Simple Man Politics

Yesterday saw an extraordinary political event occur on the national stage and brought to all of us by our favorite news outlets. This extraordinary event that I am talking about is the back to back speeches made by President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney both of which were on national defense and the war on terror. Both of these speeches were in stark contrast to each other as well and immediately sparked sharp debate from both sides of the argument.

I found both of these speeches to be very well thought out and written by and for their respective speech makers. What I mean to say is that if you support the Obama position on the war on terror, closing Gitmo, and national security then his speech was just what you wanted to hear, and if you support the Cheney position then likewise he said just what you wanted to hear. As I said both sides of this argument will be talking about the speeches for a couple of days at least.

I applaud Obama for his choice of venues for delivering his speech, which was the National Archives where the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are enshrined, which are the three documents that he said in his speech he would defend. However I found the consensus that Obama was giving this speech from a position of weakness. On the other side Cheney chose to give his speech from the American Enterprise Institute and seemed anything other than weak from his position.

He also restated his intention to close down the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility stating that it was not only illegal but a sore point with our enemies and a recruitment tool for them also. He likewise stated his position on the Enhanced Interrogation Program and its termination saying that it was illegal, inhumane, and immoral. He also said that it was a recruitment tool for terrorists also. He further stated that bringing the Gitmo detainees to the US and trying them here with all of the rights of a criminal defendant was the right thing to do under the law.

On the other side of this argument Cheney said that the construction of Guantanamo was designed to house just these sorts of animals that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001 and was legally developed. He also staunchly defended the Enhanced Interrogation Program stating that it was not only extremely effective, but constitutionally legal as well. Cheney went on to say that Gitmo was there so that we wouldn’t have to bring these vermin onto US soil and implied that the detainees were not eligible for the rights our legal system affords its citizens.

Now I will give you my own thoughts on this subject. I agree with Obama that he has sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and likewise the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and he should defend them. These documents are the very foundation, heart, and soul of our nation and its democracy, but there is little if anything else that he said yesterday, which I do agree with.

On the other hand I do agree with Cheney that 9/11 changed forever the way I look at our enemies and in particular those in the Middle East that support, harbor, fund, equip, train, or otherwise take part in terrorist activities against our country. I do not believe that they are eligible for Geneva Convention Protections because they are not a recognized national military. I will also tell you that I think we should leave them in Gitmo or put them in some more inhospitable environment where they could not survive without our assistance such as a place like ANWAR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or maybe Alcatraz Island, which is a federal military reserve.

As enemy combatants I also do not believe that they are eligible for habeas corpus rights or any rights afforded a simple criminal in our federal criminal court system including legal defense. I say a military tribunal is just what is needed for them. With regard to our Enhanced Interrogation Program and its apparent success in gaining intelligence from high value detainees I believe that it was not only a successful program, but legal as well and as far as water boarding in particular it was only used on three of those terrorists and with great effect. By the way their recruitment tools are nothing more than their hate of freedom and democracy.

I personally don’t care what we do to the detainees or what happens to them for that matter as long as it is extremely unpleasant. I don’t believe that animals and these animals in particular are deserving of the rights and protections of law abiding citizens of the world or of the United States in particular.

I would just as soon shoot them like rabid dogs myself personally and if I cannot then send them back to their countries of origin, but apparently we can’t do that because it would be a death sentence for most of them at least, but I don’t care if they are killed by us or their own kind. All I care about is that they never again have the ability to raise their hands against another citizen of the United States or any other democratic country.

Well that is my Friday rant for all of you to read and I hope it leaves no doubt where I stand on the issue of this nation’s defense and its enemies. I hope you all have an awesome weekend and I will be back again on Monday CIAO4NOW!!!!!

Hmmmm lets see, how should I start today. First let me say that I am sorry for not doing a blog post on Friday, but I have to pay the bills before I can spread the truth here. Another reason is that Joy who has written for me here before had somewhat of a personal crisis to deal with and required my support.

You see Joy grew up with the Mayhle’s. Stephen Mayhle is one of the Pittsburgh police officers who were brutally gunned down last Friday in the Stanton Heights section of the city, while responding to a domestic disturbance call in the early hours of the morning.

However now it is time for some more Simple Man Politics. Today we are going to talk a little about Obama’s trip to the G20 summit and NATO meetings. To say the least I found his trip to be highly anti-climactic to say the least. It appears that our super star President was not as well received as he would have liked.

