[Preacherman]

I've been growing more and more disturbed by the use of measures by both the US and other Governments that undercut the Constitutional and human rights of citizens. I'm not by any means "soft" on terror, and have no compunction about using harsh measures to stop it: but to my mind, these measures must be restricted by our Constitution and by the basic common decency of our Western culture. If we adopt the measures used by terrorists in order to combat terrorism, or if we abandon the rule of law in order to fight those opposed to the law, do we not make ourselves as guilty as they are of the crimes of which we accuse them?

With this in mind, there are two articles in the London Sunday Times that underscore my concerns, and illustrate the problems being encountered both in the USA and in the UK. I'll be interested to hear what THR members think about these issues, as raised in these articles. See the next two posts for the articles themselves.

[Preacherman]

From the Sunday Times, London (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1869607,00.html):

November 13, 2005

Defending the realm - but at what cost?

Tony Blair and George Bush say legal rights must be sacrificed in the war on terror. But both face mounting opposition. Richard Woods, Andrew Porter and Sarah Baxter report on the global battle to balance security and liberty

Inside Guantanamo Bay prison Jumah Dossari had reached the end of his tether. Captured in Pakistan in 2001, he had spent four years locked up as a terrorist suspect, including two in solitary confinement; he could take it no more.

While meeting his lawyer last month, he asked to go to the lavatory; minutes later he was found hanging from a noose tied to the ceiling.

Dossari’s suicide attempt — he survived — is one of more than 30 at the camp. As captured “enemy combatants” they have reason to despair. On Thursday the US Senate passed an amendment that, if confirmed by the House of Representatives, will prevent the prisoners making a legal challenge against their detention. No habeas corpus for them.

For in the war on terror, President George W Bush is determined to use whatever measures he can. On Friday in a speech attacking both his critics and Islamic extremism, Bush reiterated his determination that “the defence of freedom is worth our sacrifice”.

He explained: “We are facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. Against such an enemy there is only one effective response: we will never back down.”

Like Bush, Tony Blair is also uncompromising in the face of the terrorist threat. He, too, is intent on ratcheting up the powers of the state. Last week the prime minister fought hard to grant police the power to detain suspects, British or foreign, without charge or trial for up to 90 days.

In the House of Commons, Blair quoted a senior police officer to make his case. “We are not looking for legislation to hold people for up to three months simply because it is an easy option,” he said.

“It is absolutely vital. To prevent further attacks we must have it.”

It did not convince MPs. Defied by 49 Labour rebels, Blair went down to a crushing defeat. He promptly accused opponents of betraying the country and imperilling its citizens. “The country will think parliament has behaved in a deeply irresponsible way,” he said.

Others believe that the trade-off between security and civil liberties is not so easy to judge. Get the balance wrong and it can make the terrorist threat worse, they say. Focus too much on new legislation, others add, and you risk taking your eye off the main game — making sure our police and security services are working effectively.

“Britain and the US are debating the balance between competing interests: the rights of individuals on the one hand, and the rights of the community as a whole to take appropriate protective measures,” said Professor Philippe Sands, author of Lawless World, a study of international law and human rights.

“You are balancing competing objectives to ensure agencies have time to investigate while adequately protecting communities — without doing so in a way that exacerbates the problem,” he said.

Other governments are grappling with the same dilemma. Australia, where this month police claim to have thwarted a significant attack, is proposing tough new laws — although only 14 days’ detention without trial.

The Netherlands, where Islamic extremists have threatened to murder public figures, is debating whether to make it easier to detain suspects. Are such draconian powers necessary? Are they effective? How far should governments go in combating terror?

AFTER the planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, there was no mood for restraint. More than 3,000 people were dead. Tough action was needed.

Within days Bush signed a presidential “finding” giving the CIA the right to kill or capture Al-Qaeda terrorists anywhere in the world. Within a few weeks Bush declared that it was “not practicable” to try some suspected terrorists under US principles of law. Instead, the benefits of torture became acceptable dinner party conversation.

People who would normally abhor applying the thumbscrews earnestly debated whether the risks of further atrocities justified brutal treatment of suspected terrorists.

Learned articles were written about the liberal case for torture and Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, said it outright: if you had in custody somebody with knowledge of an imminent outrage, that person was fair game if it might save thousands of lives.

Dershowitz, however, advised: “If torture is going to be administered as a last resort to save an enormous number of lives, it ought to be done openly with accountability and approval from the president of the United States or a Supreme Court justice”.

It did not turn out like that. Instead, the CIA set up a secret network of “black sites” in foreign countries where captured suspects could be held and interrogated in secret, beyond normal laws. As Cofer Black, then head of the CIA’s counter-terrorism centre, told Congress: “After 9/11 the gloves came off.”

