I was reading along through my news emails the other day and I came across an article talking about Dick Cheney criticizing the appointment of a special prosecutor by Eric H. Holder Jr. What caught my eye was a transcript of Cheney stating, "at his request" the CIA release a document showing whether or not the Bush Administration's interrogation methods were responsible for defeating all efforts to attack our country. Later in the article said something else about the CIA memos released at Cheney's urging.
I have one BIG question. Who the hell is granting Dick Cheney the power to advise the CIA about anything? Hey Dick!, I thought you were a vise president, not only that, but didn't your side lose the last election? What gives Dick the power to be still advising the CIA on anything? Releasing documents?...Dick? Weren't you the one in the last administration that was calling most everything in the form of documents, that were requested by oversight committees, protected by executive privilege?
In your defense of torture you say that it worked, it kept all the evil powers from hurting anyone in the US. What doesn't seem to get through the thick Dick head is it doesn't matter if you think what you did worked, it doesn't even mattered if it did work, breaking the law is breaking the law, and torture is breaking the laws of both the United States and of international treaties we have agreed to. I get jumping up and down, pulling my hair out mad as hell that we have a person like Dick on just about every major television network, if not every major television network, admitting publicly, in the light of day, that he is proud of what he done, and that he'd do it again, he'd still be doing it. Even though it is illegal. Why isn't he arrested already?
Maybe Dick does get it. Maybe he knows that on the merits of law and order he is guilty as sin. That is why he holds that the ends justified the means. It worked, this makes it better than the law. He thinks that if he can paint enemy combatants as sub human, others will commit unheard of acts against them out of fear, and he is right, but does that make it right. Didn't this happen before...hmm...perhaps Nazi Germany with the Jews? This is just the thing that happens when a group of people acquire power with no oversight. It was what we got as a result of a closed door meetings with what was said vailed by the phrase executive privilage.
Still, after all this, Cheney crawls out from under his rock, from the death of his political career, and he still has the power to request and urge the CIA to release documents
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Let's Applaud Those Who Stand up for What is Right
Dear Senator Feingold,
I just want to thank you for your stand against not only CIA torture abuses, but your outspokenness that the interrogation probe on CIA abuses, does not go far enough and that "The abuses that were officially sanctioned amounted to torture and those at the very top who authorized, ordered or sought to provide legal cover for them should be held accountable,"
I do not know why there are not more people in Washington who will take a stand against this blight that is contrary to the ideals on which our country was founded.
In the past our great country could take the high road in fighting against the tyranny of rulers from other world countries, but now we need to take the high road to fight the tyranny the Bush Administration.
Other countries knew that they could depend on our high morals and honor and even the solders of countries that we have fought against knew that they could have faith in the humane treatment that they would receive if captured fighting us.
The Bush Administration has given our country a black eye that won't heal in the eyes of the rest of the world if we don't honor our international agreements concerning the treatment of our captured combatants.
Our country was instrumental in bringing to justice people from Germany and Japan for the same types of apostrophes that people in the Bush Administration have encouraged.
I can't believe that Dick Cheney can go out in public in the light of day and try to justify breaking of US and International laws by using the ends justify the means argument.
If nothing is done to correct things done during the Bush Administration, history is going to report that not only did people in the Bush Administration do horrendous wrong, but that the following administration was just as horrendous for not making things right.
Please continue to stand up against the wrongs done in the name of our country until what is wrong is right. You, me, our descendants, and our country will be the better for it. Thank you.
I just want to thank you for your stand against not only CIA torture abuses, but your outspokenness that the interrogation probe on CIA abuses, does not go far enough and that "The abuses that were officially sanctioned amounted to torture and those at the very top who authorized, ordered or sought to provide legal cover for them should be held accountable,"
I do not know why there are not more people in Washington who will take a stand against this blight that is contrary to the ideals on which our country was founded.
In the past our great country could take the high road in fighting against the tyranny of rulers from other world countries, but now we need to take the high road to fight the tyranny the Bush Administration.
