In yesterday's speech, President Obama convinced me...

[leftofthedial]

...partially.

1. I am abundantly glad that he, and not w bush is President. Agree with him on every issue or not, it is such a relief to hear a President inform us instead of lie to us.

2. I agree with him 100% that the concentration camp at Guantanamo must be closed. It's existence is criminal under US and international law. It is an affront to human rights, an open admission that even we do not believe in our own ideals of justice. I support President Obama fully in his efforts to close the facility. The Senate's opposition to funding this is unconscionable. Kudos to him for sticking to his guns on this.

3. I agree with President Obama 100% when he says, "We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset."

4. I agree with him 100% in banning the use of torture. Kudos, thanks and adulation to him for this.

5. He clearly differentiates his administration from the previous administration with regard to human rights, torture and concentration camps. Obama does not equal Bush.


I still think he is parsing his words and equivocating on the issue of holding bush-cheney accountable for crimes that no one (except cheney himself and a handful of fascist nutjobs) any longer believes they did not commit. Even though Obama says our institutions and ideals can implement justice, when it comes to justice for war crimes, he still leaves the ball somewhat ambiguously in the congressional and Holder courts. Holder is clearly not doing anything. In a country with a real justice system, cheney would have been taken into FBI custody during his "speech" yesterday. Congress, if they do anything at all, will play politics first, foremost and always. Meanwhile, war criminals openly taunt us from our TV screens.

All truth, any evidence, photos, eyewitnesses, documents--*all* evidence--MUST be fully disclosed. All those with a reasonable connection to the torture we committed must *immediately* be investigated and made accountable for any crimes they committed. It's not enough to speak in eloquent but abstract terms about the power of our ideals. It is past time to put those ideals into practice. Otherwise, the glowing words ring hollow.

[grantcart]

1. good post

On the photos I believe that the reason that he did not release them is because on June 4th he is giving a major address in Egypt in attempt to restart a world wide dialogue with Muslims and did not want to have that dialogue hijacked by sensational photos.

It will be interesting to see how he frames the issues challenging assumptions (as is his trademark approach) both in the US but also with Muslims.

[leftofthedial]

3. that will, indeed, be a most interesting trip.

[lunatica]

10. I wonder if any Egyptian or Arab journalists will as him about the photos

It's one thing to tell us to move along and look to the future, but what will he say to the Middle Eastern countries when they specifically ask him about torture photos and war crimes?

He'll be very diplomatic, but the questions will come up. Unless he doesn't take questions which would be out of character for him.

[Solomon]

2. "Holder is clearly not doing anything."

What a piece of crap that is. The man is probably not getting a wink of sleep and here you are pontificating about how he's "clearly not doing anything.

Jeez Loueeze.

[leftofthedial]

4. yeah!

and I haven't brushed my teeth yet this morning either.

I'm such a prick.

[berni_mccoy]

5. That caught my eye as well. The OP is stating his perception here, not a fact as he is representing

it. It happens at DU too often when people state their perceptions as facts.

[winter999]

6. As the grandson of someone who was in a concentration camp

I find your comparison inappropriate and diminishes my family's sacrifices. Just to be clear, only 4 deaths have been reported out of Guantanamo, all suicides. Over 6,000,000 people were murdered in concentration camps (Germany '42-'45). 14 million were processed through the Soviet camps - 1,053,829 having died from '34-'53. I'd rather go through KSM's 87 waterboardings than face just what one person did in a real concentration camp.

Now, I understand you could be over-exaggerating, such as saying the Sahara is "hot as Hell", but if you seriously think Gitmo is a concentration camp, you need to do some research on Auschwitz.

Sorry to rant. I agree on all other points, though.

[berni_mccoy]

7. I don't think the OP is making a comparison. The fact is, Gitmo *is* a prison camp (Obama's words)

It's a camp for prisoners caught in war. It's not a concentration camp as existing in Germany, but I don't think the OP intended the term as a comparison. There are no mass killings or gas chambers there. But it is a place where they torture prisoners, and not necessarily to obtain information. And we know, from a General in the Military, that waterboarding was just *one* example.

[winter999]

8. Thanks and I agree we have a prison camp here.

These type's of hyper-comparisons do 2 wrongs:

1) It's a disservice to those who have gone before and experienced the horror.
2) It weakens our position as see the exaggeration and dismiss everything else.

I'm in step with Obama on the future of both Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. Even *if* the actuality was no where near as bad as the perception, the stigma is so great that there's nothing to be done except excise the cancer.

[leftofthedial]

9. I sympathize with your family. I have friends who were survivors of Nazi

concentration camps or their families.

But, a concentration camp is much more general than you would have.

"Use of the word concentration comes from the idea of concentrating a group of people who are in some way undesirable in one place, where they can be watched by those who incarcerated them." That is a perfectly apt description of the facility at Guantanamo, and involves no exagerration.

[mkultra]

11. i would have you consider that if they are going to do anything..

they will pursue it in a much more measured and intentional pace than most are accustomed to. Obama is the kind of person that crosses every T and dots every I before starting down a road like that. I would imagine that the process of gathering evidence would take a long time to convict someone like Cheney.