[rick_reno]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9890829/

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

Growing concerns
But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody.

Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.

The secret detention system was conceived in the chaotic and anxious first months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the working assumption was that a second strike was imminent.

Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "

It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.

Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.

Some detainees apprehended by the CIA and transferred to foreign intelligence agencies have alleged after their release that they were tortured, although it is unclear whether CIA personnel played a role in the alleged abuse. Given the secrecy surrounding CIA detentions, such accusations have heightened concerns among foreign governments and human rights groups about CIA detention and interrogation practices.

Overseas inquiries
The contours of the CIA's detention program have emerged in bits and pieces over the past two years. Parliaments in Canada, Italy, France, Sweden and the Netherlands have opened inquiries into alleged CIA operations that secretly captured their citizens or legal residents and transferred them to the agency's prisons.

More than 100 suspected terrorists have been sent by the CIA into the covert system, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and foreign sources. This figure, a rough estimate based on information from sources who said their knowledge of the numbers was incomplete, does not include prisoners picked up in Iraq.

The detainees break down roughly into two classes, the sources said.

About 30 are considered major terrorism suspects and have been held under the highest level of secrecy at black sites financed by the CIA and managed by agency personnel, including those in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, according to current and former intelligence officers and two other U.S. government officials. Two locations in this category -- in Thailand and on the grounds of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay -- were closed in 2003 and 2004, respectively.

A second tier -- which these sources believe includes more than 70 detainees -- is a group considered less important, with less direct involvement in terrorism and having limited intelligence value. These prisoners, some of whom were originally taken to black sites, are delivered to intelligence services in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and other countries, a process sometimes known as "rendition." While the first-tier black sites are run by CIA officers, the jails in these countries are operated by the host nations, with CIA financial assistance and, sometimes, direction.

Morocco, Egypt and Jordan have said that they do not torture detainees, although years of State Department human rights reports accuse all three of chronic prisoner abuse.

The top 30 al Qaeda prisoners exist in complete isolation from the outside world. Kept in dark, sometimes underground cells, they have no recognized legal rights, and no one outside the CIA is allowed to talk with or even see them, or to otherwise verify their well-being, said current and former and U.S. and foreign government and intelligence officials.

Most of the facilities were built and are maintained with congressionally appropriated funds, but the White House has refused to allow the CIA to brief anyone except the chairman and vice chairman of the House and Senate intelligence committees on the program's generalities.

The Eastern European countries that the CIA has persuaded to hide al Qaeda captives are democracies that have embraced the rule of law and individual rights after decades of Soviet domination. Each has been trying to cleanse its intelligence services of operatives who have worked on behalf of others -- mainly Russia and organized crime.

The idea of holding terrorists outside the U.S. legal system was not under consideration before Sept. 11, 2001, not even for Osama bin Laden, according to former government officials. The plan was to bring bin Laden and his top associates into the U.S. justice system for trial or to send them to foreign countries where they would be tried.

‘Against the culture’
"The issue of detaining and interrogating people was never, ever discussed," said a former senior intelligence officer who worked in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, during that period. "It was against the culture and they believed information was best gleaned by other means."

On the day of the attacks, the CIA already had a list of what it called High-Value Targets from the al Qaeda structure, and as the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack plots were unraveled, more names were added to the list. The question of what to do with these people surfaced quickly.

The CTC's chief of operations argued for creating hit teams of case officers and CIA paramilitaries that would covertly infiltrate countries in the Middle East, Africa and even Europe to assassinate people on the list, one by one.

But many CIA officers believed that the al Qaeda leadership would be worth keeping alive to interrogate about their network and other plots. Some officers worried that the CIA would not be very adept at assassination.

"We'd probably shoot ourselves," another former senior CIA official said.

The agency set up prisons under its covert action authority. Under U.S. law, only the president can authorize a covert action, by signing a document called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and are reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal advisers.

Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world.

It could not be determined whether Bush approved a separate finding for the black-sites program, but the consensus among current and former intelligence and other government officials interviewed for this article is that he did not have to.

Rather, they believe that the CIA general counsel's office acted within the parameters of the Sept. 17 finding. The black site program was approved by a small circle of White House and Justice Department lawyers and officials, according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence officials.

Among the first steps was to figure out where the CIA could secretly hold the captives. One early idea was to keep them on ships in international waters, but that was discarded for security and logistics reasons.

CIA officers also searched for a setting like Alcatraz Island. They considered the virtually unvisited islands in Lake Kariba in Zambia, which were edged with craggy cliffs and covered in woods. But poor sanitary conditions could easily lead to fatal diseases, they decided, and besides, they wondered, could the Zambians be trusted with such a secret?

Still without a long-term solution, the CIA began sending suspects it captured in the first month or so after Sept. 11 to its longtime partners, the intelligence services of Egypt and Jordan.

A month later, the CIA found itself with hundreds of prisoners who were captured on battlefields in Afghanistan. A short-term solution was improvised. The agency shoved its highest-value prisoners into metal shipping containers set up on a corner of the Bagram Air Base, which was surrounded with a triple perimeter of concertina-wire fencing. Most prisoners were left in the hands of the Northern Alliance, U.S.-supported opposition forces who were fighting the Taliban.

"I remember asking: What are we going to do with these people?" said a senior CIA officer. "I kept saying, where's the help? We've got to bring in some help. We can't be jailers -- our job is to find Osama."

Grisly reports
Then came grisly reports, in the winter of 2001, that prisoners kept by allied Afghan generals in cargo containers had died of asphyxiation. The CIA asked Congress for, and was quickly granted, tens of millions of dollars to establish a larger, long-term system in Afghanistan, parts of which would be used for CIA prisoners.

The largest CIA prison in Afghanistan was code-named the Salt Pit. It was also the CIA's substation and was first housed in an old brick factory outside Kabul. In November 2002, an inexperienced CIA case officer allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets. He froze to death, according to four U.S. government officials. The CIA officer has not been charged in the death.

The Salt Pit was protected by surveillance cameras and tough Afghan guards, but the road leading to it was not safe to travel and the jail was eventually moved inside Bagram Air Base. It has since been relocated off the base.

By mid-2002, the CIA had worked out secret black site deals with two countries, including Thailand and one Eastern European nation, current and former officials said. An estimated $100 million was tucked inside the classified annex of the first supplemental Afghanistan appropriation.

Then the CIA captured its first big detainee, in March 28, 2002. Pakistani forces took Abu Zubaida, al Qaeda's operations chief, into custody and the CIA whisked him to the new black site in Thailand, which included underground interrogation cells, said several former and current intelligence officials. Six months later, Sept. 11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh was also captured in Pakistan and flown to Thailand.

But after published reports revealed the existence of the site in June 2003, Thai officials insisted the CIA shut it down, and the two terrorists were moved elsewhere, according to former government officials involved in the matter. Work between the two countries on counterterrorism has been lukewarm ever since.

In late 2002 or early 2003, the CIA brokered deals with other countries to establish black-site prisons. One of these sites -- which sources said they believed to be the CIA's biggest facility now -- became particularly important when the agency realized it would have a growing number of prisoners and a shrinking number of prisons.

Thailand was closed, and sometime in 2004 the CIA decided it had to give up its small site at Guantanamo Bay. The CIA had planned to convert that into a state-of-the-art facility, operated independently of the military. The CIA pulled out when U.S. courts began to exercise greater control over the military detainees, and agency officials feared judges would soon extend the same type of supervision over their detainees.

In hindsight, say some former and current intelligence officials, the CIA's problems were exacerbated by another decision made within the Counterterrorist Center at Langley.

Bigger group of detainees
The CIA program's original scope was to hide and interrogate the two dozen or so al Qaeda leaders believed to be directly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, or who posed an imminent threat, or had knowledge of the larger al Qaeda network. But as the volume of leads pouring into the CTC from abroad increased, and the capacity of its paramilitary group to seize suspects grew, the CIA began apprehending more people whose intelligence value and links to terrorism were less certain, according to four current and former officials.

The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored, they said. "They've got many, many more who don't reach any threshold," one intelligence official said.

Several former and current intelligence officials, as well as several other U.S. government officials with knowledge of the program, express frustration that the White House and the leaders of the intelligence community have not made it a priority to decide whether the secret internment program should continue in its current form, or be replaced by some other approach.

Meanwhile, the debate over the wisdom of the program continues among CIA officers, some of whom also argue that the secrecy surrounding the program is not sustainable.

"It's just a horrible burden," said the intelligence official.

[4v50 Gary]

Makes me feel good about paying taxes.

[45acpSHOOTER]

HMM, dont want to be held in a prison in BFE, dont fly planes, or support those that do, into our buildings.

[Joejojoba111]

...But what about those terrorists who slipped through the previously weak immigration system? They're already citizens, but they're terrorists.

If you don't let them use secret jails for citizens then you are tieing their hands in the war on terror. Who's side are you on?

[coylh]

I'm on the side that thinks America's "Whatever, I'll do what I want" policy is more dangerous than the terrorists.

[The Real Hawkeye]

I'm on the side that thinks America's "Whatever, I'll do what I want" policy is more dangerous than the terrorists.My view exactly. A free nation does not have secret prisons. This makes us as bad as Stalin's Soviet Union. The Constitution applies to the actions of the Federal Government, regardless of who they are dealing with. Anyone can be accused of being a member of a terrorist organization. That's why we have the Constitution. If its bypassed, what we have is tyranny.

[Ezekiel]

Well -- as far as we know -- there have been no executions, but your point is valid and sound, to a degree. I am looking forward to the coming rationalizations of right-wing nutjobs. It should be divine!

I'd bad mouth our political leaders a bit, here, but I really cannot add anything worse then that reported...:fire:

This makes us as bad as Stalin's Soviet Union.

[Joejojoba111]

Stalag is the German POW camp, if I remember my WW2 movies correctly. For instance, the pilots would be in StalagLuft 17 or some such. In general treatment was superior to what POWs can expect today.

A Gulag was not an execution camp either, people went there, and many returned. It was a work camp, a bitter survival-of-the-fittest work camp, in the harshest locations possible.


Furthermore, I would encourage people, as much as possibl, to seperate standard politics from standard procedures. Its the difference between politicians, who come and go, and bureaucrats who are always in the background.

Thus you can blame Bush or Clinton, but it's to no avail. They will be gone in 4 or 8 years. If you ignore political leaders and criticize only the policy, then people will be less side-tracked, less divided by loyalties, and the issue can remain topical long after the figurehead disappears into obscurity.

And this issue is a violation of the fundamental aspect of habeas corpus.

[pax]

An interesting question, closely related but too often shrugged aside:

Does the Bill of Rights give rights? Or does it merely recognize rights that human beings already have?

Careful how you answer -- and how you think about this piece of news, based upon your answer.

pax

[The Real Hawkeye]

An interesting question, closely related but too often shrugged aside:

Does the Bill of Rights give rights? Or does it merely recognize rights that human beings already have?

Careful how you answer -- and how you think about this piece of news, based upon your answer.

paxPax, what the Constitution mainly does is grant to the Federal Government certain legitimate powers, while denying it all powers not granted. For example, it has the power to coin money, but not to regulate the firearms we own. It has the power to coin money because this power was granted to it by the Constitution. It lacks the power to regulate the firearms we own 1) because this power was never granted (police powers belong exclusively to the States), and 2) because the Second Amendment explicitly denies to the Federal Government the power to do so, stating as the reason that we the people possess the right to keep and bear arms. It also states that this is a good thing because if the Federal Government had such power and chose to exercise it, the security of a free state would be gravely endangered for lack of even the potential of a militia, that being necessary for same.

[Alex45ACP]

This is great when it's happening to "terror suspects".

But when your neighbors start disappearing in the middle of the night, you'll be singing a different tune.

[goosegunner]

This is great when it's happening to "terror suspects".

You think so? I would say it was great when it's happening to terrorists. A lot of "terror suspects" will neccesarily only be ordinary people who happens to be at the wrong place.

[Ezekiel]

The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored...

Yeah, that's a problem. Truly, I just don't like this at all.

I'm waiting -- not necessarily here but just "in general" -- for someone to start spouting the fictional Col. Nathan R. Jessup's rhetoric of, "Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be defended by men with guns..." It was merely a movie, but in that flick he was charged with a crime. I'm wondering how all this will play out.

By "defending" America, we are becoming most un-American. :uhoh:

[davec]

When I think of words like "freedom" "liberty" "democracy" I know the first things that come to mind are secret prisons.

Secret Prisons are a cornerstone of western liberal democracy, and anybody who is against secret prisons is against America, and needs to take a vacation to a secret prision themselves.

My grandfather didn't spend his 20's fighting against Nazi's so some leftist in the media or congress could prevent the United States from its god given right of secret prisons.

[RealGun]

Pax, what the Constitution mainly does is grant to the Federal Government certain legitimate powers, while denying it all powers not granted. For example, it has the power to coin money, but not to regulate the firearms we own. It has the power to coin money because this power was granted to it by the Constitution. It lacks the power to regulate the firearms we own 1) because this power was never granted (police powers belong exclusively to the States), and 2) because the Second Amendment explicitly denies to the Federal Government the power to do so, stating as the reason that we the people possess the right to keep and bear arms. It also states that this is a good thing because if the Federal Government had such power and chose to exercise it, the security of a free state would be gravely endangered for lack of even the potential of a militia, that being necessary for same.

I think you should acknowledge that the legal system ignores that definition.

[pax]

davec ~

Excellent.

pax

[AirForceShooter]

Can't anybody keep a SECRET???

AFS

[Kim]

I'm glad we have "secret" prisions. Doesn't bother me a bit. I live in the real world not one made up of liberal or libertarian idealism. I do not believe in idealism and utopia. I can choose sides and do believe somethings are better than others. I choose to make a rational decision. I believe the terrorists are the enemies of the USA. I do not believe one can fight a legal or PC or a war by the NYT or the WOP standards. I believe if someone had written about "the secrets" going on during WW2 someone might be condemed by the general public. However I am not surprised by those who think the other way. I just acknowledge things have changed. Maybe we can win in this changed bubble of thought maybe it will take something even worse to let reality sink in. I just hope that the something worse is something we can survive.:(

[Fletchette]

How many people here remember movies of the "bad guys" (Nazis, Communists, etc.) arresting people without cause and torturing them? It was implicitly understood that this is what the "bad guys" did and it was what made The United States of America the bastion of Freedom and Liberty.