Other countries knew that they could depend on our high morals and honor and even the solders of countries that we have fought against knew that they could have faith in the humane treatment that they would receive if captured fighting us.
The Bush Administration has given our country a black eye that won't heal in the eyes of the rest of the world if we don't honor our international agreements concerning the treatment of our captured combatants.
Our country was instrumental in bringing to justice people from Germany and Japan for the same types of apostrophes that people in the Bush Administration have encouraged.
I can't believe that Dick Cheney can go out in public in the light of day and try to justify breaking of US and International laws by using the ends justify the means argument.
If nothing is done to correct things done during the Bush Administration, history is going to report that not only did people in the Bush Administration do horrendous wrong, but that the following administration was just as horrendous for not making things right.
Please continue to stand up against the wrongs done in the name of our country until what is wrong is right. You, me, our descendants, and our country will be the better for it. Thank you.
Friday, August 7, 2009
IndictBushNow.org
Congressional leaders demand:
"High-ranking officials and lawyers …
be held legally accountable."
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As hundreds of thousands of people at the grassroots are taking action, leading members of Congress are joining in to demand that the coming prosecution for Bush-era crimes include the high officials who authorized the criminal acts.
The disgusting, outrageous and criminal acts were not committed by a few bad apples. It is Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld and others who are guilty, and they must be held accountable.
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Tuesday reiterating his calls for a special prosecutor that makes these demands crystal clear. Nadler is chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Committee on the Judiciary.
"There simply is no legal, moral or principled reason to insulate those who authorized the torture of detainees, either through legal reasoning or other policy directive, from investigation," Nadler wrote. "This country has been instrumental in establishing the principle that high-ranking officials and lawyers who use legal reasoning to justify or otherwise authorize war crimes can, and should, be held legally accountable.
"The ban on torture is absolute and we have a legal obligation to investigate torture and all of those who may have been party to its use."
Nadler’s letter is a follow-up to one sent to Eric Holder in April that was signed by other members of the House Judiciary Committee. That letter stated:
"The Geneva Conventions obligate High Contracting Parties such as the United States to investigate and bring before our courts those individuals ‘alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed grave breaches of those Conventions."
There is not a moment to spare in this historic effort to restore the Constitution and to send a message to future officials that no one is above the law. Election to high office can never be seen again as a blank check to torture, to carry out secret assassinations, establish secret prisons, spy on the people and launch unprovoked wars of aggression all in the name of "protecting" the country.
Please make your contribution today so that we can sustain this vital work in the coming weeks and months.
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--From all of us at IndictBushNow.org
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The United States Energy Outlook
There has been much talk about getting new alternative energy policies going in the United States, but so far I have not seen an effective solution put into action. Using money earmarked for improving the economy, the government is suppose to give a certain amount of money towards developing alternative fuel sources to oil. I would imagine that this would mean giving amounts of money to solar, wind, fuel cell, electric, hydrogen, and what ever other alternative energy ideas there are out there. I think we are essentially putting the cart before the horse on this plan unless the government takes prudent steps first.
Before we get to talking about the solutions, let's think about why we need alternatives to oil in the first place, just in case you have been living under a rock since the 70s. The world is running out of oil. As things stand now, at this point in time, everything we need, want, produce, and/or use is dependent on foreign oil. Our food industry needs foreign oil to power the tractors to work the land, plant the crops, cultivate and harvest the crops. In order for that food to get to us, the consumer, fuel made from oil is needed for the trucks, trains, and ships. Not only is the oil used to make the fuel to power our cars, but it lubricates almost every moving part in all of them.
When oil was first discovered it was practically bubbling out of the ground in some parts of the country, it was cheap and abundant. It was the stuff that made the industrial age possible. Then a way was figured out how to also use this oil to power the engines to run the machines in the industrial age and life was good. Since then though there are a lot more of us, using even greater amounts of oil to power our cars, oil also makes plastics that have made our way into every aspect of our lives, and everything else from medicines to paints. At one point someone figured out that we only had a limited supply in the United States. It was decided to save much of the oil that was within the US boarders for national security matters so we started getting the majority of the oil we used from other countries. At first we had a good time, many of the places we were getting the oil from were countries that didn't have the tech to use the new found oil so it wasn't worth much to them so we got it cheap.
