Obama's Honeymoon is Over

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Barack Obama has had his 100 days! The honeymoon is over! The gloves are off! Mr. Obama, tear down those illegal prisons!

Two thousand pictures of Americans performing acts of savage torture on prisoners will not be released to the general public if Mr. Obama gets his way. Military commissions will continue to try prisoners outside the scope of American law, and will be free to use brazen hearsay as "hard" evidence against defendants. Mr. Obama continues to cleave to the most abhorrent aspects of Bush-era secrecy policies, and has moved to block a lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) on behalf of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, who was outed by Bush administration officials in order to silence her Iraq whistle blower husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

--William Rivers Pitt, Truthout

It was not merely the stolen elections in Florida and later Ohio that made Bush illegitimate; it was his declaration in both word and deeds: "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" Under the cover given him by 'war' (however illegal), Bush claimed to be above the law, beyond responsibility to the people, in effect, a dictator!

The sooner that the United States dissociates itself from the crimes of the Bush administration, the sooner will it regain its role as leader of the world's democracies. Indicting the Bush administration now for its promotion of torture as US policy is the first, and most important, step in that direction.

Unfortunately, there is no way to impeach George Bush retroactively for leading us into the illegal and disastrous Iraq war. Nevertheless, Barack Obama should realize that victory over terrorism depends critically on the United States emphatically denouncing its ties to Bush's failed policies of unilateralism, militarism and torture.

--Sweep Bush policies into dustbin, John F. Bellantoni, Sarasota

No, we cannot impeach Bush now! We blew an opportunity to make the statement that OUTLAW PRESIDENTS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! Instead, we bent over and allowed a war criminal to get away with murder.

Here's the bad news for Obama: if Bush is guilty of war crimes for his attack and subsequent war crimes in Iraq, so, too, is Obama for continuing them. I have yet to see active, good faith efforts by Obama to end the illegal, military occupations in the Middle East.

That fact most certainly makes Obama prosecutable for continuing violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996 passed by both houses of Congress without dissent. The act covers every crime that may be charged to Bush as of this moment and as of the moment Bush exited the 'cover' given him by his occupation of the Oval Office.

The act deals specifically with his deliberate "killing, torture or inhumane treatment" of 'detainees' at Abu Ghraib, GITMO and the gulag archipelago of 'detention centers' throughout Eastern Europe. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in the death of a detainee carry the death penalty and there is no statute of limitations.

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

--TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441 § 2441. War crimes

Ironically, it was the GOP congress which passed the War Crimes Act in 1996 without a dissenting vote. It was said that they wished to 'rebuke the unpunished war crimes of dictators like Saddam Hussein'.

But this was the era of 'wag the dog'. The GOP had hoped make Clinton prosecutable in the Hague. Significantly, when it was feared that it would be Bush who would wind up in the dock, the GOP did a transparent about face, a cowardly and disingenuous move that we have come to expect from the GOP. Tom DeLay sponsored legislation authorizing the US military to invade the Hague should Bush find his sorry ass in the dock! DeLay was reacting to legislation that defined a "war crime" as any "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions.

I want to know: what is the frickin' point of passing legislation if it is routinely ignored by 'Presidents' be they Clinton, Bush, Obama?

What is the point?

Either we will insist upon the rule of law --or our governments hereinafter will be illegitimate. People of the US, I put it to you: you are NOT represented by a legitimate government. Nor have you been for some time now!

It did not help his case that Bush was (and, presumably remains) an idiot, a waste of human DNA, a cancer on mankind, a slimy liar of no talent and less wit or intelligence.

Obama seemed to be everything that Bush was not: literate, intelligent, perhaps even moral! But Obama has been given his 100 days and more! By now it is clear: Obama has no intention of righting the fatal harms inflicted by Bush upon the 'rule of law' or that 'goddamned piece of paper', the US Constitution. Obama has no intention of ending the illegal occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq!

These so-called 'Military Commission' are kangaroo courts and have no legitimacy whatsoever. Verdicts handed down by them are invalid, bogus, unlawful, and because the US occupations are illegal, the verdicts themselves may violate treaties and international laws. Surely the arbitrary assumption of powers not granted by a 'sovereign' is illegal! Any death resulting is murder! Any illegal US tribunal ordering 'death' is, itself, a murderer!

The presence of US troops anywhere in the world not supported by a declaration of war is illegal, a war crime. If death results to any person in those US occupied territories, the penalty is death! Clearly --the Obama administration has, heretofore, shown no interest in restoring legitimacy or the rule of law.

It appears, however, that the rule of law no longer applies to Presidents or, for that matter, the 'elected' idiots in Congress who write them. Clearly --everything enacted by Congress with regard to war, prisoners of war, or war crimes has failed to impress those occupying the Oval Office! Is this the reason the US has NOT won a war since War II?. Does this have something to do with the fact that the US --now a third world economy with the world's largest negative current account balance --has not paid for any war since World War II? Come to think of it, I am not quite sure we paid for WWII!

It is ludicrous to expect other nations to respect our sovereignty if we do not respect theirs.

The US remains a rogue and criminal nation, an oil thief, a pathetic, idiotic bully boy whose presence abroad still threatens its own economic underpinnings. What is the origin of this idiotic idea that because we covet another nation's oil or other resources, we may dictate to them with threats of bombs and/or invasion?

The US has nukes! But cannot use them! What would result if there should be another Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

The people of the US have been treasonously betrayed by both parties, by the Congress and in the unkindest cut of all, by the courts --the same judiciary that was intended to be the remedy of last resort. Thanks to the pin head Antonin Scalia and like minded, slit-tongued, slit-eyed reptilians, the courts are compromised and corrupt --sell-outs to the various elite interests that long ago 'invested' their money in the Congress and the White House. The best politicians money could buy??

How absurd the US has become! While the MIC murders for the sake of death, America, like a moronic, drooling, lumbering leviathan on steroids, wages war for the sake of war, bleats bullshit that it might hear its own pathetic, whining voice amid a wailing chorus awaiting Armegeddon!

Wake up, Mr. Obama! You are what you do! Have you become Bush?

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