against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, which flamed out last week with a sentence of only 15 years. According to the plea agreement, al-Marri entered the U.S. on September 10, 2001 on orders from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to begin research on chemical weapons and potential targets. Prosecutors were hampered by the possibility of disclosing intelligence sources and methods, as well as (yet another) political flare-up about interrogation and detention.“
John Boehner and the House Republicans, on the other hand, are trying to pass a bill in the House that would prevent terrorists from being released on U.S. soil.
Chris Dodd Compares Bush and Bush Officials to Nazis – Nazis Were Persecuted Why Not Bush?
Well, if we are into persecuting people, maybe we should persecute Democrats for all their fraud and corruption and their collapsing of the economy – Dodd and Frank would be the first two up!
So with that said – the only way to resolve that is to dump Dodd and vote for Rob Simmons!
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Democrats Will Not Fund Bid to Close Gitmo
Hooray! Some Democrats are coming to their senses!
House Democratic leaders Monday dropped President Obama’s request for $81 million to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, bowing to strong Republican criticism that the administration lacks a plan to relocate terror suspects detained there.
I recall that 81 Million request – funny how it was named as something else so it would be passed but after its passage would be used for something entirely different. Is that the transparency Obama promised the people?
Mr. Obama requested the money as part a spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Democratic appropriators left it out of the bill circulated Monday among House Appropriations Committee staffers.
Republicans have been criticizing Mr. Obama for rushing to keep his campaign promise to close the prison camp at the U.S. Navy base on Cuba without a plan for what to do with the roughly 240 terrorism suspects currently held on the island.
One would think that a plan and a model of some sorts would be important when dealing with something as delicate as convicted terrorists.
Closing the prison “just never stood up to logic. There is no place on the planet to take the worst of the worst that would treat them as well as they are treated at [Guantanamo],” said Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, who visited the facility a month ago.
“The bottom line really is that [if the prisoners are released], innocent people will die and some of them likely will be Americans,” he said.
But why would Democrats care about their own citizens? They sympathize more with the terrorists than the Americans who would inevitably be affected by the Gitmo close and the release of these people onto our own soil and in their own backyard. If someone who voted for Obama wants to take these guys in, then so be it – I think they should.
Democratic leaders were not immediately available to comment.
What’s new?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, previously dismissed the Republicans’ objections as another example of partisan obstructionism by the minority.
“It would be highly irresponsible for Republicans to attempt to hold up funding as part of their just-say-no strategy,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said.
Leave it to Senator Dingy Harry Reid, who has rocks for brains to try to make this something ideological and politically based. It honestly is in the best interest of the nation to keep that prison open or to at least have a real strategic to go forward with the plan.
Senate Democrats have not come out in support of using the war-spending bill to close the prison camp, a strong signal that the move by House appropriators could kill the funding in the bill.
Good! I’ve been wondering where some of those moderate democrats went to!