Now, the places we have left to supply our oil habit are a bunch of countries that don't really like us a whole lot so we pay a lot more for our oil and we face the possibility of someday one or more of these countries will cut us off for differences in opinions, or as a retribution to issues we don't agree on. This makes us nervous, makes the other countries wealthy, and it gives the countries where we drill for oil power over us. What's worse is that even with getting oil from other countries there is only so much oil and it will eventually run out.
Our country is now starting to think about alternative energy, but we really need to stop and think before just throwing money to the wind. We already have numerous alternative plans out there, electric, hydrogen, propane, ethanol, but what we really need is standards and infrastructure. There isn't any alternative that stands a chance if there isn't an infrastructure to support it. If I take my electric, fuel cell, or hydrogen car out on a trip and I get 300 mile out and I need to charge up or refuel and there isn't places where I can do that, or there are only a limited few places I can refuel that I have to search for and I have to plan my route around them, it isn't going to fly. I don't care how environmentally friendly or efficient the alternative is, if people can't travel as we do now with gasoline, it isn't going to go over with the public.
Where does this leave us? We have alternatives to gasoline, but right now, because they are not convenient, and/or their cost is too high, there are not many people who can use any of them. What we need is for smart people who know the facts to sit down and come up with a strategy of how to go ahead. One of the first things they have to figure out would be which alternative energy option would be the best. They have to take into consideration the affect on the environment, costs, leaving room for future technologies, and how abundant the alternative energy source is. I have read of many different ideas, fuel cells, electric, hydrogen, ethanol... What we need though is to have government incentives and support for the winning option. We don't need an approach which is going to put the country's energy needs in the position where it is going to be a battle like VHS vs. Bata, or Blue Ray vs. DVDs. This approach would waste too much time and resources battling for a winning technology where the losers would end up being obsolete and having the cost of having to change over to the winning technology. This is where we need government to step in and say, this is the direction we are going to go, the standard we are going to adopt, and then step in to support the infrastructer for that alternative energy.
I read an article that made sense for supporting the idea of electric cars. Most any of the alternative energy ideas out there can be used to make electricity, if we have the resources to make enough of it, the cost should be low. The problem with electric is with our existing technologies we can only drive so far before needing to recharge the batteries, which is a long process requiring quite a bit of time before you are ready to continue your drive again. I read about an inventor, I think from Iraq, who has what I think is a really great idea. Instead of having to charge up the batteries in your car when your batteries are low, you just swap your battery pack for a charged up battery pack and you are back on your way. This inventor wants to standardize battery packs so that you pull into a charging station and within 10 minutes your low battery pack is swapped out for a charged battery pack. The battery pack is hung in the car the same way missiles are hung on plane wings being able to be swapped easily and quickly. As battery technology improves it can be swapped out over time with the lesser technology batteries, but keep the same standards so that any changes won't interfere or make hardships for the consumer, they would just drive in and get their battery pack swapped out as usual. When battery packs get older and fail they would just be swapped out with new ones at the distrabution centers and not cause the consumer great expence by having to replace all the battery packs in their cars, also it would make recycling of the old batteries easy as everything would be done at the battery distrabution centers after swapping the batteries out instead of having to disasemble the vehicle to take batteries out of here and there all over within the vehicle. We could still support a maze of various alternative energy ideas, but they would be used to make electricity instead of trying to cram the different technologies into the vehicles.
When we were involves in the great world wars, there was a shift in our production plants to support the building of all the planes, tanks, ships, bombs and ammunition. It didn't happen all by acident, the government stepped in and directed everyone to who was making what. The government stepped in and said this is what we need, money was spent retooling factories to make what was needed and it was made. It was an amazing feat that we achived in little time. We need to be weaning ourselves off of oil and into using a form of alternative energy that is clean and non-poluting, we need to strenthen our national security of not having to depend on our energy needs from other countries that don't like us, we need to stop supporting these countries with our oil money. We need to put as much effort into finding alternative energy sources as we put into war.