When people condone secret prisons and torture, even for those who "may" be a terrorist, we are no longer the country we thought we were. In fact, it really makes the concept of different countries irrelevant. Why should one be proud of living in a particular country if all the countries are the same?

[twency]

Secret Prisons are a cornerstone of western liberal democracy, and anybody who is against secret prisons is against America, and needs to take a vacation to a secret prision themselves
I gather you're being facetious, but the idea of the U.S. having secret prisons isn't exactly novel, nor was it unheard-of when your grandfather was fighting the Nazis. For example, there was a secret prisoner-of-war camp used for interrogation of enemy officers here in the mountains of central Pennsylvania. I can't find a whole lot of information on what happened there (imagine that - a secret camp without a lot of existing documentation) but there doesn't seem to be any question it existed, and prisoners were interrogated in secret.

http://www.beulahpresby.org/webmaster/michaux/SURVEY.htm
http://www.beulahpresby.org/webmaster/michaux/McAdooHistory.htm
http://www.wartimememories.co.uk/pow/pinegrove.html
_________________
-twency

[shootinstudent]

My grandfather didn't spend his 20's fighting against Nazi's so some leftist in the media or congress could prevent the United States from its god given right of secret prisons.

:)

I don't think there's any better way to put it.

[goosegunner]

What is it you use to say?
'If it saves only one child...'??

[The Real Hawkeye]

How many people here remember movies of the "bad guys" (Nazis, Communists, etc.) arresting people without cause and torturing them? It was implicitly understood that this is what the "bad guys" did and it was what made The United States of America the bastion of Freedom and Liberty.

When people condone secret prisons and torture, even for those who "may" be a terrorist, we are no longer the country we thought we were. In fact, it really makes the concept of different countries irrelevant. Why should one be proud of living in a particular country if all the countries are the same?Exactly. It is just this kind of thing that we were defending our people from. Now what are we defending our people from? If we become what we have always feared and defended against, what's the point anymore? Our tyranny is better than yours? Is that really worth fighting and dying for?

[The Real Hawkeye]

I think you should acknowledge that the legal system ignores that definition.Not true. The legal system is based on the rule of law, which is grounded in the Constitution, which is accessible to anyone with a fifth grade education. It is, however, the case that those in charge of our legal system ignore the rule of law, and the document in which it is grounded.

[antarti]

I may be dating myself, but isn't this precisely the type of behavior we (collectively) held up as proof that the Soviets were a bunch of evil bastiges during the Cold War? The kind of folks we Americans would detest and never tolerate, much less emulate?

Or did I just dream that?

[Don't Tread On Me]

It was just a bad dream in the cinematic style of Dr. Zhivago - except not funny.


Isn't there a missing girl in Aruba or an accused child-mollesting pop-singer to be discussing? Hurry along now, go back to what you were doing. Nevermind what the Government is doing. The gover-media...err I mean CNN/FOX are reporting on Martha Stewart's ankle bracelet removal and how it left a "tan line".

[The Real Hawkeye]

I may be dating myself, but isn't this precisely the type of behavior we (collectively) held up as proof that the Soviets were a bunch of evil bastiges during the Cold War? The kind of folks we Americans would detest and never tolerate, much less emulate?

Or did I just dream that?No, you didn't just dream it, unless I was in your dream too, because that's exactly the way I remember it. That was how we knew we were the good guys, i.e., we didn't torture people, we didn't snatch people up and send them off to secret prisons without due process or access to representation. We didn't attack countries that didn't attack us first. We were, after all, the good guys. Only the bad guys did that sort of thing, and we all knew who they were.

[antarti]

We were, after all, the good guys

Sad how times have changed...

and people wonder how/why some on this (and other) forums can speak of voting from a good high vantage point, printing "recall ballots" on your progressive press, etc.

It's getting more obvious to me day-by-day that the guys leaning toward voting "early and often" just might be right.

Damn, I thought I'd be at least 20 years older before becoming such a curmudgeon. My mistake was never accounting for all the traitors, and that snowballing effect that Socialism has on a population.

Oh well... fool me once...

[TarpleyG]

I didn't read the entire article but I did read most of the replies. Maybe someone can answer my question.

The CIA is operating out of the country which it is supposed to do by charter and from what I gather, no where was it mentioned that these folks being held and questioned in these secret prisons were Americans in any sense of the notion. If that is the case, why all the comparisons to Germany and Russia and secretive operations like the CIA is doing something immoral/illegal. As far as I am concerned, if they are not US citizens, the Constitution simply does not apply. I sincerely doubt they are capturing "terror" suspects here in the States and carting them off to this secret prison for interrogation. I am under the assumption these are folks captured outside our borders in which case I have zero problem with it.

Greg

[antarti]

and from what I gather, no where was it mentioned that these folks being held and questioned in these secret prisons were Americans in any sense of the notion. If that is the case,

I am under the assumption these are folks captured outside our borders in which case I have zero problem with it.


And congress can't even confirm that... can you?

like the CIA is doing something immoral/illegal

You're ostensibly an American, yet see nothing wrong with jailing somebody for their whole life? Without a trial? Without even a rigged Military Tribunal? Even the Nazi's got that... What part of justice (civilian or military) do you not get?

Times have indeed changed..

[twency]

You're ostensibly an American, yet see nothing wrong with jailing somebody for their whole life?
I don't recall seeing any allegation that this is being done.
___________________
-twency

[davec]

I gather you're being facetious, but the idea of the U.S. having secret prisons isn't exactly novel, nor was it unheard-of when your grandfather was fighting the Nazis. For example, there was a secret prisoner-of-war camp used for interrogation of enemy officers here in the mountains of central Pennsylvania. I can't find a whole lot of information on what happened there (imagine that - a secret camp without a lot of existing documentation) but there doesn't seem to be any question it existed, and prisoners were interrogated in secret.

Yeah, that's a clear analogy. A Prisoner of War camp set up on American soil used to house uniformed military officers of a nation that had declared war on the United States (and had war declared on them by the United States Congress) temporary housing said officers till being transferred to much less "secret" POW camps.


The camp was not operated as a final destination for the POWs as the POWs were kept for a short period of time for interrogation and then dispersed to other POW camps.

..

The prisoners included members of Rommel's Africa Corp. In accordance with the Geneva Convention, POW officers were not involved in contract labor or major forestry projects, but did perform maintenance-related activities around the camp such as road construction and brush clearing. For the most part, the POWs spent their time involved in recreational activities including painting and sports. Prisoners were, well treated although unlike other POW the security of camp was tighter in relation to the intelligence gathering activities. A reported 15 prisoners escaped from the camp and legends still exist that one of these escapees lives in the forest around the camp.

http://www.beulahpresby.org/webmaster/michaux/SURVEY.htm

Though, to be fair it sounds like torture was a common practice at that camp in rural Pennsylvania.

At one time during the war a German Naval Officer was quartered in Trail Lodge. He was a very stubborn prisoner and for two weeks would not divulge any secrets. Someone found out that this prisoner was very fond of American Whiskey. So they brought him down to Michaux Lodge and put him in with another prisoner. The Americans gave them two bottles of whiskey. They became very drunk and the conversation which ensued was recorded by means of a Dictaphone hidden in the ceiling. A few days later a submarine base in Germany was bombed for the first time.

http://www.wartimememories.co.uk/pow/pinegrove.html

Giving Whiskey to Germans has been against all conventional rules of war farce since at least the 1700's.


Yup, clear comparison between a camp set up on foreign soil in secret by the CIA used to house god knows who, and doing who knows what and a camp in Pennsylvania used to temporarily hold uniformed officers of the German military.

[twency]

Let's be fair. I never said it was a perfect analogy. I said it was a fact that secret prison camps have been used by the United States for a long time. Based on earlier comments in this thread, the mere existence of a secret prison was apparently enough to signal the end of western civilization as we had known it.
___________
-twency

[Don't Tread On Me]

Oh come now! We're past the trivial nonsense of circuses like the Nuremberg Trials.


It is much better to detain people indefinately, not give them access to a government-approved attorney for 18 months, and certainly not give that pesky media a REAL look into our TAX-payer funded prison system.


I'd rather they bombed them into a bloody paste in the desert than conduct these attrocious anti-American acts. Now they've set a precedent. While many American's don't approve. You don't see American people marching on D.C. or marching throughout the streets demanding our government act in an American manner.


That's the scary part. They are doing it, and we're sending the message that we don't give a damn. That's a stamp of approval in the eyes of our ever power hungry leviathan state.


Bush lied about the reasons to go into Iraq. This is fact, it is unrefutable. Imagine their closed door meetings? They must be laughting their butts off that America bit into that one. They must be planning the next great lie or stunt.


It's like Jerry Springer's "talk" show. What's the next most extreme thing they can get away with?

[cropcirclewalker]

Osamer won.

He has us doing his work for him.

When evil is used to fight evil then evil has won. Evil has won.

[twency]

Bush lied about the reasons to go into Iraq. This is fact, it is unrefutable.
Show me a single shred of evidence to support this statement.
________
-twency

[Don't Tread On Me]

Show me a single shred of evidence to support this statement.


I'll do that when you find me those WMD's

[antarti]

Twency,

Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

OR

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "

I thought those were pretty clear that it was contemplated... or not, what their dispositions would be.

[twency]

I'll do that when you find me those WMD's

The burden of proof is not on me to prove that they do, or did, exist. I'm not making a claim that they did, although I have referenced high government officials who have said they did, including statements made before January 2000, when BushHitler took office. I want to know why so many people, like Madeline Albright (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/01/iraq/) stated that they did, even though they later couldn't be found.

On the other hand, you make the assertion flat-out that: Bush lied about the reasons to go into Iraq. This is fact, it is unrefutable.I haven't seen any evidence of this. Please support your statement.

__________________
-twency

[RealGun]

Not true. The legal system is based on the rule of law, which is grounded in the Constitution, which is accessible to anyone with a fifth grade education. It is, however, the case that those in charge of our legal system ignore the rule of law, and the document in which it is grounded.


Those "in charge of our legal system" define the rule of law. It is not some disconnected absolute. The rule of law is both a noble concept and a cruel, corrupted reality. It is well established that in practical terms the Constitution DOES NOT mean what it literally says. There is always that pesky "compelling government interest", which makes it all rather elusive. Some rights are more popular than others. Some are very inconvenient to powerful people.

[twency]

I thought those were pretty clear that it was contemplated... or not, what their dispositions would be.True, if this article is accurate, it is being contemplated. Thanks for clarifying. My apologies.

_______________
-twency

[antarti]

Cropcirclewalker +P+

When evil is used to fight evil then evil has won. Evil has won.


I thought that our "righteous indignation" was always enough motivation to get anything done.

Shame we're running out of "righteous", but not "indignant" anymore.

And pardon me for using the word "shame", since we're running perilously low on that as well these days.

[Don't Tread On Me]

The burden of proof is not on me to prove that they do, or did, exist. I'm not making a claim that they did, although I have referenced high government officials who have said they did, including statements made before January 2000, when BushHitler took office. I want to know why so many people, like Madeline Albright (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/01/iraq/) stated that they did, even though they later couldn't be found.

On the other hand, you make the assertion flat-out that: I haven't seen any evidence of this. Please support your statement.

__________________
-twency


Holy Argumentum ad verecundiam (http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html#Argumentum%20ad%20verecundiam) Batman!


It is IRRELEVANT if Clinton, Bush Sr., or Bozo the clown "said" that WMD's were in Iraq. This doesn't make it proof, or evidence of any kind whatsoever.


Now - Bush said IRAQ HAS WMD's AND IS DEVELOPING NEW ONES.


Burden of proof on Bush and YOU. "Show me the WMD's"

*edited to correct the type of flawed argument

[twency]

Holy strawman argument Batman!

It is IRRELEVANT if Clinton, Bush Sr., or Bozo the clown "said" that WMD's were in Iraq. This doesn't make it proof, or evidence of any kind whatsoever.

Now - Bush said IRAQ HAS WMD's AND IS DEVELOPING NEW ONES.

Burden of proof on Bush and YOU. "Show me the WMD's"I have no obligation to show you the WMDs, because I am not asserting that it is undeniable fact that they exist now, or that they ever existed. I am questioning your assertion as undeniable fact that: Bush lied about the reasons to go into Iraq. This is fact, it is unrefutable.

Very simple and clear.
________
-twency

[Hawkmoon]

I'm on the side that thinks America's "Whatever, I'll do what I want" policy is more dangerous than the terrorists.
x 2

[Don't Tread On Me]

Play semantics all you want. If it were my burden to prove, that would be convenient for you or Bush. I'd rely on the evidence, or in this case, lack thereof.

It is safe to say there are no WMD's in Iraq. Are they still burried in the desert? Are we still waiting for Saddam's former Baathist buddies to come forth and tell us where they bulldozed a massive crater to hide them all?

We can find Saddam in a spider hole, where are all those WMD's? Barrels of anthrax? Barrels of nerve gas? Not 1 scientist (except the one's on CIA payroll) has come forth to admit or give us clues into the phantom WMD program.


Bizarre. With over 150,000 military personnel, and triple that in civilian and contractors, compound that with international media, private inspectors, and we haven't seen not one teeny tiny shred of WMD's. Oh let me guess....Iraq is the size of California, so it's hard to find them? ROFLAHAHAH. If so, then why doesn't the Administration keep on the rhetoric of looking for them


Simple - because most of them have already admitted to being wrong on the WMD's. Remember, politicians don't admit to lying - that would imply conspiracy, instead it was just an honest mistake, a miscalculation. You know ...it's REALLY easy to mistake spy satellite photography of old run down military transport vehicles for "mobile WMD labs" before the U.N. Hahahaha.


Like I said, they already admitted it.


Now, that exercise was fun wasn't it? Now, back to reality, and back to the fact that the burden of proof sits with the accuser (Bush) and not me.

[Hawkmoon]

I didn't read the entire article but I did read most of the replies. Maybe someone can answer my question.

