President Barack Obama standing behind the HMS Resolute Desk in the Oval Office on May 14, 2009. Image Credit: The Official White House PhotostreamTennis Match Head, Obama, Places Country At Peril
Watching and hearing Barack Obama deliver a speech on National Security from the National Archives, and have him review a lopsided opinion on the facts and direction our efforts took over these last seven years to secure the safety of the country, from a teleprompter, is a scary and frightful experience.
Visually, his head swishes back and forth, from pane of reflective glass to pane of reflective glass, left to right, right to left ... this is really hard to watch. What is even more disturbing, unfortunately, is what this 44th President of the United States actually is reading. He believes that the detention and treatment of non-country connected enemy combatants who seek to destroy the United States and all American citizens needs to match up with how common criminals are treated here on American soil.
War is different than criminal acts and terrorism including destructive terrorist acts are different than chaos of general criminal mayhem.
Yesterday, a terrorist plot was broken up that had targeted Jewish synagogues and the missile attack of commercial passenger jet airliners. These people, even though they were citizens of the United States, planned their attacks in Islamic mosques, and many who were involved, converted to Islam religion while serving time in a general population of criminals in a US prison.
Today, Tennis Match Head went back and forth while he explained that Guantanamo as a prison, needs to be shut down, and these enemy combatants need to be brought into our in-country prison system and be treated to a more normalized approach of detainment. This would include criminal legal representation in our court system, and if successful in being released, welfare support from the Government that would allow the terrorist, caught on a battlefield killing our soldiers, a leg up at stating life over.
When does redefining ACTS OF WAR to common criminal behavior make sense in any world, let alone in Carter's Second Term?
Barack Obama is destroying America through idealistic, radical socialist philosophy. He believes that the rights of non-citizen terrorist that look to destroy the United States, are more important than the sovereignty and the safety of all citizens of the country he was elected, by a majority percentage of voting citizens as chief Executive official, to lead.
Mr. Obama at the National Archives this morning. Former Vice President Dick Cheney also spoke on national security, immediately after the president’s speech. Image Credit: Doug MillsText of President Barack Obama's speech excerpted and edited from text provided by The Huffington Post - Remarks of President Barack Obama - As Prepared for Delivery
Protecting Our Security and Our Values
National Archives Museum - Washington, D.C. - May 21, 2009
My single most important responsibility as President is to keep the American people safe. That is the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning. It is the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night.
This responsibility is only magnified in an era when an extremist ideology threatens our people, and technology gives a handful of terrorists the potential to do us great harm. We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history. We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it.
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But I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. The documents that we hold in this very hall - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights -are not simply words written into aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality and dignity in the world.
I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to our shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn of their truth when I lived as a child in a foreign land. My own American journey was paved by generations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words - "to form a more perfect union." I have studied the Constitution as a student; I have taught it as a teacher; I have been bound by it as a lawyer and legislator. I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never - ever - turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.
I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. 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 - in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval.
Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.
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It is the reason why we've been able to overpower the iron fist of fascism, outlast the iron curtain of communism, and enlist free nations and free people everywhere in common cause and common effort.
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After 9/11, we knew that we had entered a new era - that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law; that our government would need new tools to protect the American people, and that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those who try to carry them out.
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But I also believe that - too often - our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us - Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens - fell silent.
In other words, we went off course. And this is not my assessment alone. It was an assessment that was shared by the American people, who nominated candidates for President from both major parties who, despite our many differences, called for a new approach - one that rejected torture, and recognized the imperative of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
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There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. Indeed, part of the rationale for establishing Guantanamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law - a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected. Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counter-terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.
So the record is clear: rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies.
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Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders - highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety. As we make these decisions, bear in mind the following fact: nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal "supermax" prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.
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First, when feasible, we will try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts - courts provided for by the United States Constitution.
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Our courts and juries of our citizens are tough enough to convict terrorists, and the record makes that clear.
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The second category of cases involves detainees who violate the laws of war and are best tried through Military Commissions.
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They allow for the protection of sensitive sources and methods of intelligence-gathering; for the safety and security of participants; and for the presentation of evidence gathered from the battlefield that cannot be effectively presented in federal Courts.