Before we get to talking about the solutions, let's think about why we need alternatives to oil in the first place, just in case you have been living under a rock since the 70s. The world is running out of oil. As things stand now, at this point in time, everything we need, want, produce, and/or use is dependent on foreign oil. Our food industry needs foreign oil to power the tractors to work the land, plant the crops, cultivate and harvest the crops. In order for that food to get to us, the consumer, fuel made from oil is needed for the trucks, trains, and ships. Not only is the oil used to make the fuel to power our cars, but it lubricates almost every moving part in all of them.
When oil was first discovered it was practically bubbling out of the ground in some parts of the country, it was cheap and abundant. It was the stuff that made the industrial age possible. Then a way was figured out how to also use this oil to power the engines to run the machines in the industrial age and life was good. Since then though there are a lot more of us, using even greater amounts of oil to power our cars, oil also makes plastics that have made our way into every aspect of our lives, and everything else from medicines to paints. At one point someone figured out that we only had a limited supply in the United States. It was decided to save much of the oil that was within the US boarders for national security matters so we started getting the majority of the oil we used from other countries. At first we had a good time, many of the places we were getting the oil from were countries that didn't have the tech to use the new found oil so it wasn't worth much to them so we got it cheap.
Now, the places we have left to supply our oil habit are a bunch of countries that don't really like us a whole lot so we pay a lot more for our oil and we face the possibility of someday one or more of these countries will cut us off for differences in opinions, or as a retribution to issues we don't agree on. This makes us nervous, makes the other countries wealthy, and it gives the countries where we drill for oil power over us. What's worse is that even with getting oil from other countries there is only so much oil and it will eventually run out.
Our country is now starting to think about alternative energy, but we really need to stop and think before just throwing money to the wind. We already have numerous alternative plans out there, electric, hydrogen, propane, ethanol, but what we really need is standards and infrastructure. There isn't any alternative that stands a chance if there isn't an infrastructure to support it. If I take my electric, fuel cell, or hydrogen car out on a trip and I get 300 mile out and I need to charge up or refuel and there isn't places where I can do that, or there are only a limited few places I can refuel that I have to search for and I have to plan my route around them, it isn't going to fly. I don't care how environmentally friendly or efficient the alternative is, if people can't travel as we do now with gasoline, it isn't going to go over with the public.
Where does this leave us? We have alternatives to gasoline, but right now, because they are not convenient, and/or their cost is too high, there are not many people who can use any of them. What we need is for smart people who know the facts to sit down and come up with a strategy of how to go ahead. One of the first things they have to figure out would be which alternative energy option would be the best. They have to take into consideration the affect on the environment, costs, leaving room for future technologies, and how abundant the alternative energy source is. I have read of many different ideas, fuel cells, electric, hydrogen, ethanol... What we need though is to have government incentives and support for the winning option. We don't need an approach which is going to put the country's energy needs in the position where it is going to be a battle like VHS vs. Bata, or Blue Ray vs. DVDs. This approach would waste too much time and resources battling for a winning technology where the losers would end up being obsolete and having the cost of having to change over to the winning technology. This is where we need government to step in and say, this is the direction we are going to go, the standard we are going to adopt, and then step in to support the infrastructer for that alternative energy.
