Obama's Latest Lie

Dear Mr. President,
Here’s what you said 9 days ago in the State of the Union speech: “I recognize that in our democracy, no one should just take my word that we’re doing things the right way. So, in the months ahead, I will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.” Here’s the heading of an article on the front page of this morning’s New York Times: “White House Refusing Legal Memo Access” that describes your latest Let’s-Make-a-Deal with Republicans: if you give them more information on the Benghazi attack in exchange for voting in favor of Death-By-Drone Brennan, then you won’t have to give pesky Democrats like Wyden and Udall your secret memos justifying targeted assassinations. Mr. President, is there some genetic trait that makes it impossible for you to keep a promise or do you just get off on making promises you have no intention of keeping? Is this your version of bipartisanship or some deep-seated rage against humanity? And that phrase, “detention and prosecution” in your speech, that’s a whopper. During the Brennan hearing last week Sen. Chambliss pressed him for how many people we’ve captured in our covert War on Terror and when Brennan failed to give a number, Chambliss answered it himself: One. Yesterday, the Times reported that a senior member of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulvi Faquir Muhammed, had been captured by Afghan Army special forces and intelligence agents—after our drones failed to kill him. Another article in today’s Times, “Chinese Plan to Kill Drug Lord With Drone Highlights Military Advances,” reports that the Chinese now have their own versions of Predators, Reapers and Global Hawks. They also have “America’s armed drone practice as a convenient cover for legitimating their own practice.” The article describes how the Chinese considered using drones to assassinate Naw Kham, a notorious Myanmar drug lord, but in the end captured him with the assistance of the Laotian authorities, extradited him to China, and tried and convicted him for murder. A Chinese official said: “We didn’t use China’s military, and we didn’t harm a single foreign citizen.” Ouch! How come the Chinese can capture and prosecute people and so can the Afghans, but we can’t? Is it just more fun to kill or too much trouble to capture suspects?