Posted on 02/01/2010 6:21:00 AM PST by STARWISE
Just whom are we trying to impress?
That's a question that occurred to me when, on his second full day in the presidency, Barack Obama announced we would close the Guantanamo detainee facility within one year.
It's a question that has kept occurring to me over the last year and nine days, even though Obama and his administration have proven unable to keep that promise.
Whom are we trying to impress by ruling out enhanced interrogation techniques on unlawful combatants, techniques that produced valuable intelligence that saved American lives?
Whom are we trying to impress by limiting questioning to the Army Field Manual?
That's a good guide for handling prisoners of war and other lawful combatants covered by international law.
But whom are we trying to impress by extending those protections to those who are not covered by the Geneva Conventions or other treaties we have signed?
Whom are we trying to impress by trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian courts after he already pleaded guilty to a military tribunal?
And trying him in New York City, where the trial will cost something like $1 billion and tie up Lower Manhattan for years?
Will these people we are trying to impress be that much less impressed if the administration belatedly follows the advice of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kirsten Gillibrand and stages that trial on a military base or elsewhere outside of New York City?
And whom are we trying to impress by treating the failed Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab not as a military combatant but as a common civilian criminal, even though he launched an attack on the United States from outside the country?
Whom are we trying to impress by administering Miranda warnings and telling him that he has a right to a lawyer and the right to remain silent?
If the answer to these questions is that we are trying to impress Islamist terrorists, we have clearly failed.
It is a matter of simple fact that the announcement that we would close Guantanamo and other implement policy changes did not prevent Abdulhakim Muhammad from killing U.S. soldiers at the Little Rock recruiting station last June.
It did not prevent Nidal Hasan from killing U.S. soldiers at Fort Hood in November. It did not prevent Abdulmutallab from attempting to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over U.S. or Canadian airspace on Christmas day.
Public opinion polls in the Arab and Muslim world have shown only slight upticks in opinion about America in the months after Barack Obama's speeches in Cairo and Turkey and after these administration policy changes.
Terrorists did not say, "Gosh, now that Obama is closing Guantanamo and terrorists are being given Miranda rights, I've got to change my mind and decide that the United States is a really nifty country and that freedom and democracy are good things after all."
But perhaps our goal was to convince not terrorists but "world opinion." Are the government and billion people of India going to think better of the United States if we treat terrorists more gently? Not likely; they're the targets of terrorists themselves.
How about the government and billion people of China? My guess is that they see this as weakness that they would never indulge.
The governments and peoples of Europe? Well, certainly some governments would be pleased, as would the readers of left-wing newspapers and those who attend international conferences. But polling shows that European peoples tend to take a tougher stand on these matters than the elites who dominate the international dialogue.
So whom are we trying to impress? The answer seems to be left-wing intellectuals, academics, voters -- "the educated class," in David Brooks's term -- who decried George W. Bush's policies as reeking of fascism and dictatorship.
We are making policies to please those who hang out in law school faculty lounges.
Their numbers turn out to be less formidable than the amount of coverage they have received in sympathetic media suggests. For that we have evidence from the commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown called for handing over KSM and the Christmas bomber to military tribunals.
His Democratic opponent disagreed. She carried "the educated class," blacks and Hispanics. Brown carried just about everyone else and, even in Massachusetts, won.
Which leads me to ask, again: Just whom are we trying to impress?
~~PING!
He's trying to destroy the US as a world power.
George Soros.
What a coalition the Dems have assembled, only the GOP could lose to them.
If the “educated class” is impressed with Obamalamadingdong, they aren’t nearly as “educated” as they think they are.
Many, many liberals want to APPEAR to be “intellectual”, and they get backslapped as such if they hold the “correct” worldviews, etc. Of COURSE they’re “impressed” with 0bama, or at least they’ve either convinced themselves or seek to convince others that they are,
because it makes them appear to be smarter to the rest of the members of their lefthanded circlejerks.