I read an article that made sense for supporting the idea of electric cars. Most any of the alternative energy ideas out there can be used to make electricity, if we have the resources to make enough of it, the cost should be low. The problem with electric is with our existing technologies we can only drive so far before needing to recharge the batteries, which is a long process requiring quite a bit of time before you are ready to continue your drive again. I read about an inventor, I think from Iraq, who has what I think is a really great idea. Instead of having to charge up the batteries in your car when your batteries are low, you just swap your battery pack for a charged up battery pack and you are back on your way. This inventor wants to standardize battery packs so that you pull into a charging station and within 10 minutes your low battery pack is swapped out for a charged battery pack. The battery pack is hung in the car the same way missiles are hung on plane wings being able to be swapped easily and quickly. As battery technology improves it can be swapped out over time with the lesser technology batteries, but keep the same standards so that any changes won't interfere or make hardships for the consumer, they would just drive in and get their battery pack swapped out as usual. When battery packs get older and fail they would just be swapped out with new ones at the distrabution centers and not cause the consumer great expence by having to replace all the battery packs in their cars, also it would make recycling of the old batteries easy as everything would be done at the battery distrabution centers after swapping the batteries out instead of having to disasemble the vehicle to take batteries out of here and there all over within the vehicle. We could still support a maze of various alternative energy ideas, but they would be used to make electricity instead of trying to cram the different technologies into the vehicles.
When we were involves in the great world wars, there was a shift in our production plants to support the building of all the planes, tanks, ships, bombs and ammunition. It didn't happen all by acident, the government stepped in and directed everyone to who was making what. The government stepped in and said this is what we need, money was spent retooling factories to make what was needed and it was made. It was an amazing feat that we achived in little time. We need to be weaning ourselves off of oil and into using a form of alternative energy that is clean and non-poluting, we need to strenthen our national security of not having to depend on our energy needs from other countries that don't like us, we need to stop supporting these countries with our oil money. We need to put as much effort into finding alternative energy sources as we put into war.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Failure Bonuses
AIG in the news again. Hundreds of millions of dollars have to be paid out in three payment for bonuses and retention to employees of the company AIG which has received the largest amount of any financial institution from government bailout money paid for by American tax payers. What kind of financial system you have going that you have to pay bonuses to people who ran your company into the dirt. In most companies an employee would get fired for losing a lot less money than these people getting bonuses lost for their companies.
"Liddy said he had "grave concerns" about the impact on the firm's ability to retain talented staff "if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury." Washington Post."
It would seem that in my uneducated opinion that these people can't be all that talented if they drove your company into the ground requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in tax payer's money to bail you out and keep you in business.
From the start I have felt that these institutions should have been allowed to fail and not have been bailed out in the first place. If we would have did that these institutions that have for only one conceivable motive, greed, would have had to down size, be more modest in their profits, and/or fold. Any institution following in their wake would be much more cautious in their approach of bad lending practices and be more fiscally responsible with everyone's money.
At the very least, the companies that are failing this bad need to have most of their upper executives fired and if they do get hired back, hired back at a rates that reflects their value, not reward them for bankrupting the institutions that they work for. If they were all fired the companies would not be under any contractual obligations to pay people for failing so miserably.
I finally agree with a Republican, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa who made the statement:
"Liddy said he had "grave concerns" about the impact on the firm's ability to retain talented staff "if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury." Washington Post."
It would seem that in my uneducated opinion that these people can't be all that talented if they drove your company into the ground requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in tax payer's money to bail you out and keep you in business.
From the start I have felt that these institutions should have been allowed to fail and not have been bailed out in the first place. If we would have did that these institutions that have for only one conceivable motive, greed, would have had to down size, be more modest in their profits, and/or fold. Any institution following in their wake would be much more cautious in their approach of bad lending practices and be more fiscally responsible with everyone's money.
At the very least, the companies that are failing this bad need to have most of their upper executives fired and if they do get hired back, hired back at a rates that reflects their value, not reward them for bankrupting the institutions that they work for. If they were all fired the companies would not be under any contractual obligations to pay people for failing so miserably.
I finally agree with a Republican, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa who made the statement:
"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little better toward them [AIG executives] is if they follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, 'I am sorry,' and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide," he said. "And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide." "Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT"
Pretty much sums up my feelings about the subject.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Catching Up
It's been awhile since I've wrote. There were quite a few things going on since January, many things worthy of writing about. A close friend of mine father died and it seems like I kind of got in a rut after that. My own father died about 13 years ago and I still miss him a lot. We had kind of a rough time during my teenage years and we were just starting to get to where we enjoyed each other's company and respected each other's differences shortly before he died. There is a lesson here for all you that still have your fathers around.
