OBAMA’S DOUBLE STANDARD
http://www.lonsberry.com/images/byEmail.gifEvery time I see Joe Biden, I laugh.
If there ever was a poster boy for the dangers of cosmetic surgery, it’s him. His eyelift didn’t work any better than his presidential campaign.
And every time I seen him, I laugh.
Which helps balance the rage and contempt. And there was plenty of that this weekend.
In another demonstration of the Obama Administration’s patently anti-American agenda, he threw five U.S. citizens under the Iraqi bus.
I’m talking about the Blackwater guards, the men who had charges of manslaughter dropped by a federal judge who are now, Biden proudly announced in Baghdad, to be tried again.
Appealing the acquittal, in a move almost never taken by federal prosecutors, the Obama Justice Department is going to pretend that the Fifth Amendment doesn’t exist – either as to self-incrimination or double jeopardy.
What’s worse, the Obama Administration is denying Americans fighting for their country in Iraq the same rights it is giving to foreign terrorists who attack America.
Here’s the background.
When the war on terror broke out with full force, our country threw everything it had at the effort. Unfortunately, the war needed more than we had. We didn’t have enough of the kind of troops we needed – namely, special operations folks.
So we hired help.
Specifically, we contracted with a company called Blackwater. Though the company has been demonized on the evening news, it is red, white and blue to the bone. Its management and personnel are almost exclusively veterans of the American military.
And its mission was to protect our diplomats and civilian workers, and to fight beside our armed forces.
We needed Blackwater because the Congress – of which Joe Biden and Barack Obama were both members – had wrong-sized the military. The federal government contracted with the firm because we needed help. Blackwater was comprised of Americans who answered their country’s call to serve.
And in September of 2007 a group of Blackwater employees, all of whom were veterans of the American military, were escorting State Department employees through Baghdad. In a traffic circle there was an explosion and gunfire and the Americans fought their way out.
Fourteen Iraqis were dead.
And there were TV cameras everywhere and claims that the Americans had slaughtered innocent civilians.
As has been the custom in this war, our government turned on our defenders. The Justice Department charged six of the Blackwater employees with manslaughter. One pled guilty and the other five opted to go to trial.
But it never got that far.
Because a federal judge said the Justice Department cheated. In an angry decision, the judge said that the Obama Administration’s lawyers had broken the simplest and most basic rules.
Evidence supporting the guards’ account of the shootings, for example, was kept from defense lawyers. Most importantly, forced testimony from the Blackwater employees was used against them. As part of their job – like American police officers – they were required to give information for internal government purposes that was to be kept separate from any evidence being prepared against them.
But the Obama Justice Department used that evidence as part of its indictment.
That’s interesting because it circumvented the Miranda rights and the self-incrimination rights of the men. Interesting because it is the position of the Obama Justice Department that those exact same rights do apply to foreign terrorists.
The man who planned and oversaw the September 11 attack will not have evidence he gave used against him, but American veterans will. One administration, two different standards – one that benefits foreign terrorists and one that hurts American defenders.
The underwear bomber got Mirandized, these Blackwater guards did not.
That’s Obama justice.
And even after a federal judge said the Justice Department had cheated and come close to being sanctioned in its effort to railroad the Blackwater employees, the Obama Administration is going to appeal the ruling and continue the prosecution.
Creating a functional double jeopardy, and basing its case on forced self-incriminating evidence.
These men’s crime?
Fighting for their country, doing their duty and defending themselves.
Biden is a joke.
But sometimes it’s hard to tell, in this war to defend America, which side he and his boss are on.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2010