The CIA is operating out of the country which it is supposed to do by charter and from what I gather, no where was it mentioned that these folks being held and questioned in these secret prisons were Americans in any sense of the notion. If that is the case, why all the comparisons to Germany and Russia and secretive operations like the CIA is doing something immoral/illegal. As far as I am concerned, if they are not US citizens, the Constitution simply does not apply. I sincerely doubt they are capturing "terror" suspects here in the States and carting them off to this secret prison for interrogation. I am under the assumption these are folks captured outside our borders in which case I have zero problem with it.

Greg
According to your logic, if the intelligence apparatus of, for example, Iran decided that YOU are a terrorist who might be plotting to assasinate their leader, if they grab you off the street in Omaha and whisk you off to a secret prison in Syria or Lebanon so they can torture you for as long as they wish, without telling anyone where you are or allowing you any legal representation ...

It's all okay, right? Because you're not a citizen or Iran, and the prison isn't in Iranian soil.

[twency]

Simple - because most of them have already admitted to being wrong on the WMD's. Remember, politicians don't admit to lying - that would imply conspiracy, instead it was just an honest mistake, a miscalculation. You know ...it's REALLY easy to mistake spy satellite photography of old run down military transport vehicles for "mobile WMD labs" before the U.N. Hahahaha.So, "because most of them have already admitted to being wrong on the WMD's," that's proof that Bush lied? I'm not following your line of logic. Bush said WMDs were present. So did lots of other people, including democrats within the past couple years, and Democrats in the Clinton White House, before BushHitler came on the scene. Let's assume for the sake of argument that not a single WMD ever existed (excluding, of course, those Saddam is known to have used on the Kurds). How is it "unrefutable" that "Bush lied about the reasons to go into Iraq." Even if we agree that no WMDs existed, that just means that the U.S. had bad intelligence information. It doesn't mean "Bush Lied, Kids Died!"

__________
-twency

[benEzra]

HMM, dont want to be held in a prison in BFE, dont fly planes, or support those that do, into our buildings.
Umm, what if Attorney General Feinstein in some future administration decides that some THR members are "terrorism suspects" because of their "known anti-government views," their attendance at "paramilitary training camps" (Gunsite, DTI, Front Sight, LFI), their stockpiles of "sniper rifles" and "paramilitary weapons," and their alleged support for "armed resistance against the government" (i.e., wearing a Molon Labe hat or quoting Jefferson in their sig line).

If the decision is made today that abducting someone and holding them for the rest of their life in a secret prison in Romania or Uzbekistan, because a government agent suspected them of being a terrorist, is OK...remember that the system will then be used by every administration in the FUTURE. This system in doesn't worry you, as long as the target is suspected Islamic terrorists? What about ten years from now, when your worst political nightmare could be president and the target could be "antigovernment extremists"? Be careful what you wish for; what goes around, comes around. ..

[twency]

Play semantics all you want. If it were my burden to prove, that would be convenient for you or Bush. I'd rely on the evidence, or in this case, lack thereof.
An argument from silence. Always a winner.

"There are no WMDs in evidence now, therefore there never were any, therefore when someone stated that there were, he was lying (and if he says he relied on bad information, that also proves he was lying)."

Very powerful.

_________
-twency

[Don't Tread On Me]

So, "because most of them have already admitted to being wrong on the WMD's," that's proof that Bush lied? I'm not following your line of logic. Bush said WMDs were present. So did lots of other people, including democrats within the past couple years, and Democrats in the Clinton White House, before BushHitler came on the scene. Let's assume for the sake of argument that not a single WMD ever existed (excluding, of course, those Saddam is known to have used on the Kurds). How is it "unrefutable" that "Bush lied about the reasons to go into Iraq." Even if we agree that no WMDs existed, that just means that the U.S. had bad intelligence information. It doesn't mean "Bush Lied, Kids Died!"

__________
-twency


Semantics.


You're calling a lie "bad intelligence". Bad intelligence = accidental. Lie = intentional.


But that is somewhat of a redherring. It takes away from the FACT that Bush said himself, that WMD's were in Iraq. Now, he bases his "facts" on intelligence. Bad or good.


So it becomes a matter of where does the buck stop? I guess not at Bush - isn't that letting them off the hook a little bit?


Note the hypocrisy, or better yet, double-standard in your own logic. Had YOU lied to the Government, Martha Stewart style...for a crime that wasn't commited -- you will go to prison. But not for our masters and Gods in Washington.


That is the same type of elitist goverment statism that people espouse around here when they hold LEO's in some higher respect than regular citizens.


Anyway, back to the WMD thing. He made those statements AS HIS OWN, as President. They were lies - because they were false.

lie
n.

1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.


Saying WMD's were in IRAQ has been shown to be false. Therefore, Bush made a false statements. He deliberately presented these "facts" as the truth about Iraq prior to the war. Therefore, Bush lied.

You can say that at the time he thought they were "true"..so it's not a lie, since he didn't make a false statement deliberately being presented as true, since he believed that information to be true.

Well, in that case, I've got a bridge to sell you, or some photo's of "Mobile Anthrax Labs", ex-scientists on CIA payroll, and evil death drones that will spray VX and Sarin over our children's preschools- all remotely controlled from Saddam's palace.


I guess we wasted a lot of money on those satellites that can read 12pt fonts from outer space...:uhoh:


ty

[TarpleyG]

According to your logic, if the intelligence apparatus of, for example, Iran decided that YOU are a terrorist who might be plotting to assasinate their leader, if they grab you off the street in Omaha and whisk you off to a secret prison in Syria or Lebanon so they can torture you for as long as they wish, without telling anyone where you are or allowing you any legal representation ...

It's all okay, right? Because you're not a citizen or Iran, and the prison isn't in Iranian soil.
No, it's not all right but it might just happen and I couldn't do squat about it. War is war and ????? happens. You're telling me now that POWs should have legal representation??? At whose expense BTW?

I guess I better not give the impression that I am an enemy they are seeking. Oh, and I should stay out of Omaha.

Greg

[Don't Tread On Me]

An argument from silence. Always a winner.

"There are no WMDs in evidence now, therefore there never were any, therefore when someone stated that there were, he was lying (and if he says he relied on bad information, that also proves he was lying)."

Very powerful.

_________
-twency


That's pretty weak. I remind you again of the facts.


Fact #1. Bush said WMD's were in Iraq. He said they had irrefutable proof - via satellite photos (Colin Powell special), testimony from Iraqi exiles on CIA payroll (agents working to destabilize Saddam), Yellow Cake and all sorts of other garbage.


Now, given the fact THEY made those claims. I'd like to see the evidence. Don't you?


It isn't MY burden to prove they don't exist, it's THEIR burden to prove they DO exist.


Good thing your logic isn't used in criminal courts.


You claim I support an argument of silence, IE, I say they haven't been found, therefore they don't exist. That isn't really my argument, that's your argument to keep the "WMD's are in Iraq" statement Pending....perhaps FOREVER.


Guess what guys! WMD statement wasn't a lie - because we still might find them! Did you know that in a debate - God doesn't exist, because you can't prove that God exists? Any scholar would reject your argument that "God exists because you can't prove that he doesn't"....That doesn't fly.

[The Real Hawkeye]

As far as I am concerned, if they are not US citizens, the Constitution simply does not apply.In point of fact, the Constitution doesn't apply to American citizens at all. It only applies to the United States Federal Government, while it pertains to both American citizens and to all of humanity. The Constitution says that "No person shall be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law." It doesn't say no American citizen. This was intentional. The Founders didn't believe that only those lucky enough to be born in America had inalienable rights. No, they believed that "All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life and liberty." In my day, you couldn't graduate the sixth grade if you didn't know this stuff, but it seems as if this is all new to you. What a shame what has happened to our education system.

[twency]

You claim I support an argument of silence, IE, I say they haven't been found, therefore they don't exist. That isn't really my argument, that's your argument to keep the "WMD's are in Iraq" statement Pending....perhaps FOREVER.
No, I say that if they haven't been found, that's not proof that Bush lied.

Let's say told you I have evidence that my grandfather buried a gold coin somewhere on my parent's 60-acre farm, and invited you to come find it with your metal detector. You come and look for it, and can't find it. Does that prove that I lied?

Not at all. It may mean that the coin never existed, and my information was wrong. It may mean that the coin is there, but you just didn't find it. It may mean that the coin was there, but someone else found it first. Finally, it may mean I made up the whole thing. But the fact that you didn't find the coin doesn't prove that I lied.

________________
-twency

[antarti]

You're telling me now that POWs should have legal representation??? At whose expense BTW?

That's a little "off" unless you want to call these "detainees" (just a convenient word while making this point, don't read into it) POWs. That point can be debated, but I'll use POWs since you did.

Yes, the Nazi's even took POWs. IIRC, some 94% of our guys in Nazi POW camps survived. The German people paid for that. Not so with the Japanese, who were far more barbaric at the time. So there IS a code of ethics in war, that even some provenly craven regimes (not AlQuaeda though) will adhere to.

Is it too much to ask that we do the same? We did sign the same documents, and it's our tradition. A tradition of showing the world that we are not the same as you, we are better.

Or couldn't a military tribunal vet these people and declare them at least as enemy combatants, at which point they could be detained (or even tossed into a big meat grinder)?

It's about not leaving a record, IMHO. No transparency, zip.

So why all the skullduggery?

Prior to Sept 11th, it wasn't necessary, and I think we have a LOT less to fear from the current crop of death-worshippers than the last.

OTOH, we have one heck of a lot more to fear from our own home-grown miscreants in elected office.

[twency]

Anyway, back to the WMD thing. He made those statements AS HIS OWN, as President. They were lies - because they were false.

lie
n.

1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.


Saying WMD's were in IRAQ has been shown to be false. Therefore, Bush made a false statements. He deliberately presented these "facts" as the truth about Iraq prior to the war. Therefore, Bush lied.First, "Saying WMD's were in IRAQ" has not been proven to be false. See the analogy i just posted above. Second, I understand the word "lie" to refer to an intentionally false statement. An inadvertant false statement based on bad information is not, in my opinion, a lie. Is that a huge stretch of the facts? (Is it, gasp, a lie????)

____________
-twency

[JJpdxpinkpistols]

So, "because most of them have already admitted to being wrong on the WMD's," that's proof that Bush lied?

Lets just sidestep this whole process:

Show me the WMDs.
Show me the WMDs.

You get Bush to show us the WMD's and I will AGAIN throw my support behind the war on terror. Until then, yeah, Bush is an out and out liar.

And now back on target: my granddad got his foot crushed by a shell (C-BeeS) defending against people who took folks and imprisoned them based upon their beliefs and supposed actions against the State. These folks were primarily imprisoned in countries allied to them and kept until the end of their lives.

The country: Germany
The detainees: Jews...Gypsy's...homosexuals...politicians.
The countries: Poland, France, Austria, Hungary

This doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy. In fact, it makes me feel a bit queesy. The actions of my government shouldn't make me feel queesy.

[Shalako]

In the past wars, if an enemy combatant was wearing a regular uniform, they were taken prisoner and put into a POW camp.

Enemies captured not wearing a uniform were considered spies and could be shot.

Show me the regular uniform on our enemies.

We could shoot them on site, but instead keep them alive for information. Are you saying we should just go back to just shooting them? I see the value in obtaining information from them as we are fighting a hidden enemy. They choose to fight from the shadows, so we must do so as well or just stand there and be picked off.

They called the dance.....

[The Real Hawkeye]

First, "Saying WMD's were in IRAQ" has not been proven to be false. See the analogy i just posted above. Second, I understand the word "lie" to refer to an intentionally false statement. An inadvertant false statement based on bad information is not, in my opinion, a lie. Is that a huge stretch of the facts? (Is it, gasp, a lie????)

____________
-twencyBush was planning this war before 9/11. He was happy to use 9/11 as an excuse to take us to war with Iraq, and used every trick in the book. He may not have lied, per se, but he chose to create an image in the minds of the American people that Saddam was on the verge of nuking US cities, and that he had intelligence to this effect. This was a false impression intentionally placed in the American mind for the purpose of getting popular support for what he had been determined to do since before he was elected. He knew that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on our soil, but intentionally manipulated available evidence to create a false impression that this was in fact the case.

[JJpdxpinkpistols]

First, "Saying WMD's were in IRAQ" has not been proven to be false.

Horsepucky.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-10-06-wmd_x.htm

If you so wish, we can now take up arguements relating to Knaves and Knights.

[Don't Tread On Me]

So you're allowing the Bush argument of ignorance to prevail?

It was an "honest mistake". It wasn't. There is enough evidence and testimony, and history in place to find leaves NO doubt whatsoever that there was a concerted effort to fabricate the WMD "evidence"...


If Bush has simply said "we think"...it would have been as you say, a matter of an honest mistake - implying no conspiracy to lie, a conspiracy to lie which I claim. I said it was intentional, based on his statments, statements which were made with the utmost confidence in being fact, and backed by evidence...


Speaking of evidence...


Then explain the evidence, like satellite photo's of mobile wmd labs, killer drones, barrels of gas etc....How can it have been "bad intelligence" or unintentional misinformation when they came forth with "evidence"...?


Wait..let me see - ALL the evidence was wrong? How can this be? ALL that evidence was wrong? ALL at the same time? WMD labs, barrels of gas, NUKE program, unmanned aerial vehicles, yellow cake, witnesses...wow --- all that sh*t was all wrong all at the same time, and Bush and his entire staff, and the entire government fell for it?


There's no weaseling out of this one.


Where is the investigation into which analyst totally misinterpreted that satellite photo of the mobile WMD lab that Colin Powell displayed at the U.N. Where is the investigation into how the military or CIA could have misidentified that? I mean they had ARROWS pointing to every part of those vehicles explaining how they relate to the production of nerve gas!!!!


Ok...zoom to present. All of the administration, sans the Pres and Vice, have admitted to being "wrong"...how can that be when they aren't wrong according to YOU who still claims that it wasn't a lie because they haven't "found them yet"...Can't they just fall back on those photo's that clearly show WMD's? Say -- yes!!!!! They were there, but not anymore!


They vanished into thin air! Just like 2000 dead soldiers and 200+ billion of our dollars.

[The Real Hawkeye]

In the past wars, if an enemy combatant was wearing a regular uniform, they were taken prisoner and put into a POW camp.

Enemies captured not wearing a uniform were considered spies and could be shot.

