AND Obama voted FOR George Bush immunity
Perhaps I misunderstood you. Just what is the bill that gave Bush immunity? I understand that Obama is not fond of ideas being floated around congress of investigating Bush crimes, but I'm unfamiliar with any such vote. What's the bill?
As to the constitutionality of the phone company immunity, I brought that up simply because the issue has not been settled. There is certainly a strong argument for the unconstitutionality of warrantless wiretapping. I never said that warrantless wiretapping was constitutional. But is it constitutional to give the phone companies immunity if they participated?
Interestingly, the FISA amendment act of 2008 requires FISA court approval in order to wiretap overseas americans (such as me), prohibits targeting foreigners in order to eavesdrop on americans without court approval, and prohibits the government from invoking war powers or such in order to supersede surveillance rules.
Interestingly, Obama voted against the
Protect America Act of 2007.
So, does Obama deplore the constitution? On one hand, he votes against doing away with warrants for wiretapping (the PAA), but does vote for an amendment to FISA, which adds some prohibitions to what the government can do leaves in place its powers in other areas.
The picture, naturally, is far more complex than you make it out to be.
Beside the palatial 104 acre embassy, USA has a handful (dozens?) of MASSIVE "ENDURRING" military bases. You reeeally think USA will be gone by 2011? Tell ya what, let's revisit this thought in 2011 and see where we are. I will be thrilled to be shown you are right and I am wrong!
This is relatively easy to answer. You're familiar with the
SOFA that was just agreed to between the Bush administration and Iraq? Unless we renegotiate this, we have to leave Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009. Renegotiation is possible in the middle of the year, when Iraqis get to vote on it. That could kick us out by the middle of 2010. On the other hand, its very possible we could still have 10-20 thousand troops left after december 2011, if not more. What you will not see, unless the situation worsens considerably, is 140,000 plus troops stationed in Iraq by december 2011.
Just so you know, we still have troops in Germany (~56,000 out of ~84,500 in Europe), South Korea (~26,000), and Japan (~33,500). Leaving troops in Iraq for a long time would certainly not be unusual or without precedent. You may be against these deployments (and the host countries occasionally are), but overall these agreements have worked out.
Over a million innocent lives murdered using illegal weapons based on lies. And because I assert that maybe, just maybe, the Iraqi invasion just might be a tad illegal and immoral, you call me immature. Wow. C'mon kuresu, I know you're not this heartless towards the Iraqi civilians. Show some empathy towards these millions of Iraqis that the USA has forever changed to the worse. Think of the victims for a split second. Empathy, sympathy!!! If I be immature, than immature be I.
Woah. Where did I say this? As I recall, I said harping about voting to fund the troops is immature. You harp on it with Obama, with Hillary, probably with every democrat. There are more serious issues to concern yourself over.
What I did not say was that harping over her vote for a false war was immature. This is twice now (at least) that you've put words into my mouth.
Now then, were those million killed by the US with illegal weapon? No. Those million you mention might not even be dead, as the figure ranges depending on which survey you use. But if we stick to the figure given by the ORB poll, we find that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, and 6% from other blasts, leaving us with 17% dead from "other". It might be helpful to remember that there was a massive civil war that we sparked that killed the majority of these people. We're responsible, but our weapons are responsible for less than half the deaths estimated by the ORB poll.
Hillary doesn't give a dam about the troops.
And she's not the SoD or SoVA, is she? On the other hand, she certainly can't be worse than Bush, can she?
Not yesterday, but, October 11, 2007. H. Clinton denounces the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, despite the unit being part of Iran's army. Critics call the Senate resolution without precedent, and say it gives a green light to the White House to attack Iran.
You know, I can't actually find any resolution sponsored by Clinton to call the IRGC a terrorist organization. All I can find is the Bush administration labeling the IRGC a terrorist organization under Executive Order 13382.
Now then, threatening nuclear annihilation is not a war crime. Actually carrying out, if its disproportionate, could be. Since I can't dig up the quote of her threatening Iran with annihilation (though I do recall something to that effect being said during the campaign), mind pointing me to the source?
"I might not agree with every aspect . . . " Yeaaah, he is talking about that pesky little two-state solution aspect.
Are you sure? You've ignored what he apparently told Abbas. On another note, the two-state solution is right now potentially not even possible. I refer you to
Thomas Friedman. The place is a mess, quite frankly. Obama is smarter than people give him credit for. You're too quick to jump on supposed omissions, too quick to read into his statements or lack thereof (you carry on that pattern with me as well). Obama simply could have reservations about how you could implement the Arab Peace Initiative. We simply don't know what he's thinking aside from a few statements in support of peace, and nothing has been heard from George Mitchell for some time (at least, I haven't).
