OK, I’ll say it again, I REALLY WANT PRESIDENT OBAMA TO SUCCEED! If you’ve been on this site much before, you probably can anticipate what’s coming next – and you’re right – I’m going to criticize our new President (I wanted to use the term “blast,” but I don’t think it’s quite time for that yet – but, if you read this and agree at all with my thoughts, please write to him – maybe if enough people write, he will start acting like the candidate we all voted for – or, at least thought we were voting for). There’s about three things in particular I want to “get off of my chest” these last couple of days before I encounter an extended time of rehab for a major surgery that all I can tell you assuredly that I’m MOST THANKFUL TO NOT BE AMONG THE 50 MILLION AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE! First is President Obama’s performance (or lack thereof) as a leader in getting our troops out of the “mistaken occupation” of Iraq. The second is his continued support of the “State’s Secret” policy used by the Bush administration to hide their (and possibly his) illegal warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, and the last is – well, you guessed it – my TOTAL DISCOURAGEMENT with the fact I voted for a President who is willing to ignore WAR CRIMES! (there’s more, but read some of my previous posts if you want a broader range of my unhappiness with our new President).

OK, today is June 30th – “Iraqi Freedom day” – that is, the day the Iraqi’s and the Bush administration agreed that the “surge” would effectively come to an end. And, it’s true that the surge accomplished one important thing – it reduced the level of violence in many of the worst neighborhoods in Iraq (what it didn’t do was cause the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds to reconcile – in any way). Essentially, the Americans started paying the Iraqi Sunni’s to stop shooting at them and to start cleaning up the “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia” mess – that no one, particulary the Iraqi’s themselves, liked. Al Qaeda was not only killing people, they were doing it in the most brutal and disgusting manor, so that the Iraqi’s themselves finally aligned with the Americans, who they despised, to quash them. In the process, the Americans armed something in excess of 100,000 Iraqi Sunni’s – who still hate and distrust the Iraqi Shia. And, it wouldn’t take a brain scientist to figure out that the Iraqi Shia (the sect that essentially controls the government) doesn’t trust the Sunni Awakening, which consists of many of the “lieutenants” of Saddam Hussein’s Republican guard. In addition to paying the Sunni’s to stop shooting at Americans and to fight Al Qaeda, the Americans essentially moved into the neighborhoods that were the most violent and put themselves between the warring factions. Essentially, the Americans focused on protecting the Iraqi’s instead of terrorizing them as they had for the first 4 years of the occupation – IT’S WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING FROM DAY ONE – but the damage from the previous four years had been done, and the Iraqi’s wanted (and want) the Americans, understandably, out of their country. Iraqi Freedom day signifies the day when the Iraqi’s took over the control of their own country.

Now, I’m not totally naive. There are still 130,000 American troops in Iraq and if violence intensifies I wouldn’t expect them to sit idly by and watch the country go into a civil war. Based on what I’ve read, it’s the presence of the American troops in these neighborhoods which is preventing this from happening and our military leaders are predicting that our presence, realistically, needs to be there for another ten to twenty years. UGHHH! Well, getting back to President Obama. He campaigned – and quite convincingly – that he would get our troops home in 16 months. Realistically, for that to happen he would have to have started the pullout shortly after taking office. He’s been in office for nearly six months now and we still have the “pre-surge” number of troops in Iraq – and, I haven’t heard anything about a “time-table” to get them out – other than the Iraqi’s are to vote in July, I believe, about getting ALL Americans out of THEIR country by the end of July 2010. At one brigade a month (which is what I’ve heard would be a reasonable time frame for moving out) that isn’t possible – I believe there’s something like 15 brigades still over there. Plus, in the next month or so, the Iraqi’s are going to be “in control” and I am curious what President Obama will do if the sectarian violence escalates again (keep in mind, Osama bin Laden would like nothing better than to have the U.S. bogged down in an endless conflict in a Shia nation – so, I’m guessing he’ll try to “stir” things up a bit).

So far, in my view, Obama has shown little to no leadership on this issue. It appears to me that he’s just waiting for the time frame established by President Bush to guide us out of there (with the caveat that he’s already stated that he wants to leave 50,000 “no-combat” troops over there). Here’s how it looks to me – by following the Bush timetable Obama can avoid a “fight” with Republicans over the Iraq issue – so he can concentrate on other things, as he might say. THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE TO ME! I would have never voted for him had I known how he was going to deal with this. Honestly, it would be less discouraging for me to have some Republican in office than to have the Democrat I voted for “cow-towning” to Republicans – the people who inflicted this horrendous misadventure on us all. We are continuing to spend huge amounts of money on something that is tearing this nation apart – I realize Iraq has moved from the front page of the news because of the economy – BUT WE’RE STILL SPENDING 10+ BILLION PER MONTH ON AN ILLEGAL OCCUPATION! Yes, it’s long past time for the Iraqi’s to solve their own problems and as long as we stay there, the Sunni and Shia will not have to figure out how to “get along.” Whatever the final outcome is going to be, it won’t be dictated by us – and I would have thought (and I trusted) that President Obama “got that.”

My second problem with President Obama is his continuation of the Bush wiretapping of Americans. Recently I read an article in “The Washington Spectator” regarding the “Al-Haramain v. Bush” lawsuit which has been brought by lawyers for a (now defunct) Islamic charity that was located in Portland, Oregon and which re-affirms what I’ve been “harping” about since shortly after President Obama took office. The “gist” of the case is that the Bush administration labled this charity a “terrorist” organization (or something along those lines) based on wiretapping evidence that was clearly in violation of the FISA satutes of 1978. Now, everyone knows that Bush and company violated that statute an undetermined number of times (probably at least in the thousands – but, who knows given the data-mining capability that they developed during their administration). The penalty for each violation (it’s a felony) is 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. I don’t know if you remember President Bush, on national TV, stating that if the government listens to a phone converstation “They need a warrant.” Well, as in other instances, President Bush was perfectly willing to adhere to the “Nixon doctrine” that “If the President does it, it must be legal.”

