Barack Obama continues to flip flop on issues, often siding with Bush and Cheney in the past few weeks, (Banning Torture Photos, Guantanamo Bay Tribunals, Don't Ask Don't Tell) while leaks have started to reveal the details of the crimes the former president and vice president committed.
To this point, Obama has insisted Bush and Cheney will not be prosecuted - no matter the crime. Obama says the country needs to look forward, not backward. Then on another day Obama says he would be willing to prosecute Bush Administration officials for wrongdoing, but that's up to the Attorney General to decide. He's already learned to pass the buck.
Let's stop and look at the facts. Obama doesn't want the mess that prosecuting Bush and Cheney would bring. To some, it would look like retribution handed out by Democrats, and it would cast a permanent cloud over anything else Obama tries to accomplish. Then there's the fear that it would destroy any hopes of Obama getting re-elected for a second term. Obama is putting himself ahead of doing what is right for the country, and enforcing our laws. So much for Hope and Change.
In the last few weeks we've learned of cover-ups and intentional torture ordered just to procure false admissions of a relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq. Cheney and Rumsfeld ordered U.S. intelligence officers repeatedly, from 2002 through at least 2006, to torture and waterboard prisoners with the goal of gaining false confessions that would clear Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld of fabricating evidence to go to war.
Now we are also learning today that Rumsfeld gave daily inspirational photos of how well the Iraq war was going to Bush - complete with biblical scripture encouraging the president. (GQ.com has the full story, and see the 11 photos here) Rumsfeld was manipulating Bush, pressing Bush's religious buttons to further Rumsfeld's decisions, which were constantly under fire by current and former U.S. generals.
New York Times Columnist Frank Rich has seen the GQ story and photos and elaborates: "(Rumsfeld) was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”"
Rich says the 11 photos GQ is posting of Rumsfeld's personal reports to Bush, "they are seriously creepy."
We also learned a year ago that the Pentagon manipulated the American public by putting dozens of former generals and military personnel on television as unbiased military analysts who were secretely spreading the Pentagon's own talking points about how well the war was going. And we found out that those same "military analysts" were also working for defense contractors that had a multi-trillion dollar relationship with the Pentagon.
The Bush Administration's reaction to the Pentagon mole charges were to issue a bogus report 6 days before Bush left office last January, clearing the Pentagon of all wrongdoing. The report was so blatantly wrong that Obama had the report officially rescinded and wiped from the Department of Defense website. (View the PDF of the official withdrawal letter here)
What other crimes did Bush and co. exonerate themselves from?
Obama doesn't seem to care, only repeating that we need to look forward, not back, no matter how horrendous the crimes, no matter how many lives were killed. Thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's were killed over lies spouted by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. We haven't even put our toes in the water of appointing industry lobbyists to run the EPA, FDA, and every major government agency, or illegal wiretapping, cutting deals with UBS on tax fraud, outsourcing U.S. jobs, whitewashing the 9/11 findings, selling our ports and trains to the government of the United Arab Emirates - the same people who laundered the money the 9/11 terrorists used to attack us, etc., etc., etc. Crime, crime, crime, crime, crime. Add them up and you get Treason with a capitol T.
Yet, while 71% of Americans want Bush and Cheney held responsible for these and countless other crimes, Obama wants no part of it. (In a February 2009 poll, 41% of Americans want Bush prosecuted, while another 30% want an official investigation - only 25% of the country does not want Bush and Cheney held responsible)
To borrow from Jon Stewart - Obama's slogan during the election must have had a small disclaimer in fine print we didn't notice - YES WE CAN! (But we're not going to)
Obama is a coward doing what is best for his personal political future and ignoring what is best, what is needed, for our country.
This isn't Dick Cheney's view, it's mine, a Democrat who not only voted for Obama but campaigned for him for over a year. You can read hundreds of pro-Obama articles I wrote dating back to 2007. Obama this morning said despite Congress not giving him the money to close Guantanamo Bay, he will move those prisoners into U.S. prisons and it will be fine.
