L-R: Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy, President Rev. Patrick Mahoney, of the Christian Defense Coalition and Father James Heyd hold a prayer service in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington. Today the high court will hear oral arguments in a case on involving the building of a memorial with a cross by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in a remote area within what is now a federal preserve.
Mark Wilson-Getty Images

Is anyone really damaged by seeing the 10 Commandments displayed on a government building? Are any of you offended when you see a Christmas tree in a public square? When the White House hosts an Easter egg hunt each year, as well as iftar dinner and menorah lighting? Are your feelings hurt because we have national holidays that are Christian?

Why?

Religious expression is part of this nation’s history. The jihadist crusade of the ACLU and militant secular extremists is beyond reason in its successful attacks over the last several decades against public expression of Christian traditions and national heritage that has been a part of this country’s 200-plus year history.

Today, the Supreme Court began deliberations over the Mojave Desert Cross:

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Provisions of the PATRIOT Act (”Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”) are set to expire at the end of the year.

NYTimes:

WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to consider extending crucial provisions of the USA Patriot Act, civil liberties groups and some Democratic lawmakers are gearing up to press for sweeping changes to surveillance laws.

Both the House and the Senate are set to hold their first committee hearings this week on whether to reauthorize three sections of the Patriot Act that expire at the end of this year. The provisions expanded the power of the F.B.I. to seize records and to eavesdrop on phone calls in the course of a counterterrorism investigation.

Is this really an “expansion” of power? Or a matter of updating existing powers in order for the F.B.I. to effectively do its job of protecting American lives in wake of 21st century technological advancements?

Read the rest of this entry »

Our enemies have been very savvy on the PR front of this war.

One of the things Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters have been made aware of, is the enormous pressure that is brought to bear upon the U.S. by human rights groups and public opinion, both American and world. Whether true or not, the allegations of abuse and torture in themselves do us harm. America is held to a different standard where in the eyes of the ACLU and other anti-American groups, we are guilty until proven innocent, with the benefit of the doubt given to terrorists.
Read the rest of this entry »

Back in April, President Obama made it clear that his administration would release 44 photos of detainees abused in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the name of transparency. The ACLU felt this would be proof that the abuses that happened at abu Ghraib was not “aberrational” (what is not considered an aberration? 1 in 100,000? 1 in 10,000? 1 in 10? 100 allegations per year?).

Annie Lowrey:

Obama said, “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.” He also later said the small number of perpetrators were charged and tried in 2004.

The administration then abruptly changed course, saying it would not release the photographs. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, explained, “The president believes that the specific case surrounding the damage that would be done to our troops and our national security has not fully been developed and put in front of the court.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Lesson yet to be learned by President Obama: Don’t make promises you can’t deliver on.

By Craig Whitlock and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Foreign Service:

BERLIN, May 28 — The Obama administration’s push to resettle at least 50 Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Europe is meeting fresh resistance as European officials demand that the United States first give asylum to some inmates before they will do the same.

Rising opposition in the U.S. Congress to allowing Guantanamo prisoners on American soil has not gone over well in Europe. Officials from countries that previously indicated they were willing to accept inmates now say it may be politically impossible for them to do so if the United States does not reciprocate.

“If the U.S. refuses to take these people, why should we?” said Thomas Silberhorn, a member of the German Parliament from Bavaria, where the White House wants to relocate nine Chinese Uighur prisoners. “If all 50 states in America say, ‘Sorry, we can’t take them,’ this is not very convincing.”

Here’s a novel idea: Do a complete about face and salvage Guantanamo’s reputation as the most transparent and humanely run detention facility in the world.
Read the rest of this entry »

Yep, just like President Obama took his plan for Iraq, his bailout plans, and more now he’s trying to market his “plan” for closing Gitmo…straight from George W Bush’s Sept 6, 2006 speech. Time heals all wounds, and I guess 3yrs is enough time for the Democrats to forget they once opposed this plan.

OBAMA’s PLAN:(quotes below)
1) Try criminals in Federal courts
2) Military Tribunals
3) Release ones ordered released by courts
4) Transfer as many as possible to other countries
5) Hold really bad guys until we can figure out how to hold them w out trial indefinitely by legal means

BUSH’S Sept 6, 2006 PLAN: (quotes below)
1) Transfer as many as possible to other countries
2) Try criminals in Federal courts
3) Military Tribunals
4) Beg Congress to figure out how to hold the really bad guys without trial indefinitely by legal means
[note: President Bush’s plan didn’t include a provision for letting go Gitmo detainees who had been ordered released, but had yet to be released. This is because no one would take them, and they remain at Gitmo, but President Obama has said that somehow, someplace he wants them released.
Read the rest of this entry »

During a 90 minute meeting with human rights advocates today, President Barack Obama said that he was considering coming up with some sort of “preventive detention” system which would provide him a legal basis to detain suspects as a threat without having to charge them with any crimes.

