In the film "Enemy of the State" the character played by Will Smith (and Will could sure play Barack today) has a moment where everything he knows and velieves about our world and his world changes.His wife tries to tell him but he is asleep in his complacency and comfort.But suddenly and violently his world is turned upside down and the US National Security State (or dark forces within it) makes him the principal target in a nation of targets and victims of the Extreme right wing fascist Octopus (What Hunter Thompson called the Fourth Reich)

At a given moment in the film, after a brutal set of murders, he meets Gene Hackman and his eyes are opened to the extent of the conspiracy against him and against America. Hackman is a former spook (CIA operator) who has learned that the whole shebang is corrupt and that murder and mayhem and torture and defecating on our Constitutional rights and on global human rights jeeps a corrupt few vile and powerful despots and their organizations in power to the detriment of humanity.

Will Smith, by happenstance, haplessly wanders into this scenario without a clue.But in only a few instants, a few moments of sheer terror and sorrow in time, he realizes EXACTLY the nature of the BEAST and learns (from Hackman) what he has to do to to try to protect himself and fight the corrupt global fascist powers that be. And he brings down a tiny piece of the BEAST through sheer Will (Smith) power.But until he reaches that moment he is complacent. He plays it safe. He doesn’t rock the boat. He isn’t so much in denial or psychically numbed by the derogation of human rights which his wife complains of – he is totally brainwashed and oblivious.

I do not believe that Obam is oblivious.Or Naive.But I am afraid that he has not yet reached that moment, that Will Smith "Enemey of the State" moment where he realizes that the world is run by fascist goons that can snuff you out like a bug if you buck the system and that ONLY through exceptionally clever maneuvering do you even stand a chance of bringing down even a small iota of the Beast.

But with his latest error in judgment he is either betraying his hand that like Will Smith at the beginning of "Enemey of the State" he is either oblivious to the danger or he is dangerously misinformed. Either that or he runs the danger of becoming complicit.

I say this as an attorney and human rights activist who has worked on the Hill and been involved in human rights litigation (both criminal and civil, trials and appeals) almost my entire adult life.

Barak is at a crossroads. And either he experiences his moment where he wakes up, or he runs the risk of allowing the Shadow National Security Beast from swallowing up what may be the last best hope we have of defeating or subduing the plague of Fascism from our American political and social and military systems forever.

Here’s the problem: Obama has basically invoked the Nazi’s at Nuremburg and Eichmann’s “Orders are Orders!” defense on behalf of the interrogators BEFORE they have even been INVESTIGATED for crimes committed during tirtures in violation of all International treaties and human rights standards. Despite their training, presumably including the Geneva Convention , interrogators, acting under orders from above, utilized methods and procedures which, like 24’s Jack Bauer, they KNEW were illegal DESPITE the memos. For plausible deniability they have had to cover up their own actions to protect themselves, Bush, Cheney, the CIA, ONI, the Pentagon, in short EVERYONE who ordered and facilitated illegal crimes and inhumanity and torture.

I completely understand Obama’s MESSAGE to the CIA in the sense that morale and functionality would be seriously impaired if those following orders from the PRESIDENT were subject to prosecution AND punishment. But Obama still has another option: the POSSIBILITY of prosecution if those who committed the acts FAIL TO TESTIFY and provide FULL DISCLOSURE and EVIDENCE of these crimes. Obama shortsightedly and expediently (but dangeroulsy and stupidly) put the prosecutorial cart before the horse.

Only AFTER Holder and Congress and the Justice Department (and Obama himself) gets ALL the evidence and cooperation should he declare that immunity will be given in any indivisual case. He can OFFER IMMUNITY for such cooperation and grant immunity prior to getting evidence and cooperation is ass-backwards legal reasoning.

It may make Obama look humane to his CIA backers and employees, and to those in the hoildover national security apparatus who have their roots in the Bush administration and who have been advocating for this course, but it leaves the REST OF THE COUNTRY in DANGER of a perpetual motion fascism regime and cycle that we will NEVER escape. Ever.

