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101
Author: Raine
Date: 04/30/2009 12:44:43
So there it is. Obama has been in office for 100 days. If it wasn't clear before to people that this man is a leader, he is in charge, last night should have sealed the deal. I was especially struck by what the president had to say about America no longer torturing. He actually said that These techniques were not needed for us to gain the information that the USA was seeking. It was a wonderful thing to hear, and one that I fully agree with. What was striking about last night was that the president seemed to be acknowledging that yes, we did glean information from certain detainees, but it was not because of the torture-- it was despite of it. In a follow up question, regarding the memo's Dick Cheney wants released (to prove that torture worked) the President stated: Amazing to hear a President say this. In other Words, torture does not work, the ends simply do not justify the means.
In just a few moments last night President Obama took the wind out of the sails of Dick Cheney AND those that would use American Torture as a recruiting method.
On Arlen Specter, there was a shot across the bough to the GOP: You see? He is changing things. This is no Bush Lite, this is a man who promised he would come to Washington and change the way things were being done- Who knew that change would be liberating Senators from the shackles of the GOP? (I kid) The President expressly stated that congress should not rubber stamp everything he desires. he actually gave us all a little civics lesson last night when he stated "Congress is a co-equal branch of government." -- as it should be.
I can't say that I was 100 percent pleased with everything I heard last night, and I will leave that to far more experienced writers out there to talk about those issues. What I did see and hear was a clear message that this man will continue to work in a bipartisan manner with others, despite the fact that they will not work with him. It is a thankless task perhaps, and one that I could never do. I guess that is why "that guy" is president and not me or --- John McCain.
Imagine where we would be today if it were John McCain. Yeah, me too.
:peace: and
Raine
And -- and so I strongly believed that the steps that we've taken to prevent these kinds of enhanced interrogation techniques will make us stronger over the long term and make us safer over the long term because it will put us in a -- in a position where we can still get information.
In some cases, it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy.
At the same time, it takes away a critical recruitment tool that Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians.
And it makes us -- it puts us in a much stronger position to work with our allies in the kind of international, coordinated intelligence activity that can shut down these networks.
I have read the documents. Now they have not been officially declassified and released. And so I don't want to go to the details of them. But here's what I can tell you, that the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques, which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques, doesn't answer the core question.
Which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?
[...]
And there have been no circumstances during the course of this first 100 days in which I have seen information that would make me second guess the decision that I have made.
In just a few moments last night President Obama took the wind out of the sails of Dick Cheney AND those that would use American Torture as a recruiting method.
On Arlen Specter, there was a shot across the bough to the GOP:
I do think that having Arlen Specter in the Democratic caucus will liberate him to cooperate on critical issues, like health care, like infrastructure and job creation, areas where his inclinations were to work with us, but he was feeling pressure not to.
I can't say that I was 100 percent pleased with everything I heard last night, and I will leave that to far more experienced writers out there to talk about those issues. What I did see and hear was a clear message that this man will continue to work in a bipartisan manner with others, despite the fact that they will not work with him. It is a thankless task perhaps, and one that I could never do. I guess that is why "that guy" is president and not me or --- John McCain.
Imagine where we would be today if it were John McCain. Yeah, me too.
:peace: and
Raine