Robert Baer, a former covert CIA agent, said 9/11 was the end of “our rule of law as we knew it in the West”.

Hundreds of suspects are believed to have passed through the system, among them Maher Arar, a Syrian- Canadian resident of Ottawa, who claims that he was seized at New York airport in 2002 while returning from a holiday in Tunisia. He was sent by private Gulfstream jet to Syria where he was imprisoned and, he claims, beaten with electric cables. He was released after a year.

In January 2004 Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen, was bundled aboard another CIA plane after being arrested in Skopje, Macedonia. He was flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan. After six months he was released — but only after he had gone on hunger strike and thanks to the intervention of Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, who discovered he that was a victim of mistaken identity.

According to investigations by The Washington Post, the United States has operated covert prisons in eight countries, including some in eastern Europe. Inside these jails are believed to be the most senior Al-Qaeda captives who have “disappeared” after being seized. Nobody, apart from a few senior officials in the CIA and White House, knows where they are.

In the face of an unprecedented threat, America has deployed tough interrogation techniques. Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, did not object to prisoners being made to stand for more than four hours. “I stand for eight hours a day,” he said.

In a 2002 memo about interrogation at Guantanamo. Rumsfeld approved the “removal of clothing”, the “use of stress positions” and isolation for 20 days. He also approved “using detainee phobias” (such as a fear of dogs) to “induce stress”.

Among techniques used for interrogation in the secret prisons is said to be one known as “waterboarding”. This involves immersing the suspect’s head until they think they are about to drown.

These extreme measures have been kept deliberately offshore, largely beyond US legal jurisdiction. Within the United States, although tough checks and extensive surveillance are employed, fundamental rights have remained.

In theory US citizens have a greater right to freedom or fair trial than Blair was proposing for Britain (although American authorities can find ways round these rights). If a US citizen is arrested, he/she must be either charged or released within 72 hours.

BRITAIN has taken a different tack. Eschewing secret prisons offshore, it has tried to amend UK law to cope with terrorist fanatics. The initial response to 9/11 was the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. It rushed in the power to detain suspects without trial — but only non-UK citizens and they were given the option of returning to their home countries. Other laws have allowed police access to personal data, such as mobile phone records, simply on the authority of a police inspector or higher rank.

Initially the law on detention of British citizens remained unchanged. They could not be held for more than seven days, after which they had to be either charged or released.

As the threat from Islamic fanatics spread, the pressure for tougher powers was cranked up. In 2003 the government doubled the period of detention without charge to 14 days on the recommendation of senior police officers.

A legal challenge to the imprisonment of foreigners without trial led to another change: out went the disputed part of the anti-terrorism act and in came new “control orders”. Under this power the home secretary can now hold any suspect, British or foreign, under virtual house arrest and prevent them communicating with the outside world.

At the same time the police quietly developed a “shoot-to-kill” policy aimed at stopping suicide bombers before they could detonate devices.

In July this year the London bombings intensified the pressure for additional draconian measures. Senior officers decided that having the power to question suspects for longer could help to prevent future attacks; Blair duly obliged with a proposal for 90 days’ detention without charge.

Were he and the police right to claim it was vital? The Law Society does not think so.

“The police want to extend the period which terror suspects can be held without charge so they can be questioned further,” said Kevin Martin, president of the society. “But this power already exists.”

Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), suspects in special cases can be questioned after being charged if it is necessary to “prevent harm or loss to some other person”. If necessary Pace could be adjusted to make that power absolutely clear. Such a move, the Law Society suggested, would be better than undermining the general principle of no detention without trial.

Others pointed out that 357 people have been arrested under the latest Prevention of Terrorism Act and only 11 were held for the full 14 days allowed. All those 11 were then charged. There is, then, scant evidence of suspects being set free because the police do not have the necessary power to hold them.

LAST week as unrest among MPs became clear and the vote drew closer, Downing Street grew desperate to force the measure through. It was becoming a test of the prime minister’s authority.

Gordon Brown, the chancellor, was ordered back from Israel where he had just landed for an official visit. Turning straight round he flew back to Heathrow where he was handed an envelope. Inside was a list of MPs. “Are these the ones I have to speak to this afternoon at the Commons to try to win them round?” he asked his aide.

“No, these are the ones you need to speak to now on the phone before you get back there,” was the panicky reply.

Once back in Westminster, Brown found a conveyor belt of arm-twisting under way. Recalcitrant MPs were sent first to Hilary Armstrong, Labour’s chief whip, in an attempt to lash them into line. If that failed, they were bounced on to Brown. If he could not persuade them to support the 90-day detention plan, they were invited to see Blair.

Even as MPs trooped through the voting lobbies, Blair could be seen trying to cajole MPs into supporting the measure. It was doomed. The vote — 322 against, 291 for — was a devastating rebuff.

