Forum Post: Why I don't blame Obama for signing the NDAA...
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 2, 2012, 8:10 p.m. EST by toukarin
(488)
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President Barack Obama signed a sweeping US defense funding bill on Saturday which includes new sanctions on financial institutions dealing with Iran’s central bank, and curtailing up to $850 million in aid to Pakistan. The bill was signed despite concerns about sections that expand the US military’s authority over terrorism suspects and limit his powers in foreign affairs.
The massive defense bill Congress passed on earlier in December freezes 60 per cent of the $850 million aid, or $510 million, until the US defense secretary provides lawmakers with assurances that Pakistan is working to counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs). US lawmakers say that many Afghan bombs that kill US troops are made with fertiliser smuggled by militants across the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
(excerpt from: http://tribune.com.pk/story/314833/obamas-new-years-gift-signs-bill-freezing-aid-to-pakistan/)
But the weapon that has grown quickly to become the most hated among government forces battling insurgencies is doubtless the improvised explosive device (IED). Relatively cheap and easy to make and transport, the IED is the biggest killer of U.S., NATO and government troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. A staggering 80% of the IEDs planted in Afghanistan, and 90% of U.S. casualties there, can be traced to IED bomb-making chemicals that come from two legal factories in Pakistan. And while NATO forces know where the factories are, and the brokers who sell the materials, there has so far been nothing they can do to stop the flow of bomb-making chemicals to Afghan insurgents, according to Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, head of the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization
Obama basically had no choice, they had packaged the rendition and detention without trial of US citizens along with a whole bunch of really necessary items...
A statesman stands up for principle. A politician compromises principles away. The Constitution is a statement of principle that Obama refuses, REPEATEDLY, to stand up for.
This is typical of the Republicans and Democrats. It is why I no longer believe in either party. Assholes!
Obama is the EXECUTIVE. He had a choice. He has VETO power. His first responsibility is to DEFEND the Constitution and the American people. All other issues are secondary. If Obama does not have the spine for the job, then we should kick his sorry chicken shit jelly fish ass out !
Would you fuck with the president of your employer's company? Probably not. He would fire your ass.
With a 99 to 1 passage by the Senate, his veto would have been overturned in a heartbeat. By promising to sign it if certain provisions were dropped, at least he was able to circumvent the most egregious parts of the law.
I kind of get that. But then I ask, why didn't he just stand on principal and veto it anyway, thus making them the assholes who made the choice.
Two reasons: the soldiers in the field and their families have to get paid. That's the most important thing.
There is also the issue of politics: it would shed no better light on his own party than on the Repelicans to veto the legislation as a whole, and could hurt their chances (and further hurt his) for re-election. Without the cooperation of leaders in his own party - by virtue of alienating them - he would have even less of a chance of passing needed legislation in every other area.
It never fails when Repelicans paint Democrats as soft on security. It is utterly cynical and inaccurate, but effective, and causes real damage, like this legislation. Without a filibuster-proof Senate and with a congress dominated by repelicans, no other legislation could ever have come to the president's desk.
The one silver lining is that Dianne Feinstein's amendment combined with his signing statements have virtually guaranteed the law can't be applied to US citizens or resident aliens as long as he remains president. And since this appropriation bill comes up once every year, it can be changed relatively soon if the political winds shift even a little.
For one thing, the soldiers in the field and their families would have got paid had Obama vetoed the bill. As you yourself previously pointed out the Congress could have overrode his veto, and as I have mentioned several times and you have failed to address, there is the prime example of the 1880 Army Authorization Act vetoed by President Hayes on the premise that language regarding Posse Comitatus had been wholly inappropriately attached to a military spending bill. The troops and their families were paid, Congress was chastised, and this legislation "of the gravest character" was properly and separately addressed at a later date. You do not "support our troops" by signing authoritarian legislation at home. They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the executive branch of our government. Politically to take a stand rather than backslide would have been advantageous to him with a different portion of his base. But that argument is not one I wish to engage in, I would prefer to stick to the facts at hand which clash with your repeated apologist statements. The signing statements have been derided many times as useless, and despite your insistence that in practice they would be obeyed, the very issuance of a signing statement is another broken campaign promise and in light of the nearly 1000 years of precedent Obama could have drawn on for support of a veto, they are nothing more than political theater to make a case to assuage the public that he didn't approve of the measures Levin has already exposed him of demanding to be included in the bill. Veto was a perfectly legitimate choice, and your argument regarding paying the soldiers in the field is tired and demonstrably flawed, as are your statements regarding the nature of signing statements, which amount to nothing more than a promise that is in no way legally binding. And coming from a government which has been shown to routinely twist legality for it's own convenience, I at least am not willing to accept "I could do it, but trust me, I won't" nor should any reasonably sane person.