Are you seriously saying Iraq and Afghanistan are similiar circumstances?
Did I say they were? This is three times you've putt words into my mouth. I simply contended your argument that sovereignty violation is a specifically Bush policy. You said
quote:
Continues Bush Policy of sovereignty violation. 1/22/09, US spy plane kills 15 in Pakastan despite government's repeated objections.
in http://
EvC Forum: On this day, let us all be proud of America -->
EvC Forum: On this day, let us all be proud of America, which implies that sovereignty violation is unique to Bush. Your example of sovereignty violation is/was unique to Bush, but the general act of violation isn't.
Originally, the US generals wanted 30,000 troops surge in Afghan. When Obama asked them, specifically to produce what goals, "What is the end game?", the Joint Chiefs said "Frankly we don't have one". I'd say that is muddling through.
That was the Bush policy. Now tell me, what did Obama tell the Joint Chiefs? As I recall: you guys need to come up with something better.
Eventually there will be another 10-20,000 more troops deployed into Afghan. Obama, couldn't politically allow so many at once. And when that amount isn't enough, Obama will order more. Vietnam much?
We knew this was going to happen. Obama has been arguing for this for a long time. Further, this is a clear break from Bush policy, which has been to consistently treat the Afghanistan war as a secondary theater of operations instead of the central campaign against Islamic terrorism (whether it should be is another question, but it is certainly a more valid central campaign than Iraq ever was).
Further, more troops can actually accomplish the mission if the mission is properly understood. What we are failing to provide in Afghanistan is security (which is what did us in in Vietnam, btw). You'll note that in the source you link to, Gen. Westmoreland argued for actively seeking out the enemy instead of protecting the civilian population. That has been our strategy in Afghanistan. You'll note how far that got us in Vietnam, and how well it's worked so far in Afghanistan. Of course, Westmoreland was in general just completely incompetent. He did not understand how to fight an insurgency. Hopefully we've learned a little from Iraq.
SoD Gates is well aware of the historical parallels and the pitfalls. We know that we have to make the afghanis feel more secure, that they need to have an effective, less corrupt government. These people, quite frankly, are keenly aware of not repeating Vietnam (or the USSR's afghanistan). Another thing to keep in mind: Obama has been in office a grand total of one month. It takes time to review policies and change course. And to absorb all sorts of information that he did not have access to before. You'll probably say that I'm just punting his responsibility down the line, but the fact is that it takes a while to change course in our government. Case in point, the Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review. Due out in bookstores this March. That policy review will also probably answer any questions you have about whether we will keep on lobbing missiles into Pakistan.
You'll need to do some homework regarding USA's involvement in East Timor's atrocities. Here's a brief paragraph I copied from another one of my posts:
And your paragraph says nothing about Holbrooke. In fact, in mentions Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Where was Holbrooke during the East Timor atrocities? Well, inn 75-76 he was editor of
Foreign Poicy. In 1974-75 he was a consultant to the President’s Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy. In 1976, he was Carter's national security affairs campaign coordinator. From 1977-81 he was the assisstant secratary of state for east asian and pacific affairs. He helped work to normalize US-chinese relations and bring in hundreds of thousands of indochinese refugees. I can't find anything he did or said as regards East Timor, although it certainly would have fallen under his purview. Moynihan, of course, is now dead.
Obama keeps Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
And yet you ask "how is Obama continuing specific Bush foreign policy?" Huh? I don't think I could draw a straighter line with a ruler.
Last I checked, the DoD does not decide foreign policy. Last I checked, that is decided by Obama and carried out by mainly the DoS and the SoS.
It's also worth noting that Gates himself represented a change from earlier bush military policy.
It's also worth reminding you that the secretaries carry out Obama's plans (which is why Gregg pulled out).
But when Obama does it, you offer Obama a possible pass
I'm not interested in giving Obama a pass. I'm interested in getting to the bottom of the picture in as objectively a manner possible. And claiming that Obama is continuing Bush policies to the t is absurd on the face of it. Major changes are underway in Iraq and Afghanistan that would never have occurred with Bush. An attempt to have dialogue with Iran would never have been possible (though Bush was warming to some talking by the end).
This time, try actually reading what I wrote instead of putting words in my mouth. And try actually substantively supporting your argument.
Obama is not his own father? 
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