Minutes later, however, MPs did vote to accept an increase in detention without trial to 28 days. It means that within little more than two years the amount of time a British citizen can be held without charge has quadrupled.

Nor, it turns out, are British authorities averse to the proceeds of torture. According to official papers released last week, the government may have operated a secret torture centre during the second world war to extract information from German prisoners.

Today Britain does not engage in torture but it does make use of information gleaned through torture perpetrated by others.

In a submission to a legal case heard in the House of Lords last month, Eliza Manningham-Buller, director-general of MI5, tacitly admitted that the intelligence services receive information from overseas agencies that might be obtained by torture.

“We treat such intelligence with great care,” she wrote, because its reliability could be difficult to assess and because “detainees can seek to mislead their questioners”. But she concluded that it is more useful to have the information than not to have it.

EVEN campaigners for civil liberties accept that governments must act to protect citizens against indiscriminate terror. “There is a serious terrorist threat,” said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty.

She admits that exceptional cases — such as a suicide bomber boarding a school bus — might demand exceptional individual responses, including the possible need to shoot to kill. But she is adamant that such “operational” dilemmas do not justify a general sacrifice of fundamental values.

Otherwise, she argues, the West risks losing the ideological battle, thereby simply encouraging the extremists.

To illustrate the problem, she points to the videotape recorded by Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the London suicide bombers. Khan justified his attack by invoking Islam but also by accusing the West of “bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture”. He described himself more as “a soldier at war” than on a religious mission.

The video claimed that the “twin idols of freedom and democracy in the West” had been demolished and that western nations had turned into police states.

“This isn’t a police state,” Chakrabarti said. “But the danger is that the rule book is being thrown away. We’ve come a fair way down a slippery slope.”

The risks are increasingly recognised in the United States. The neo-cons are coming round to the view that the secret detentions and tacit approval of torture are undermining their most cherished cause: spreading democracy in the Middle East.

Jeffrey H Smith, a former general counsel of the CIA, last week pilloried a bid by Dick Cheney, the vice-president, to exempt the CIA from a ban on “cruel and degrading” treatment of prisoners. “If the vice-president’s proposal is adopted,” he wrote, “the CIA will presumably be free to bolster democracy by torturing anyone who does not embrace it with sufficient enthusiasm. Some democracy.”

Even David Rivkin, a leading lawyer highly supportive of Bush, balked last week at the Senate amendment to suspend habeas corpus for foreign prisoners. His reason? Because such policies have “provoked considerable controversy at home and abroad”. In other words, it was damaging the ideological battle.

Anti-terrorist measures in Britain have not gone so far. But the trouble, said Chakrabarti, is that the slide towards extremism is all too easy to overlook. She drew on an analogy from a scientist.

“If you throw frogs into a pan of boiling water, they will hop out,” she said.

“But if you take a pan of cold water and gradually heat it up, they will allow themselves to be boiled alive.”

HOW AMERICA TOOK THE FIGHT TO THE ENEMY

American lawmakers made absolutely clear the purpose of their main measure to combat terrorism. They called it the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, which in acronym reads as the USA Patriot Act.

It radically extended the powers of law enforcement agencies to carry out surveillance by allowing them to study personal telephone and internet records on extremely broad grounds. The only legal requirement is that records are deemed “relevant for an ongoing investigation concerning international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities”.

The act also created new powers to detain foreigners and to revoke American citizenship, which could remove the usual protections of the US constitution. But the most draconian legal element in the new anti-terror arsenal was the designation of suspects as “enemy combatants”, placing them beyond the protection of US domestic law. Under that provision they can be detained indefinitely, as hundreds have been at Guantanamo Bay and other prisons beyond America’s shores.

Although this formula may have shielded President George W Bush from criticism that he is undermining the legal rights of ordinary Americans, it has damaged the image of the United States abroad. Its enemies can argue that America has one rule for its own and another — much harsher — rule for foreigners.

The US system of detaining prisoners abroad has, according to one Amnesty International official, led to an “archipelago” of secret jails. This charge prompted outrage in America because it seemed to echo the brutal “gulag archipelago” of camps for political prisoners in the former Soviet Union.

So far the “enemy combatants” provision has been applied mainly to foreign nationals captured abroad; it has been used on American soil in only three cases.

John Walker Lindh, the only US citizen caught fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, was allowed the full legal rights of a defendant in the US courts.

By contrast, foreign nationals claim that they were seized and summarily dispatched to prisons in far-flung places. Flight details of planes believed to be operated by the CIA lend credence to their accounts.

[Preacherman]

Also from the Sunday Times, London (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1869638,00.html) - and I know Andrew Sullivan can be maddeningly self-contradictory in his opinions, but I think in this column he raises some valid points:

November 13, 2005

Waging war on terror abroad and on freedom at home

Andrew Sullivan

In a telegram on November 21, 1943 Winston Churchill defined a fundamental difference between the Anglo-American way and that of our enemies. Churchill wrote: “The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or communist.”