Show me the regular uniform on our enemies.

We could shoot them on site, but instead keep them alive for information. Are you saying we should just go back to just shooting them? I see the value in obtaining information from them as we are fighting a hidden enemy. They choose to fight from the shadows, so we must do so as well or just stand there and be picked off.

They called the dance.....Apples and oranges. What you say only applies when we are in a declared war with a nation. In which case, soldiers of that nation are required to wear their uniforms. That doesn't apply to this situation, though. Someone from a country with which we are not at war cannot be considered in this way. If they commit crimes, no matter how heinous, they are criminals, and when arrested enjoy the rights of any accused person under our system. If you are invading someone else's country, and the people (not regular soldiers) rise up and defend their land with weapons, they are not violating some military code of ethics. They are defending their land from the invader, the same as you and I would in similar circumstances. These people don't fit the category you describe either. When apprehended, they have rights, and shouldn't be treated as if they don't.

[Mongo the Mutterer]

In the past wars, if an enemy combatant was wearing a regular uniform, they were taken prisoner and put into a POW camp.

Enemies captured not wearing a uniform were considered spies and could be shot.

Show me the regular uniform on our enemies.

We could shoot them on site, but instead keep them alive for information. Are you saying we should just go back to just shooting them? I see the value in obtaining information from them as we are fighting a hidden enemy. They choose to fight from the shadows, so we must do so as well or just stand there and be picked off.

They called the dance.....Bingo !! +1

[Don't Tread On Me]

You've given us all the common argument that the government has been using. Finding a techinicallity in the Geneva conventions or whatnot. That we aren't fighting uniformed military personnel.


Guess what, the American revolution wasn't fought soley by uniformed continental army soldiers. It was fought by militia. Hypocritical eh? Would you have looked at England as just, had a geneva convention existed back then, and the militia men were tortured, while the continental army were detained in accordance to the convention?



It really isn't about what every letter of the geneva convention says. It is about American's expecting their elected government to act with decency, even when our enemy does not. We don't do that to look good, we do that because we don't want our government justifying that treatment for us.


Besides, by arguing the geneva convention, you're saying by default that the geneva convention is the standard by which we measure our morality. LOL. That's terrible. Guys, I think we're a little bit better than a contract between European nations....We're only as good as the Geneva Convention makes us!!!! Whaahoo!



Here's another angle. How long does it take to get information out of the detainees? It can't possibly take more than a year. Give them a lawyer, give them a trial (even if it is a joke), then either let them free if found innocent, sentence them to prison, or execute them. DON'T just hold them there.


Even the most left-wing liberals don't sympathize with these terrorist, they just want to see some action - as indefinate detention is perhaps the worst precedent and act our government can ever do.


It's not why our fathers all bleed for. They didn't die for this.

[Winnisimmet]

Lock em up . . . Keep em there and do what's ever required. We need to start a new support group for our gallant CIA officials. . . "American Citizens for Foriegn Prisons for Foriegners". The new ACFFPFF organization backs increased funding to bankroll even more deep dark dank secret prisons outside of CONUS to warehouse enemies of America. Maybe too, a little extra cash can be slipped to our overseas minions so from time to time they'll forget the location of the miscreant filled secret prisons. Oooops, it slipped our minds as to where that secret lock up is located with the thugs, murderers and prisoner scum not being fed or watered in several weeks. Oh, well . . .so it goes.

[Bruce H]

So are Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson part of the sources for this nugget? I will reserve judgement until I can look the sources in the eye.

[The Real Hawkeye]

Lock em up . . . Keep em there and do what's ever required. We need to start a new support group for our gallant CIA officials. . . "American Citizens for Foriegn Prisons for Foriegners". The new ACFFPFF organization backs increased funding to bankroll even more deep dark dank secret prisons outside of CONUS to warehouse enemies of America. Maybe too, a little extra cash can be slipped to our overseas minions so from time to time they'll forget the location of the miscreant filled secret prisons. Oooops, it slipped our minds as to where that secret lock up is located with the thugs, murderers and prisoner scum not being fed or watered in several weeks. Oh, well . . .so it goes.I am assuming you are about twelve, based on your response, so you likely have an excuse. But, when you grow up, you will realize that not all who are apprehended are actually guilty of what they are charged with. This is why we place limits on what our government may do when it suspects someone of a crime. This is why we no longer have sovereign kings who can arrest political enemies and stick them in dungeons for the rest of their lives under some kind of manufactured charge, never to be heard from again. If you allow your government to do this to "terror suspects," you can be sure that the definition of a "terror suspect" will, sooner or later, magically expand to include just about anyone they want out of the way. You might find yourself to be a terror suspect under the Hillary Clinton administration one day. Off you go to a secret prison for questioning, which will likely involve repeated simulated drownings, and being chained in odd positions for days on end in between simulated drowning sessions. You want to see your lawyer? What a laugh! You're not in the United States anymore, and your citizen status has been stripped from you since you're suspected of being a member of that terror group known as The High Road. Those rights only belong to US citizens, which you are no longer. You will have to tell us what you know about the other members of this group before we will stop the drowning sessions today, but you can never see a lawyer. No one even knows you're alive, and we need to keep it that way, so just cooperate and the rest of your life might not be quite as agonizing as it might otherwise be.

[JohnBT]

"Can't anybody keep a SECRET???"

Obviously there are some traitors who can't.

John

[Ezekiel]

Lock em up . . . Keep em there and do what's ever required. We need to start a new support group for our gallant CIA officials. . .

I don't even know how to reply to this miscreant: it's almost as if the fundamental aspects of how "wrong" this is have eluded him.

(sigh)

I just don't understand how...um..."forget it". Lost cause. :banghead:

[Mongo the Mutterer]

So are Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson part of the sources for this nugget? I will reserve judgement until I can look the sources in the eye.

Yep Show Me... Me too.

Oh, an anecdote. Fiance and I went to dinner at a sport's bar, and CNN was on TV. Wooof woof Blitzer was interviewing Wilson. Sound was off the TV.

Watching the stern, serious expressions on both of these COLOSSAL losers was absolutely hilarious.

I'll bet Wilson pays $500 for a haircut, too.

[Ezekiel]

"Can't anybody keep a SECRET???"

Obviously there are some traitors who can't.

John

Whoa!

Typically I appreciate your posts, but are you saying that the overt "right", "patriotic" and "morally correct" thing to do was -- if aware -- keep secret the fact that the United States both sponsors and runs "secret prisons" in other countries?

Basically, your dilemma is that someone told, not that these places actually exist? And, that by telling, these folks are now traitors?

Do I have your point and meaning correct? Because, yesterday, I thought it was satire...

[goosegunner]

Looks like it becomes harder and harder everyday to find a reason, other than who has the strongest army, to support the USA. I was hoping you where the 'Good Guys' for better reasons than short term profits.:(

[El Tejon]

The New Barbary pirates are that--pirates. They are not subject to due process under U.S. or international law. By declaring themselves free of civility, they have identified themselves as targets in a free fire zone.

This, along with shooting them behind the ear with a .22, is exactly what the CIA SHOULD have been doing years ago! Decades ago when the USA was run by real men we knew this. Now we face a thick cadre of cookie pushers who shuffle paper and want people who have sworn to murder our children to love us so the cookie pushers can get invited to the right cocktail parties in Georgetown.

Best wishes to the CIA and why weren't you doing this sooner? The world is not a violence free petting zoo filled with fuzzy bunnies and baby lambs. The USA is the best house on the block in a horrible neighborhood. If we have to let the crazy uncle who lives in the apartment over our garage go out at night and shoot the crackheads down the street so we can live in the security that our kids do not disappear on the way to school--just fine with me.:)

[Ezekiel]

Best wishes to the CIA and why weren't you doing this sooner?

"Because it's draconian, an international witch-hunt, morally indefensible and not proven effective?"

I'm not being sarcastic or an ass, I think those are valid reasons.

[The Real Hawkeye]

The New Barbary pirates are that--pirates. They are not subject to due process under U.S. or international law. By declaring themselves free of civility, they have identified themselves as targets in a free fire zone.

This, along with shooting them behind the ear with a .22, is exactly what the CIA SHOULD have been doing years ago!If you, as a member of some legit agent of the law or military, are engaged in battle with Barbary pirates, you are under no obligation to arrest them and give them a trial. You can blow them out of the water and watch them drown. That's not what we're dealing with here. Many of these people were apprehended because someone was tortured into revealing their names in connection with a terror organization. That is to say, they are suspected of being terrorists. This is not a Barbary pirate situation. People are never subject to due process. It is the United States Federal Government that is subject to due process requirements, and this regardless of the citizenship of who is suspected. The Constitution does not say "No American citizen shall be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law." No, it says "No person shall be ..." It is a limit on what the Federal Government may do. It is not the granting of a right to those fortunate enough to be born American citizens.

[Ezekiel]

If we have to let the crazy uncle who lives in the apartment over our garage go out at night and shoot the crackheads down the street...

What disturbs me is the lack of concern over the precedent, not just the "act".

What happens when the metaphorical "crazy uncle" turns his sights on the home? You have unleashed, accepted and coddled the whim of a crazy person...

[El Tejon]

Ez, that was exactly the Founders concern!:) That's why we have the Second Amendment in order to defend ourselves from our government.

Precendent with Barbary pirates? Ever wonder how that phrase ". . . to the shores of Tripoli. . ." got in the Marine Corps hymn.;)

Real, Supremes decided that issue in the Mexi kidnap case (which had great 2A dicta, btw). Pirates, no due process for you!:D

[roo_ster]

I just always kind of assumed this was occurring. Our government would be remiss in their responsibilities were they not. It has become impossible to bring the poor lambs CONUS due to the blissninnies insistence on mandatory footrubs for fedayeen*.

Also, it surely is a whole lot more easy on terrorists/insurgents/what-have-yous than summary execution, which is what they have earned under the various conventions & accords we have signed on to**. Hey, whadda say we leave it up to the captured terrorist/insurget/etc: summary execution or whisked away to a secret hidey-hole for an indefinite period?


* We just don't have enough service members trained to give quality footrubs. I mean, if they started tickling Mohammed, the wrong folks might think it was systematic torture.

** Not mere technicalities, as some uninformed poster wrote. I have posted the text in some past thread. Do a search and find out the facts.

[sturmruger]

This kind of stuff makes me feel good to be an American! I love to see our goverment being proactive about terrorists.

[Don't Tread On Me]

This kind of stuff makes me feel good to be an American! I love to see our goverment being proactive about terrorists.


Oh yea sure. Until the definition of "terrorist" changes....Folks at WACO could easily been considered "terrorists."

Law-abiding militias could be called terrorists.


YOU someday, could be considered a terrorist because of your political ideology, your choice to own firearms, or maybe even your religion.


History is on my side in proving that this does happen.

[blackguns]

Ok I have been lurking for a while and this thread made me register....

I have read this thread front to back and agree with a lot of the idealistic notions I have read.

I feel that the constitution and bill of rights simply declare rights that are or should be inherent for all mankind. I don't think that splitting hairs as far as location and citizenship has any bearing on right or wrong.....just cause someone is Canadian or Iraqi doesn't change the fact that having the CIA snatch someone off the street and cutting fingers off until they talk is wrong.

However, I remeber exactly where I was on 9/11 when I saw what was happening, a very cold rage still boils in my soul for the terrorists that did that to completly inoccent people.

If I thought that I could stop that from happening by getting information out of a person I don't think the high ideals of the founding fathers or natural law would even slow me down.

I would cheerfully inflict great amounts of pain on someone I felt had designs on another 9/11 if that meant that I could save the lives of innocent people.

In the final analysis my rights, your rights and the rights of all others will at some point conflict. The only result of that will be that someone looses.

If you instigate a life threatening danger to myself or my family I get to exercise my rights by defending my life and potentially ending yours. It must be strictly controled and regulated but when it boils down to it......it is no different in international relations.

Terroists pose a mortal threat to our nation and many nations. We didn't start this, but we need to end it.

Any other outcome will put us in greater danger in the future. You go to war to defeat an enemy, don't candy A** it. Go flat out without quarter until it is done.
To defend the lives of our loved ones most of us wouldn't give a second thought to shooting an attacker. Why is this so different?

Where will the next attack be? Maybe the CIA is defending your family.......or mine...

I knew people that walked into those towers and never walked out.

They say the ends shouldn't justify the means, I bet most would change thier tune if the "ends" was defending a loved one.

[goosegunner]

However, I remeber exactly where I was on 9/11 when I saw what was happening, a very cold rage still boils in my soul for the terrorists that did that to completly inoccent people.

So, you decided that risking a few inoccent people beeing in a secret prison for life was a great way to respond??

If I thought that I could stop that from happening by getting information out of a person I don't think the high ideals of the founding fathers or natural law would even slow me down.

I would cheerfully inflict great amounts of pain on someone I felt had designs on another 9/11 if that meant that I could save the lives of innocent people.

Well how many innocent people will it be OK to 'cut fingers of until they talk' before you find a real terrorist.

[blackguns]

Yeah,

That's the problem with idealism or any "absolute" measures. Part of me truely feels that way. If I KNEW for certian that I could prevent an attack that would be easy.

Does anyone have a problem with killing terrorists? I doubt most people would want the CIA to pass on the opportunity to take out Osama.

I agree that hurting innocents of any race, color or crede is unacceptable, I am from the crowd that would rather set 3 guilty men free than send one innocent man to prision. That's why the system is setup the way it is.

But when faced with the responsibilty of preventing terrorist attacks on a nation and it's interests where do you draw the line between preserving the rights of the "suspect" and preserving the life of the innocent citizen of YOUR country? That's the stakes of the "game". There is a well funded and obviously very capable and highly motivated group of people in this world that would love nothing more than to publicly kill you or your family in some spectacular fashion. Just because it hasn't happend doesn't mean they have stopped trying.

Is a cell phone call to a known terrorist enough to "justify" an interrogation?

How about financial records? Being caught with explosives? Being seen in the background of a terrorist training video?

What? Where is the line? What is the evidence that is required before this person is considerd a criminal, outside the expectations of society and therfore outside of it's protections?

Society locks up people for life all around the world for taking one life. Yet we are outraged when someone gets "locked up for life" for being a part of one of the larger crimes in history?