Sadly, President Obama seems to be going along with this. In the case of the Al-Haramain case President Obama (now, I know it’s his justice department arguing the cases, but – come on – President Obama is a constitutional scholar, we know who’s calling the “shots” here) is taking the identical stance as President Bush and claiming the “States Secrets” doctrine prevents the lawyers for Al-Haramain from presenting evidence in court which would prove their case. It seems the lawyers were inadvertently mailed copies of phone logs which show that phone calls to them had been intercepted and listened to, illegally, by the federal government. In fact, these lawyers have stated in court that if the government will just show their FISA warrant, the case will be over. Of course, they haven’t shown it, because they didn’t get it, and therefore they are using this states secret doctrine to protect themselves from the legal consequences of violating this law. As much as I want President Bush to be held accountable for his illegal activities I DON’T WANT PRESIDENT OBAMA TO BE FOLLOWING HIS LEAD. If President Obama continues to protect Bush on this one (the case will be resumed in September), as far as I’m concerned, he becomes just as guilty.

It says in the article I read that there is no evidence they could find that President Obama is continuing the Bush wiretapping policies. But, I’m saying right here, that why else would he defend this unconstitutional activity in court? I believe the NSA is still “data-mining” phone calls and emails, just as they were doing under Bush at the end of his term. Now, if you remember, Obama inexplicably voted in favor of the FISA bill in Congress during the campaign, saying he would “fix” it once in office. Well, just as in his Iraq complicity, I believe the same thing is happening with the wiretapping. And, if this becomes public knowledge, President Obama could be terribly weakened as far as his public support. WE REALLY ARE EXPECTING SOMETHING – A LOT – DIFFERENT!

Ok, I’ll end this with my disgust with President Obama’s refusal to hold the Bush administration accountable for torture. I’m almost done reading “The Ballad of Abu Ghraib” and it is disgusting what America has been doing during this so-called “War on Terror” whatever that is. The treatment of prisoners (many of whom should never have been in custody in the first place) happened very consistently in Abu Ghraib, in Afganistan, in Guantanamo, and in other parts of the world. Prisoners have been abused in the most deplorable of ways and an undetermined number of them have been killed through torture. It’s like we are becoming like the people we are supposed to be against. I was listening to a radio show the other day – the Ed Schultz show – and I had an interesting thought. Schultz, if you haven’t listened to him, is a real “blue collar” kind of guy. To me, he’s usually “right on” (keep in mind, I was a sawmill worker before I became a teacher) and he was questioning why President Obama wasn’t more assertive in the campaign to have a “Public Option” included in the health plan. Schultz was comparing President Obama’s responses to questions with the responses of Republicans like Charles Grassley and Lindsay Graham who, when asked about whether or not there will be a public option in the final health care bill, flatly stated NO! President Obama and his surrogates seem to have difficulty with using yes or no answers. They continually “beat around the bush” suggesting to people like me – and Mr. Schultz – that the Republcans are still weilding WAY TOO MUCH POWER – seeing as how they are down to 40 members of the Senate.

My thought: the reason Obama seems so un-assertive on this issue is BECAUSE HE IS! The evidence is mounting up to support that being the case. As I’ve stated in previous posts, the Republican’s main argument about Democrats is that they are weak. Unfortunately, I’m feeling like President Obama is falling into that trap as he tries to “reach across the isle. The fact that he won’t allow prosecution of the Bush administration for torture (and other crimes), the support of the State Secrets doctrine regarding the illegal wiretapping, and the apparent lack of courage to just get our troops out of Iraq are almost overwhelming evidence to me that THERE WON’T BE A PUBLIC OPTION in the health care bill, if there is a bill at all. In fact, I’m anticipating that I will be paying a tax on the health care benefits that I receive from my employer when all is said and done – now, if you don’t remember who’s proposal that was – it was JOHN MCCAIN’S PROPOSAL during the last campaign. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT, WE VOTED FOR OBAMA, BUT WE’RE STILL IN IRAQ (MCCAIN’S PROPOSAL), WE’RE STILL WIRETAPPING (MCCAIN’S PROPOSAL), AND WE’RE LIKELY TO HAVE MCCAIN’S PROPOSAL FOR HEALTH CARE!

All of this is very discouraging to me (and I believe the general tone of what is happening is permeating the other issues, such as global warming and the economy) where I’m seeing a President who should be castagating Republicans for the malfeasance they’ve put on ALL OF US – but, instead, seems to have this overwhelming desire to “bring people together.” I’ll say it once more – the way to bring people together is to make a stand on principle that restores the ideals of this nation. Being “nice” to Republicans will go NOWHERE! Regarding the condoning of torture (and make no mistake about it, by “looking the other way” President Obama is condoning it – no matter what he says. Remember, Republicans will be back, and the way Obama’s going about this it will be “sooner rather than later”) – when we allow our government to condone torture, we, as a people, are condoning torture! And, if you don’t understand how disgusting we were during the Bush years, read “The Ballad of Abu Ghraib” and keep in mind that the orders for what these soldiers were doing came from the White House – and, the same kind of stuff (and worse) was happening in several other places around the globe.