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Tag Archives: hypocrisy

Obama Administration Pot Calls Out Pakistani Kettle

31 Friday Dec 2010

Posted by Craig in Afghanistan, Bill of Rights, drone strikes, Justice Department, Obama, Obama administration, Pakistan, torture, war on terror

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Tags

al Qaeda, Bill of Rights, Bush administration, CIA, Department of Justice, drones, due process, extrajudicial killings, Gitmo, human rights, hypocrisy, indefinite detention, look forward not back, Obama administration, Pakistan, Poland, Taliban, torture investigation, treaties, war on terror

From the Department of Blatant Hypocrisy, Do As I Say, Not As I Do Division:

“The Obama administration is expressing alarm over reports that thousands of political separatists and captured Taliban insurgents have disappeared into the hands of Pakistan’s police and security forces, and that some may have been tortured or killed.

The concern is over a steady stream of accounts from human rights groups that Pakistan’s security services have rounded up thousands of people over the past decade, mainly in Baluchistan, a vast and restive province far from the fight with the Taliban, and are holding them incommunicado without charges.”

Welcome to the Hotel Gitmo. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

“Separately, the report also described concerns that the Pakistani military had killed unarmed members of the Taliban, rather than put them on trial.

…Two months ago, the United States took the unusual step of refusing to train or equip about a half-dozen Pakistani Army units that are believed to have killed unarmed prisoners and civilians during recent offensives against the Taliban. The most recent State Department report contains some of the administration’s most pointed language about accusations of such so-called extrajudicial killings.”

Kind of like this?

“From the moment he stepped foot inside the White House, Obama set about expanding and escalating a covert CIA program of “targeted killings” inside Pakistan, using Predator and Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles..that had been started by the Bush administration in 2004.

On 23 January 2009, just three days after being sworn in, Obama ordered his first set of air strikes inside Pakistan; one is said to have killed four Arab fighters linked to al-Qaida but the other hit the house of a pro-government tribal leader, killing him and four members of his family, including a five-year-old child.

…During his first nine months in office he authorised as many aerial attacks in Pakistan as George W Bush did in his final three years in the job…According to the New America Foundation thinktank in Washington DC, the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan more than doubled in 2010, to 115. That is an astonishing rate of around one bombing every three days inside a country with which the US is not at war.”

And then there’s this from the Obstruction of Justice Department, Look Forward Division:

“The U.S. Department of Justice has rejected a request from prosecutors in Warsaw for assistance in the investigation into the alleged CIA prisons in Poland, where captives claim they were tortured. On 18 March, the Prosecutor’s Office of Appeal in Warsaw filed a motion for legal assistance from the US Department of Justice into the probe…[T]he US informed prosecutors that the motion had been rejected on the basis of the international Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters and that the U.S. authorities consider the matter “to be closed”.

So far, the U.S. Justice Department has failed to comply with its treaty obligations to supply information requested by prosecutors in Spain, Germany, Italy, and Poland who are probing allegations of kidnapping, false arrest, assault, and torture by persons believed to be CIA agents in connection with extraordinary rendition operations.”

This has, by far, been my biggest disappointment with the current administration. Legislative policies are one thing-legislation can be amended, superseded, or repealed. But by continuing, and in some cases expanding upon, the Bush administration “war on terror” tactics, and pursuing this “look forward, not back” lunacy, it has now become the accepted and established policy of two successive administrations—one Republican and one Democratic–that the United States of America now condones actions (indefinite detention without charges, denial of due process) that were once upon a time (pre-9/11) considered a violation of our Bill of Rights.

It also lets other countries that enter into treaties with us know that we will abide by the conditions of those treaties only so far as it is convenient and politically expedient for us to do so, and denies us any credibility on the world stage when it comes to the condemnation of other country’s human rights violations.

In short, we prove to the world that America is a nation of preachers and not practicers.

Republican Hypocrisy On Government Spending

13 Monday Apr 2009

Posted by Craig in Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Boehner, Chambliss, creates jobs, government spending, hypocrisy, Republican

The Republican hypocrisy train rolls on. Today’s two shining examples are Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and House Minority Leader, Mr. Spray-On Tan himself, John Boehner of Ohio. The subject is whether or not government spending creates jobs.

Here’s what Sen. Chambliss had to say in February about the economic stimulus package:

“The majority in Congress has been in runaway mode when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars. This legislation is yet another sign that Washington is more concerned with pet projects than with the welfare of taxpayers.”

But when Defense Secretary Gates announced plans last week to end production of the F-22, which just by coincidence is done at a plant in Marietta, GA, Sen. Chambliss changed his opinion of the importance of those so-called “pet projects.”

“When it comes to stimulating the economy, there’s no better way to do it than to spend it in the defense community.”

Sen. Chambliss’ fellow Georgian, Rep. Johnny Isakson, another Republican who voted against the stimulus package, added:

“I also believe that it is unacceptable that this administration wants to eliminate 2,000 jobs in Marietta and potentially 95,000 jobs nationwide at a time when unemployment rates are rising across the country. Senator Chambliss and I will be taking the case of the F-22 to members of Congress and the Appropriations Committees. The F-22 is vital to 21st century American military superiority.”

I thought part of the Republican mantra was that government spending didn’t create jobs? I guess that only holds true when the spending is done in someone else’s home state or district.

Now to Congressman Boehner, who said this in January:

“When it comes to slow-moving government spending programs, it’s clear that it doesn’t create the jobs or preserve the jobs that need to happen.”

With the possible exception of when defense contractor BAE was awarded a $71, 546, 085 no-bid contract for one of it’s subsidiaries in Fairfield, Ohio to build doors for armored vehicles.

Can we assume that no jobs were created in your district because of that contract, Congressman Boehner? Kinda doubt it.

Tell you what I’m gonna do, Republicans. I offer my services, for a reasonable fee of course, as a researcher for you guys to stop you from opening your yap and making such fools of yourselves. I feel it’s my patriotic duty.

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