If there was one thing you could always say about President Bush, it is that he always stood on his principles and values.  He had an enormous amount of integrity and did not compromise any of those things for political expediency.   He firmly believed every move and decision he made was based on what was best for the American people.  He did not rely on polling data or popularity statistics.  President Bush’s firmly held beliefs in a post 9/11 world are what guided him.

Now President Obama, on the other hand, stands on his teleprompter.  As he has “navigated” his way through the first 100 days in the Oval Office, we have yet to really see the characteristics of integrity or doing what is right by the American People.   At least two of his cabinet members should have been tossed; Turbo Tax Tim Geithner and Secretary Napolitano, both of whom have embarrassed the Oval Office and outraged the American people.  If he really stood on principle and integrity they would have been gone.

President Obama showed signs of this early in the election cycle when he said he would accept public financing of the campaign, but when the primary season was over and he was the nominee, he opted out of the system and continued to collect just shy of 3/4 of a billion dollars, most of which is untraceable.  That in itself goes against the Open Government Act by fully disclosing all donors.

President Bush walked his talk after the campaign.  He worked with the Democratic leadership, showing bipartisanship on the budget, FISA, immigration and other issues.  The only thing he would not compromise on (thank goodness) was a troop withdrawal time table.  Democrats tried in vain to force his hand as the Obama backing MSM flooded the evening news night after night with each road side bomb image they could find.  Very little attention was paid to the success we were having, only the carnage.  This unwavering stance against a timed withdrawal was significant because he did not want give the emboldened insurgency a window in which to “wait it out”, and to prevent these politicians from micromanaging commanders in the field.  True, there was pressures to change strategies in order to combat this issue, and the administration did just that; they initiated the “surge”.  And guess what, it worked!  Now Mr. Obama on the other hand has shown about as much bipartisanship as Iran has shown cooperation with the UN….Uh that would be none!  The GOP has been completely shut out of the administration, being told to basically shut up and sit down because “we” (the Dems) won.  So much for a new era of cooperation and open government.

What people fail to realize in Iraq, is that not only did we rid the world of a very evil dictator, who’s atrocities are well documented (so in fact there is you weapon of mass destruction), shut down Dr. Germ Rihab Taha (who was identified by UN weapon inspectors specifically), the mission also brought stability to the region as a whole.

If you look back, Moamar Kadafi quickly and quietly ended their rebellious ways and cracked down on terrorists in Libya.  Syria also became much more user friendly, and cooperative.  So there were broader positive effects.

Mr. Obama who was not a Senator when the Congress initially authorized action in Iraq, on the campaign trail he waved the “No More War” flag like the checker flag at the end of a car race.  The election was soundly anti-Bush, and all the rhetoric that goes with that.  ‘When he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most. There should be no confusion about that’.

Well as you all know, the mission (and I am not complaining about this) remains on target and is, in fact, in a winding down phase.  We have consolidated much of our operations to specific areas in Iraq, handed over control and security operations to the Iraqi Army and Police force in many areas, continue to train and equip those forces so when we do leave, there will be stability and peace inside the borders.  Mr. Obama’s rhetoric got him into the White House, but the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq dictated his actions.  And if the people who were so hell bent on completely ditching the quote “Bush Doctrine” (as Charlie Gibson tried to nail Sarah Palin with) they would have realized that this notion of up and run out of Iraq was not plausible in the least.

President Bush was thrust into a situation that day in September, unbeknown to America or our intelligence agencies.  We went from a 20 plus year time of relative peace and suddenly thrust into war, against an enemy that does not belong to a nation or state, but operates in the shadows among innocent people whom they will sacrifice without any hesitation.  Yes, mistakes were made.  But this nation was kept safe, and still is, by those policies President Bush put into place.

Now we have a floppy fish in the White House.  Yes he was thrust into an economic situation that has not been pretty.  However, Mr. Teleprompter as not shown us anything except he is bent on a socialistic agenda and that he changes his word like we change underwear.

Now Mr. Obama wants to openly (yes there is that word open again) and without preconditions, have talks with these nations that simply hate the United States.  Iran, who is pursuing nuclear weapons and calling for the destruction of Israel,  North Korea, who has nuclear material but can not build a delivery vehicle,  Venezuela, who just yesterday seized American Owned and Operated energy sites and equipment, and Cuba, where money can now flow freely without using a 3rd and 4th party intermediary.  Oh yes lets not forget Mexico.  Yet, another apology from Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton for causing the drug war along the boarder.

Mr. Obama and his economic team have showered the coffers with billions and billions of dollars in order to prop up the economy.  Thus far, nothing.  New jobless filings hover around 600K and overall, 6.5 million people are out of work, and counting.  Now that Chrysler and GM are making significant cuts, that is going to go up more this year. Not only does that effect line workers in the auto plants, but spills out to the suppliers and peripheral businesses that support them.