The meeting was intended to be “off the record,” but some of the participants left seriously concerned that the president, who only last week resumed the long criticized system of military tribunals for suspects at Guantanamo Bay, was now looking for ways to hold people legally without having to present any evidence of wrong-doing.

I find myself wondering a lot lately. How can people discuss an issue while removing left/right bias? The most common idea I have is to ask a perspective provoking question, “If Bush had tried this, would you oppose, support, or accept this the same way?”

I’m sorry, but I simply MUST post this. Memories of A Few Good Men…(ht Hot Air)

Watch this, and consider that we’re not talking about beating up a Marine, but getting rough with the people who planned and executed the 911 attacks, who tried to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, who SUCCESSFULLY MURDERED 3000 civilians.

Chris,
Read the rest of this entry »

Jon Stewart had on his program Cliff May, president of The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, last week. Stewart did a by-the-book job bringing up most of the anti-”torture” talking points; and May did an even better bang up job with “pro”-torture arguments (Cliff May is anti-torture the way Cheney and Condi are).

Andrew Sullivan:

The man who wants to export human rights and also torture prisoners in the US tangled with Jon Stewart last night. Their conversation went far beyond the edited show, and you can watch the video of it here. I should repeat that I long admired Cliff’s defense of American and Western values and find his current position – that America should retain the right to torture with the same techniques as the Khmer Rouge and the Gestapo – as demoralizing as it is abhorrent.

Stewart’s liberalism is encapsulated in his views on the dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima and thinking Harry S Truman should have been tried as a war criminal.

Bill Whittle takes Jon Stewart through a history lesson you’ll not want to miss.

After viewing it, please realize:

Who is Jon Stewart? Jon is a self-deprecating 43-year-old New York native who grew up in New Jersey. Dad was a physicist and mom a teacher, so education was valued in his childhood home.

More like “liberal indoctrination was valued in his childhood home.”

Also blogging:
wizbang

Another day, another evil Bush policy brought back without an iota of resistance or even complaint,

“The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself.”

There’s a lot of big things happening right now-LOTS, and it’s hard to get a grasp for even seasoned newshounds to keep track of exactly where we are and where we’re going. However, the story that dominates of late-the story w the most legs is the torture allegations. To that end, I think the best piece I’ve read on it is this one, and I hope everyone reads it…especially as just yesterday some people forgot, and now we’ve got fresh images of a NYC in panic as a low-flying jetliner is chased by Air Force fighters over the skies of Manhattan.

Make Terrorists Choose Between Jumping or Burning: Now That Would Be Torture

So now the president is considering show trials of Bush Administration officials who issued opinions on permissibility of “harsh” interrogation techniques on Al Qaeda terrorists.

Once again, folks, this is not hard.
Read the rest of this entry »

A number of our liberal readers on the “torture” threads bring up what this liberal blog brings up:

In the wake of the release of OLC memos authorizing torture, Bush apologists are frantically trying to show that torture worked. Former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post that claimed that torturing Khalid Sheik Mohammed had foiled a second plot to use airplanes to attack the highest skyscraper on the West Coast, the Library Tower.

The author of the post then goes on to cite Timothy Noah in “debunking” Thiessen’s piece.

Primarily at issue is the timeline of having captured KSM in March of 2003, whereas the cell leader of the Library Plot was captured in 2002, leading to the assumption that the entire plot was then foiled- even though other terrorists within the cell were still roaming free to plot and plan and carry out future marching orders.

Purportedly, because the cell leader of the Library Tower plot was captured before KSM’s capture and (enhanced) interrogations took place, then this demolishes the claims that actionable intelligence was obtained through coercive techniques.

Well, here I cite Thiessen in debunking the debunkers, namely going directly after his critic, Timothy Noah:

Read the rest of this entry »

An Iraqi girl watches a U.S. soldier on a patrol in Baghdad’s Sadr City. U.S. troops have been patrolling the Shiite stronghold since March 4, 2007 under a deal that allows them to enter the area without resistance.
Adil al-Khazali, AP

First, the CIA….now our military targeted in Administration and ACLU cross-hairs…

Hat tip, Brutally Honest, from ABC News Political Punch:

In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge yesterday, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over to the American Civil Liberties Union 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.

The photographs are part of a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU for all information relating to the treatment of detainees — the same battle that led, last week, to President Obama’s decision to release memos from the Bush Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel providing legal justifications for harsh interrogation methods that human rights groups call torture.

Courts had ruled against the Bush administration’s attempts to keep the photographs from public view. ACLU attorney Amrit Singh tells ABC News that “the fact that the Obama administration opted not to seek further review is a sign that it is committed to more transparency.” Read the rest of this entry »