Obama on Senate Floor

I still didn't get all the way through

I am at work and I don't have access to video files. No flash player installed, and I don't have permission to download it.

but rather he demanded oversight and reforms.

He was speaking about an admendment that would add a 5 year sunset clause to the
current Bush's tribunals as they were.

They like making shit up and spinning like crazy.

so of course, it has to be true! I mean, why would the lie? :sarcasm:

same shit different day

"Instead of allowing this President--or any President--to decide what does and does not constitute torture, we could have left the definition up to our own laws and to the Geneva Conventions"

and

"I am still disappointed because what we are doing here today, a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused, should be bigger than politics."

The policy is the thing, not any change of heart. When Congress approved the system, Obama called it "sloppy". What is different now?

They mainly consider O to be another Bush..or Bush 2.0.

We can support the President and still express disappointment with some of his moves, though. I'm irritated about Don't Ask Don't Tell but I will wait patiently as always for the real change being promised.

Or else that wouldn't have been your response.

You are obviously not working hard enough. Your bad.

WASHINGTON, May 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In response to President Barack Obama restarting the military commissions at the U.S.-controlled detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Amnesty International's executive director Larry Cox issued the following statement:



"President Obama is reinstating the same deeply-flawed military commissions that in June 2008 he called an 'enormous failure.' In one swift move, Obama both backtracks on a major campaign promise to change the way the United States fights terrorism and undermines the nation's core respect for the rule of law by sacrificing due process for political expediency.



"Whatever revisions the Obama administration has made to the commissions do not change the fact that the commissions do not provide an adequate standard of justice for the detainees nor the victims of terrorism -- they merely mock the U.S. Constitution, international laws and undermine fundamental human rights standards.



"What happened to President Obama's confidence in the U.S. justice system's ability to try detainees? He himself said that 'we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while we fight terrorism.'



"U.S. federal courts are a perfectly sound system to try any and all detainees. They have brought other terror suspects to justice, and there is no reason why these courts cannot continue to do the same."



Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

You just aren't. :shrug:

"Mr. McCain’s campaign did not respond to requests for comments about Guantánamo. The Obama campaign declined to comment specifically, but in his platform, Mr. Obama promises to abolish military tribunals and conduct a review to determine which prisoners to prosecute, which to hold under the laws of war and which to release. His proposal does not specify where detainees would be held."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/washington/21gitmo.html?ref=us

Obama knows how to parse words, we're finding that out daily.

Press release from Amnesty Internationl:

WASHINGTON, May 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In response to President Barack Obama restarting the military commissions at the U.S.-controlled detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Amnesty International's executive director Larry Cox issued the following statement:

"President Obama is reinstating the same deeply-flawed military commissions that in June 2008 he called an 'enormous failure.' In one swift move, Obama both backtracks on a major campaign promise to change the way the United States fights terrorism and undermines the nation's core respect for the rule of law by sacrificing due process for political expediency.

"Whatever revisions the Obama administration has made to the commissions do not change the fact that the commissions do not provide an adequate standard of justice for the detainees nor the victims of terrorism -- they merely mock the U.S. Constitution, international laws and undermine fundamental human rights standards.

"What happened to President Obama's confidence in the U.S. justice system's ability to try detainees? He himself said that 'we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while we fight terrorism.'

"U.S. federal courts are a perfectly sound system to try any and all detainees. They have brought other terror suspects to justice, and there is no reason why these courts cannot continue to do the same."

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

with his latest policy. Duh! :eyes:

When politifact says he breaks a promise they usually state what the promise was in words (and linked) and how what was done differentiates from that. They may feel that what he decided today doesn't "change the way the US fights terrorism and undermines the nation's core respect for the rule of law by sacrificing due process for political expediency," but he does. so if he feels today's decisions are a change then how can he be breaking a campaign promise to change how they go about it? just saying he's breaking a promise doesn't make it so. in this youtube video he clearly doesn't want to get rid of the court, just how they go about their business.

