[Rainy Parade]

Originally Posted by 12thMan

I really tried my best just to read through the posts and move on, but I just want to say a few things and let it be.

Firstdown, a few of your assertions are just flat out off base. One of the chief criticisms of President Obama's foreign policy is that it's not a radical departure from Georg Bush. In fact, except for some changes to the interrogation techniques and the personnel actually conducting the interrogation, most people on the right, and I've said this before, have no problem with how he's executing the war on terror and more broadly his foreign policy.

As far as the usage of the word enemy combatants v. the word terrorist v. criminal, I don't know. He called this last guy a terrorist for what it's worth. But these guys aren't stopping because we choose to use one word vs the other, and I'm 100% certain they don't give a shit whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House. We tend to cast these aspersions and question who's more patriotic and who's tougher on war, but terrorists just want to inflict massive damage and kill tens of thousands, if not millions of innocent Americans. So can we put to rest this argument that Obama is not tough (contrary to tons of evidence) and his predecessor was a bad ass. The fact that we've had something like 3 prosecutions in military tribunals vs. nearly 300 in a civilian courts should be an indication of how tough it is to get an actual conviction in military court. So again, the issue isn't whether we call them enemy combatants or terrorists or anything else, but where are we most likely to get a conviction. And regardless of your politics, our civilian courts have been overwhelmingly successful at putting these bastards away for life!

Buster, a simple question - What is Obama doing different from Bush or any other president in terms of giving rights when and where needed to terrorists according to the rule of law? As far as this recent incident, how do you suppose we get around the Constitution and try an American citizen as a terrorist and not read him his rights where there's no precedent for it?

good post, thanks.

even "liberals" like Glenn Greenwald constantly hammer obama with criticism on the fact that he is just like Bush as far as not giving due process/fair trials to these guys.