Yeah….this is sooooooo different from Bush:
Finally, there remains the question of detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people.
I want to be honest: this is the toughest issue we will face. We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who have received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.
As I said, I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture – like other prisoners of war – must be prevented from attacking us again.
Uh, so there ARE in fact people are who are too dangerous to release?
Other then the fact Obama used a bunch of flowery rhetoric to pretty all this up there isn’t any difference. When the President believes someone to be too dangerous then its ok to hold a person indefinitely.
And people fall for this crap?
I love Geraghty’s take on the speech:
Obama mentioned the conviction of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, but did not mention his sentence. Upon hearing that an admitted al-Qaeda sleeper-cell member who studied chemical weapons is free to leave prison in 9 to 15 years, this “try them all if we can” may not sound so reassuring to the American people.
~~~Also really central to Obama’s argument is his assertion that Guantanamo Bay “likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.” How do we know this? Where do we get figures? Though I am a skeptic, I’m willing to recognize the possibility that this is true, but how does one even go about proving this? Is there some secret census of al-Qaeda members?
Obama’s speech was about theory, and even in this circumstance, where a foiled plot to blow up synagogues in the Bronx isn’t even the biggest news of the day, it felt professorial, esoteric, abstract, and strikingly lacking in specifics. I can only imagine how this will sound when there are bodies in the streets.
Sad thing is that it will probably take another attack to wake people up to Obama and his idiocy.
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