So if OBAMA says "no harm no foul" because ALL interrogators and their immediate superiors were just following orders, what prevents or dissuades the next torturers and torturers in chief from brutality and murder and treason and crimes against humanity? NOTHING!

However, this IS the Nazi defense: Hitler ORDERED these things THUS the interrogator/torturers on up the line were JUST following orders in good faith or maybe arguably at the peril of being subject to threats and harm and even death if they bucked their commanders and the Commander in Chief (and Darth Cheney and Scumfeld to boot) as I was told by one veteran interrogator.

Under NAZI laws, what the "democratically elected government" of the National Socialist Party were doing torturng and enslaving and mass-killing Jews and actual socialists and possible “terrorists” and gays and twins and Roma and Poles etc was all perfectly legal !

Obama is in my opinion walking a VERY thin line on very thin ice from a legal perspective: he is effectively precluding the MOST EFFECTIVE prosecutorial tool which might be used to actually get at the truth of ALL of these tortures and the extent of the crimes against humanity committed. Obama seems to preclude using IMMUNITY from prosecution for those who committed crimes during torture sessions IN ORDER to get the evidence REQUIRED to prosecute the commanders and those who ordered the illegal acts to begin with. His staments preempt the BEST approach to get past these crimes for all humanity and for all time.

HOW, for example, can one get a lowly interrogator to “come clean” about what he (or she) has done and who ordered it and who participated in acts OUTSIDE those authorized UNLESS their is a threat of prosecution and the promise of immunity in exchange for full disclosure (even immunity for illegal acts NOT authorized by the OLC but carried out under the presumption that they were authorized by Cheney et al or under orders of superiors in place on the ground behind the darkened windows of the torture chambers?

IF we in the progressive community collectively SAY that “the system is working” then we MISS the point that Obama has preemeptively stripped Congress and the DOJ of what WOULD BE their most effective tool: Executive pardon and immunity ONLY for those who cooperate fully and honestly with FULL DISCLOSURE.

Granting IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION BEFORE DETERMINING THE EXTENT OF THE CRIMES AND ALL THE FACTS is inane and unworthy of this president as a Constitutional scholar and professor of law. It is clear he was never a prosecutor or even a fierce fighter for human rights in the judicial arena. (Though I love the guy this is a sad fact).

One other key point: the torture videotapes were destroyed by the CIA and others to cover up these crimes. This is a conspiracy to prevent the prosecution of crimes which WILL NEVER EVEN BE DISCLOSED if Obama carries on as he has been. This is ACCESSORY after the fact – AND Misprision of Felonious Acts (which to some degree makes the actors as responsible for these acts as the principals and perpetrators).

If one person tortures and sodomizes or genitally mutilates a child, for example (actual allegations in some accounts of these torture events), and then another HELPS them to HIDE THE EVIDENCE (or the BODY in the case of a murder) EVEN IF THE HELPER DID NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE ACTUAL CRIME – they are GUILTY of a serious and heinous crime.

If one is in an official capacity and covers up the crime, or acts in a way that they are interfering with the prosecution of the crime or hiding it, then they too are culpable.

This is the DANGEROUS legal shitfield that Obama has tread into. He becomes essentially complicit in the crimes after the fact IF (and only if) he actually PREVENTS the effective prosecution (and organization of witness immunity in exchange for testimony) of those who committed illegal acts.

If Obama hinders such prosecutions for POLITICAL reasons (reelection, moving on to protect his presidency, a prior deal with Bush or Brzezinski or Bybee or folks at the CIA to protect his presidency) he would be subject to impeachment and his presidency would lose almost all of its legitimacy and potentially all of its credibility.

But worse than that, the actual criminals remain free and unrestrained from reemerging in the future in political and intelligence roles which threaten democracy and humanity (and arguably thereby global survival). Just as the Bushes and Rockefellers and Dulles et al did after backing Hitler and financing the Holocaust during the Second World War.