I know, I know......we all get squeamish (myself included) when big brother steps in and gets all draconian, passing a sentence without due process, using less than pleasent methods to extract information from people etc.....we don't like the sounds of that, we are free in the west... that's the very thing that has made us a target.

I am playing devils advocate here because talking about our government and expressing opinons about it is the pinnacle of a free society. This is one of the greatest things we can do. We don't like what we see, we can change the guard in our political capitals. And be completly free to live with the consequences.

[Mongo the Mutterer]

Bill Whittle at EjectEjectEject.com has a two part essay called Sanctuary here, (http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000125.html) which I think is absolutely excellent.

Here is my view. When the guilty elect to "blend in" with the innocent, and the innocent allow it to happen, the innocent are no longer innocent. If they are caught in the crossfire, so be it.

They should have cleaned up their neighborhoods or picked different friends.

We can help them clean up their neighborhoods.

We had 3,000 innocents lose their lives in the the 9/11 attacks, and hundreds more killed in various and sundry attacks. If we herd up some innocents and they get misidentified as BGs, I'll deduct it from the innocent total we have lost.

Oh, and if you are going to flame me with the 100,000 number the left keeps floating around, please do me a favor and give your claim some attribution...

[Don't Tread On Me]

Well, the 100,000 number, at least when referring to the innocent Iraqi casualities is probably pretty close to accurate. The government and pentagon deserves to have numbers like these slung at them so long as they BAN Iraqi hospitals from reporting any statistics....hmmm why would they do that?


Besides, we all use estimates don't we? We use them to push our concealed carry agenda. We use them to make points against gun-control. Were there exactly 20,000,000 million killed by Stalin? Or 18? Does it matter?

[Mongo the Mutterer]

Don't know. But I do know about the 10 million Ukranians he killed in the winter of 1932 - 33 which the New York Times covered up for him...

[Don't Tread On Me]

That's because they were FDR's chronies. FDR was in love with Stalin, and his policies.


Sounds absurd doesn't it? But it's the truth. And it wasn't taught in public (government) schools.

[MikeIsaj]

I have personally experienced and survived two terrorist actions against the U.S. I have no problem with secret prisons and whatever they do there to these animals. Let me know where they are and I'll gladly come work off some long held anger.

Don't Tread On Me; Let me know what you think after you spend a few days digging your friends bodies out of the rubble.

[The Real Hawkeye]

Is a cell phone call to a known terrorist enough to "justify" an interrogation?You are missing the point. You should have put the quotation marks around the word "interrogation," instead of "justify." If it were a mere arrest and questioning, that would be perfectly ok. We are not talking about that. We are talking about inflicting punishment prior to a determination of guilt according to some legitimate legal process. The punishment consists of loss of liberty combined with torture and isolation. We don't even allow that for people who have been judged guilty of mass murder by a jury of their peers after a fair trial, let alone those who have been merely implicated in a crime. You, like so many, fail to grasp that governments cannot generally be trusted to determine guilt in a crime. That's why we have juries, the presumption of innocents, the right to face your accuser, to know what crime you've been accused of, to have an attorney present during questioning, etc. These are not just nice ideals. These are what we live and die by as Americans. These are principles, in the defense of which, untold thousands of my countrymen have gone to the grave. You treat them so lightly that it makes me sick to read your posts, and the posts of those who think like you. You do a grave dishonor to our forefathers. You need to rethink your position.

[The Real Hawkeye]

I have personally experienced and survived two terrorist actions against the U.S. I have no problem with secret prisons and whatever they do there to these animals. Let me know where they are and I'll gladly come work off some long held anger.

Don't Tread On Me; Let me know what you think after you spend a few days digging your friends bodies out of the rubble.Were I violently mugged by a Hispanic gang, I'd probably want to hunt down everyone who even looked Hispanic and shoot them dead. This is the reason we don't allow people to seek their own justice in our society. It usually results in an injustice. Because you have been harmed by real terrorists, you would be willing to kill or torture anyone who has even been accused of being connected with terrorism. Same thing.

[coylh]

MikeIsaj, it works both ways.

"I have no problem bombing Americans. They killed my family. I would gladly kill myself and many Americans to work off some long held anger. Let me know what you think after you spend a few days digging your friends bodies out of the rubble."

[roo_ster]

Originally Posted by MikeIsaj
I have personally experienced and survived two terrorist actions against the U.S. I have no problem with secret prisons and whatever they do there to these animals. Let me know where they are and I'll gladly come work off some long held anger.

Don't Tread On Me; Let me know what you think after you spend a few days digging your friends bodies out of the rubble.

Were I violently mugged by a Hispanic gang, I'd probably want to hunt down everyone who even looked Hispanic and shoot them dead. This is the reason we don't allow people to seek their own justice in our society. It usually results in an injustice. Because you have been harmed by real terrorists, you would be willing to kill or torture anyone who has even been accused of being connected with terrorism. Same thing.

Uh, not same thing. Being hispanic is not something you can control. You just...are. Being a terrorist or aiding terrorists is an action over which the person has a choice. And choices have consequences...

This also applies to coylh's repsonse, as being born on American soil is another accident of birth.

[coylh]

jfruser, does this one make more sense?

"I was beaten and raped by a Catholic priest. Being Catholic is a choice and choices have consequences, so I'm going to kill a lot of Catholics."

[Don't Tread On Me]

I have personally experienced and survived two terrorist actions against the U.S. I have no problem with secret prisons and whatever they do there to these animals. Let me know where they are and I'll gladly come work off some long held anger.

Don't Tread On Me; Let me know what you think after you spend a few days digging your friends bodies out of the rubble.


Hey no problem! Let's throw away our liberties because you dug up your friends after a terrorist attack. What a novel idea.


I bet they'd be ecstatic to find out that their deaths amounted to limited freedoms in America if you could speak to them today. Jeesh, If my life was ended by terrorists, the last thing I'd want is for those who remain living in this nation to throw away their rights because of that. If I am going to die, at least use my death as a call for liberty, not oppression.


Now, spare me the strawman argument please. I never argued that we should be kinder or gentler to the terrorists. All I am saying is, don't detain them in secret prisons for years, in a manner that violates everything that America is suppose to be.


Sentence them, free them, or exectute them. Don't hold them indefinately, don't torture them.

[antarti]

These are principles, in the defense of which, untold thousands of my countrymen have gone to the grave. You treat them so lightly that it makes me sick to read your posts, and the posts of those who think like you. You do a grave dishonor to our forefathers. You need to rethink your position.

+P+

You can trust our principles of government, or the people in government. Guess which one won't let you down?

I've been a few minutes from meeting my maker thanks to terrorists (Chechen lunatics with car bombs). I despise them, and "despise" doesn't even begin to do justice to how I feel about them.

So now you can begin to imagine my indignation. When we do the equivalent of the Afghans locking up people in cargo containers and leaving them to rot, or worse, torture them and then leave them to rot, without any jurisprudence or even oversight.

[gulogulo1970]

As long as there are no American citizens in them I really don't have a problem with it.

Really, I didn't think this was news. Everybody deep down knows, we have places where we hold and "talk" to our captive enemies.

[blackguns]

hawkeye

I am obviously conflicted about this topic, I can see both sides. I feel strongly about the inherent rights of all of humankind. I also fear any government that has the attitude that we kill them all and let God sort them out.

If we had a way to absolutely determine guilt and only persue those found to be guilty we would. How do we make that decision? Juries? Many a jury has convicted an innocent man. The system will never be perfect. If there are only a few hundred suspects in these prision as the story reports then i would contend that the US justice system has put more innocent people behind bars than the CIA.

And just an FYI....it is nieve to believe that this hasn't been going on for a very long time. Do you honestly think that suspected spies during WWII weren't treated in this manner?

We rounded up thousands of Japaneese AMERICANS after Pearl Harbor. We deprived them of their freedom, we isolated them from society and we interrogated them for information.

The world is not all candy canes and lollypops. Ideals are great and valuable, they serve to show us where we should strive to be. However, how do you reconcile two opposing values. Do you capture a terrorist leader, give him a lawyer and put him into a justice system that could take years to provide any outcome while his partners are blowing up trains, knocking down buildings, planting roadside bombs and blasting nightclubs around the world? That person has knowledge that could prevent those attacks and dealths. Does the purportrator of those crimes have the same rights as the victims? Should he? Should that terrorist get to sit warm and fed in a prision cell in Iowa all the while watching his handy work on CNN?

It's an honest question....I'm not trying to "make you sick". I'm asking what should we do with people that we are "sure" are terrorists. (sure is in quotes because I admit that we might never be truely sure)

I agree that many good people have died defending our principals, that in and of itself make them very valuable. I believe our "rights" are inherrent in all mankind, they are natrual rights. I also believe that the world as a whole has very little respect for those rights.

How do we protect our own while dealing with a brutal and evil world?

Think you have a better way? Lay it on us.

Use your disgust of my opinion as fuel and light me a path to a more enlightened way.

[antarti]

Do you capture a terrorist leader, give him a lawyer and put him into a justice system that could take years to provide any outcome while his partners are blowing up trains, knocking down buildings, planting roadside bombs and blasting nightclubs around the world?

...

How do we protect our own while dealing with a brutal and evil world?

Think you have a better way? Lay it on us.

I can only speak for myself, TRH is far more eloquent than I.

Can't we admit there is a WIDE GULF between "giving terrorists access to ACLU/Lawyers/The Media/3-squares/ etc. and opening detention centers where the public has no idea who may (or may not) be interred, and for what reasons, and for how long?

"Congressional oversight" is already a term that (deservedly) attracts laughs of derision, but when even they can't get access beyond "generalities" granted only to 2 members, don't you think we've gone a little too far?

Only those pleased at the TSA, Patriot I & II, and all the other abominations we have inflicted on OURSELVES in the name of "War on Terror" could possibly applaud this. It is one of the most UN-American things I've ever heard of.

Remember, when the Income Tax was first passed, it was levied on those making something like $500,000/yr and up, and only taxed them at a flat 5%. I may have the historical data slightly wrong, but I think you get the gist of where I am going with this. It will be abused. Count on it. At least the income tax was done in plain sight, these Gulags aren't.

Do you not value your right to know what your government is doing? Wouldn't we all applaud if we could see the progress being made?

On the flip side, do you really think any jury would acquit a real terrorist?

I am really trying to make this simple, I just don't have the words.

[The Real Hawkeye]

The world is not all candy canes and lollypops.Indeed not. The world is a damned dangerous and deadly place, with lots of grave evil, most of it perpetrated by governments on their own people. The depth of the evil done by governments is hardly imaginable, and this is why I take our Constitution so deadly seriously. It was designed with this very fact in mind. No, the world is not all candy canes and lollipops. What an absurd suggestion. It is precisely because the world is a damned serious and deadly place that we keep our government in the chains of the Constitution. Failure to do so, as the Founders well knew, is a mistake you only get to make once, and at your own almost certain peril.

[blackguns]

You have a very valid point. I see the danger in the slippery slope of deteriorating human rights.

I guess my question is what should we do?

Certianly revealing the progress being made to us as citizens could tip off these groups and cause them to change future plans. But we should have the ability to know and approve the things that are done in our name.

How does our government maintain the principals that we all hold dear and still get the job of protecting out nation done as effectively as possible?

I have NO interest in seeing American values thrown away. But we have historically had this problem in times of war or great national peril (cold war).

I also can't get behind the idea that evil people who single mindedly seek the destruction of entire societies should be afforded the same rights and protections as a guy who is accused of shoplifting......it just doesn't seem right.

Is there ever a situation where our choice as a nation is to decide which option is LESS wrong and go with that? i.e. violating due process or possibly letting 30, 300 or 3000 people die in a terrorist bombing?

This is a tough one.....I think if you try and take the principals that we hold dear off the paper and apply them to a real world situation with real lives at stake it gets very tough very fast.

Also personal feeling influence this debate, I did know people who died on 9/11, no one that was very close to me but people I knew. 4 years later they still come up in conversation and that keeps the feelings fresh and the motivation to stop these people very high.

I can't imagine what it must be like for people who lost loved ones.

[The Real Hawkeye]

You have a very valid point. I see the danger in the slippery slope of deteriorating human rights.

I guess my question is what should we do?Follow the sage advice of George Washington: Malice towards none, defend what's ours, no foreign entanglements, open to foreign trade on fair terms, otherwise, leave other people's homelands alone and focus on preserving peace and liberty at home. Hard to make enemies that way.Certianly revealing the progress being made to us as citizens could tip off these groups and cause them to change future plans. But we should have the ability to know and approve the things that are done in our name.

How does our government maintain the principals that we all hold dear and still get the job of protecting out nation done as effectively as possible?

I have NO interest in seeing American values thrown away. But we have historically had this problem in times of war or great national peril (cold war).See above. I would much rather accept the small risk of terrorism that would result than to sacrifice an ounce of liberty. I am with Ben Frankliin on this point: "Anyone who would sacrifice liberty for security deserves neither," and I would add, "will get neither."I also can't get behind the idea that evil people who single mindedly seek the destruction of entire societies should be afforded the same rights and protections as a guy who is accused of shoplifting......it just doesn't seem right.No one is advocating that. You seem not to grasp that people accused of something by the government are not guilty of the thing they are accused of until proven so in a court of law. Now, if you see someone committing a terrorist act, shoot him dead and then stick his head on a pole in the public square. Hell, put it on a pig's body and broadcast images of it on international news. That's a different story, and violates no one's rights.Is there ever a situation where our choice as a nation is to decide which option is LESS wrong and go with that? i.e. violating due process or possibly letting 30, 300 or 3000 people die in a terrorist bombing?I am much more afraid of what my government will do once it is unchecked by the Constitution than I am afraid of what terrorists might do. You should be too.This is a tough one.....I think if you try and take the principals that we hold dear off the paper and apply them to a real world situation with real lives at stake it gets very tough very fast.Not at all, when you consider the alternative.Also personal feeling influence this debate, I did know people who died on 9/11, no one that was very close to me but people I knew. 4 years later they still come up in conversation and that keeps the feelings fresh and the motivation to stop these people very high.

I can't imagine what it must be like for people who lost loved ones.Direct your anger at terrorists, not those the government has accused of being terrorists, which one day, for all you know, may include you.