If you read further on this thread, you will see that i retracted my statement. I agree: he should have vetoed the bill.
Also, "this bill" does not come up every year. A different appropriations bill, with different riders undoubtedly attached, will come up every year. Your closing statement is at best misleading in stating that "it can be changed relatively soon if the political winds shift even a little", as it paints a picture that this very bill and amendment will again be on the floor of Congress. The only way this bill will now go away is if the offending provisions are repealed and that is an entirely separate action, unrelated to any future spending bills.
This is directly from the Congressional Record of December 15, 2011 as stated by the White House Press Secretary: "We have been clear that ``any bill that challenges or contrains the President's critical authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the Nation would prompt the President's senior advisers to recommend a veto.'' After intensive engagement by senior administration officials and the President himself, the Administration has succeeded in prompting the authors of the detainee provisions to make several important changes, including the removal of problematic provisions. While we remain concerned about the uncertainty that this law will create for our counterterrorism professionals, the most recent changes give the President additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country's strength." In simpler terms, the only concern the White House had regarding the NDAA was that the initial language unduly restricted the PRESIDENT from ordering detainments, as the original language left that power with Congress. The ONLY CONCERN OBAMA EXPRESSED was that the original bill restricted the power of the Executive branch, and the changes HE REQUESTED codified the detainment authority they have been claiming. To claim that he opposed these measures in any way flies in the face of the printed records of his own White House which can be read in full here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r112:1:./temp/~r112TstsBw:e289031:
A damned if I do, damned if I don't situation. Been there. Nice summary btw. You're very good at analyzing politics.
Can Obama fire Congress?
He just got dealt a bad hand at a bad time.
My bias towards supporting this action is chiefly because I have lost friends to IED's...
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin, February 17, 1775.
I've been quoting this since high school but everyone would rather be safe and no one cares about liberty in my town.
...He could hold a press conference explaining these things and that he didn't want to sign the bill, but of course he wanted to sign it anyway. What made you believe his campaign promises?
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Obama could have taken an action such as Hayes, made a statement, vetoed the legislation and Congress would have likely returned the same bill sans the detention language. He had an immense amount of precedent he could have stood on in vetoing that legislation had he actually been offended by the language. Saying "look over here" and pointing at the Pakistan issues is like me executing a bunch of militants against a wall, and when you want to talk about that with me I don't have anything to say except that the wall I executed them against was that of the gym for the school my corporation just donated millions to build and if I hadn't gone forward with the execution the board wouldn't have approved the donation because it was part of the same package. Except, in corporate America that kind of economic blackmail is acceptable. In the White House, it isn't.
Your friends deserved the IEDs. They volunteered to invade another sovereign nation, to steal its resources and murder its people for greedy corporations. What would you do if the Chinese army invaded the USA? You would be building IEDs in your basement.
Afghanistan is Vietnam part 2. Iraq is Vietnam part 3. Libya is Vietnam part 4. I work in Vietnam. You should visit Hanoi sometime. They will explain the solution to your whiny, cry baby, diaper bottom. Every family in Hanoi lost someone to US bombers.
Try to whine about Afghan IEDs taking out your friends to a family in Hanoi who lost their mother, father, and grandparents to US bombers. They will give you an "education", after you spit out your teeth.
I don't fault Afghans for building IEDs anymore than I would fault the public torture and execution of anyone caught doing so were it to occur. War is a dirty business, and IEDs (both their creation and the suppression of the people caught creating them) are now part of that business. Vietnam and Iraq should never have happened, but I am fully behind Afghanistan and Libya for reasons that should be self-evident to anyone who pays attention.
People like you don't look at things that way; they don't see shades of grey, or the lesser of two (or three or four, or ten) evils, or muddling through a hostile situation trying to clean up the messes of your forebears and protect yourself at the same time. All people like you see is black and white, us and them. The only difference between you and your strawman jingoistic idiot who cheers when somebody tosses a grenade into an orphanage "just to teach those fuckin' ragheads a lesson they ain't never gonna forgit" is that you identify "them" as your own fucking people which makes you not just an extremist but a traitor as well. Get lost.