Perhaps Tony Blair and George W Bush regard Churchill as a bleeding heart leftie. But what Churchill’s view represents is an old basic principle of Anglo-American warfare and justice: fight war with ferocity but never lose your democratic soul and always treat prisoners humanely.

This is never an easy balance, of course. In the fog of conflict we make mistakes. Executives invariably overreach in prosecuting wars and have done so in both America and Britain (the Guardian claimed yesterday that SS prisoners were tortured at a secret London centre).

Our system — of habeas corpus, executive powers subject to legislative and judicial checks, and free speech to air the issues — is specifically designed to correct such errors. That is its beauty — and its strength. It gives us a flexibility in war that dictators lack. It makes our war-making more, not less, effective. At its deepest level, it is what distinguishes us from Saddam Hussein, the Taliban and the Islamist bombers we face today, just as it distinguished us from the Nazis and communists.

Those of us who believe in fighting the war on terror need not regard civil liberties as somehow a sign of unseriousness in wartime. Protecting liberty at home is critical to winning the wider conflict, especially in the larger battle of ideas that will ensure ultimate victory or defeat.

There is now little doubt left that the executive branches in both countries have overreached. The case against Bush, however, is far stronger than that against Blair; and it begins with the legal sanctioning of torture and the abuse of military detainees.

Advocates of abuse insist that Al-Qaeda members are not signatories to the Geneva conventions and so do not merit humane treatment. The argument misses the point. This is not about terrorists and their barbarism. It is about us and our civilisation. You cannot fight a war to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan while torturing detained insurgents in Saddam’s prisons and makeshift camps in the Afghan wilderness. As a policy it is incoherent, damaging to our cause, immoral and ineffective.

The confessions you get from individuals broken by mental or physical brutality are highly unreliable, as any professional interrogator will tell you. It harms the torturers as much as the tortured, which is why much of the resistance is now coming from the ranks of the CIA and the military charged with this vile practice. If Israel eschews the tactic, so can the United States. The price that the West has paid in terms of moral standing is already incalculable.

The same goes for the notion that the executive needs no checks in wartime. The legal architects of Bush’s policy have argued that the president as commander-in-chief has constitutional powers that allow him to circumvent laws and treaties as he sees fit in wartime. This radical new extension of presidential power is neither conservative nor effective.

Unchecked executive power has made terrible mistakes in the occupation of Iraq. Secrecy and paranoia have helped to compound these errors rather than rectify them. Congressional trust and blank cheques were misplaced. The president’s sad attempts to explain a misguided policy shrouded in secrecy have only undermined his credibility.

Last week, for example, the president insisted that “we do not torture”. It was a bold statement. It is also patently untrue. Last week, for example, we discovered that the CIA operates several “black sites” for terror suspects in former Soviet camps in eastern Europe. Among the techniques authorised for the CIA to use against them is “water-boarding”, where inmates are plunged or drenched in water to the point of drowning. This is repeated until a confession is forced.

According to a Pentagon commissioned report, this technique was used on one detainee in Guantanamo on 17 occasions in one month and was still legally not “torture”, according to Bush administration lawyers. Hence the president’s carefully parsed statement. His strained legal definition is as absurd as his predecessor Bill Clinton’s definition of what constituted “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky. And it is of infinitely graver moral import.

Free speech? In America the first amendment protects it. But the investigation that indicted “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, has chilled the press’s ability to uncover secret policies that the government does not want us to know in ways that we may come to regret.

In Britain new laws forbidding the defamation of someone’s religion are an affront on one key freedom that distinguishes us from theocracies — the right to challenge theological dictates. There are already laws banning speech that amounts to incitement to violence. The new unnecessary law is sharia-lite. If we are fighting theocratic enemies, why are we simultaneously inching closer and closer towards them?

As for detention without charges or trials, Britons live in a free country compared with America. The US government has now detained one of its citizens for three years without bringing charges against him. He is awaiting a Supreme Court review.

The court has also agreed to revisit the constitutionality of military tribunals and whether they meet basic Anglo-American principles of justice. This process takes time in the American system and there are legitimate debates about the powers of the presidency in wartime. But we are mercifully beginning to see the self-correcting strength of constitutional democracy.

This correction is fragile and needs more support from the pro-war camp. What makes today’s situation uniquely worrying is that, unlike previous wars, the current one has been defined with no discrete enemy and no foreseeable end. It is, in effect, a new and permanent reality in which the executive has assumed powers previously designed only for, and justified by, brief emergencies.

The balance of individual freedom against national security is therefore at risk of being permanently altered in a way not available to Lincoln, who briefly suspended habeas corpus, or Roosevelt, who interned Japanese-Americans.