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I did, however, support the use of military commissions to try detainees, provided there were several reforms. And those are the reforms that we are making.
Instead of using the flawed Commissions of the last seven years, my Administration is bringing our Commissions in line with the rule of law.
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And we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel, and more protections if they refuse to testify.
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The third category of detainees includes those who we have been ordered released by the courts.
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It has to do with the rule of law. The courts have found that there is no legitimate reason to hold twenty-one of the people currently held at Guantanamo.
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The fourth category of cases involves detainees who we have determined can be transferred safely to another country.
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Finally, there remains the question of detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people.
I want to be honest: this is the toughest issue we will face. We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country.
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These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.
As I said, I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture - like other prisoners of war - must be prevented from attacking us again.
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As our efforts to close Guantanamo move forward, I know that the politics in Congress will be difficult.
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Several weeks ago, as part of an ongoing court case, I released memos issued by the previous Administration's Office of Legal Counsel.
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The argument that somehow by releasing those memos, we are providing terrorists with information about how they will be interrogated is unfounded - we will not be interrogating terrorists using that approach, because that approach is now prohibited.
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On the other hand, I recently opposed the release of certain photographs that were taken of detainees by U.S. personnel between 2002 and 2004.
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In short, there is a clear and compelling reason to not release these particular photos. There are nearly 200,000 Americans who are serving in harm's way, and I have a solemn responsibility for their safety as Commander-in-Chief.
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In each of these cases, I had to strike the right balance between transparency and national security.
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Along those same lines, my Administration is also confronting challenges to what is known as the "State Secrets" privilege. This is a doctrine that allows the government to challenge legal cases involving secret programs.
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We must not protect information merely because it reveals the violation of a law or embarrasses the government. That is why my Administration is nearing completion of a thorough review of this practice.
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Now, this generation faces a great test in the specter of terrorism. Unlike the Civil War or World War II, we cannot count on a surrender ceremony to bring this journey to an end.
Reference Here>>
War can not be won through apologies, and President Barack Obama delivered a speech that was little more than a dangerous apology to terrorists throughout the world.
As for the adherence to the "Rule Of Law", where is the rule of law when it comes to Free Enterprise and protecting investor rights in the face of a Government ordered Bankruptcy in the auto industry and the nations banking systems?
As for Guantanamo standing as a recruitment tool for terrorists, the prison did not exist until well after 9/11/2001.
The biggest recruitment tool for terrorists is a SUCCESSFUL ATTACK, not the calculation as to what might happen after an attack. To be frank, if a terrorist is successful, they are dead (along with the thousands of innocents if it is a large scale attack) and do not worry about where they will be on this Earth.
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney speaks at the American Enterprise Institute today in Washington, DC. Image Credit: Mark WilsonLastly, this excerpted and edited from Text of former V.P. Dick Cheney's National Security Speech at AEI from FOX News -
The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. They may take comfort in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum. If liberals are unhappy about some decisions, and conservatives are unhappy about other decisions, then it may seem to them that the President is on the path of sensible compromise. But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States.
Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy. When just a single clue that goes unlearned … one lead that goes unpursued … can bring on catastrophe - it's no time for splitting differences. There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance. ---- You can sense the problem in the emergence of euphemisms that strive to put an imaginary distance between the American people and the terrorist enemy.
Apparently using the term "war" where terrorists are concerned is starting to feel a bit dated. So henceforth we're advised by the administration to think of the fight against terrorists as, quote, "Overseas contingency operations."
In the event of another terrorist attack on America, the Homeland Security Department assures us it will be ready for this, quote, "man-made disaster" - never mind that the whole Department was created for the purpose of protecting Americans from terrorist attack.
And when you hear that there are no more, quote, "enemy combatants," as there were back in the days of that scary war on terror, at first that sounds like progress.
The only problem is that the phrase is gone, but the same assortment of killers and would-be mass murderers are still there. And finding some less judgmental or more pleasant-sounding name for terrorists doesn't change what they are - or what they would do if we let them loose.
Reference Here>>
Additional Synapsis HERE>>