Mr. Obama, first week in office broke the most basic of his campaign pledges, saying that the practice of earmarks and pork spending would immediately come to and end.  Say what?  The first two things he signs into law are pork laden wasteful bills that did nothing.  The Stimulus package, which failed to stimulate the American people, was shoved through the congress by the new Dem Majority in the middle of the night in which no one was even able to read.  And what was in there (Mr.  Dodd)?  Bonuses for the executives at AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac!!!  Next he signed an Omnibus bill that contained over 9000 earmarks, again pushed through on a Dem freight train in the middle of the night.

Now the administration continues to politicize national security doctrine as the administration stammers on what our evil interrogators did to terror suspects.  This emboldens the enemy, teaches them our techniques so now they can prepare for what little we actually do.   The September 10th mentality of the administration puts us in jeopardy. Many of the policies that Mr. Obama so vehemently touted against remain in effect. The naval prison at Guantanamo Bay was ordered closed yet remains open as Obama plans where to send its inmates; the president has yet to establish a coherent policy on Iran — following in the Bush administration’s footsteps and while American troops are being removed from Iraq, most will stay in place until 2010.

It is important to note that all the enhanced interrogation tactics that we used actually yielded crucially important intelligence that helped keep this country safe,”  with the eight years of safety on the home front since Sept. 11, 2001.  Even though congressional leaders claimed to be left out of the loop on these techniques, it was revealed that the same Dem leaders, who bewitched President Bush, were duly informed of those methods.  But as Dems, true to color, they pretended to take the moral high road, and were thus outed as hypocrites using this issue for political expediency.
Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, wrote an internal memo last week citing the “high value” information about Al Qaeda’s operations yielded by tactics such as water boarding, but its morality has been called into question by human rights monitors and many others both in and out of the Obama administration.

So therein lays the conflict with this administration. Integrity, direction, political expediency, governing by polling data, and letting Nancy Pelosi write its budget a mere 3 Trillion and some change.
So we as Americans have to wonder, where the transparency, openness, and new era of cooperation is.  Yeah, that is right, so sorry, we lost.

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A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the United States to release a prisoner from the Guantanamo detention center who said he fears for his life after informing against senior al-Qaida leaders.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle issued a one-page judgment ordering the release of Yasin Muhammed Basardh, a 33-year-old from Yemen. The judge didn’t say in the ruling why Basardh should be let go, but she said it was explained during a closed hearing in her courtroom earlier in the day.

Basardh has begged U.S. officials not to send him back to Yemen or any other Muslim country.

“I am cooperative to the point where my cooperation with everyone has led to many people threatening my life,” he said at a 2005 military hearing.

“Osama bin Laden’s people know about me. They will not hesitate to kill me or anyone in my family. If they cannot kill me, they will kill at least one person from my family to get their revenge,” Basardh said. At the time, he said he wanted to join the U.S. Army.

According to charges filed by the military in 2004, Basardh is a member of the Taliban who trained at a terror camp in Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden visited. The government says Basardh fought against the U.S. or its coalition partners, and fled to the Tora Bora region in November 2001, where he stayed in a cave with bin Laden.

He later left Tora Bora for Pakistan and was captured by the Pakistani military, according to the government.

No specifics have been released in regards to the case…therefore, we do not know what country will receive this detainee after his release…

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Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza, recently wrote in her blog/journal that she had a wonderful time at Guantanamo with the U.S. troops.  She loved it so much that she didn’t want to leave, exclaiming how calm, peaceful and serene it was and how magnificent the beaches and people were. 

This goes against everything that the media has reported and everything the left wants us to think about this place.  Why is it that when people who actually experience it first hand say otherwise?  I will trust those who have gone to the real Gitmo and report back rather than some made-up story for political purposes. 

Out of anyone, I would think a Venezuelan would know what is cruel and what is not, especially having to live under a dictator like Hugo Chavez.  Maybe that’s why so many Russians, Venezuelans and Cubans that I meet are republicans…

A “relaxing, calm, beautiful place” may not be everyone’s description of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States holds about 240 prisoners in a detention center that has drawn condemnation from around the world.

But this was the opinion of reigning Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela, who visited the U.S. naval facility in eastern Cuba this month on a trip organized by the United Service Organizations (USO) which supports U.S. troops.

The Guantanamo Bay base, whose presence Cuba’s government has contested as illegal for years, is used by U.S. authorities as a prison camp for foreign terrorism suspects. Critics have condemned it as a symbol of abuses in Washington’s war on terrorism launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Caracas-born Mendoza, 22, who visited the facility March 20-25 along with Miss USA Crystle Stewart, 27, enthused about her Guantanamo trip as an “incredible experience” in a blog entry posted on the Miss Universe website dated March 27, 2009 (http://www.missuniverse.com/missuniverse/blog.php).

Full Story…

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President Barack Obama’s intelligence chief confirmed Thursday that some Guantanamo inmates may be released on US soil and receive assistance to return to society.  “If we are to release them in the United States, we need some sort of assistance for them to start a new life,” said National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair at his first press conference.  “You can’t just put them on the street,” he added. “All that is work in progress.”

