Since the President gave his speech stating that the War on Terror can never be won, and in which he defended his foreign policy to date, I have struggled with how best to articulate my disappointment in my government.
On that day in May (the day before my birthday, in fact), the President made perfectly clear that our current system of government no longer works at all.
Obama won the election based on arguments that previous administrations had failed to follow just, ethical or moral choices in determining the course of US foreign policy since 1999, but in that speech at the National Defense University he defended very nearly all that had been done prior to his coming to office in an attempt to defend what he had done in office since 2008. To put it very plainly... what was good for the goose is just fine for this gander.
Since the Snowden leaks have come to light, the depth of the government's disregard for the sovereignty of the citizens of this nation has never been more clear. I am more and more convinced... every day, in fact... that Edward Snowden may very well be the greatest individual hero this country has had in the last 100 years. As much as I love Pope Francis... nothing Pope Francis has done to date comes even close to the impact Snowden has had on the question of individual rights and freedoms for 350 million people across this country, and because of this I think he should have been Time's Person of the Year 2013.
Snowden's gift to America was the debate that he spawned. Obama ran on the promise of transparency in government... but nothing (and I mean NOTHING) any President has done since Johnson has shown just how invasive our government has become, and how callous it is towards our most fundamental freedoms and rights as Snowden did with those leaks. Watergate is peanuts in comparison.
I'm curious about what F Ryan thinks on this. The leaks were particularly damning (in my opinion) to both the last GOP Presidents, and showed (or started) some serious questions about St. Ron Reagan's choices in the realm of domestic surveillance. We now have two Federal judges that have weighed in on this: one saying he was a hero and the government has acted (and is acting) illegally, while another defends the government's actions as legal and necessary.
What say you, my friend?
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