And computer cowards like you have never dared to venture outside the borders of your safe country.
Congenital heart defect; otherwise there's a decent chance I'd be at one of the US military academies instead of MIT, and the fact that you can sling insults at me from wherever you happen to be right now in no way bolsters your position. I want to serve my country, and I may well wind up mixed up in the DoD by the time I'm thirty. I'll never be able to strap an M16 to my back and get on a C130 myself, but taking cheap shots at those who can and do is no way to earn yourself anything but a cracked skull if you had the balls to say those things to their faces.
Oh a wannabee. Excuses, excuses. Still live with mommy and daddy? Are you typing on mommy's computer? Maybe you are wearing fishnet stockings now? Life is not one of those Marvel comic books that you buy with daddy's money, honey.
I grew up working poor in the Bronx and got where I am now because we all gave up damn near everything to make sure my sister and I could get out and make a better life for ourselves. I owe my community and my country a debt for that, a debt that Mr. Vegas over here is probably too busy whoring and gambling it up to have any comprehension of. Most of the men and women in the military come from backgrounds not too different from mine, and for them it's a means of simultaneously protecting and achieving the American Dream.
Do I believe that every war is right? No. Do I believe that Vietnam was an incredible foreign policy blunder and a massive waste of life? Absolutely. Do I believe that Iraq was a good idea, or that we should have even considered authorizing it until we could find our asses? Of course not. Jumping from that to "soldiers are a bunch of murderous psychopaths who deserve what they get" marks you as nothing more than a demagogue and a fool.
I never said that. I said that soldiers are a bunch of chain smoking, high school drop outs, who could not get jobs a McDonalds. So the military was their last option for employment. Soldiers like taking showers with other guys. The military teaches soldiers to become obedient, boot licking ass kissers, just like Colin Powell.
The Bronx is a putrid toilet, and I know you have been screwing your sister.
And now I have no further reason to converse with you, as it is now obvious that you are merely a troll seeking to elevate everyone's blood pressure rather than someone who actually wants to discuss the issues.
The people were against this measure. He could have made it a great PR moment. Levin says OBAMA is the one that requested taht language in it.
He's a traitor, the half that voted for him got played.
And Obama did not deny it.
He had to get that language in there or the funding to lock racist haters like you guys, AND ALL REPELICANS, the hell away without any charges or a trial, would not be there! Go FEMA!!!
VOTE DEMOCRAT!
This is sarcasm i assume... LOL With a few of the people here it makes it hard to tell.
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I'm all for indefinite detention of yall crazy ass anti-democrats.
I hate you if you aren't a democrat and speak out against my furor.
ROFL
Stop patronizing me or I'll fill my panties up with liquid tootsie rolls.
i can't breath stop.
GOOD! Maybe your right wing Koch whore ass will die and that will be more welfare money for GFN's like me and WhoreFridaySaturdaySundayMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursday.
Huge savings of NDAA money if you future detainees die on fishing or hunting acci.... errrr ummm trips or have fart attacks! Momoney for us socialist liberal lazy fucks!!!!!
Do the Democraps proud, if you know of near retards or dirt poor neanderthals, show them porn movies so they learn how to procreate and make millions more! This is the future hope of the Demotard party!
Rock ON!
Where as i find you funny i will not participate in bumping this thread anymore. Maybe on another non-apologist thread. The fact is Obama ordered Americans be included in this bill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_ysdsxF3eo , not that i would agree to it for any forigners either. If someone is guilty you should be able to prove them guilty PERIOD.
The common law philosophy "Its better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man is wrongfully convicted" .. Coined by English jurist, William Blackstone. There are many variations on the number (called the "N-Controversy"), for example, Ben Franklin set it at 100.
I hear you. Anyone that makes excuses for anyone in the District of Criminals that had ANY PART in voting this into law, needs to have their ears clean with sledge hammers.
Rock on and don't let the masses of idiots here drag you down.
It's an election year ... and Obama hasn't exactly been willing to fight for his principles (whatever his principles are, I'm not even sure anymore). If I vote for him next fall, it will only be because the alternative is much worse (assuming there's no viable third party candidate, which looks unlikely).
U gotta be a moron to defend Obama...its not even funny man...