This goes along with the welfare initiative mentioned recently for these detainees  - just another thing that your taxpayer dollars can pay for in the Obama administration… Change you can believe in!

Obama has vowed to close the controversial prison camp by next January and has ordered individual reviews for cases against each of the over 240 remaining prisoners. 

Blair told reporters that the review of Guantanamo cases was still underway, and that the government was “building dossiers on each of the detainees.”

The Obama administration is currently evaluating what could be done with the prisoners, he said, but pledged that if they are sent to another country, “we have to be sure that that country will treat them in a humane fashion.”

I hope they are treated humanely, just as humanely as others were treated by them… I’m all for the golden rule. 

Twenty men detained at the remote US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in southern Cuba have been cleared of terrorism charges, including 17 Chinese Uighurs ordered released by a US court in June, seven years after their arrest. But the US says they may face persecution if returned to China.

In an executive order signed days after he took office in January, Obama also promised to uphold the Geneva Conventions for the remaining prisoners until the detention center is closed.

I thought that terrorists were not covered by the Geneva convention?  Among the primary ideas, combatants should wear easily recognizable uniforms. If they fail to do so, they cannot be labelled “enemy combatants”, and thus are to be considered “spies”or “unlawful” combatants… and by the Geneva Convention itself, those who fall into either category have virtually no rights, and can be treated in a way the controlling government sees fit.  Amusingly enough, there technically is no such thing as “enemy combatant,” unless it’s the guys in uniform. Jihadis are always “unlawful combatants”!  I would suggest anyone questioning this, read Article IV of the Geneva Convention.

Blair touched on the controversial interrogation techniques used on terror suspects under the administration of president George W. Bush, saying that those methods — including waterboarding, or simulated drowning — would not be used under his tenure.

But Blair, a retired US admiral, added that his team was examining other “enhanced interrogation techniques” for high-value detainees that comply with international conventions on prisoners of war.  He did not elaborate on what methods would be used, but said such interrogations should be carried out by “government employees; they shouldn’t be contractors; they should be highly trained, very supervised.”

So we are either interrogating them and treating them “worse” than we did under Bush, or maybe we are just playing Celine Dion CDs for them nonstop…

Meanwhile, Obama is sending more troops into Afghanistan, under the radar of the media and so many of those protesters.  It’s not ok to keep detainees accused of terrorism, but it’s ok to engage in a larger war overseas, where many of these detainees resided previously… Sounds like another Pot meet Kettle moment…

President Barack Obama plans to dispatch additional U.S. troops plus hundreds of civilian advisers in hopes of turning around a faltering war in Afghanistan and will recommend increasing aid to neighboring Pakistan so long as leaders there confront militancy, people familiar with the forthcoming plan said Thursday.

The additional 4,000 troops will be devoted to training and advising the Afghan armed forces, defense officials said. The latest additions would head to Afghanistan this spring and summer. They come on top of about 17,000 combat and support troops Obama wants in place by the end of the summer.

The forthcoming White House review also says the U.S. will add hundreds of civilian advisers to those already in Afghanistan. The so-called civilian surge would concentrate on improving life for ordinary Afghans, and would include experts in agriculture in a country where subsistence farming is the norm. The civilians are also meant to help extend government services and the administration of justice.

Didn’t the democrats say that the surge was not going to work, and some still contend that it didn’t?  But I guess a surge is ok while the democrats are in charge.  Peace was what they wanted on all fronts during Bush’s administration, but while a democrat is in charge, one war is better, or in Obama’s words, smarter than the other.  The issue with Afghanistan is that the terrain is almost impossible to conquer and we are being incredibly arrogant and short-sided to think that we are different from all the other countries that tried to defeat Afghanistan on its own turf, thinking they could handily win. (Think again)!

But yet again, at no surprise to a lot of us, a member of his administration disagrees with and contradicts Obama’s plans in Afghanistan – Joe Biden.

And for some fun; Cindy Sheehan, and although I don’t agree with her, (she is a little better than the “sheeple”) she at least can think for herself and can stick to her principles.  She sees Obama’s hypocrisy on war and peace.

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From The Wall Street Journal:

European justice ministers met with Mr. Holder earlier this week and pressed for details on how many Guantanamo prisoners the U.S. planned to release domestically, as part of any agreement for allies to accept detainees. Mr. Holder said U.S. officials would work to respond to the questions European officials have over U.S. Guantanamo plans.

For “people who can be released there are a variety of options that we have and among them is the possibility is that we would release them into this country,” Mr. Holder said. “That process is ongoing and we’ve not made any determinations or made any requests of anybody at this point.”

Among the detainees whose fate remains undetermined are 17 ethnic Uighurs, from the Central Asian region of China, who have been ordered released by a judge. The U.S. has refused to turn the men over to China, which considers them part of an separatist group.

“Crazy Old Coot” Biden may have been dead-on when he said “Gird your loins!”

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