After a three year campaign that was rife with whining, crying, and hand-ringing about the evils of preemptive war, Obama has again shown his true colors. 

Now hear this:  Preemptive war is out.  Preemptive incarceration is in.

According to a May 20th report in the New York Times, Obama held a meeting in the White House cabinet room attended by Attorney General Eric Holder, top administration officials, and  a pair of  high level human rights advocates who leaked the story after being promised anonymity.  He told the assembly that he is seeking the power of “preemptive detention,”  a way of locking up people who he suspects  might be planning terrorist activity, but can’t be tried due to lack of evidence.  

You read that right.  If Obama thinks that somewhere down the road you might commit a crime, he wants the power to lock you up now, regardless of his lack of actionable proof.

According to the Post: “He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning”

Given that we live in a country where Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, feels that any conservative, christian, or returning war veteran is a potential terror threat, the implications of such power are simply staggering.   Perhaps equally impressive is the gaul it must have taken to, just a few days later, stand in the US archives -home of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence - and give a speech deriding the previous administration’s supposed trampling of human rights. 

Is he trying to close the Guantanamo Bay facility, or turn every prison in the country into a miniature replica of it? 

Once again, we have evidence of a president who views the constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms of US citizens as mere obstacles – simple annoyances to be swatted aside lest they impede his march towards total control over American life.

-Robert Laurie 

The original, completely terrifying, New York Times article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html?_r=2&hpw