Since he is only a puppet, of course you're correct. Puppets follow orders or face terminal consequences. The only question to ask is why would any decent human being agree to become the puppet of monstrous criminals who control Planet Earth. The answer is that anyone who accepts such a role is NOT a decent human being.
Didn't Obama ask congress to add the detention language I've seen the letter.
In 1880 President Hayes was faced with a similar situation. The Army Authorization Act had been amended to include new protections against the use of the military in domestic law enforcement -- one of the first appearances of Posse Comitatus. Like our current President, Hayes opposed restrictions on the use of the military in domestic law enforcement. On the grounds that it was inappropriate to attach legislation of the "gravest character" to a bill necessary to fund the Army, Hayes chided Congress and vetoed the bill. Congress sent it back to him without the offending provisions , the military got their money, and eventually we had our Posse Comitatus to provide us the protections that Obama and Congress have so ironically stripped us of in the current 2012 NDAA. Those protections are evident in legal documents dating back to the 1215 Magna Carta and historically asserted as the Law of the Land even prior to then. The fact is, Obama would have been standing on nearly 1000 years of legal precedent and shared experience had he done the right thing and vetoed this bill rather than let it cross his desk as is, and Congress would have been forced to resubmit it without the offending provisions. If they chose to effectively blackmail him by modifying other provisions that fallacy would have been theirs. You do not "support the troops" by consolidating authoritarian powers with the executive branch and therefor undermining the freedoms they are sworn to defend. That is not what our military fights for. It was General Dwight D. Eisenhower who warned when he left office that "good judgment seeks balance and progress...This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience...we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society...We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." and it was Barack Obama who at his 2009 inauguration told us to "reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" and that is exactly the choice that bad legislation like this attempts to force on us by challenging our elected officials to make bold decisions like that of President Hayes and not be bullied by special interests. Personally I believe that Obama was not bullied, as a constitutional lawyer he should know full well he could have vetoed that bill without significant consequence, but rather he likely (as Rep Levin pointed out) sponsored the legislation in question and is merely using clever rhetoric to assuage his political base. As for Hayes, I will end with his statement regarding the 1880 Defense Authorization Act and his scathing critique of congress for attempting the same thing, over 100 years ago. "The bill provides in the usual form the appropriations required for the support of the Army during the next fiscal year. If it contained no other provisions, it would receive my prompt approval. It includes, however, further legislation, which, attached, as it is, to appropriations which are requisite for the efficient performance of some of the most necessary duties of the Government, involves questions of the gravest character...This section is, however, not presented to me as a separate and independent measure, but is, as has been stated, attached to the bill making the usual annual appropriations for the support of the Army... This is altogether foreign to the purpose of an ‘Army appropriations bill.'" -- President Rutherford B. Hayes
this reminds me of the movie War of the worlds where those giant machines rove around the landscape and their enormous arms reach down and just pluck which ever ever people they want. Now the arms of the USA can extend anywhere in the world and just simply pluck whoever they want no questions asked. What an introduction to 2012.
How do you propose to track (in a third world country nonetheless) the source-to-end-use whereabouts of every grain of agricultural fertilizer in Pakistan? If such a costly system were installed, what do you suppose would happen to the cost of food in Pakistan? Well, I guess we can give them more food aid...
Afghanistan 2001 – 2011
"Enemy" Combatants Killed: 38,000
Collateral Civilian Fatalities: 34,000 (Including 15,750 Children)
How do you justify the murder of 15,750 Afghan children? Have you lost 15,750 friends to IEDs? You are a perfect example of the selfish, self obsessed American pig. You whine incessantly about your own inconveniences, but like a serial killer, you are unable to feel the excruciating agony you inflict upon your victims.
You're another Obama Drone that has yet to wise up.
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That is what I've been saying -
It isn't like the President could simply not fund the troops while they are in a war zone - as much as the anti-war folks would like to think he could.
I'm all in favor of repealing indefinite detention - but we have to look at all of the legislation behind it and not just a couple of provisions contained in this single bill.
Yeah I'll blame Obama when my carcass is rotting in limboland.
the buck stops where?
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THE MAN HAD TO SIGN IT and I'll tote his jock two thousand miles if he merely whistles. Grow you racists.
I heard Ann Coulter and Mark Levin tied him to a chair and lacerated his nipples with a weed eater to make him sign it.
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