Forum Post: RIDDLE: Did Osama bin Laden really "hate our freedoms" as much as Dubya claimed he did?
Posted 13 years ago on Dec. 17, 2011, 8:52 p.m. EST by TIOUAISE
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ANSWER: Yes, but NOT to the same degree as the current Congress and White House have recently demonstrated THEY do.
"OBAMA TO SIGN INDEFINITE DETENTION BILL INTO LAW"
"In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama – after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill – yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s],” only to turn around – once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct). As a result, the final version of the Levin/McCain bill will be enshrined as law this week as part of the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I wrote about the primary provisions and implications of this bill last week, and won’t repeat those points here.
The ACLU said last night that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.” Human Rights Watch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”
Both groups pointed out that this is the first time indefinite detention has been enshrined in law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when — as the ACLU put it — “President Truman had the courage to veto” the Internal Security Act of 1950 on the ground that it “would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights” and then watched Congress override the veto. That Act authorized the imprisonment of Communists and other “subversives” without the necessity of full trials or due process (many of the most egregious provisions of that bill were repealed by the 1971 Non-Detention Act, and are now being rejuvenated by these War on Terror policies of indefinite detention). President Obama, needless to say, is not Harry Truman. He’s not even the Candidate Obama of 2008 who repeatedly insisted that due process and security were not mutually exclusive and who condemned indefinite detention as “black hole” injustice."
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/12/the_growing_menace_of_domestic_drones/
See also The New York Times' scathing editorial here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/politics-over-principle.html?_r=1
W's Administration gave us the Patriot Act and now this... Exactly why we can't count on the politicians to protect our freedoms. We need to do that ourselves.
I know for sure Obama hates our freedoms, as well as other republicans.
If Osama hated our freedoms then why didn't he attack Switzerland. They have more freedoms.
Osama hated Us involvement in the mIddle east not freedoms.
"Hating our freedoms" when taking in a literal sense smacks of childish simplicity. So I will say no. I think he merely considered himself a freedom fighter.
It's on record that the attack was about our foreign policy and Israel, not about our freedom.
When Dub talked about "they" who hate our freedoms, I don't think he was talking about bin Laden, but rather the people who were really behind 9/11.
Consciously, Dubya was talking about Bin Laden, the Taliban, Al Quaeda and all others that he lumped together in his ludicrously-labeled and insanely mismanaged "War on Terror"...
But subsconciously, he may very well have been talking about himself and his "NEOCON" and "CHRISTIAN RIGHT" buddies - haters of freedom par excellence... especially OTHER PEOPLE'S freedom.
But who was behind Bin Laden, Al Queda, etc? Didn't the secret establishment get them started? That's who I think Bush was, perhaps subconsciously, talking about.
For that reason, it is very worthwhile to briefly examine — and debunk — the three principal myths being spread by supporters of this bill, and to do so very simply: by citing the relevant provisions of the bill, as well as the relevant passages of the original 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), so that everyone can judge for themselves what this bill actually includes (this is all above and beyond the evidence I assembled in writing about this bill yesterday): Myth # 1: This bill does not codify indefinite detention Section 1021 of the NDAA governs, as its title says, “Authority of the Armed Forces to Detain Covered Persons Pursuant to the AUMF.” The first provision — section (a) — explicitly “affirms that the authority of the President” under the AUMF ”includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons.” The next section, (b), defines “covered persons” — i.e., those who can be detained by the U.S. military — as “a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” With regard to those “covered individuals,” this is the power vested in the President by the next section, (c):
'Covered individuals' sounds like a euphemism for Muslims wearing traditional garb.
UPDATE:
"Condemnation of President Obama is intense, and growing, as a result of his announced intent to sign into law the indefinite detention bill embedded in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). These denunciations come not only from the nation’s leading civil liberties and human rights groups, but also from the pro-Obama New York Times Editorial Page, which today has a scathing Editorial describing Obama’s stance as “a complete political cave-in, one that reinforces the impression of a fumbling presidency” and lamenting that “the bill has so many other objectionable aspects that we can’t go into them all,” as well as from vocal Obama supporters such as Andrew Sullivan, who wrote yesterday that this episode is “another sign that his campaign pledge to be vigilant about civil liberties in the war on terror was a lie.” In damage control mode, White-House-allied groups are now trying to ride to the rescue with attacks on the ACLU and dismissive belittling of the bill’s dangers."
After giving the issue a lot of thought, I have concluded that what OWS really needs to do, in the short run, is to try to take back the Democratic party. We must either be able to take down the current system from the outside, a very hard thing to do (an in this regard I have advocated debt repudiation as being a tool with enough clout to actually have that effect, to limited interest), or we must take over the system. It is one or the other if we are to have any real effect.
I think there is enough disillusionment with Obama now within the Democratic party that we could force the party much father towards our agenda, if we attempt to do so. That is why I made the post "Occupy Democratic Headqueaters" on this forum.
You people don't know what you believe in so good luck trying to take back the Democratic Party. We are a party of hard working people, we don't want a bunch of pot heads that can't bring votes.
We know who YOU are.