Some of the things Cheney was saying during TV interviews before Obama come into office I was really surprised that Bush didn't pardon him or the rest of his buddies before he left office. Cheney pretty much admitted that he approved the torture of detainees and a lot of the other illegal things that went on while he was in office. Cheney complained publicly that he was pretty upset with Bush not fully pardoning Libby who was involved in disclosing the name of the CIA agent who's husband spoke out against starting the war in Iraq. I was amused when Cheney was in a wheelchair at Obama's inauguration, supposedly from moving boxes. Think about it, here is a guy that was second in command, and arguably maybe first in command, moving his own boxes when he left office. Why do you suppose he was moving his own boxes? Could be that he didn't trust anyone else carrying his boxes because of what was in them? You know that was kind of suspicious when he had a fire in his office too. I never did hear what they figured was the cause of the fire. I bet there is a place somewhere that a lot of papers were burned to keep them from ending up in the wrong hands, and I'm not talking about the hands of would be terrorists.
I also been watching what's been going on with Obama's Administration to see which direction he is going to go and how much he will, or be able to fix from the Bush Administration. While Obama has been doing much to try to fix what was wrong from the Bush Administration, he is still trying to preach that we should be looking forward and not back when it comes to the illegal activities of the Bush Administration. I still feel that this is the wrong decision on Obama's part. We can not go forward without finding what all it is that needs fixing. If we let Bush and his buddies get away with the things they did while in office, future presidents will figure that they have the right to do the very same things as Bush did. At least hope isn't fully dead as many people both in and out of politics are still pushing that we need to investigate what all the Bush Administration done behind closed doors and if there are illegalities charges brought up. We can only hope that Obama will do the right thing in this situation and appoint an independent investigation on this topic. Actually for a lot of this they don't need more investigations because they already have reports from past investigations concluding that Bush took us into war illegally on false information.
There are other things I disagree with the Obama on, but in general I agree on many of the things he's doing. At least Obama is trying a different path instead of the stay the coarse plan that Bush pretty much stuck with. I'm ok with the closing down of the secret prison in Cuba and not sending detainees to countries that do torture. I agree of the process of telling everyone involved that torture is not an option. What did we gain with the Bush Administration's approval of torture? We got some of the worse criminals outside the Bush Administration that we can not try in court because of the torture. I also agree with the gradual getting our troops out of Iraq, a place that we never should have been in the first place.
Maybe this is enough for now to get the creative juices flowing. Don't forget to check back again.
Some of the things Cheney was saying during TV interviews before Obama come into office I was really surprised that Bush didn't pardon him or the rest of his buddies before he left office. Cheney pretty much admitted that he approved the torture of detainees and a lot of the other illegal things that went on while he was in office. Cheney complained publicly that he was pretty upset with Bush not fully pardoning Libby who was involved in disclosing the name of the CIA agent who's husband spoke out against starting the war in Iraq. I was amused when Cheney was in a wheelchair at Obama's inauguration, supposedly from moving boxes. Think about it, here is a guy that was second in command, and arguably maybe first in command, moving his own boxes when he left office. Why do you suppose he was moving his own boxes? Could be that he didn't trust anyone else carrying his boxes because of what was in them? You know that was kind of suspicious when he had a fire in his office too. I never did hear what they figured was the cause of the fire. I bet there is a place somewhere that a lot of papers were burned to keep them from ending up in the wrong hands, and I'm not talking about the hands of would be terrorists.