"Mr. McCain’s campaign did not respond to requests for comments about Guantánamo. The Obama campaign declined to comment specifically, but in his platform, Mr. Obama promises to abolish military tribunals and conduct a review to determine which prisoners to prosecute, which to hold under the laws of war and which to release. His proposal does not specify where detainees would be held."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/washington/21gitmo.html?ref=us

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 5 minutes 14 seconds
remaining.
Mr. BYRD. I yield 5 minutes to my friend, the distinguished Senator
from Illinois, Mr. Obama.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I thank my dear friend and colleague from
West Virginia.
I am proud to be sponsoring this amendment with the senior Senator
from West Virginia. He is absolutely right that Congress has abrogated
its oversight responsibilities, and one way to reverse that troubling
trend is to adopt a sunset provision in this bill. We did it in the
PATRIOT Act, and that allowed us to make important revisions to the
bill that reflected our experience about what worked and what didn't
work during the previous 5 years. We should do that again with this
important piece of legislation.
It is important to note that this is not a conventional war we are
fighting, as has been noted oftentimes by our President and on the
other side of the aisle. We don't know when this war against terrorism
might end. There is no emperor to sign a surrender document. As a
consequence, unless we build into our own processes some mechanism to
oversee what we are doing, then we are going to have an open-ended
situation, not just for this particular President but for every
President for the foreseeable future. And we will not have any formal
mechanism to require us to take a look and to make sure it is being
done right.
This amendment would make a significant improvement to the existing
legislation, and it is one of those amendments that would, in normal
circumstances, I believe, garner strong bipartisan support.
Unfortunately, we are not in normal circumstances.
Let me take a few minutes to speak more broadly about the bill before
us.
I may have only been in this body for a short while, but I am not
naive to the political considerations that go along with many of the
decisions we make here. I realize that soon--perhaps today, perhaps
tomorrow--we will adjourn for the fall. The campaigning will begin in
earnest. There are going to be 30-second attack ads and negative mail
pieces criticizing people who don't vote for this legislation as caring
more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans.
And I know that this vote was specifically designed and timed to add
more fuel to the fire.
Yet, while I know all of this, I am still disappointed because what
we are doing here today, a debate over the fundamental human rights of
the accused, should be bigger than politics. This is serious and this
is somber, as the President noted today.
I have the utmost respect for my colleague from Virginia. It saddens
me to stand and not be foursquare with him. I don't know a more
patriotic individual or anybody I admire more. When the Armed Services
bill that was originally conceived came out, I thought to myself: This
is a proud moment in the Senate. I thought: Here is a bipartisan piece
of work that has been structured and well thought through that we can
all join together and support to make sure we are taking care of
business.
The fact is, although the debate we have been having on this floor
has obviously shown we have some ideological differences, the truth is
we could have settled most of these issues on habeas corpus, on this
sunset provision, on a whole host of issues. The Armed Services
Committee showed us how to do it.
All of us, Democrats and Republicans, want to do whatever it takes to
track down terrorists and bring them to justice as swiftly as possible.
All of us want to give our President every tool necessary to do this,
and all of us were willing to do that in this bill. Anyone who says
otherwise is lying to the American people.
In the 5 years the President's system of military tribunals has
existed, the fact is not one terrorist has been tried, not one has been
convicted, and in the end, the Supreme Court of the United States found
the whole thing unconstitutional because we were rushing through a
process and not overseeing it with sufficient care. Which is why we are
here today.
We could have fixed all this several years ago in a way that allows
us to detain and interrogate and try suspected terrorists while still
protecting the accidentally accused from spending their lives locked
away in Guantanamo Bay. Easily. This was not an either-or question. We
could do that still.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, charged against the allocation under the
proponent of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The proponent has no time remaining.
Mr. WARNER. We are under fairly rigid time control, but I will give
the Senator from Illinois a minute.
Mr. OBAMA. I will conclude, then. I appreciate the Senator from
Virginia.
Instead of allowing this President--or any President--to decide what
does and does not constitute torture, we could have left the definition
up to our own laws and to the Geneva Conventions, as we would have if
we passed the bill that the Armed Services committee originally
offered.
Instead of detainees arriving at Guantanamo and facing a Combatant
Status Review Tribunal that allows them no real chance to prove their
innocence with evidence or a lawyer, we could have developed a real
military system of justice that would sort out the suspected terrorists
from the accidentally accused.
And instead of not just suspending, but eliminating, the right of
habeas corpus--the seven century-old right of individuals to challenge
the terms of their own detention, we could have given the accused one
chance--one single chance--to ask the Government why they are being
held and what they are being charged with.
But politics won today. Politics won. The administration got its
vote, and now it will have its victory lap, and now they will be able
to go out on the campaign trail and tell the American people that they
were the ones who were tough on the terrorists.
And yet, we have a bill that gives the terrorist mastermind of 9/11
his day in court, but not the innocent people we may have accidentally
rounded up and mistaken for terrorists--people who may stay in prison
for the rest of their lives.
And yet, we have a report authored by sixteen of our own Government's
intelligence agencies, a previous draft of which described, and I
quote, ``. . . actions by the United States government that were
determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite
detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay . . .''
And yet, we have al-Qaida and the Taliban regrouping in Afghanistan
while we look the other way. We have a war in Iraq that our own
Government's intelligence says is serving as al-Qaida's best
recruitment tool. And we have recommendations from the bipartisan 9/11
commission that we still refuse to implement 5 years after the fact.
The problem with this bill is not that it is too tough on terrorists.
The problem with this bill is that it is sloppy. And the reason it is
sloppy is because we rushed it to serve political purposes instead of
taking the time to do the job right.
I have heard, for example, the argument that it should be military
courts, and not Federal judges, who should make decisions on these
detainees. I actually agree with that.
The problem is that the structure of the military proceedings has
been poorly thought through. Indeed, the regulations that are supposed
to be governing administrative hearings for these detainees, which
should have been issued months ago, still haven't been issued. Instead,
we have rushed through a bill that stands a good chance of being
challenged once again in the Supreme Court.
This is not how a serious administration would approach the problem
of terrorism. I know the President came here today and was insisting
that this is supposed to be our primary concern. He is absolutely right
it should be our primary concern--which is why we should be approaching
this with a somberness and seriousness that this administration has not
displayed with this legislation.
Now let me make clear--for those who plot terror against the United

