Apples and pineapples, i-node. Many are campaign promises. Those tend to crumble when faced with reality. For example, closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay seemed a no-brainer. There was no predicting the number of Republicans and Democrats who would go apeshit over any attempt to do that. Funding was removed to relocate them to the US and the fact that many of their home countries didn't want them back made it very difficult to close it. For some, like the Chinese Uyghurs, we had reason to believe they had nothing to do with terrorism and if returned would be tortured or worse. So we wound up paying other countries to take them. It would have made sense to bring them to the US and try them in criminal courts. Just like we used to and other countries still do.
I sincerely hope I never get to the point that I believe campaign promises don't count.
At to Guantanamo, it didn't seem to be a no-braner. GWB knew it wasn't a no-brainer. And he realized you couldn't try people in courts of law where they were captured on a battlefield where there are no rules of evidence.
The reality that set in is that if you try these people in a court of law some of them are going to walk out onto a NYC street as free men, a politically untenable outcome. In the end, illegally trading them away for a deserter was the only option, which, of course, violated one of Obama's "principles" -- that we don't negotiate.
These lies may, in some cases, have been mere incompetence; you can't expect much from a man who has never accomplished anything of significance in his life, never held any real responsibility, and had no meaningful work experience. Still, he said, and they are no different from any of the so-called "lies" you cited except for the fact they are more important. |
