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Luminous Animal

(27,310 posts)
Sat Jul 13, 2013, 01:15 PM Jul 2013

Senator Durbin took an oath, hundreds of thousands died

By Charles Davis
http://m.aljazeera.com/story/2013711112155573372

"Mr. Snowden broke the law," remarked Senator Dick Durbin, a liberal Democrat from President Obama’s home state of Illinois. "They told him, we will give you access to the most important and delicate classified information in America," he said. "You got to take an oath that you will never disclose it. We take the same oath, members of Congress. He broke his oath. He committed a crime. He needs to pay a price for it."

Loyalty can kill

On April 25, 2007, Durbin took to the Senate floor to reveal a shocking secret: As a member of the Intelligence Committee during the run-up to the war in Iraq, he knew the Bush administration was lying."

"I would read the headlines in the paper in the morning and watch the television newscasts and shake my head because, you see, just a few hundred feet away from here in a closed room, carefully guarded, the Intelligence Committee was meeting on a daily basis for top-secret briefings about the information we were receiving, and the information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American public," he said.

....

The thing is, the only thing that stopped Durbin from breaking his oath was not any law, but his own cowardice (Durbin later excused his behaviour by saying that he could have been kicked off the Intelligence Committee or been sent to the prison he wants Snowden housed in).
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leveymg

(36,418 posts)
7. It's a sign of how far things have declined in America that it sounds almost radical.
Sat Jul 13, 2013, 02:43 PM
Jul 2013

I can see how, in the not-too-distant future, a US Attorney could characterize such sentiment in an announcement like this:

The deceased is known to have repeatedly expressed anti-law enforcement and anti-judicial sentiments. He has posted anti-government statements on extremist web sites. This gave analysts reasonable articulable suspicion that the defendant poses a threat to the United States, and all legal requirements were followed in his targeting, including a Presidential tasking order, and ultimate demise by remotely-operated drone.


merrily

(45,251 posts)
9. Yes, but the courts are as FUBAR as the other two branches and
Sat Jul 13, 2013, 03:17 PM
Jul 2013

they are the ones that say when the Constitution is being violated or not.

We're screwed and no one is going to save us unless we do it ourselves, but not many seem to get that.

 

AnotherMcIntosh

(11,064 posts)
2. I'm disappointed in Durbin, and have been a supporter. But "cowardice"? Why not greed and perfidity?
Sat Jul 13, 2013, 01:30 PM
Jul 2013

If you can find an honest politician from Chicago, they will likely be a tourist.

GeorgeGist

(25,321 posts)
3. I would consider Bush's lying to be the act of a domestic enemy.
Sat Jul 13, 2013, 01:33 PM
Jul 2013

This is the Oath that Senators take before entering office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Quite obviously Durbin considers himself more important that the country.

merrily

(45,251 posts)
10. What about the failure, for years, of the members of the Intelligence Committee
Sat Jul 13, 2013, 03:20 PM
Jul 2013

knowing Bush was lying and not telling the public that?

merrily

(45,251 posts)
11. It's not a numbers game. His wrongs caused the death of many.
Sat Jul 13, 2013, 03:25 PM
Jul 2013

Even if that were the only mistake he ever made--and it isn't--it would be enough.

BTW, Durbin is also wrong to say Snowden has committed a crime. The Constitution requires a presumption of innocence, and opportunity to confront witnesses and defend, a jury trial, etc. etc. etc. before anyone in government has a right to declare that someone is criminal. He took an oath to defend the Constitution. That includes the Bill of Rights that says Snowden is entitled to all those things.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
8. It's OK. They're only people.
Sat Jul 13, 2013, 03:02 PM
Jul 2013

It's not like we're talking about stuff that matters to the bigwigs in Washington DC.



"Money trumps peace." -- George W Bush, Feb. 14, 2007

Hydra

(14,459 posts)
15. "I was just following orders"
Sun Jul 14, 2013, 12:56 AM
Jul 2013

I remember how many people told me that illegal orders were not followed in the US.

Staying silent during the planning of war crimes? Should we have even bothered with Nuremberg? It makes us look like total hypocrites now.

AZ Progressive

(3,411 posts)
17. Snowden can't break his oath, but people high up in government can?
Sun Jul 14, 2013, 01:15 AM
Jul 2013

Yes, and I'm talking about the congress members that violated their oath to defend the constitution when they voted for the Patriot Act, as well as Bush and Obama and the NSA.

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