First off with regard to his attendance of the G20 summit I found him to be remarkably apologetic about the United States being responsible for the current global economic crisis that has affected the world markets. However he was right that we own some of the responsibility, but he was wrong about who exactly was responsible.

Obama claimed that he inherited this bad economy from his predecessor George W, Bush’s administration and that is true. What he fails to tell anyone is that while it occurred during the Bush administration it is in fact a legacy he inherited from his own party who controlled both houses of congress.

The two men most responsible for the economic meltdown are Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Barney Frank. These two men were responsible for overseeing our financial institutions including Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae. When they were told by several different people that these two companies were in trouble they loudly denounced those who warned them and said that Freddy and Fanny were fine.

Of course Obama also laid the growing deficit at George Bush’s feet as well while conveniently forgetting the fact that with his second bailout, stimulus bill, and budget he plans on growing our national debt to over 4.7 Trillion Dollars this year with a Trillion Dollars added every year for the next ten years. He is accomplishing this with the aid of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid the senate and house leaders.

My favorite part of Obama’s trip had to be his stop in Turkey though. I will admit that this nation is an important ally to the US in the WAR ON TERROR. We use their bases for resupply operations as well as a way into and out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What I don’t understand is his statement to the Turkish people that we are not at war with Islam. I would think that it is obvious that we are not at war with Islam. However we are at war with Islamo-Fascism. Islamo-Fascism is the ideology that is spouted out from groups like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.

I was also not surprised at the reception that Obama has received in some of the countries that he visited. While most of the European socialist governments love him it is quite clear that a lot of the people do not. Of course the governments there love him, because he wants the same sort of government that hasn’t worked for them in the last century. The ordinary people seemed to know that he was a B.S. artist almost instinctively.

I have one more thing to say before I go today, and that is on the subject of Nuclear disarmament. Obama clearly believes in total nuclear disarmament, but does he really think that he can get these rogue countries that are pursuing this technology to put it down once they get these weapons. I doubt that Iran or North Korea would be willing to do so.

The world’s deterrence to a nuclear war is the fact that we possess nukes, and the deterrence in the Middle East is the fact that Israel possesses nukes. Unfortunately that is why nations like Iran are pursuing nuclear weapons programs so that they can attack Israel.

The truth of the matter is that whether we like it or not Obama is our President for the next four years. It is unfortunate for us however that he is against his own country and all for being popular in the world before being safe. This is true both economically and strategically. I only hope that our enemies are not any emboldened to attack us now than they were before his overseas trip.

Have an awesome day my friends and I will be back again real soon, although it may not be before Wednesday, but you never know, CIAO4NOW!!!!!

This week Barack Obama finally showed a little bit of transparency in government. I think that transparency in our government is a good thing, because it can produce trust between our President, lawmakers, and citizens. I firmly believe that we should exactly what our government unless it involves matters of national security, which could be compromised by making the information public. However I don’t think that in this case Obama did this for the good of the country.

Here is what our President did that was so transparent. He released a series of documents that had previously kept secret by the Bush administration that involved the war on terror. I think it may have been good to release these documents, but not for the reasons that I think Obama did so. I think Obama released these documents to divert attention from himself and his political agenda.

Some of these documents dealt with the detainee situation in Gitmo, and the interrogations there. They also contained information on extraordinary rendition, which means that our intelligence apparatus sent certain terrorist detainees to other countries in order to use more aggressive interrogation techniques. The documents also contained information on the wiretap policy of the Bush administration regarding terrorist conversations involving people inside the US. There was also data showing that the CIA had destroyed 92 videos of interrogations that they performed.

Personally I have no problems with the Bush Administrations policy regarding the war on terror. I don’t care anything about the Gitmo detainees other than they get what they deserve for going to war against us. By the same token I don’t care how we came by the information, because the bad guys would do even worse to us to get what they want. As far as wiretaps go if it gets the Islamofascists that we are fighting then it works for me I have nothing to hide in my phone conversations. I also think that the CIA should have aired those video tapes to show the American people what it takes to keep our nation safe.

Fortunately for us there was almost no new info in the documents that Obama released and most of it was common knowledge amongst the American population. The 92 videos information was new, but I don’t care that they destroyed them, because I don’t are to what light entertainment at dinner time. Like I said this was just Obama’s attempt to deflect attention from him so he can fly under the radar a little bit. This action was not transparency for transparencies sake, but transparency for Obama’s sake, so that he can try to hide the damaging policies he is instituting.

That is all for now and I am sorry you are getting this so late this evening, but like every other American I got to pay the bills first. I will be back again soon have a great evening, CIAO4NOW!!!!!