Worse, the Bush administration is well aware of this and is unabashed. The nominations of John Roberts, Harriet Miers and now Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court prove it. Roberts has a paper trail of deferring to the president on the question of military tribunals. Miers was enmeshed in the White House’s legal decisions to permit abuse of detainees. Alito is a strong defender of the executive prerogative. Bush is quietly remaking the court to remove one vital check against his and successive presidents’ powers. All the more reason for Congress and the press to keep the pressure up.

I am not suggesting that no liberties should be surrendered to counter the real threat of terror. I am arguing that any surrender of freedom must be clearly justified in each case and openly discussed. I am saying that the courts and parliament and Congress are not threats to the war but a critical part of making it work. Freedom dies by increments; and a freedom-loving people must be especially vigilant in wartime.

Lincoln understood this as profoundly as Churchill. Like Churchill his record was not perfect, but he grasped what he was fighting for even as his own country was melting down in a brutal civil war. Asked by a supporter to suppress a hostile newspaper at the height of the conflict, he replied: “I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the extreme of toleration than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardise in any degree, the common rights of its citizens.”

If Lincoln could say this in the middle of the bloodiest conflict in American history, why cannot Bush and Blair say it today?

[David W. Gay]

I, too, and greatly disturbed by the ever-increasing loss of Liberty, as we "Fight the Good Fight" de' jour. What's that saying about "Power corrupts...."?

In a nutshell, it comes down to The Great Debate of The Individual -vs- Society, which in turns comes down to the line between Liberty and Safety. And which side of that fence does Evil Prefer?

Maybe we will never become as bad as those against whom we fight - terrorists, despots of tyranny, etc. That, however, seems to be the rationale and excuse for creeping ever closer to those ends.

Carry On, and Long Live Liberty.

[RealGun]

Not to oversimplify it, but I think we just need to be attacked a few more times to have it all sink in. We should be looking more to Israel for what it really takes to defend a country under constant attack or the threat of it. Americans are bitching mostly because they don't want to confront the reality that their neat little utopia has forever been altered to something meaner and more hazardous. It is no longer a question of losing freedom but rather a question of which freedoms and to what extent.

[coylh]

Americans are bitching mostly because they don't want to confront the reality that their neat little utopia has forever been altered to something meaner and more hazardous.

No problem confonting it here: the ire is because I, for one, believe Bush is responsible for the change.

[RealGun]

No problem confonting it here: the ire is because I, for one, believe Bush is responsible for the change.


Many are adamant about that in response to most anything. With all due respect, it gives "bigotry" a whole new connotation.

[Fly320s]

From the first article: On Thursday the US Senate passed an amendment that, if confirmed by the House of Representatives, will prevent the prisoners making a legal challenge against their detention.
***, over.:eek: :cuss:

How can those people in Washington think like that? Do they really believe that is a good idea? A good precedent to set?

Have they no morals, no sense of justice? Morons.:scrutiny: :cuss:

[coylh]

RealGun, I'm not sure I understand your point. I don't think I qualify as a bigot, if that's what you mean, as I get along just fine with with other people, different ideas and all.

I also don't blame Bush for everything. I don't believe he's responsible for the "economy" or Katrina disaster relief for example.

[RealGun]

RealGun, I'm not sure I understand your point. I don't think I qualify as a bigot, if that's what you mean, as I get along just fine with with other people, different ideas and all.

I also don't blame Bush for everything. I don't believe he's responsible for the "economy" or Katrina disaster relief for example.

Realizing that "bigotry" is known more as having a racial connotation, the real meaning of the word, reading from Webster's is as follows:

bigot - a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her opinions and prejudices.

bigotry - the state of mind of a bigot; acts or beliefs characteristic of a bigot.

I liken bigotry to an irrational lack of objectivity.

I write this as a challenge to all readers rather than an indictment of you personally.

[gc70]

Interesting articles. One of the fundamental problems I see is that our rulebook does not address the situation we face. Existing laws address civilians and enemy soldiers in vastly different ways. But our enemy actively tries to function like soldiers while seeking our system's legal protections for civilians. Our government and society are struggling to deal with this dichotomy.

I suspect there are no quick fixes to this dilema. A patchwork of hastily-conceived laws like the USA Patriot Act is not the right answer. The government's attempt to operate within the loopholes of existing laws (i.e. secret offshore prisons) is not the right answer. And relying on the existing system and denying that changes need to be made is also not the right answer (imagine an enemy soldier with the "rights" to a public defender, habeus corpus, bail, a speedy trial, etc.).

We are in a period of national and societal soul-searching in which the issues are slowly being clarified. We can and will rewrite our rulebook and, with vigilence and determination, those changes will deal with the new realities we face while preserving the values we hold.

