Bush Torture Memos To Be Declassified

Reports surfaced today that memos on the torture of detainees considered to be of "high value" at U.S. prison camps will be declassified soon. These memos are said to reveal disturbing practices by the CIA during the Bush Administration. (Image: Newsweek) This news comes a week after former Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on CNN's State of the Union with John King, claiming that Obama's anti-torture policies hurt the security of the United States. So, what's at stake here?

Well, first and foremost is the image of the United States. No matter who the state is torturing, it reflects badly on the morals of the country. Performing barbaric torture is not taking the high road, which is what the United States should do. America views itself as the leader of the free word, but this type of behaviour could seriously discredit that image.

Also affected by the coming declassification of these memos is the movement to investigate the Bush Administration. A commission, being referred to as the truth commission, has been demanded by a growing number of legislators to investigate the practices of the CIA and other agencies between 2000 and 2008.

The goal of this commission is to reveal what went wrong in order to move forward correctly. However, despite these commendable goals, the end result will likely be an embarrassing report on the damaging practices of intelligence agencies under Bush. As mentioned earlier, Obama has already ordered the stop of torture practices. Legislators close to his administration support the cries for a truth commission and, as evidenced by these memo declassifications, Obama does as well.

Moving forward, I believe a commission is important. It may hurt the U.S. image in the short-term, but it will improve the country in the long-term. These memos will likely be enough to get the commission going.
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Jindal Responds to Obama (and I respond to him)

Soon after Obama's great speech to the congress that was acclaimed universally, Bobby Jindal, the new Republican poster boy and front-runner, delivered the response. I will offer my critique of this response in this post along with videos of his speech to look at yourselves. (Image: YouTube) If there is one point I want to draw your attention to from the start, it's Jindal's continuous and bluntly hypocritical statements throughout the speech. I'll warn you now this post is long, but mostly funny and not too heavy. Part 1 of his speech after the jump...



Off the bat, did he say forty-four and a half months pregnant or am I hearing things? I know people make mistakes when under pressure, but that's a bit much. I found his introduction of Obama as a "success story" to be a bit patronizing. Obama is the President of the United States, not a bed time story hero.

We now get to the first instance of hypocrisy: Jindal explains that he doesn't care what party politicians are from, but he delivers a divisive speech on how democrats are irresponsible and wrong-headed. As the speech continues you will hear his comments along these lines. It is astounding that he claims to be so bi-partisan, but has nothing but negativity towards democratic values.

Jindal next relates a story that happened during the Hurricane Katrina fallout, and proceeds to thank the government and every American for their support. Generally, this support was billions of dollars. He accepts this with open arms from the federal government, but refuses stimulus money? Why does he refuse it? Because it is against the Republican philosophy. That is hypocritical on two counts -- for accepting money for a natural not a financial disaster and for again proving to be a partisan.

He calls the stimulus wasteful, but his two examples are spending to create or keep jobs. Building a railway makes jobs; monitoring volcanoes keeps and makes jobs. Ask your partisan friend in Alaska if she think monitoring volcanoes is wasteful. He also claims it grows government, but doesn't say how. Spending and reducing taxes, which is what the stimulus includes, does not grow government.

He also accuses democrats of effectively asking for a loan from America's children by passing the stimulus. Who believes this? This is a bit excessive. On to the second half...



I was actually in total agreement with Jindal's discussion of energy until he mentioned the need for drilling. Everything else I agree with, but why do we need drilling? It will have a tiny effect and will be nothing but trouble for the environment along the U.S. coast.

Being a Canadian, this next section on healthcare was a bit amusing. Can any anti-universal healthcare American point to a failed universal system? Or any universal system ranked lower than the U.S. private system for healthcare quality? What Obama is proposing in healthcare isn't even universal care, it's subsidized slightly, but not government run. That's what makes this part even more ridiculous. There is no nationalization, only the government regulating pricing under the Obama plan.

I generally agree with the sentiment that they need to improve schooling, but from this point the speech goes even further down hill. He accuses Obama as having misplaced hope in government and claims that he (Jindal) is the one who has hope in the American people. He then goes on to accuse Obama of saying America can't recover. Clearly Jindal wasn't listening to the speech he's supposed to be replying to. This is extremely offensive and continues his partisan, divisive message.

I won't correct his view on American history and I wasn't going to talk about his "American can do anything" line, but by my count he said it 6 times: Americans can do anything 4 times, American children can do anything once, and American fighting men and women can do anything once. This whole speech was over the top and Jindal's delivery was terrible. If anyone managed to get through this whole post, let me know what you think of his speech.

Update: Corrected video order.

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How Do More People Get Involved?

Okay so, as I discussed in my last post, democracy requires a lot of work by citizens for it to be fully effective. The question becomes, how do you motivate people to spend the time required? (Image: CNN) Well, the question puts the onus on the politicians and other concerned bodies to make people care. Though this is not how it should be, it is how it ends up being. How do we deal with this and make the best of it?

Politicians need to make an effort to reach out to the masses on issues that count and get people to believe they're serious. Though this can lead to these politicians being dismissed as all talk, a solid base needs a strong presentation to get anywhere. To see this issue in action we can return again to the often-cited case of Barack Obama.

Early in his campaign, Obama got noticed because he reached out to his audiences at speeches and debates by discussing issues they cared about in a way they cared about. He didn't jump into a typical political speech, but spoke of why these things mattered. This strategy was effective in gaining support early on and motivated some people who would otherwise not have have become involved in the presidential race.

This method got heavily criticized by his opponents during the primaries and general election campaigns for being not specific or substantive. The critics claimed that the message of reaching out and motivating people could not contain the complexity of the issues at hand. This attack is hollow in that it is simply not the case. It is hard to disprove it because there is no evidence to prove it. In the case of Obama, he did not sacrifice being specific for firing people up.

