[Peace-discuss] Barack Obama lied (quelle surprise)

[C. G. Estabrook]

Some did, but his co-option did a lot of damage to the anti-war movement, here & 
elsewhere.


On 3/13/11 9:18 PM, "E. Wayne Johnson 朱稳森" wrote:
> The surprising (or unsurprising) thing is that there were people who didn't 
> pick up on what Mr. Obama is when he was running for the Senate in Illinois.  
> Agreed that the combine provided Illinois voters no actual alternative, but he 
> certainly displayed his rattles at that time.  Sort of amazing in a way that 
> no one noticed that peculiar buzzing sound.
>
>
> On 2011-3-14 9:22, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> Lies my Obama told me
>>
>> "I don't want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are 
>> continually pushing me out of my comfort zone."
>> -- Barack Obama, June 18, 2008.
>>
>> Barack Obama lied.
>>
>> Again.
>>
>> He lied because somebody -- a good man, a decent man, and a respected 
>> spokesman for the U.S. State Department -- pushed Obama out of his comfort 
>> zone this week. And so what happened? -- the Obama administration forced him 
>> out of his job. Apparently Obama does just want to have people who agree with 
>> him. Imagine that.
>>
>> Truth be told (heh), the biggest outrage in this story actually is not the 
>> firing of the State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley. It's the episode that 
>> Crowley spoke out about -- the bizarre and immoral treatment of alleged 
>> Wikileaks leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning, who according to multiple news 
>> accounts is being held under conditions that make Gitmo look look like a 
>> halfway house for inside traders.
>>
>> It started out like this:
>>
>> Made to endure strict conditions under a prevention of injury order against 
>> the advice of military psychiatrists, he is treated like no other prisoner at 
>> the 250-capacity Quantico Brig detention facility in Virginia. Despite that 
>> he is yet to be convicted of any crime, for the past 218 consecutive days he 
>> has been made to live in a cell 6ft wide and 12ft long, without contact with 
>> any other detainees. He is not allowed to exercise or have personal effects 
>> in his cell, and for the one hour each day he is allowed free from his 
>> windowless cell he is taken to an empty room where he is allowed to walk, but 
>> not run.
>>
>> One of the few people to have visited Manning, David House, spoke yesterday 
>> of how he had witnessed his friend go from a "bright-eyed intelligent young 
>> man" to someone who at times has appeared "catatonic" with "very high 
>> difficulty carrying on day to day conversation".
>>
>> And it got worse:
>>
>> Military jailers are forcing Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old soldier accused 
>> of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks.org, to strip naked in his cell 
>> at night and sleep without clothing, a requirement his lawyer says was 
>> imposed after Manning made a "sarcastic quip" about his confinement.
>>
>> So basically the administration that ran on a platform of ending torture of 
>> suspected al-Qaeda terrorists and closing Guantanamo has not only not closed 
>> Gitmo (yes, Congress was a big part of that, but still..) but is now 
>> inbhumanely treating a United States soldier who's accused of a serious 
>> crime. This is an unforced error, to use the kindest possible languiage. It 
>> is not George W. Bush's fault or Dick Cheney's fault that Barack Obama's 
>> Pentagon is torturing Bradley Manning. It is only Barack Obama's fault.
>>
>> It took P.J. Crowley to see the emperor's new clothes. Speaking last week at 
>> an informal panel at Harvard on new media, Crowley was asked about the 
>> Manning case and blurted out the truth. He said the circumstances of 
>> Manning's detention have been “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” 
>> Those five seconds of brutal candor cost Crowley his job today -- although, 
>> for what it's worth, he is an American hero to me and to many others.
>>
>> Look, this is not a commentary on what Manning did or not do. He is charged 
>> with a serious offense under the law in leaking classified documents. His 
>> advocates call him a whistleblower. I'm not sure what Manning's defense will 
>> be but I do know two things: 1) he is entitled to his day in court, just like 
>> anyone else and b) he is also entitled to be held in humane conditions, not a 
>> form of torture -- sleep deprivation is torture -- which may aimed at forcing 
>> a confession.
>>
>> I'm 52 years old, and I'm constantly amazed at how much about human nature I 
>> still don't really get. What exactly goes on in Obama's mind? He's a smart 
>> and supposedly idealistic guy who came of age during the Reagan years, who 
>> surely -- those first times he dared to dream about the Oval Office -- saw 
>> himself taking all the obvious hypocrisy. Instead, he is taking presidential 
>> hypocrisy to new levels. What switch got turned off, or on, that stops him 
>> from ordering a halt to the mistreatment of Bradley Manning?
>>
>> How does Barack Obama look in the mirror some mornings?
>>
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