Guantanamo Illinois

"To all those who repeatedly claimed that, no matter what 'mistakes' he might make and regardless of the scope of the devastating effects of those errors, Obama had to represent a markedly better choice than McCain, take note: in certain respects, Obama is far more dangerous than McCain could have been. For the same reasons, Obama is also more dangerous than Bush was. " - Arthur Silber

Once again, Barack Obama has accomplished what George W. Bush never could. There was a method to the madness of establishing this secret police apparatus off shore. The Bush administration were opening up a whole new legal territory, and believed they needed to keep "enemy combatants" off of American soil in order to justify their actions.

But along comes Obama. He claimed he would close Guantanamo, which never impressed me, because he didn't address the legality of holding prisoners with this new and special designation. It didn't address the issue of whether or not a president could declare anyone an enemy and have them held indefinitely without charge or trial or perhaps worse yet, set up military tribunals instead of courts of law if they were ever tried. The state of Illinois will the first victim, with Guantanamo prisoners scheduled to be transferred there.

I argued with my friend Arthur Silber when he first stated that Obama would be more dangerous than McCain. "In large part, the danger represented by Obama arises from the fact that Obama's election gutted whatever effective opposition might have existed." Of course he hit the nail on the head. Obamaites will support whatever he says or does. He can accept a Nobel peace prize and do so in the name of continuing endless warfare and no one says a word. Yes, Arthur, you told me so.

I will have more to say about the Nobel disgrace in the latest issue of Black Agenda Report which will be posted later today.