-----

BWT, Andrew Sullivan is such a cheap hypocrite for citing Lincoln in his article. He relies on the iconic image of Lincoln to support his argument, while knowing that Lincoln's real conduct (mass suspension of habeus corpus, misuse of martial law, and even ordering the arrest of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) was monumentally more extreme than either Bush's or Blair's.

[Sam]

The so called "enemy combatants" are in fact "unlawful combatants" under the definition of the Hague and Geneva conventions. They may be subjected to whatever policy the detaining power establishes under those conventions up to and including summary execution. Until the 1950's they were dealt with by military the commanders involved and that was that.
When war ceased to be action in support of national policy and instead beacme the refuge of those who would not establish a national policy, it came apart. When we wage war without establishing required outcomes, then political operational control becomes the norm and we get conflicts that drag on forever and ever. Run by ametuers for their personal ends. Operational control in war needs to get back to political operatives defining the outcome and staying out of the process until the generals pass the decision to them, for example breaking the nuclear tripwire. The CIA also needs to return to it's original purpose, the coordination of information gathered by other sources, not as an operational agency.
99% of the time our military leadership has demonstrated correct and moral decision making in the process and the 1% have been dealt with adequatly by the courts martial.

The third country nationals such as Mr el-Masri are a totally different case and should be handled exactly like any other criminal. We have sufficient means in place to protect classified information in trials, the government merely lacks needs the fortitude to prosecute those who willingly divulge the material, as is provided for in the law.
No need for secret prisons or failing to charge criminals IAW established law.

As for unlawful combatants, all is correct, ie. Gitmo.

Sam

[boofus]

They should get a trial by a jury of US servicemen and their families and WTC families. If found guilty they should be summarily executed. Otherwise send them home.

To aid in intelligence gathering. Offer the ones sentenced to death the chance to lower their sentence to life imprisonment if they give up information that turns out to be useful.

[longeyes]

Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 1:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd."

Act V:

Hamlet, sword in hand. General mayhem.

[NMshooter]

Perhaps I am looking at things differently, but the problem seems to be "us".

I put the us in quotes because I am referring to Americans in general, everyone who expects the government to protect us.

Our government is supposed to be Of, By, and For The People; or so I have read.

When our government is a seperate entity it is no longer "ours", and therefore can no longer expect the kind of support that a few officials are beginning to realise they so desperately need.

New York City would not have any "security problems" if the average New Yorker was part of that security, but that would require a level of self-reliance and responsibility that is viewed with suspicion at best, and openly hated and feared at worst.

I am not sure how our society got to this point, it is not even a single society but many, working together after a fashion, for now...

That old Pogo quote: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." seems appropriate.

We have the means as a nation to accomplish almost anything, but neither any idea of what it is that needs accomplishing nor the will to do it.

I am beginning to consider the idea that we are better off fragmented than with a strong leader to centralize us, considering past examples of that process and the likely results, but worried that the consequences of such fragmentation might be even worse.

I guess this is what it means to be caught on the horns of a dillemma...

[longeyes]

New York City would not have any "security problems" if the average New Yorker was part of that security, but that would require a level of self-reliance and responsibility that is viewed with suspicion at best, and openly hated and feared at worst.

I am not sure how our society got to this point, it is not even a single society but many, working together after a fashion, for now...


NYC is not a tribal band or a village, it's a metropolis of ten million, many of whom are running off in very different directions, many of whom have bought into a collectivist ideology, many of whom couldn't care less about the people they share physical space with.

There's no "us" in New York City in any real sense.

That said, I'm not sure that any amount of social cohesion could stop a determined terrorist with today's mass weapons. Decentralization would be the prudent course, to the best extent practicable.

[Preacherman]

I agree that "unlawful combatants", by treaty definition, don't fall under the scope of the "traditional" justice system, and are a separate case. However, when US citizens (e.g. Padilla) are detained without trial under this classification, I have to disagree. If one is a US citizen, one is entitled to the Constitutional rights and protections inherent in that citizenship. I think it's extremely dangerous to waive these rights and protections by classifying a citizen as an "unlawful combatant". This can (and, I believe, inevitably will) lead to a situation where an "inconvenient person" is classified as an "unlawful combatant" simply because some bureaucrat finds it quicker and easier to do so than to go through the justice system to achieve his ends.

[NMshooter]

This may sound confusing, but you need more cohesion to work decentralized than you do centralized.

Otherwise you get Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, lots of scattered villages easily overrun by the first band of organized raiders to come along.

The surviving villages start working together, pretty soon you get an organization that turns into a government, and eventually unless the average citizen is involved in some fashon you end up with a huge bureaucracy that has little to do with helping folks help themselves.

We have many folks in this country who are interested in helping themselves to as much as they can get at the expense of those who would just as soon take care of themselves.