Yep. That, and turn every US citizen into gubmint serfs in the process. You know what is surprising to me is how all the pundits, especially Conservative pundits, continue to be shocked and awed at the various efforts of Obamalamadingdong to destroy the country. The man told us for months and months exactly what he was going to do if he were elected POTUS. He admits in his own writings (assuming he did indeed write them) that he favors Marxist ideology, even though he proclaimed recently that "he was not a Bolshevik". Numerous people he has chosen to serve in his cabinet and as his "Czars" have expressed gleeful adoration of Mao and other Marxist ideologues. How in the world can these pundits, especially the ones that claim to be Conservatives, possibly be surprised?
You would think the “educated class” would exhibit some level of discernment. Educatedschmeducated.
It is a safe bet that few in the White House have read the Army field Manual. That is, except the assigned DOJ lawyers.
The Field manual is like a virgin field, left fallow for a long time it is ripe for productive crops. It is like the Constitution to a lawyer, it can be interpreted however you want. The manual can be made to say anything. To a lawyer it is a bonanza that unlike the Constitution is uncluttered with messy precedents. The discovery of the Army Field Manual by a lawyer is like finding Roman gold coins in the new field.
Man, you got that right! A neighbor of mine, actually part time neighbor, they live in Atlanta, but have a house here on the mountain, mentioned before the last election that we needed to put "more Progressive candidates in office". I asked him if he was at all familiar with the history of the Progressive movement and the steps that they had taken to institute horribly failed policies, like the Federal income tax, the League of Nations, the United Nations, Socialist (in)Security, and the Federal Reserve? He didn't have a clue. I told him to read up on Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and other big gubmint types and get back to me. I don't know if he did or not, but he hasn't mentioned the term "progressive" again since......
He proves once again that the smartest people are not necessarily those with all the pat answers but are most always the ones who ask the best questions.
Just more glaring evidence that attending an Ivy League skool and earning a degree doesn't make you smart anymore than going into a barn makes you a horse. I know a couple of Phd's, one from HAAAARvard. This guy can barely tie his own shoes. Totally devoid of the common sense that God gave a turnip. By contrast, I also know a couple of dirt poor farmers who barely have 8th grade educations, but are both two of the wisest men I've ever met.
I'm quite well-educated, my wife and most of our children even beyond that. We are all staunch conservatives because conservatism is logical and intelligent, vice being emotions/guilt-oriented. The term “educated class” needs further refinement in order to be accurate. Perhaps "curmudgeonly elitist achedemics" would suffice.
I don't want to be trite and make the whole Hitler comparison, but I have to point out that in "Mein Kampf", Hitler pretty much came out and said that he wanted to take over the world and kill all the Jews. His book was a huge best seller and everybody knew about it -- but, apparently everyone was surprised when he tried to take over the world and kill all the Jews.
Our educated classes are educated, but a lot of them are not very smart.
Yep. Far be it for me to add more trite-ness (if that is even a word) but, much to the chagrin of many Leftists here in the USA who likened GWB to that monster, Hitler, like Obama, was also a Socialist. One of the first things Hitler did after gaining power was a gubmint take over of the German medical system of the time. This lead to human experimentation by people like Mengele. Obamas first step towards human experimentation came in the form of opening up fetal stem cell research. Sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it?
Couple that with the history of other Marxist/Socialists like Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, Castro and, most recently, Chavez, and it's not much of a stretch to see where Obama's policies are headed. Marxists always claim to start out with good intentions "for the people", but it never quite seems to work out that way in the long run. Knowledge of this history should, beyond a shadow of doubt, expose the elite "educated class" as not being very smart at all simply by virtue of their ignorance of history and their support of Obama and his Marxist policies. It is also notable that academics are almost always the first to be enslaved by Marxist dictators, followed shortly thereafter by members of the press. Seems like most of the press is already slaves to Obama, albeit willing servitude.
History does indeed repeat itself. My more sinister side says that the dumbing down of the curriculum in gubmint skools that has occurred over the past 60+ years is being done precisely so that the masses will be ignorant of this history. With the lack of focus on the Constitution and history in gubmint skools our youth are being dealt a horrible disservice because they are ignorant of Freedom and Liberty, too. As I've said here before, stupid people are much easier to control and Progressive Marxists are very patient......
Witness their terrorist in our traitorous US ARMY Major ..
Thank you! MUST see Gen. Boykin ................ PING!
http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnPlayer.swf?aid=11991
For some reason your link isn’t working for me.
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