[Fletchette]

In point of fact, the Constitution doesn't apply to American citizens at all. It only applies to the United States Federal Government, while it pertains to both American citizens and to all of humanity. The Constitution says that "No person shall be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law." It doesn't say no American citizen. This was intentional. The Founders didn't believe that only those lucky enough to be born in America had inalienable rights. No, they believed that "All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life and liberty." In my day, you couldn't graduate the sixth grade if you didn't know this stuff, but it seems as if this is all new to you. What a shame what has happened to our education system.

Exactly! The government does not grant rights, it can recognize them or repress them. All people have certain inalienable rights but only a few countries respect them (apparently not ours...:( )

[goosegunner]

The only thing worse than a terrorist is a terrorist state, and secret prisons looks like a step in that direction.

[Spiphel Rike]

The only thing worse than a terrorist is a terrorist state, and secret prisons looks like a step in that direction.

^^^

good posting

[silliman89]

"I am much more afraid of what my government will do once it is unchecked by the Constitution than I am afraid of what terrorists might do. You should be too."

WOW.

I think we have been focusing on details here when there's some fundamental big picture issues we could be discussing. First, let's look for some common ground we can agree on.

TRH, you seem focused on the idea that government is bad. There are a lot of details to its badness, but that's the basic idea. The Constitution was the founding fathers' way to protect the country from government. I think most of us here agree with that to varying extents. I imagine you don't hear that enough and I encourage everyone who is able to express their agreement with you.

This begs the question, "Why have government at all?" Unless you would like to debate the idea that anarchy (i.e. total lack of government) is preferable, then I think it's obvious that there are some necessary things only government can do. Again, I think we'd all agree that defending the country from foreign aggression is a necessary role of government.

So the disagreement seems to be about whether the methods the government is using to protect us are better or worse than what we are being protected from. Leaving aside the fact that this thread began with a news account of how the government itself hasn't really decided what to do about these prisons. The government is in reactive mode, and operating without a plan. Leaving all that aside, I think we'd all agree that none of us would like the government to treat us that way.

So why are we debating at all if we all agree? It seems to me the real debate here is about the "terrorists" and whether or not they are worse. I'd like to focus on that a little. Some people seem to think that "terrorists" are criminals who should be dealt with by law enforcement, while others see it as some new kind of war. Luckily this has been going on long enough now that there is plenty of information available. We are no longer operating in the dark and relying on what our government is telling us. We can go directly to what al queda is saying.

They want to create a global caliphate which will enforce islamic law or sharia. They attacked the World Trade Center only to incite us to invade somewhere in the islamic world. They planned for the war in Iraq to swell their ranks.

It doesn't seem to me that TRH has even considered the possibility that they might win. I don't think anyone would be more afraid of the US government than a Baghdad based totalitarian theocracy. I expect you've just dismissed the possibility of an islamic inquisition free to do anything they wanted across North America, where the former US used to be.

I don't consider that very likely, but it is possible and it is their stated goal. The only way that I can envision them winning is if we fail to resist because we are too conflicted and too busy fighting amongst ourselves over what is right and what is wrong.

[Tokugawa]

IMHO- the gov today and the military and the Cia are no more oppressive today than in the 40's. Certainly you were a LOT less likely to get in trouble for killing prisoners in WW2. In a lot of the personal accounts I have read it was commonplace.
The essential fact here is simple- The nature of "war" has gone thru a paradigm shift. We are at a point ,due to the force multipliers of technology,where a very small group of people can lay waste to an entire city or more. You think 9/11 was bad? You ain't seen nothin" yet.
Those bad boys in the CIA are tring to extract info to prevent our country from being used as ground zero. Do I like it? NO. Is it nessessary? Yes. Remember, we are not going to get the info we need from these people with out coercing it. I would do anything to them to keep this country from losing a city to a nuke. Remember, these are the folks who enjoy slicing off the heads of journalists and truck drivers.

[blackguns]

I think TRH an I are in agreement on a lot of points of this discussion. In fact I have agreed with most of what has been said.

But how do we apply these principals to the current situation?

How does government fullfill it's stated duty to protect it's citizens while maintaining the principals that it's founded on IN THIS SITUATION

I agree with all those who are espousing the principals of the founding fathers.

What would they do if they were around? In this point in history I don't see Washingtons "stick your head in the sand" theory to be viable.

If we stick our head in the sand someone will shoot us in the butt.

Should we betray our national principals? NO! But how should we proceed?

Should a panel of elected officials be put in place to evaluate the intelligence against a suspected terrorist and determine if it is strong enough to justify treatment as a terrorist? Treatment as a POW? Treatment as a "suspect"

TRH has no problem shooting terrorists in the street and spiking their head to a pigs body....as long as your sure its a terrorist...well how do we get to the point where we are sure?

Does TRH need to see a person "terrorizing" before he will be convinced?

Can elected officials be trusted for this? How do you provide due process while not compromising operational intelligence. Maybe we don't want anyone to know that we have Ali Bin Whoever in custody.

How do we get it done?

[The Real Hawkeye]

"I am much more afraid of what my government will do once it is unchecked by the Constitution than I am afraid of what terrorists might do. You should be too."

WOW.

I think we have been focusing on details here when there's some fundamental big picture issues we could be discussing. First, let's look for some common ground we can agree on.

TRH, you seem focused on the idea that government is bad. There are a lot of details to its badness, but that's the basic idea. The Constitution was the founding fathers' way to protect the country from government. I think most of us here agree with that to varying extents. I imagine you don't hear that enough and I encourage everyone who is able to express their agreement with you.

This begs the question, "Why have government at all?" Unless you would like to debate the idea that anarchy (i.e. total lack of government) is preferable, then I think it's obvious that there are some necessary things only government can do. Again, I think we'd all agree that defending the country from foreign aggression is a necessary role of government.Government is a necessary evil, and no more. We should have as little of it as necessary, and no more. That government which governs least, governs best, as some dead white dude once said.So the disagreement seems to be about whether the methods the government is using to protect us are better or worse than what we are being protected from. Leaving aside the fact that this thread began with a news account of how the government itself hasn't really decided what to do about these prisons. The government is in reactive mode, and operating without a plan. Leaving all that aside, I think we'd all agree that none of us would like the government to treat us that way.

So why are we debating at all if we all agree? It seems to me the real debate here is about the "terrorists" and whether or not they are worse. I'd like to focus on that a little. Some people seem to think that "terrorists" are criminals who should be dealt with by law enforcement, while others see it as some new kind of war. Luckily this has been going on long enough now that there is plenty of information available. We are no longer operating in the dark and relying on what our government is telling us. We can go directly to what al queda is saying.

They want to create a global caliphate which will enforce islamic law or sharia. They attacked the World Trade Center only to incite us to invade somewhere in the islamic world. They planned for the war in Iraq to swell their ranks.

It doesn't seem to me that TRH has even considered the possibility that they might win. I don't think anyone would be more afraid of the US government than a Baghdad based totalitarian theocracy. I expect you've just dismissed the possibility of an islamic inquisition free to do anything they wanted across North America, where the former US used to be.The only way we could lose is if we continue to allow Muslims to enter our country. We can choose to commit suicide by continuing this insane policy, or we could come to the realization that Islam is way too dangerous to encourage within our own boarders, and change our imigration policies to match this reality. There is no law that says we have to ignore what religion someone is when deciding on issuing visas and citizenship documents. If we adopted a sane immigration policy, there is no way we could ultimately lose, since only a tiny minority of Americans would be happy surrendering to Islamic totalitarianism. We much prefer liberty, and we all have guns and an army and a navy and an air force. We can only be defeated from within, and that would be our own fault entirely.I don't consider that very likely, but it is possible and it is their stated goal. The only way that I can envision them winning is if we fail to resist because we are too conflicted and too busy fighting amongst ourselves over what is right and what is wrong.See above.

[The Real Hawkeye]

I think TRH an I are in agreement on a lot of points of this discussion. In fact I have agreed with most of what has been said.

But how do we apply these principals to the current situation?

How does government fullfill it's stated duty to protect it's citizens while maintaining the principals that it's founded on IN THIS SITUATION

I agree with all those who are espousing the principals of the founding fathers.

What would they do if they were around? In this point in history I don't see Washingtons "stick your head in the sand" theory to be viable.This is a gross mischaracterization of Washington's position, and is very insulting to his memory, if you ask me.If we stick our head in the sand someone will shoot us in the butt.

Should we betray our national principals? NO! But how should we proceed?I've given you my answer to this question in a previous post.Should a panel of elected officials be put in place to evaluate the intelligence against a suspected terrorist and determine if it is strong enough to justify treatment as a terrorist? Treatment as a POW? Treatment as a "suspect"

TRH has no problem shooting terrorists in the street and spiking their head to a pigs body....as long as your sure its a terrorist...well how do we get to the point where we are sure?Uh, the guy is spraying the crowd with machine gun fire, or tossing grenades, or doing some kind of violent and deadly act, or running away from same. Otherwise, he is at most a suspect, and to shoot him would be murder. All the current laws regarding self defense and defense of others will apply.Does TRH need to see a person "terrorizing" before he will be convinced?Doesn't matter what will convince me. What matters is whether the shooting is justifiable in a court of law. Short of that, what matters is whether a jury can be persuaded that the man who was arrested for suspicion of terrorism is in fact a terrorist. If you were arrested for suspicion of terrorism, you'd soon come to appreciate our system of justice, that is unless you've already been shipped off to Syria for "questioning."Can elected officials be trusted for this? How do you provide due process while not compromising operational intelligence. Maybe we don't want anyone to know that we have Ali Bin Whoever in custody.Sorry, but liberty comes with certain risks. If you don't want those risks, say goodbye to liberty and get used to midnight arrests and disappearing neighbors.How do we get it done?We do it the hard way, i.e., the way that preserves liberty and prevents tyranny. Life is risky. Live with it. Liberty is not an easy path. Who told you it was?

[mercedesrules]

This begs the question, "Why have government at all?" Unless you would like to debate the idea that anarchy (i.e. total lack of government) is preferable,

I would... :)

then I think it's obvious that there are some necessary things only government can do. Again, I think we'd all agree that defending the country from foreign aggression is a necessary role of government.

This begs the question, "If North America was an anarchy, who, how, where and why would anyone attack it?" The US couldn't even occupy Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or Somalia.

IOW, whatever the purpose of so-called terrorist attacks is, it would likely not be present in an anarchy. There would be no capital city, no military headquarters, no meddling in foreign affairs, no imperialism, no "lifestyle" to hate, no favorite religions, no official to surrender, etc. Neither "terrorists" nor invaders would know how to initiate an attack (not that any country now has the ability to do so).

[Shalako]

Since our enemies are not wearing a regular uniform and aren't found openly on the field of battle, it is an espionage war. If you tried to take any prisoner into court, it would unravel all of our espionage nets used to track and capture the enemy in question. Once we get Osama, I could see that happening but not for all the little guys leading up to him.

Oh well.

It seems there are two camps in this discussion. The guys with the white hats, and the guys with the greyish-black hats.

Ask me who I'd rather have in charge of our national security and I'd prefer the ones willing to play hardball with the scum that have vowed to kill us.

[mercedesrules]

...Precendent with Barbary pirates? Ever wonder how that phrase ". . . to the shores of Tripoli. . ." got in the Marine Corps hymn.;)


Bad precedent, because they shouldn't have been illegally traipsing around the globe causing trouble...with the same :cuss: people as now!

Do some here still think that it is the job of the US military to traverse the earth protecting private US travelers? :confused: :scrutiny:

[antarti]

The only way that I can envision them winning is if we fail to resist because we are too conflicted and too busy fighting amongst ourselves over what is right and what is wrong.

Frankly, I don't see them being able to "win" anything... How much ground can they hold inside the USA? How many deathcamps can they build here and how many can they lead into them?

Now they can (and have) committed quite a bit of violence. They are, after all, death worshippers... so that is kind of what comes to them 'normally'.

I fully understand their stated goals are the deaths or mutilation of some 4 million American children, etc. There is hardly a better cause I can imagine for wiping these scum out completely than their own stated goals and past actions.

So how does all of the above give CIA the power to be detainer, judge, jury, and executioner?

I have no problem with CIA "questioning" people and identifying suspect.
I have no problem with CIA then "questioning" those people.
I have no problem with public military tribunals or court cases for those people.

I do have a problem with CIA operating a (call it what you will) concentration camp, without any oversight. Basically, there is no promise that anybody wrongly or illegally put in there (that would be me and you) won't stay there, permanently... because there would be no record of our having been there at all.

Everybody who is asking about "well what do you propose then" must have their hands over their eyes as they read these posts.

What part of bringing those responsible (directly or not) for 9/11 to trial, in the jurisdiction in which those acts took place, is not doable?

Anybody here that would turn down the jury duty? Bueler? Bueler?

[The Real Hawkeye]

Well said, antarti. I agree completely.

[silliman89]

TRH,

I'm glad we agree government is necessary. I certainly want it to be as small as possible. And our immigration policy, or lack there of, is our greatest weakness and needs to be addressed.

While the number of Americans who would be happy surrendering to an islamic totalitarianism may be a tiny minority, I think it may be larger than you imagine and growing. To many Americans it would not be surrendering at all, but retribution against the evil Judeo/Christians and their centuries of oppression. Our record is not above reproach. Let's face it, it's easy to claim that this country was built on murdering the Indians, enslaving the Africans, and exploiting the Hispanics. There are a lot of old hatreds to be fanned by our enemies. As I understand it, Islam first invaded this country by way of the prison system, which they now largely control, and from there spread to the inner cities. I hear Islam is a powerful political force in Chicago.

Still, I acknowledge your basic premise that if we were isolated from the rest of the world, we would not be in any danger of being overthrown by internal islamic "terrorists". I just don't consider it a viable solution to seal the border and ignore the rest of the world. It's not just the oil. The loss of overseas markets, and suppliers, would cripple our economy. While I think we would eventually recover, it would be at a lower level of economic prosperity. The social unrest from that kind of economic depression might lead to anything. If we don't seal the border though, but only limit the immigration of undesirables (and I'm sure you realize what a political can of worms that is) then we have a vested interest in keeping the rest of the world peaceful, free, and able to benefit us as trading partners.