Some pundits, along with his opponents, drilled it into the minds of many that he was not direct and specific, but compared to all of his competitors he was the most substantive. During the election he was also criticized by some pundits for making lofty claims. These doubts too were shown to be false, or at least minor in comparison to John McCain's stubborn view on the supposed strength of the economy.

Though the efforts by some politicians to make the public more active in the process of democracy may leave them open to attack, the public usually makes the right choice at the booth. There is no way to measure the effect of Obama's strategy on voter turnout, but this election had a very high turnout during a grim time. Compared to Canada's turnout around the same time, the United States turnout is all the more impressive. This turnout results in a better democracy; the turnout relies on making citizens care.
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U.S. Policy: Can "Change" Be Anything But More of the Same?

One item which flew under the radar of the Saturday discussions of news pundits was yesterday's move by Obama to lift the ban on international abortion funding. Will U.S. law always mirror the ideology of the party in power? (Image: Wikipedia) The decision by President Obama to reverse this ban, which was created by Reagan (Republican) during his first term. The first President Bush (R) let it stand, but Clinton (Democrat) terminated the order in his first term. George W. Bush (R) reinstated it, and now Obama (D) has cancelled it again. What does all of this mean?

What this means, in my eyes, is that United States politics has very little stability. Major issues such as abortion and military or intelligence strategy and more recently gay marriage, "Don't ask, don't tell" or healthcare are dictated by the ideology of the ruling party. So can change mean anything but more of the same party-line legislation?

I'm not belittling Obama's message or his policy, but, in an infinitely cynical way, I am asking if it really matters. If Obama puts America back on par with the rest of the G8 world in terms of health care, schooling, equal rights, citizen freedom, and countless other measures, will it survive the next Republican president?

Here in Canada our policies remain much more stable. When the Conservatives came in (who I should point out are more and more like the Reform party), they did not reverse long-standing legislation on public healthcare, ban abortions, and stop funding public schools or even review recent decisions such as allowing gay marriage.

This has nothing to do with the status of the Conservatives as a minority government, but, I argue, it is a matter of tradition. In a country where you are not guaranteed a 4 year term, you must remain in line -- and that means that you must always be ready to answer to the electorate. I believe most citizens in the United States or Canada prefer stability, which makes it all the more odd that the flip-flopping laws in the U.S. don't raise more eyebrows.
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How Obama's win affects Canadian Politics

While reading the blog Laur Lore recently, I came across an interesting post about Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper following Obama's lead on key issues. (Image: CBC) As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I find it hard to fully understand how it must feel to have a genuinely inspiring political movement occurring in my country, as Americans have this election year. I did expect, however, exactly what is described over at Laur Lore -- that is Harper emulating Obama.

Most politicians are followers not leaders. Their goal is to get elected by appealing to the most broad base that they can. For most, this means that they choose to meet the status quo, not push a real agenda. Here in Canada, Stephen Harper may be the follower of the time, but I don't believe any of the leaders of the major parties would be any better in this regard.

During the Bush years, there were a few instances where Canadian politicians stood up to United States policy. The main example of which was Canada's refusal to dedicate combat troops to the Iraq invasion. Canada instead took up the slack in Afghanistan, so it's hard to argue that the Prime Minister then was standing up to Bush.

When it gets down to it, Harper is about the same as any other politician. I am not defending him by any means, as I can hardly stand him, but I am saying that it's not that odd for Canadian politicians to follow a United States President's lead.

In the case of Barack Obama, more than just Canadian leaders are seeking to emulate his policies in an effort to catapult themselves through his success. In fact, even countries with rocky relations with United States under Bush, such as Cuba and Venezuela, are beginning to warm to Obama and embrace the "hope" message.

Hopefully political leaders, here in Canada and around the world, choose not to only emulate Obama's methods, but also to embrace his message in a genuine way.
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The Meaning of a Train Ride

Today Barack Obama went on a train ride from Philadelphia to Washington, but why? Was it a symbol of unification or an unnecessary security risk? (Image: HuffingtonPost) Today when watching U.S. President Elect Barack Obama make his "whistle-stop" train ride to the United States capital, the first thing I noticed, as I'm sure anyone else would, was the people standing in the frigid cold at the locations of the slow-rolls and speeches. It's always surprising to see how many people show up for these events, let alone in the freezing cold of days like today.

The dedication of thousands of people for merely a glimpse of a train carrying the president elect, or a waving Obama if they're lucky, is stunning. It made me wonder why this was happening and why nothing like it is happening in Canada. The former is a very interesting question that has a whole range of possible answers. I believe it had a lot to do with what he represents.

Barack Obama represents many different things to people, but I think what most people have in common is the view that he is a symbol of hope. It sounds corny to some extent, but, beyond the rhetoric, Obama has transcended the politics that we have all been exposed to. He floats over the bickering and seems to react to situations like a normal person would.

Now using the words "normal person" is a bit tricky. I simply mean that he doesn't think about political positioning first, instead he seems to do what he thinks is right. Speaking as a Canadian, I've never experienced a connection to a politician in the way that I have while watching Obama over the last year and a half. Here, politicians seem to be dry and incapable of inspiring the electorate, not to mention inspire themselves.

Watching the American campaign has inspired a sense of yearning in me for a similar figure in Canada, but there are no signs of anything of the sort. To have a political leader represent hope to so many people is truly inspiring. Watching him make his way to the place where he will govern from for the next 4 years was historic. Even as a Canadian I can understand and respect the appeal of being part of that moment. My only wish is that this country experiences it soon as well, but for now I feel inspired to see the transformation in the States.
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