“We will have to work sort of the dark side, if you will,” said US Vice President Dick Cheney immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. He was explaining how the Bush administration planned to respond to terrorist threats in the future. Last week’s disclosures about National Security Agency collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, reveal how far President Barack Obama has abandoned America’s and his own ideals for the dark side of the war on terror.
According to a report published in The Guardian, a top secret court order issued in April requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. In short, the Obama administration is routinely snooping into the phone records of millions of Americans.
Obama, of all persons? Didn’t he begin his presidential campaign opposing some aspects of the war on terror? Yes, candidate Obama said in 2007 that the surveillance policy of the Bush administration “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.” But a few months before he was first elected president in 2008, Obama backed President Bush’s bill granting the US government wide new surveillance powers. This was to prove his national security credentials.
It was no secret that under the Bush administration, the NSA was collecting call records data, but nobody was aware of the continuation of the practice on such a massive scale under his successor who once promised transparency and accountability.
Of course, the Obama White House claims it has internal mechanisms to ensure that nobody’s rights will be violated, but critics say such reassurances are only as persuasive as last month’s declaration that drone strikes would henceforth be limited to scenarios in which there was virtually no risk of civilian casualties.
Cheney said it is going to be vital for US to use any means at its disposal to defeat its enemies. The methods included Guantanamo, barbaric acts of torture including water-boarding, extraordinary rendition of innocent people, abandoning the protocols of the Geneva Convention and denying habeas corpus, etc. The sad truth is there have been few boundaries whether of foreign territory or moral principles that have not been violated in the name of the war on terror.
A sadder truth is that such policies and practices continue to be implemented with more zeal and on a wider scale under Obama. Speaking publicly for the first time about his administration’s mass collection of phone and Internet data, Obama said Friday that the programs have made a difference in tracking terrorists. He dismissed suggestions that he was behaving like “Big Brother.” Obama is true in the sense that he is not the enigmatic dictator of Oceania, a totalitarian state, but the leader of a democratic country where even the opposition wants the government to wield total power over the inhabitants in the name of an endless war against an unknown enemy.
But rather than destroying the enemy, this war is undermining the ideals of justice and rule of law on which America was founded. That a liberal and peace laureate like Obama is willing to implement Bush’s strategies shows the extent of the corruption the American system has undergone. http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20130610169250
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
There was a man interviewd on television either before or just after Obama's first term started, a black man in some kind of leadership position who knew the President, and he stated that Obama was going to surprise a lot of people in areas like national security. Of course, the reporter, who was alledgedly trying to get a story on what kind of president Obama would be, didn't ask any followup questions, but I would've liked to hear more. I am trying to find that interview. The media was way more interested in destroying Sarah Palin, a vp candidate, than in similarly researching a presidential candidate. He was their guy, even if they didn't know who their guy really was.
It's very interesting on how the rest of the world views this!!! Even 'they' know it's treason!! We are losing more and more credibility in the world! America has become the laughing stock!!
Just wait till they disregard the dollar!!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
But J.O. Box and his BFF Box are WAY more interested in seeing us become a police state to ask questions.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Since you asked... The BUSH OIL WAR IN IRAQ is over. There were no WMD's, and Saddam wasn't involved in the Sept 11th attacks. The reason the Bush Oil War in Iraq is over... US voters elected is Barack Hussein Obama who ended it on schedule as promised. Obama's plan is to end Bush's Afghanistan war in 2014.
Bush ignored the actual war in Afghanistan which was supposed to capture or kill Al Qaeda after the Sept 11th attack, to fight his Oil War in IRAQ.
Bush on Bin Laden: "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." - G.W. Bush, 9/13/01 "I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'" - G.W. Bush, 9/17/01, UPI Then when Bushy failed miserably in Afghanistan, failed in Iraq and failed to capture or kill Bin Laden: "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." - G.W. Bush, 3/13/02 "I am truly not that concerned about him." - G.W. Bush, responding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts, 3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02) On May 2, 2011, Obama did what G Worst Bush promised, but failed to do...HE KILLED BIN LADEN.
As for US Combat Troops fighting on the ground in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria Uganda and Iran... There are none, except in Right Wingers imagination.
Much like the Bush Economic Meltdown, the Bush wars were a disaster left for others to solve.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Obama killed no one, the Navy Seals did, with a program set up long before Obama took office.
And General Eisenhower killed no one... he was just some General in the Normandy invasion. And Hitler killed no one... he just happened to be Chancellor of Germany during the holocaust. And Mao killed no one... he was just running China when those murders happened.
Simple minds
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
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