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State, I hope God has mercy on their soul, because I certainly do not.
For those who our Government suspects of terror, I support whatever
tools are necessary to try them and uncover their plot.
We also know that some have been detained who have no connection to
terror whatsoever. We have already had reports from the CIA and various
generals over the last few years saying that many of the detainees at
Guantanamo shouldn't have been there--as one U.S. commander of
Guantanamo told the Wall Street Journal, ``Sometimes, we just didn't
get the right folks.'' And we all know about the recent case of the
Canadian man who was suspected of terrorist connections, detained in
New York, sent to Syria, and tortured, only to find out later that it
was all a case of mistaken identity and poor information. In the
future, people like this may never have a chance to prove their
innocence. They may remain locked away forever.
The sad part about all of this is that this betrayal of American
values is unnecessary.
We could have drafted a bipartisan, well-structured bill that
provided adequate due process through the military courts, had an
effective review process that would've prevented frivolous lawsuits
being filed and kept lawyers from clogging our courts, but upheld the
basic ideals that have made this country great.
Instead, what we have is a flawed document that in fact betrays the
best instincts of some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--
those who worked in a bipartisan fashion in the Armed Services
Committee to craft a bill that we could have been proud of. And they
essentially got steamrolled by this administration and by the
imperatives of November 7.
That is not how we should be doing business in the U.S. Senate, and
that is not how we should be prosecuting this war on terrorism. When we
are sloppy and cut corners, we are undermining those very virtues of
America that will lead us to success in winning this war. At bare
minimum, I hope we can at least pass this provision so that cooler
heads can prevail after the silly season of politics is over.
I conclude by saying this: Senator Byrd has spent more time in this
Chamber than many of us combined. He has seen the ebb and flow of
politics in this Nation. He understands that sometimes we get caught up
in the heat of the moment. The design of the Senate has been to cool
those passions and to step back and take a somber look and a careful
look at what we are doing.
Passions never flare up more than during times where we feel
threatened. I strongly urge, despite my great admiration for one of the
sponsors of the underlying bill, that we accept this extraordinarily
modest amendment that would allow us to go back in 5 years' time and
make sure what we are doing serves American ideals, American values,
and ultimately will make us more successful in prosecuting the war on
terror about which all of us are concerned.
Thank you, Mr. President.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/s092806.html

Thanks, rug.