What I'm taking a long time getting around to is that I think you are minimizing the danger we're facing. It sounds like you're saying that there's no way we can loose so long as we remain true to our ideals and don't betray the magical talisman of liberty.

Let me ask you a moral value question. Would you rather remain true to our ideals and see liberty unsullied right up until it is extinguished with the last of our deaths? Or would you rather see our country continue even if it means change for the worse? And please don't just come up with a third alternative. Answer the either/or question first, then tell me all about your third alternative where everything is rosy.

[silliman89]

This begs the question, "If North America was an anarchy, who, how, where and why would anyone attack it?"

Ah, finally someone who isn't taking themselves so seriously!

I agree. Our enemies would not only leave us alone, they would cheer us on. I was going to ask if you'd rather live in a governed society under attack by it's surrounding enemies, or an anarchy perpetuated by it's surrounding enemies, but then I read your signature block. So I guess I already know your answer. :D

[Iain]

Let me ask you a moral value question. Would you rather remain true to our ideals and see liberty unsullied right up until it is extinguished with the last of our deaths? Or would you rather see our country continue even if it means change for the worse? And please don't just come up with a third alternative. Answer the either/or question first, then tell me all about your third alternative where everything is rosy.

He can't answer that question can he? You've defined only two possible answers, I'm sure that someone more versed in rhetoric than I can tell you which particular fallacy you've engaged in.

Without expounding at pointless length about this issue, and many others like it, I'll say that I'd rather that some basic and fundamental principles were never violated. Regardless of cost.

That's not a out and out 'fundamentalist' argument, I'm sure I'm thought of as being a 'grey thinker' around here. What I'm saying is that we are claiming to be on the side of fairness, freedom and justice. That applies to everyone, regardless of nationality or crime. There is no justifiable 'get out clause'.

I'd hope that I still feel that way regardless of what I saw and who I lost. These are basic and important principles to me.

[mercedesrules]

Ah, finally someone who isn't taking themselves so seriously!

I agree. Our enemies would not only leave us alone, they would cheer us on. I was going to ask if you'd rather live in a governed society under attack by it's surrounding enemies, or an anarchy perpetuated by it's surrounding enemies, but then I read your signature block. So I guess I already know your answer. :D

Well, you are a very good-natured attacker. :)

I'll just cheerily ask you, "What enemies?".

[The Real Hawkeye]

TRH,

I'm glad we agree government is necessary. I certainly want it to be as small as possible. And our immigration policy, or lack there of, is our greatest weakness and needs to be addressed.

While the number of Americans who would be happy surrendering to an Islamic totalitarianism may be a tiny minority, I think it may be larger than you imagine and growing. To many Americans it would not be surrendering at all, but retribution against the evil Judeo/Christians and their centuries of oppression.You are mistaken. The people who criticize our history would be far less happy living under Islamic law, and they are not deluded on this point. They may hate America, but they would hate Islam worse, no matter what they say when they are criticizing our history.Our record is not above reproach. Let's face it, it's easy to claim that this country was built on murdering the Indians, enslaving the Africans, and exploiting the Hispanics. There are a lot of old hatreds to be fanned by our enemies. As I understand it, Islam first invaded this country by way of the prison system, which they now largely control, and from there spread to the inner cities. I hear Islam is a powerful political force in Chicago.

Still, I acknowledge your basic premise that if we were isolated from the rest of the world, we would not be in any danger of being overthrown by internal Islamic "terrorists".You must be reading someone else's posts. I've said nothing about isolating ourselves from the rest of the world. Oh, I get it. You are a product of our internationalist education system, and therefore anyone who favors looking out for America's interests first is an isolationist who wants to build a wall around our boarders and forget about the rest of the world. No. One day you might learn to think independently and then you will realize that non-internationalists are not isolationists. That term was applied to those who wished to avoid entangling the United States in foreign wars during the very early and middle 20th Century. Today, it is a term used by demagogue one worlders. Or, is that what you are?I just don't consider it a viable solution to seal the border and ignore the rest of the world. It's not just the oil. The loss of overseas markets, and suppliers, would cripple our economy.Once again, your internationalist brainwashing is coming through. It was not the goal of America firsters to close off relations with the world. That is propaganda, and it looks like you've swallowed it hook line and sinker. Learn to develop your own ideas, instead of just chugging down what your professors taught you in college.While I think we would eventually recover, it would be at a lower level of economic prosperity. The social unrest from that kind of economic depression might lead to anything. If we don't seal the border though, but only limit the immigration of undesirables (and I'm sure you realize what a political can of worms that is)Some people need to grow a spine.then we have a vested interest in keeping the rest of the world peaceful, free, and able to benefit us as trading partners.No, we have no such vested interest. Those interested in having access to our markets will trade with us because it is in their economic interest to do so.What I'm taking a long time getting around to is that I think you are minimizing the danger we're facing. It sounds like you're saying that there's no way we can loose so long as we remain true to our ideals and don't betray the magical talisman of liberty.So now we come to it. Liberty to you is a "magical talisman." Well, friend, it is more than that to me. I am sorry for you if you think otherwise.Let me ask you a moral value question. Would you rather remain true to our ideals and see liberty unsullied right up until it is extinguished with the last of our deaths? Or would you rather see our country continue even if it means change for the worse? And please don't just come up with a third alternative. Answer the either/or question first, then tell me all about your third alternative where everything is rosy.This is a false dichotomy. I have much more confidence in the strength of liberty than you do, sir. You speak as if we have only two options, fight our enemies by abandoning liberty or retain our liberty and succomb to our enemies. I believe, on the contrary, that we can fight our enemies without adopting the values of our enemies.

[The Real Hawkeye]

He can't answer that question can he? You've defined only two possible answers, I'm sure that someone more versed in rhetoric than I can tell you which particular fallacy you've engaged in.I believe it is called a false dichotomy.

[silliman89]

antarti

What part of bringing those responsible (directly or not) for 9/11 to trial, in the jurisdiction in which those acts took place, is not doable?

The whole part of bringing those responsible to trial is not doable.

Let's take Osama Bin Laden as an example. Let's suppose we put him on trial for 9/11. What evidence is there? His own admission that he was responsible on his video tapes? He can say that was simply propaganda he was fabricating for recruitment purposes. All other evidence is the result of illegal search and seizure. The case would be thrown out of court for insufficient evidence.

It's even possible that he wasn't behind 9/11. We seem to have been wrong about the WMD in Iraq. We may be wrong about him too. I'm just saying that he deserves to be interrogated and then killed whether he did it or not. But there is not way to get a conviction for him in a US court.

[The Real Hawkeye]

The whole part of bringing those responsible to trial is not doable.

Let's take Osama Bin Laden as an example. Let's suppose we put him on trial for 9/11. What evidence is there?If there is no evidence, what makes you think he had anything to do with it? But, of course, you know that there is plenty of evidence. Certainly more than enough to convict him in a NY City trial. His own admission that he was responsible on his video tapes? He can say that was simply propaganda he was fabricating for recruitment purposes.How absurd. If you make an admission of a crime on vidio tape, no matter what you say before a jury, it will come down to credibility. How credible do you think that excuse will sound to a NY City jury? We are legally held responsible for the things we say, and that includes admissions to crimes. Come on now, you can do better than that.All other evidence is the result of illegal search and seizure. The case would be thrown out of court for insufficient evidence.Read above.It's even possible that he wasn't behind 9/11. We seem to have been wrong about the WMD in Iraq. We may be wrong about him too. I'm just saying that he deserves to be interrogated and then killed whether he did it or not. But there is not way to get a conviction for him in a US court.Well, so long as you think so, then. :rolleyes:

[silliman89]

TRH,

I don't think we're getting anywhere. I'll try to clear up a couple of points of confusion, then I'll just let you have the last word if you like.

You must be reading someone else's posts. I've said nothing about isolating ourselves from the rest of the world.

You combined George Washington's foreign policy with a strict anti-immigration policy. Washington's foreign policy was predicated on the fact the we were too small and weak to become involved in foreign entanglements in his time. That's clearly not the case today. You and I agree that Muslim fundamentalists are a threat to our country. I was discussing rules of engagement for fighting our enemy overseas. You responded by saying all we had to do is keep our enemy out of this country. To me that sounds isolationist.

it is a term used by demagogue one worlders. Or, is that what you are?

I would never call myself a "one-worlder", but I suppose opinions vary. I reserve terms like that for people who think the US should subjugate itself to the UN, or only operate with international permission. I think the US needs to take whatever action it deems best to protect its national interests. Having served 5 years in the military (yes, the US military), and 10 years in the intelligence community, I have more faith in the people our government is comprised of than you seem to.

This is a false dichotomy

You can call it that if you like. I called it a moral value question. Perhaps I should have been clearer that I wasn't asking you about real world current events at that time. I was asking what your values were. I was genuinely surprised that several people reacted as if I were trying to trap you in some way. I don't see what the big deal is. Iain answered, although I'm not sure he meant to, when he said:

I'll say that I'd rather that some basic and fundamental principles were never violated. Regardless of cost.

I was actually just trying to understand where you were coming from.

[silliman89]

Well, you are a very good-natured attacker.

I'll just cheerily ask you, "What enemies?".

Well, I certainly meant to be good natured. None of us has to be on this forum, it's supposed to be enjoyable. I hadn't meant to be an attacker at all, but I may have a problem with that. My wife sometimes says the same thing. :confused:

I was referring to the islamic fundamentalist "terrorists" as enemies. It may have been an exageration to say they surrounded us. But they are to the east and west of us. I think they would be very happy to see our society collapse into anarchy, and would try to perpetuate it.

[Marshall]

I loose no sleep over this.

[White Horseradish]

Some here contend that if we do not give up some liberties the terrorists will win. If the terrorists do win, we will lose our liberties for sure.

Now, either way the end result is loss of liberty. Does it matter to us whether we won or lost if that is the case?

This seems to me like the separation of deaths into "gun deaths" and other deaths. Either way is death, does it matter if you were shot or had your skull caved in with a brick?

[Iain]

I did mean to answer, and I understood the point of asking the question. What you did though was ask a question like 'Out of all the colours which is your favourite, red or green?' I didn't read it as a trap exactly, it's just framing a question in order to get one of two answers - the one you like, and the one you want to shoot down.

I answered as though you asked whether or not there are certain principles of justice that I hold to be inviolable, regardless of outcome.

[shootinstudent]

TRH,

The only way we could lose is if we continue to allow Muslims to enter our country. We can choose to commit suicide by continuing this insane policy, or we could come to the realization that Islam is way too dangerous to encourage within our own boarders, and change our imigration policies to match this reality. There is no law that says we have to ignore what religion someone is when deciding on issuing visas and citizenship documents. If we adopted a sane immigration policy, there is no way we could ultimately lose, since only a tiny minority of Americans would be happy surrendering to Islamic totalitarianism.

Yes, not only are secret prisons one form of erosion in our civil rights, but the right to religious freedom is another thing that's threatened by all the hype that comes with the war on terror. I do believe passing a law that says "No Muslims may enter the US" would be a law respecting the establishment of religion, what do you think?

I think the best way to lose the war is to start pushing all of our Muslim allies (like the Muslims who fight in the US Army and who are fighting on our side in Iraq as we speak) away from us by saying "All Muslims are evil", and sending the message that we want nothing to do with them. That's a good way to lose vital sources of support and intelligence with respect to fundamentalist terrorism.


You speak as if we have only two options, fight our enemies by abandoning liberty or retain our liberty and succomb to our enemies. I believe, on the contrary, that we can fight our enemies without adopting the values of our enemies.

I think so too. But blaming all Muslims for the acts of a few is something that our enemies do in order to propagandize against us. You are to be commended for recognizing the dangers that secret trials and prisons present, but you shouldn't ignore the equally real danger of the rise of religious hatred and the consequent loss of freedom.

[The Real Hawkeye]

TRH,

I don't think we're getting anywhere. I'll try to clear up a couple of points of confusion, then I'll just let you have the last word if you like.



You combined George Washington's foreign policy with a strict anti-immigration policy.You grossly mischaracterized Washington's foreign policy, and I never advocated an anti immigration policy.Washington's foreign policy was predicated on the fact the we were too small and weak to become involved in foreign entanglements in his time. That's clearly not the case today.On this point we disagree. We had just defeated the world's only super power. That's nothing to sneeze at.You and I agree that Muslim fundamentalists are a threat to our country. I was discussing rules of engagement for fighting our enemy overseas. You responded by saying all we had to do is keep our enemy out of this country. To me that sounds isolationist.Then I contend that your definition of isolationism is faulty.I would never call myself a "one-worlder", but I suppose opinions vary. I reserve terms like that for people who think the US should subjugate itself to the UN, or only operate with international permission. I think the US needs to take whatever action it deems best to protect its national interests.I was only asking. There are many kinds of internationists, and I don't like your variety (Those who see us as a budding empire) any better than the one worlders.Having served 5 years in the military (yes, the US military), and 10 years in the intelligence community, I have more faith in the people our government is comprised of than you seem to.You must have. Once released from the chains of the Constitution, as you would have it, it is my opinion no organization composed of human beings, no matter how noble their purpose, can be trusted as far as you can throw them. On this I agree with Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."You can call it that if you like. I called it a moral value question. Perhaps I should have been clearer that I wasn't asking you about real world current events at that time. I was asking what your values were.I think I've made perfectly clear what my values are. Your question served another end, I am convinced. I was genuinely surprised that several people reacted as if I were trying to trap you in some way.Your purpose was quite obvious. You were attempting to force a choice for which you had an answer in mind.I don't see what the big deal is. Iain answered, although I'm not sure he meant to, when he said:Iain has clarified what he meant. I agree with him.I was actually just trying to understand where you were coming from.I think you know where I come from. Otherwise, I've been wasting my time here at the keyboard these last few days.

PS I am far from comforted by the knowledge that you worked in US Intelligence, but I am not at all surprised.