At the end of WWII it is believed by some scholars (notably John Loftus) that FDR planned to bring down the Dulles and Bushes and Walkers and Harrimans and Morgans and Rockefellers etc who supported Hitler and the slave and death camp industry. Some believe his demise was untimely and like the replacement of Henry Wallace by Truman, a preemptive strike to PREVENT the prosecution of those treasonous bastards and Wall Street fascists who subverted our democracy and gave us the current global fascist order and Fourth Reich.

Truman let the fascists walk and Eisenhower put them in charge of the National security (sic) apparatus (much to his consternation by the end of his two terms). I realize that Obama is right now, perhaps, like Will Smith in “Enemy of the State” when he finally hooks up with Gene Hackman who runs the Octopus down and makes him realize HOW DANGEROUS the Fourth Reich is. How pervasive. How powerful. How omnipotent. How beyond reach.

Will Smith (like Obama with his recent moves) has to strip naked and become almost invisible to keep them from destroying him. Hackman has to blow up his whole cover and operation (literally – like Mel Gibson’s assassin character in the film “Conspiracy Theory”) in order to protect himself and keep fighting the power.

If Obama blows the whole shebang to pieces he runs the risk from those powers that be. He becomes the target, like Will Smith (and we know from secret service reports and Homeland’s Napolitano that he is already the target of the loonies of the fourth reich special field ops), and perhaps the only folks who can really help him are the rank and file and patriotic spooks from Langley (the bureaucrats and field operators NOT the spies left behind by Bush/Cheney) and he NEEDS them not to be afraid he will blow them up too to save the Nation.

But is Obama blowing smoke up OUR nether regions too? Will he let ALL the perps walk and allow the entire Nation and democratic experiment of America be nothing but a pipedream BECAUSE HE IS A POLITICAL PRAGMATIST and wants to protect his reelection chances? Can he even ACT in 2012, if reelected, against the Fourth Reich.

HAS Obama EXPERIENCED HIS WILL SMITH "ENEMY OF THE STATE" MOMENT OF REALIZATION YET?Will he EVER?

What kind of world, then, is he leaving to Sasha and Malia? Not to mention to my own two beautiful kids? A world in which torture is OKAY if ANY president says it’s okay? And murder? And genocide?

Did the world allow it, should we have allowed it, for the Nazis at Nuremburg? (Now some may argue the facts are very different, and maybe they are, but the rationalization of the Nazis was the SAME: they were at war and the Jews and the "terrorists" and the opposition was a threat to their National Security and to their "homeland".

Obama faces a crossroad and it is probably full of trepidation.These powers are dangerous. To all of us. Including our president. I consider him exceptionally brave and I am proud of MUCH of what he has done. But he is making a grave error in judgment and in legal and political strategy here.

If we don’t stop the Nazis in our government (or formerly in our government) NOW , when will we EVER get another chance? When will we?

If NOT Barak Obama, then who? OBAMA CAN GIVE the order that those interrogators and their immediate superiors who COOPERATE with any and ALL investigations (AG HOLDER, TRUTH COMMISSIONERS, SPECIAL PROSECUTORS) will RECEIVE FULL IMMUNITY and PARDON (IF THEY ACTED IN GOOD FAITH FOLLOWING ORDERS) Provided that they tell the WHOLE TRUTH and disclose fully ALL aspects of these crimes and their coverup.

Anything short of that KEEPS our democracy, our system of justice and ALL of us (and our children and all future generations)in grave danger from the practitioners and artificers and perpetuators of FASCIST TECHNIQUES AND IDEALOGY.

Only through this means can the rule of law and real justice be protected. Only through these means can the sytem ACTUALLY work and the fascism of what Hunter Thompson called the Fourth Reich, of the Bushes and Cheneys and Hitlers and Saddam Husseins and Pinochets of the world, be thwarted, subdued and removed from their dangerous, venomous and vulture-like perches in the dank heights of necrophilic and "eugenic" power.

If Obama has not yet experienced his Will Smith "Enemy of the State moment" I HOPE he does soon. The future of humanity depends on it.

Shalom/Salaam

Seventhson