> Unlawful detention? There is no such thing. We can hold any one for any length of time as long as it is in the national interest.

It appears that you are referring to the people
the US is holding in Gitmo.

Uh, an issue here is the "lawful" part: A claim
is that the whole Gitmo thing is part of the
US military fighting a war. The Gitmo
people are prisoners of war or some such.
So, they are not to be handled in the US
legal system. So, for how they are being
handled, "lawful" in the US legal system
makes little or no sense.

For "torture", the US military claims
not to use torture. Okay. Maybe
water boarding is torture, but apparently
it does no physical harm and, so, maybe
is not really torture.

In broad terms, many well informed people,
e.g., D. D. Eisenhower, understood very
well that the US military in times of
war does things on battlefields that
would be totally unacceptable against US
citizens
inside the US.
E.g., Ike was
very reluctant to send the Army to
Little Rock. So, one broad lesson is
that (1) the US legal system and law
enforcement inside the US are one thing
and (2) what the US military does
outside the US to enemies of the US
is a very different thing. In particular,
Gitmo is just not like a US prison or
a county jail. Asking if Gitmo is
"lawful" is like asking about the
wings on hogs.

I don't say this because I like Obama
or liked W or Cheney.

For W and Cheney, they got
us into foreign wars that were good
candidates for "absurd foreign adventures"
and didn't get us out. There's "Occupy
a country, pull down a statue, now what?
Do you know what I mean?"
or some such from just retired
Marine four star General J. "Mad Dog"
Mattis.

For Obama, my first time really torqued
off was his early 2008 interview with the
SF Chronicle (off and on on YouTube --
once when on I typed in a full transcript
which I still have) where he said that he
wanted to use carbon cap and trade to
ratchet up the charges on coal fired
electric generating plants to "bankrupt"
the plants. From some DoE reports, at the
time that was 49% of our electric power and
about 23% of all our energy. Outrageous.
He'd need a crash program in nuke construction
to make up the difference. He also said
that of course "electric rates would
skyrocket".

So, what was he doing? Best I can tell,
he was waving a smell of raw
meat to get some greenies up on their hind legs. And he
was building a consensus to throw money
at green projects, please some
greenies in business, and get back some
campaign donations. For shutting down
coal plants, likely the EPA has been
slowly shutting down some of the older
plants the owners didn't want to
upgrade to cleaner burning. There I
would be more concerned about NOx
emissions, that cause acid rain, than
CO2 (that plants like!).

So, my reading is that mostly he has just
played politics with the greenies: Give
them a little smell of what they want,
throw some money their way, pretend to
be doing what they want, and otherwise
do essentially nothing.

E.g., in Mideast Arab Spring politics,
he doesn't want to appear to be on
the side of either secular dictators
or the radical Islamists. So, in
Libya he did something but apparently
mostly (set aside Bengazhi) not enough
really to entangle the US. Apparently
in Syria he trained a few rebels
to use some Russian missiles -- again,
appearing to fight the dictator but
not getting the US entangled. Now the
US DoD has given him a list of options
for more in Syria; my guess is that
he will take none of the options
but continue to find ways to
posture. For actually influencing
the outcome in Syria, I suspect he
will do nothing. Of course, I
don't see a good outcome in Syria --
it looks like either Al Qaeda or
back to Assad as the Mediterranean
branch of Iran.

Maybe in Egypt he did or enabled something
productive: Uh, it appears that from
the deal between Sadat and Begin
at Camp David, the US heavily
funds the Egyptian military.
Sooooo, net, the Egyptian military
is nearly a branch of the US DoD!
Sooooo, the US essentially has
a big veto and say-so in Egypt.
So, after a year of Morsi and his
true believers messing up the economy,
there was enough discontent in the
streets to let the military
dump Morsi and set up an interim
techocrat government and then
hold elections. If this works
out, good. If Obama played a
significant role, also good.

My explanation for
nearly everything Obama does is
he just wants to play politics or
be a political leader. So, pick some
issues, appear to be for some and against
others. For each side, make some statements
and maybe some weak actions and otherwise
do next to nothing.

When would he actually do something? Maybe
when about 70% of the voters really wanted
it. Otherwise he will just say things and
do little things that make his base
feel good.

My take is that basically he is indifferent
and cynical about government and, instead,
is willing just to play feel good politics.
E.g., "bankrupt" the coal plants is just
feel good nonsense to please some greenies
and not something he's actually going to do.

So, as an engineer, to me one place he
fails is (1) see a serious US problem,
(2) analyze the problem, (3) find a good
direction, (4) explain the problem and
direction to the American people and
build a consensus to solve the problem,
(5) move on with a solution. Instead
he just plays politics until some other
forces get maybe 70% approval for some
action and then steps in front of the
crowd as the leader.

In part playing such politics can
generate political capital that
can be used for something definite.

It seems to me that such leadership
looks weak to the voters and, as
a result by now, is costing him
political capital.

One place where maybe 70% of the people
will get torqued at him is the
Trayvon Martin matter: So, again, Obama
hasn't done much, and since it really
isn't necessarily a Federal issue he
didn't have much to do. But he has
said some things that appear to please
his base. And his buddy the AG
has said some more such things. Apparently
so far their actions have amounted to
next to nothing except one might
guess that some of the rioting that
has happened since the jury decision
was stimulated or encouraged by some of what
Obama and his AG did say. Sure, that
can mean that some dumb people rioted
for no good reason so blame the dumb people; still, the statements
were not good.

One danger of Obama is that many problems
in the US are permitted just to fester,
e.g., the economy, energy planning,
immigration, health care reform,
etc. instead of receive
serious attention. A second danger is
that if there were a serious problem,
would he be a good and serious leader?

One piece of good news is that Obama
seems to be going along with the plan
to put the DHS in the old DC
Saint Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital.
Sounds fully appropriate to me.
Hope that the TSA is one of the
first inmates. Sad part is that
they want to spend $4.5 billion
moving in.

Also apparently constitutional
scholar Obama failed to notice
how the NSA tracked mud over the
Fourth Amendment and, again,
let that problem just fester
until the sh!t hit the fan.