Does that help?

[The Real Hawkeye]

From A Man For All Seasons:

Thomas More: There is no law against that.

Roper: There is! God's law!

More: Then God can arrest him.

Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.

More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.

Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!

More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact - I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forester. I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God....

Alice: While you talk, he's gone!

More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

[The Real Hawkeye]

I agree that "unlawful combatants", by treaty definition, don't fall under the scope of the "traditional" justice system, and are a separate case. However, when US citizens (e.g. Padilla) are detained without trial under this classification, I have to disagree. If one is a US citizen, one is entitled to the Constitutional rights and protections inherent in that citizenship. I think it's extremely dangerous to waive these rights and protections by classifying a citizen as an "unlawful combatant". This can (and, I believe, inevitably will) lead to a situation where an "inconvenient person" is classified as an "unlawful combatant" simply because some bureaucrat finds it quicker and easier to do so than to go through the justice system to achieve his ends.That's already happened. Just ask honest Abe Lincoln.

[Lupinus]

Give them a hearing. If they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or a simple soldier send them home. If they are considered a threat, fundamentalist (in otherwords have declared or follow a jihad) taliban or al queda oprative or commited war crimes execute them, and if you think they have usful information keep them locked up. If they arn't deemed a threat to national security or have information though just let them go there is no need to hold them.

As for things like the patriot act I can see both their potential usfulness and their potential coruption. If you arn't a US citizen you should be fair game to the patriot act but if you are a US citizen they should still need a warrent to do the things the patriot act lets them do.

[Sam]

I consider Padillia the same as the TCN's. We have the means to try cases that involve national security. Get him in front of a magistrate and charge or let him go, TODAY.

Sam

[javafiend]

Churchill wrote: “The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or communist.”

What kind of Anti-American Bush-hating leftwing drivel is this?

I consider Padillia the same as the TCN's. We have the means to try cases that involve national security. Get him in front of a magistrate and charge or let him go, TODAY.
Why do you support the terrorists?
but to my mind, these measures must be restricted by our Constitution and by the basic common decency of our Western culture.
Why do you want to hamstring the president? ;)

[Sam]

'Scuse me there Mr. javafiend,

Obviously your views are somewhat to the right of mine, which are such to make Mr Goldwater look like a pinkie.
I do not support terrorists in any way and trying Padillia would be of no assistance to them.

Spent 26 years supporting the right to a fair and speedy trial amongst other things and won't stop now. If that is support for terrorism then so be it. Better them than someone who would rape lady liberty in the light of day.

Sam

[The Real Hawkeye]

'Scuse me there Mr. javafiend,

Obviously your views are somewhat to the right of mine, which are such to make Mr Goldwater look like a pinkie.
I do not support terrorists in any way and trying Padillia would be of no assistance to them.

Spent 26 years supporting the right to a fair and speedy trial amongst other things and won't stop now. If that is support for terrorism then so be it. Better them than someone who would rape lady liberty in the light of day.

SamSam, I suspect he was using sarcasm to make a point that you and I would agree with. I hope so, anyway.

[javafiend]

Sam, I suspect he was using sarcasm to make a point that you and I would agree with. I hope so, anyway.

Yes, irony actually, so I included the ;) although in hindsight I should've included the :neener: .

The fact that it would be difficult to tell right away is itself a sad commentary. The totalitarian mentality sees any principled criticism of the Holy State and its omniscient Great Leader as tantamount to treason.

[Joejojoba111]

Interesting articles. One of the fundamental problems I see is that our rulebook does not address the situation we face. Existing laws address civilians and enemy soldiers in vastly different ways. But our enemy actively tries to function like soldiers while seeking our system's legal protections for civilians. Our government and society are struggling to deal with this dichotomy.

In fact, we choose to treat the enemy like neither.

What rule book? Last I heard it was ILLEGAL to kill people, ILLEGAL to kidnap people, ILLEGAL to hijack, EVERYTHING being relabeled as 'terrorism' is ALREADY ILLEGAL.

It IS covered in the rule book.

Also, I see no terrorists inside America that are functioning like soldiers. Maybe those North Hollywood robbers. Oh wait, no, they're just Criminals. Why aren't they called terrorists?

Calling things 'terrorist' and telling people that they require new rules, and less freedoms, that's a SCAM. It's a TRICK. It's a LIE. It has ALWAYS been illegal to hijack an airplane.

[RealGun]

Yes, irony actually, so I included the ;) although in hindsight I should've included the :neener: .

The fact that it would be difficult to tell right away is itself a sad commentary. The totalitarian mentality sees any principled criticism of the Holy State and its omniscient Great Leader as tantamount to treason.


