It’s Not Just A River In Egypt
Dr Cole gives his reaction to Obama’s press conference:
President Obama gave a news conference on Friday in which he addressed the controversy over Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding NSA spying on the American people.
This issue is a very difficult one for Mr. Obama, given that he came to it from civil libertarian position as a senator, but now is president. When you are president, you are president of the nearly one million NSA employees and contractors, who become your constituency– not to mention the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, much of the military, the Intelligence and Research Division of the State Department, etc., etc.
…Among the more shameful episodes in the Obama presidency has been his vindictiveness toward whistleblowers and his and Eric Holder’s eagerness to use the fascistic 1917 Espionage Act against them. Seymour Hersh, who provoked the last big reforms of US intelligence, would have been charged with espionage by Barack Obama and would either have been executed or would have been given life in prison. In this regard, Obama’s record is worse than Nixon’s.
…Mr. Obama at one point in his press conference called on Edward Snowden to come back to the United States and argue his case. I mean, really. This kind of disinformation and grandstanding can’t possibly be necessary, even given the constraints mentioned at the beginning of this essay. Mr. Obama knows very well that if Snowden returned to the US, we would never ever hear from him ever again. He’d go straight to a maximum security prison for the rest of his days on earth and die there.
…Mr. Obama is a very busy man and it is possible that he hasn’t read all of Glenn Greenwald’s Guardian articles on the Snowden revelations. He should. He is being briefed on this matter by people with a vested interest in keeping the surveillance programs going, and is not being given the whole truth.
I was in the Air Force component of the National Security Agency from 1966 to 1974. We covered: the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the North Yemen Civil War, two Arab-Israeli wars, Cuba, China, North Korea, Libya et al. The entire world was dealing with terrorist groups of every political flavor and cause, who were highjacking all modes of transportation, robbing banks, kidnapping people, blowing things up, gunning people down in the streets and transportation hubs, and generally being really annoying. The total personnel for the National Security Agency, military and civilian was under 40,000 people, which is why the Director of the Agency only rates three stars. ‘Alexander the Geek’ has four stars because he talked people into the creation of Cyber Command and giving it to him. It is highly unlikely that all of Cyber Command, which includes NSA, has 100,000 people, even with the contractors.
Dr Cole just can’t give up on his belief that Obama is a liberal Democrat. That is totally unsupported by the facts. His voting record in the Senate was the same as his personally chosen mentor, Joe LIEberman. He claimed he was going to oppose amnesty for the telecoms who assisted with Bush’s totally illegal wire-tapping, but not only voted for it, he encouraged other Democratic Senators to vote for it.
He knows what Snowden leaked, and he is angry about it. He had no intention of changing the illegal spying on Americans, spying that he approved of from the beginning. He goes after whistleblowers because he is worse than Nixon in many ways, but then he really doesn’t believe in any of the core principles of the Democratic Party. He is a Reagan Republican, which is why he keeps making references to Reagan, and always has.
2 comments
I already commented on the reverse racism of a number of white liberals. Having never spent time with the black middle class on a daily basis, they are completely clueless as to how the black middle class thinks. The only blacks they see on a regular basis are liberal academics, so the notion that blacks could be conservative just results in a mind freeze and “does not compute”.
I taught at a couple of schools where the majority of staff were black and learned how the black middle class thinks the old fashioned way — by talking with them. They’re all about God, moral values, and upright living. The only reason the black middle class aren’t Republicans is because today’s Republicans are so obviously racist lunatics. If today’s Republicans were actual conservatives rather than a bunch of radical lunatics bent on reshaping American society into their image, it would be the natural home for the black middle class.
When Obama was running for President back in 2007-2008 I looked at his actual policies in his speeches and on his web site, looked at how the Kossaks were falling all over him as the Great Liberal Hope, and was utterly baffled. Because he seemed to be pretty much standard conservative black middle class. Great Liberal Hope? In what universe? But white liberals who’ve never spent any time actually, well, talking to black middle class people just can’t see it. Sigh.
On the other hand, I do have to give Obama credit for a couple of liberal things, like changing his mind on gay marriage. Of course, that was after he said he was against gay marriage but credit him with that little bit, at least. There was one other liberal thing he did, but I forgot. Tells you how consequential it must have been :).
You and I were among the few voices that noted he wasn’t a liberal. You came to the conclusion in late 2007, and I committed to it in January of 2008.
He ‘evolved’ on gay marriage when he could no longer hide. If he had been liberal/progressive he would have been leading, not following Joe Biden. He waited to see which way things would go before he said anything.