Categories: Opinion and Editorial

Obama Sin Laden?

What happens when you take the name “Osama Bin Laden” and switch a couple of the letters around? One possibility is the phrase “Obama Sin Laden” but not only that, it’s a meaningful question. Is Obama sin laden? Let’s take a look at Barrack Obama’s stance on Bush-era torture, though really it should be noted that it is constantly changing.

Writing on April 16th, 2009 Timothy Sexton, in his article “Pres. Obama is Dead to Me: He Loses My Support Forever Due to His Decision to Let Bush and Torturers Get Away with It,” charges that Obama is, in fact, sin laden and that he is going “to burn in hell for this amazingly short-sighted and absolutely jaw-dropping decision” to “not pursue charges against anyone associated with the Bush administration that engaged in torture,” other people who are sin laden as well.

To read that well recommended article you can click here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1657617/pres_obama_is_dead_to_me_he_loses_my.html?cat=9.

Though I don’t believe in hell myself, as a man who grew up in a Christian culture I understand that in Christian theology people who are hell bound are certainly sin laden. Osama Bin Laden is certainly sin laden for this role in killing all those people in the trade towers in 2001. The Rock Obama’ might be sin laden for lampooning Obama on Saturday Night Live; that wasn’t very nice was it? And now Barack Obama appears to be sin laden as well for not holding people accountable for torturing others even though he is in a position to do so.

How will it all play out?

Barring drastic public pressure well over and above current pressure, in my opinion, at best some low ranking entry level mucky-mucks might get slapped with a year in prison for their involvement. Obama is not going to want to hold Bush-era officials accountable for torture because that would be precedent setting. From the perspective of an American president who can viewed as accountable for all subordinates and who may want to torture someone in the future, that precedent could be a threat.

In reality the pressure to hold Bush-era officials accountable falls on the American public as Amy Goodman points out in her article “Torturers Should Be Punished”: “Though he,” Obama, sin laden, “may occupy the most powerful office on Earth, there is a force more powerful: committed people demanding change. We need a universal standard of justice. Torturers should be punished.”

To read that article click here: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/21243.

I wonder what would happen if all writers, freelance or professional, expressed some solidarity with the efforts to hold Bush-era officials responsible for torturing? Maybe we would save Obama from the fire of hell and set a precedent that might scare future torturers into obstaining from doing the scary things that they do. Maybe we could save the lives or suffering of countless millions in the in-deterministic future.

It only takes an hour or so to write a four hundred word publishable article.
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Works Cited

Sexton, Timothy. “Pres. Obama is Dead to Me: He Loses My Support Forever Due to His Decision to Let Bush and Torturers Get Away with It.” Associated Content. 16 April 2009. 23 April 2009. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1657617/pres_obama_is_dead_to_me_he_loses_my.html?cat=9.

Goodman, Amy. “Torturers Should Be Punished.” ZMag.org. 23 April 2009. 23 April 2009. http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/21243.