So many people here - and with good reason - get emotional over Dick Cheney that they miss how Obama deconstructed him today.
For over seven years, we have detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo. During that time, the system of military commissions that were in place at Guantanamo succeeded in convicting a grand total of three suspected terrorists. Let me repeat that: three convictions in over seven years. Instead of bringing terrorists to justice, efforts at prosecution met setback after setback, cases lingered on, and in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system. Meanwhile, over 525 detainees were released from Guantanamo under not my administration, under the previous administration. Let me repeat that: Two-thirds of the detainees were released before I took office and ordered the closure of Guantanamo.
The chattering class is conveniently missing the point: Bush/Cheney released detainees back to their countries and 1/7 of them might have rejoined Al-Qaida.
Bush/Cheney released these guys back and were completely incompetent in prosecuting them. So to recap:
- Bush/Cheney saw the two WTC towers collapse not Obama.
- Bush/Cheney sent 4000 American soldiers to die and tens of thousands to be permanently scarred in the irrelevant war in Iraq.
- Bush/Cheney saw the Taliban reach 100 miles of nuclear bombs in Karachi.
- Bush/Cheney saw that released detainees from Gitmo re-joined Al Qaida.
- Bush/Cheney tortured people against international conventions.
- Bush/Cheney left a major American city inundated in water and American citizens being treated like refugees in their own country.
- Bush/Cheney saw the economy collapse in the biggest recession in 70 years.
The American people spoke in the last election. Stop squeaking and remind the spineless media of the facts.
The real question is: Are Cheney/Gingrich/Fox News encouraging terrorists by claiming America is less safe?