Barack Obama's Cowardice

By Farol

(Updated Below)

So much for hope and change: Via Will Bunch, it seems as though Barack Obama won't do jack shit to prosecute Bush administration officials who have broken the law. (Watch the video here).

Obama starts off by saying he'd have his Justice Department thoroughly review the information we already have before doing anything. Fair enough. But he never actually says that any criminal wrongdoing should be prosecuted (they should be "investigated"). He claims that there needs to be a distinction between criminal lawbreaking and "very bad" policies. True—but the evidence of criminal lawbreaking is already ample. He says he wouldn't want to do anything that congressional Republicans would "perceive" as a "partisan witch-hunt." (The "perceptions" of a bunch of slimy dirtbags are more important than prosecuting a president who repeatedly broke the law.) Then, most absurdly, he claims that impeachment "wouldn't be a fruitful policy to pursue" because it should be reserved for "exceptional circumstances."

So starting a war under false pretenses, explicitly authorizing the torture of prisoners who have been denied their legal right to due process, spying on Americans without a warrant, creating a worldwide system of secret prisons, erecting a wall on the Mexican border that violates environmental and property laws, allowing your underlings at the DOJ to fire attorneys for political reasons, asserting your right to bypass any law you please—not a single one of these things, apparently, constitutes an "exceptional circumstance" for the hope-monger.

It is the height of naivete that the monstrous abuses of the Bush administration will simply go away when the prick leaves office. Because they have not been prosecuted, they have been accepted into the mainstream. If Bush can get away with this stuff, what's to stop the next president from doing the same? Nothing, because nobody—not even the benighted Obama—will do anything to enforce the law.

Many liberal bloggers complain, rightly, about the media's obvious and overwhelming bias in favor of John McCain. But they themselves are guilty of Obama-worship. They have tolerated his pandering and cowardly centrism for much too long. Time to take up arms and start demanding real change, along with real justice.

Update: Let's not forget about preventing states from providing health insurance to middle class children.

Blackwater's Contract Renewed

By Farol

Well, this is quite shocking. I mean, who could have guessed that after all the righteous outrage in Congress and the establishment press regarding Blackwater's killing of 17 civilians last September that...absolutely nothing would be done about it, and the mercenaries' contract would be renewed with barely a whisper of indignation from anybody?

Except, of course, for the Iraqi people themselves, who now have the renewed opportunity to be massacred at random. From Reuters:

BAGHDAD, April 5 (Reuters) - Iraqis expressed anger on Saturday at news the United States had renewed the contract of Blackwater, a private security firm blamed for killing up to 17 people in a shooting incident last year.

"Renewing this contract means we will see this sort of thing again in the streets," Abbas Hasoun, a grocer, said. "I wish we could turn the page on this, but keeping this company here means bloodshed will continue."

A traffic policeman who said he was questioned in Turkey by the FBI about the shooting was patrolling on Saturday the same busy traffic circle where the incident took place.

"I went to Turkey and testified about what I saw, but all my efforts were in vain when I heard the news," said the policeman who asked that his name not be published for security reasons.

But what the Iraqi people think does not, of course, matter to the corporate crooks who run the occupation of their country.

Make no mistake: Blackwater isn't going anywhere anytime soon, not even if the "progressive" Barack Obama wins the presidency. In a story that largely escaped the attention of the Obama-worshipping liberal blogosphere, Jeremy Scahill reported that Obama has explicitly refused to support legislation banning private contractors from Iraq.

Aren't you glad there are so many stark differences between our left-wing and right-wing candidates on foreign policy issues?