[The Real Hawkeye]

TRH,



Yes, not only are secret prisons one form of erosion in our civil rights, but the right to religious freedom is another thing that's threatened by all the hype that comes with the war on terror. I do believe passing a law that says "No Muslims may enter the US" would be a law respecting the establishment of religion, what do you think?No law would need to be legislated. This could be done as a matter of immigration policy rather than a law passed by Congress. It was, in fact, our policy until the early 1960s.I think the best way to lose the war is to start pushing all of our Muslim allies (like the Muslims who fight in the US Army and who are fighting on our side in Iraq as we speak) away from us by saying "All Muslims are evil", and sending the message that we want nothing to do with them. That's a good way to lose vital sources of support and intelligence with respect to fundamentalist terrorism.No, just quietly change the immigration policy. We don't need to insult anyone by stating that Islam is evil. Nor am I saying it. It is just not particularly compatible with our culture. We can absorb those who are already citizens, and given enough time they will likely become Americanized, but for that to work we need to close the floodgates.I think so too. But blaming all Muslims for the acts of a few is something that our enemies do in order to propagandize against us.I have not blamed all Muslims.You are to be commended for recognizing the dangers that secret trials and prisons present, but you shouldn't ignore the equally real danger of the rise of religious hatred and the consequent loss of freedom.To recognize that Islam has historically been a danger to Western society is not to promote religious hatred. It is merely to recognize a fact of history confirmed repeatedly over many centuries, and revealing itself to be undeniably true as we speak. If history proves anything, it is that Islam is destructive of Western society. Their history has been one of constant violent conquest and conversion by the sword. Our culture has been nearly wiped out on numerous occasions by the proponants of this "religion of peace," and we moderns have blithely welcomed them within our citadels and invited them to make themselves at home. This is the definition of insanity.

[Farnham]

I'm glad we've got a few places to stash the captured vermin overseas. I'd rather they got a 9mm hole in the back of the head, but I'm sure someone would call that a war crime.

I'm fairly certain that were I an Al Qaeda detainee, I'd rather cool my heels in a secret CIA prison than a secret Jordanian, Turkish, or Egyptian one. I could be sure the ACLU, the MSM, and/or the liberals would someday set me free in their quest to make all the world fluffy. :D

S/F

Farnham

[shootinstudent]

This could be done as a matter of immigration policy rather than a law passed by Congress. It was, in fact, our policy until the early 1960s.

How do you think Congressional policy is made? Hint: Congress does things by statute....so no, you can't change a "policy" of Congress without passing something.

No, just quietly change the immigration policy. We don't need to insult anyone by stating that Islam is evil. Nor am I saying it. It is just not particularly compatible with our culture. We can absorb those who are already citizens, and given enough time they will likely become Americanized, but for that to work we need to close the floodgates.

National origin and religion are not the same thing. You are confusing past policies limiting immigration from certain countries with limiting immigration based on religion.

To recognize that Islam has historically been a danger to Western society is not to promote religious hatred. It is merely to recognize a fact of history confirmed repeatedly over many centuries, and revealing itself to be undeniably true as we speak. If history proves anything, it is that Islam is destructive of Western society.

You could not be more wrong. If you're genuinely interested in the subject, I have a boat load of primary sources that you can look through in order to see this for yourself. The "West" that the Arab conquerors took over was a deeply sick, feudal, and violent place, which is why the Muslim armies were welcomed by both Christians and Jews wherever they went. Conversely, the spread of Nazi and before that western totalitarian philosophy since the late 1800's in the Muslim world has wreaked havoc on those societies. If anything, you could make a weak claim that Western culture has threatened and is now destroying the Muslim world via the influence of sick, twisted western philosophies.

Our culture has been nearly wiped out on numerous occasions by the proponants of this "religion of peace," and we moderns have blithely welcomed them within our citadels and invited them to make themselves at home. This is the definition of insanity.

"They" are not all one people. It's not insane, but certainly incorrect and likely dangerous to our mission against terrorism, to view the Muslim world in this light. The mistake we're making isn't inviting Muslims to America. It's being so ignorant of what is happening in the Muslim world that we can't combat terrorism effectively...because we don't know enough to recognize potential allies nor to identify the most dangerous elements.

[The Real Hawkeye]

How do you think Congressional policy is made? Hint: Congress does things by statute....so no, you can't change a "policy" of Congress without passing something.For the moment I will concede this point to you. Regardless, adjustments in immigration policy hardly amount to establishing an official religion in the United States, and would thus not be barred by the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.National origin and religion are not the same thing. You are confusing past policies limiting immigration from certain countries with limiting immigration based on religion.You are both right and wrong. National origins were historically selected at least partially based on the religions previlent therein. The point is that religion was considered an important factor in making our immigration policy, and ought to be again.You could not be more wrong. If you're genuinely interested in the subject, I have a boat load of primary sources that you can look through in order to see this for yourself. The "West" that the Arab conquerors took over was a deeply sick, feudal, and violent place, which is why the Muslim armies were welcomed by both Christians and Jews wherever they went. Conversely, the spread of Nazi and before that western totalitarian philosophy since the late 1800's in the Muslim world has wreaked havoc on those societies. If anything, you could make a weak claim that Western culture has threatened and is now destroying the Muslim world via the influence of sick, twisted western philosophies.A weak claim, indeed."They" are not all one people. It's not insane, but certainly incorrect and likely dangerous to our mission against terrorism, to view the Muslim world in this light. The mistake we're making isn't inviting Muslims to America. It's being so ignorant of what is happening in the Muslim world that we can't combat terrorism effectively...because we don't know enough to recognize potential allies nor to identify the most dangerous elements.If we weren't there, they wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't need to decipher the regional peculiarities of the various cultural experiences of Islamic peoples.

[shootinstudent]

You are both right and wrong. National origins were historically selected at least partially based on the religions previlent therein. The point is that religion was considered an important factor in making our immigration policy, and ought to be again.

Sure, behind the scenes, and wrongly so, just like race was once a major factor. The constitution forbids religious bias in Government.

A weak claim, indeed.

Somewhat, but much stronger than the claim that Islam is on a mission to destroy the west.

If we weren't there, they wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't need to decipher the regional peculiarities of the various cultural experiences of Islamic peoples.

We need to be there for lots of reasons, and we have to learn to deal with different cultures and religions. And of course, you can't really make decisions about whether or not it's worthwhile to keep relations up when you don't really know what's going on.

Let's keep up all freedoms, religious and otherwise.

[mercedesrules]

Well, I certainly meant to be good natured. None of us has to be on this forum, it's supposed to be enjoyable. I hadn't meant to be an attacker at all, but I may have a problem with that. My wife sometimes says the same thing. :confused:

I was referring to the islamic fundamentalist "terrorists" as enemies. It may have been an exageration to say they surrounded us. But they are to the east and west of us. I think they would be very happy to see our society collapse into anarchy, and would try to perpetuate it.

My point is that I don't think a libertarian anarchy (anarcho-capitalism) would have any enemies of the sort we are discussing. I hesitate to describe that type of anarchy to you; most here have at least heard of it. Why would anyone want to attack a bunch of well-armed, widely-dispersed, self-governors that only trade and mind their own business? No one has attacked Switzerland - even with all of that money! :)

[The Real Hawkeye]

My point is that I don't think a libertarian anarchy (anarcho-capitalism) would have any enemies of the sort we are discussing. I hesitate to describe that type of anarchy to you; most here have at least heard of it. Why would anyone want to attack a bunch of well-armed, widely-dispersed, self-governors that only trade and mind their own business? No one has attacked Switzerland - even with all of that money! :)The key phrase there is "and mind their own business."

[blackguns]

WOW,

This has been a discussion.
I won't even pretend that I will have the last word here. Way too many of us like the sound of our own keyboard. :)

I will say this. We have all profusely and prodigiously pontificated on our point. The fact of the matter is that secert prisions exists, nasty, nasty things are probably being done to never convicted prisioners in our national name.

Some of us are OK with that while others feel it is a betrayal of our national principals in the worst way. (I will admit to having a better overall picture of the issue because of this thread)

The real question is........what will be done about it?

I feel one of the most basic principals of any republic is the ability to effect changes in government when it is desired by the populace.

I'm not talking about revolt or even huge public demonstrations......how about you write a letter to your representatives expressing your outrage......join a group that is fighting for the rights of those in these prisions......maybe do something other than be quietly indignant.

There are groups that know the names of some of these prisioners. Get involved.

It's like voting, if you didn't vote, don't complain. If you have a problem with it and don't voice that grievence, what right do you have to be upset?

This is a pro-gun board, how many of us belong to the NRA or some organization that promotes gun owners right? If you don't don't complain when your rights are lost. (it's an example, let's not start a debate over the way things should be, let's deal with the way things are)

There may be senetors or congressmen here on this board, but I don't think this audience as a whole spends a lot of time in the capital building.

Get up! Go do something about it! I'm pretty sure the founding fathers would want you to.

[antarti]

Let's take Osama Bin Laden as an example. Let's suppose we put him on trial for 9/11. What evidence is there? His own admission that he was responsible on his video tapes? He can say that was simply propaganda he was fabricating for recruitment purposes. All other evidence is the result of illegal search and seizure. The case would be thrown out of court for insufficient evidence.

You're kidding right? People are convicted every day of murder without a body or a weapon. Somehow a video of you taking credit for the crime of killing 3000+ isn't enough? In whose court? Judge Judy's?

Certainly you were a LOT less likely to get in trouble for killing prisoners in WW2. In a lot of the personal accounts I have read it was commonplace.

AND


I'd rather they got a 9mm hole in the back of the head, but I'm sure someone would call that a war crime.

You got the whole thing backwards. If these people are real terrorists, caught planning/doing/fighting etc. There is no problem shooting on sight. Nobody is calling for "war crimes tribunals" or for our military to adopt "peace officer" standards. Kill the terrorist bastiges. If they don't die, interrogate. You know who these people are, they are not "suspects".

Where the difference lies in when you have a suspect.

You pull "Achmed" out of his mud-hut in the middle of the night because "Ali" (who is a terrorist who survived his gunshot) said he's a WMD mastermind. Now nobody tells you that Achmed's only crime was having an ancestor 400 years ago that delivered a swift kick to Ali's progenitors testicles (which, according to oral formulaic storytelling, resulted in the cleft palate all of Ali's relatives are born with).

After you're done laughing, realize these clowns hold grudges that make the Hatfields and McCoys look like pikers. They're still holding one against US for things that happened almost 1000 years ago.

So do we:
1) Waste time and money keeping Achmed in jail, maybe forever since he's "holding out on us" by not telling us about WMD
2) Go ahead and torture Achmed unrepentantly without ever looking at the facts?

AND NOW THE BIGGIE

3) Do the SAME THING to American citizens related to both of these men? Or maybe people with names they decided to "make up" under duress?

And do we do all that secretly...

Somebody tell me how this can possibly be a good idea?

[mercedesrules]

The key phrase there is "and mind their own business."

Why?

[The Real Hawkeye]

Why?How ofter are Swiss citizens targeted by terrorists? Wonder why?

[GigaBuist]

I would cheerfully inflict great amounts of pain on someone I felt had designs on another 9/11 if that meant that I could save the lives of innocent people. I would hope I could do the same, although "cheerfully" wouldn't be a word I'd use to describe my mindset in that setting.

However, I would expect to be investigated for what I did, possibly brought up on charges, and judged by a jury of my peers if there was a possibly that I may have done something wrong.

Seems simple to me.

[LawDog]

How ofter are Swiss citizens targeted by terrorists?

About as often as Swiss movies hit the Top 40 to be emulated by adoring masses everywhere, Swiss fast-food places wind up on every corner, the Swiss internet tells other people that things can be different and Swiss fashions marketed by Swiss ad agencies "corrupt" the youth of other countries.

LawDog

[mercedesrules]

How ofter are Swiss citizens targeted by terrorists? Wonder why?

So, we agree? :confused:

'Cause that was the point I was making: that a continent full of peaceful libertarian anarchists wouldn't stir up hatred overseas.

[The Real Hawkeye]

So, we agree? :confused:

'Cause that was the point I was making: that a continent full of peaceful libertarian anarchists wouldn't stir up hatred overseas.On that point, yes, we agree, so long as you remove the word anarchists, because the Swiss are not that, though their government is small, decentralized, limited, and heavily checked. I do believe that some level of government is necessary, but the least of it the better. It needs to be heavily checked, however, or it will certainly expand in power ad infinitum, until it inevitably becomes totalitarian in nature, i.e., or it will take the road ours took with the election of Honest Abe Lincoln. Today we see the result of that path, and it will only get worse with time.

[coylh]

Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to Republican senators this week to allow CIA exemptions to a proposed ban on the torture of terrorism suspects in U.S. custody ...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002605281_watch05.html

[The Real Hawkeye]

[Darth Vadar's Imperial Theme Music]Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to Republican senators this week to allow CIA exemptions to a proposed ban on the torture of terrorism suspects in U.S. custody .. [/Darth Vadar's Imperial Theme Music]

[antarti]

Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to Republican senators this week to allow CIA exemptions to a proposed ban on the torture of terrorism suspects in U.S. custody

And once they allow it, fedgov will put out a release saying:

"We have closed all the 'mildly controversial' foreign secret CIA interrogation complexes due to public outcry and questionable Constitutionality. It had the 'appearance of impropriety' and we (in this administration) felt it was better to have everything 'above board' out of respect for the Law and our people."

...because they won't need them anymore.

And the masses will applaud.

[Don't Tread On Me]

On that point, yes, we agree, so long as you remove the word anarchists, because the Swiss are not that, though their government is small, decentralized, limited, and heavily checked. I do believe that some level of government is necessary, but the least of it the better. It needs to be heavily checked, however, or it will certainly expand in power ad infinitum, until it inevitably becomes totalitarian in nature, i.e., or it will take the road ours took with the election of Honest Abe Lincoln. Today we see the result of that path, and it will only get worse with time.


Quoted for truth.


Those not in the know, please refer to "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas DiLorenzo.

[carebear]

When institutions become self-perpetuating the people become secondary.

mercedes,

I think if I was any kind of capitalist, anarcho- or otherwise, I would have paid SOMEONE to take out the Barbary Pirates. At the time, the "someones" were the US Navy and Marines. If they hadn't existed, the A-C's would have had to invent them.

Besides, Presley O'Bannon basically bought the services of a rival claimant to the throne (and his army) to do it. All very mercantile in it's way. :evil:

I did wonder in Boot how just seven Marines took a whole city by themselves. Twelve? Sure, anybody could see that happening. But just seven? That's WAY unbelieveable. :D