Obama: Words vs. Reality

"Why don't we close Guantanamo and restore the right of habeas corpus, because that's how we lead, not with the might of our military, but the power of our ideals and the power of our values. It's time to show the world we're not a country that ships prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries. We're not a country that runs prisons which locks people away without ever telling them why they're there or what they're charged with. We're not a country which preaches compassion to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of major American cities. That's not who we are."

--Barack Obama, 2008 campaign
http://glassbooth.org/explore/index/barack-obama/11/civil-liberties-and-domestic-security/2/

That was the fake Obama back during the campaign.

The reality of course is that Obama has not only kept Gitmo open and operating, but he's since issued an executive order (March, 2011), which firmly makes both infinite military detention of anyone the military doesn't like, as well as Gitmo itself, permanent features of American 'freedom' and 'democracy'.

President Obama yesterday signed an Executive Order which, as The Washington Post described it, "will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay" and "all but cements Guantanamo Bay's continuing role in U.S. counterterrorism policy." The Order -- which codifies a system of charge-free indefinite detention and military commissions once ostensibly scorned by Democrats

Glenn Greenwald, Salon http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/08/guantanamo

For those who paid attention in history classes, you'll know that the American Declaration of Independence listed a long series of examples of the tyranny of the British King against which they were rebelling. Do some of these sound familiar?

• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. (sounds like a military 'court' to me, since every military officer is dependent on the President for promotion).
  
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
  
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
  
• For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
  
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
  
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
  
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
  
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
  

http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/document/index.htm

Sorry to tell everyone the bad news, but we Patriots LOST the American revolution. Oh, it might have looked like we won at first. But in the long run, the Torries obviously won. Because we now have a government that acts just like the one the Torries wanted. And we have a President who's repeating the abuses of King George III.

Glenn Greenwald, a U.S. constitutional lawyer and blogger, says that these new WikiLeaks documents "conclusively underscore the evils" of the Obama executive order: "The idea of trusting the government to imprison people for life based on secret, untested evidence never reviewed by a court should repel any decent or minimally rational person, but these newly released files demonstrate how warped is this indefinite detention policy specifically."

WikiLeaks Files Reveal Failures of US Intelligence

Well, it repelled our Founding Fathers enough for them to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to stop it. But, for today's Tory Americans, apparently its just fine and dandy.

My guess is that seismologists in Virginia have had to detune their seismographs because otherwise they were constantly picking up the vibrations from Thomas Jefferson turning in his grave.