I also been watching what's been going on with Obama's Administration to see which direction he is going to go and how much he will, or be able to fix from the Bush Administration. While Obama has been doing much to try to fix what was wrong from the Bush Administration, he is still trying to preach that we should be looking forward and not back when it comes to the illegal activities of the Bush Administration. I still feel that this is the wrong decision on Obama's part. We can not go forward without finding what all it is that needs fixing. If we let Bush and his buddies get away with the things they did while in office, future presidents will figure that they have the right to do the very same things as Bush did. At least hope isn't fully dead as many people both in and out of politics are still pushing that we need to investigate what all the Bush Administration done behind closed doors and if there are illegalities charges brought up. We can only hope that Obama will do the right thing in this situation and appoint an independent investigation on this topic. Actually for a lot of this they don't need more investigations because they already have reports from past investigations concluding that Bush took us into war illegally on false information.
There are other things I disagree with the Obama on, but in general I agree on many of the things he's doing. At least Obama is trying a different path instead of the stay the coarse plan that Bush pretty much stuck with. I'm ok with the closing down of the secret prison in Cuba and not sending detainees to countries that do torture. I agree of the process of telling everyone involved that torture is not an option. What did we gain with the Bush Administration's approval of torture? We got some of the worse criminals outside the Bush Administration that we can not try in court because of the torture. I also agree with the gradual getting our troops out of Iraq, a place that we never should have been in the first place.
Maybe this is enough for now to get the creative juices flowing. Don't forget to check back again.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
I'm almost afraid to talk about this subject for another 6 days because it still would be enough time for Bush to blanket pardon a lot of his administration. But it really scares me the way Obama talks about he would rather look to the future instead of spending too much time looking back. There is something just wrong about not looking at the past in regards to the Bush Administration. There are just too many questions that need to be brought out into the open, answered and some form of accountability established. I think it would be a big mistake for Obama not to address the wrongs of the last eight years of the Bush Administration
The Bush Administration has from the start refused to hold itself up to any oversight. It has stonewalled Congress with information in the forms of email and video tape, refusing to let people even testify in House hearings, the Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive Administrations in modern times.
We can't begin to right the wrongs if we don't investigate the past well enough to tell what wrongs have been committed or set in motion. As far as making sure that any crime committed would be taken up, there has been numerous reports from Congress itself stating the many laws broken both within the United States and internationally that have been approved by Bush and Cheney and others in the Bush Administration so that there should be no question that there should be trials taking place.
By not addressing the wrongs that took place during the last administration we can not start to get our reputation back in the rest of the world as a country that stands for our high ideals. Being branded as a country that does torture does not make us friends around the world, it helps dangerous organizations recruit members of people that want to stand up against the U.S.
We will not get our reputation back with the rest of the world if we let these issues slide into the past. The American people deserve better than to have to wait until some UN or world commission holds Bush and his Administration accountable for their crimes. To show the rest of the world that we do stand behind our country's high ideals we can not do anything less than hold the Bush Administration accountable for its wrongs against the American people and people of the world. It is embarrassing to be an American until we restore our laws and our honor with the rest of the world.
The Bush Administration has from the start refused to hold itself up to any oversight. It has stonewalled Congress with information in the forms of email and video tape, refusing to let people even testify in House hearings, the Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive Administrations in modern times.
We can't begin to right the wrongs if we don't investigate the past well enough to tell what wrongs have been committed or set in motion. As far as making sure that any crime committed would be taken up, there has been numerous reports from Congress itself stating the many laws broken both within the United States and internationally that have been approved by Bush and Cheney and others in the Bush Administration so that there should be no question that there should be trials taking place.
By not addressing the wrongs that took place during the last administration we can not start to get our reputation back in the rest of the world as a country that stands for our high ideals. Being branded as a country that does torture does not make us friends around the world, it helps dangerous organizations recruit members of people that want to stand up against the U.S.
We will not get our reputation back with the rest of the world if we let these issues slide into the past. The American people deserve better than to have to wait until some UN or world commission holds Bush and his Administration accountable for their crimes. To show the rest of the world that we do stand behind our country's high ideals we can not do anything less than hold the Bush Administration accountable for its wrongs against the American people and people of the world. It is embarrassing to be an American until we restore our laws and our honor with the rest of the world.
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