I think the problem is fairness and respect and when there is nothing BUT criticism in spite of many blessings as part of the package. When that is the case, any "principled" position is highly suspect and motives are in question. If one is fashionably anti establishment, nothing good to say, that does not mean the person is smarter than everyone else.

[Hawkmoon]

Not to oversimplify it, but I think we just need to be attacked a few more times to have it all sink in. We should be looking more to Israel for what it really takes to defend a country under constant attack or the threat of it. Americans are bitching mostly because they don't want to confront the reality that their neat little utopia has forever been altered to something meaner and more hazardous. It is no longer a question of losing freedom but rather a question of which freedoms and to what extent.
If we must surrender basic, Constitutional rights in the name of "security," it's too late -- the terrorists have won.

Washington is attacking the Constitution because they don't have a clue how to attack the problem. Vastly more stringent immigration policies as well as more intensive screening upon entry into the U.S. would provide far more security than torturing untried suspects in secret prisons, or using the so-called Patriot Act to empower the FBI to find out what books I've checked out of the library. How idiotic can they get? If I know the records can be inspected, I'll just read the bloody book in the library, or steal it.

Sheesh. These people are friggin' morons. (The politicians, not the terrorists.)

[Hawkmoon]

I agree that "unlawful combatants", by treaty definition, don't fall under the scope of the "traditional" justice system, and are a separate case. However, when US citizens (e.g. Padilla) are detained without trial under this classification, I have to disagree. If one is a US citizen, one is entitled to the Constitutional rights and protections inherent in that citizenship. I think it's extremely dangerous to waive these rights and protections by classifying a citizen as an "unlawful combatant". This can (and, I believe, inevitably will) lead to a situation where an "inconvenient person" is classified as an "unlawful combatant" simply because some bureaucrat finds it quicker and easier to do so than to go through the justice system to achieve his ends.
Amen.

Taking it a step further, I'll have to re-read the Conentions but I believe the term "unlawful combatants" applies during times of military conflict, to describe those who take up arms but who do not wear a uniform. In short, guerillas -- the teenagers in "Red Dawn," for example, to the Russian invaders would be "unlawful combatants."

Terrorists operating in the United States are not "combatants<' first because there is no war ongoing here and second, for the fundamental reason that they are not engaged in combat. They are't firing rifles and throwing grenades. They are sneaking around, plotting to blow up hotels and churches and office buildings. In short, they are what they are: "terrorists." The laws dealing with blowing things up and killing people are on the books and can be used, but the government has elected to keep any terrorists it lays its hands on out of court, relying on the "enemy combatant" designation as a smokescreen.

It is wrong, it is repulsive, and it is blatantly illegal. The United States can never, ever, hope for any sort of moral respect on the world stage while we engage in such shenanigans.

[TOADMAN]

Enough already.... Politics and war and rules gets us hamstrung every time... Leave politics and rules out of the war stuff...Times have changed!!! Rules are for games!! You want the terrorists to stop - kill-em. Kill-em in the most rude and crude way possible - even their families. Destroy towns and villages that harbor terrorists. Won't be long and they will stop. Its real nasty stuff, that is why they call it war. Most americans don't have the stomach for it. If we were attacked by terrorists as much as Israel - think about it!!

[Standing Wolf]

If we must surrender basic, Constitutional rights in the name of "security," it's too late -- the terrorists have won.

Yep. Sacrificing our civil rights is like fighting land wars in Asia: completely wrong, stupid, and counter-productive.

[jeanfor]

Bottom line, (I know what I am going to say is not politically correct...but that's the real truth), we are in a battle between two different types of society/cultures. The judeo-christian society and the islamic society. Islam goal is to take over the world. Look at what Islam has done in Africa, killing thousand of Christians, like in Soudan. When I listen to Islamic religious leaders about how respectful and peaceful is Islam, this really makes me laugh!!!. That's the real problem and nobody wants to say it....What is going to take for us to wake up and smell the fire....another 9-11....

[TOADMAN]

Bottom line, (I know what I am going to say is not politically correct...but that's the real truth), we are in a battle between two different types of society/cultures. The judeo-christian society and the islamic society. Islam goal is to take over the world. Look at what Islam has done in Africa, killing thousand of Christians, like in Soudan. When I listen to Islamic religious leaders about how respectful and peaceful is Islam, this really makes me laugh!!!. That's the real problem and nobody wants to say it....What is going to take for us to wake up and smell the fire....another 9-11....

Unfortunately yes!!

[Derek Zeanah]

Times have changed!!! Rules are for games!! You want the terrorists to stop - kill-em. Kill-em in the most rude and crude way possible - even their families. Destroy towns and villages that harbor terrorists.Right! Damn right! Because we never make mistakes, or do something silly like not know whether the nation we go to war against actually had hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons of mass desrtuction, or anything. We're American, God Damn It! We're ALWAYS RIGHT.

And GENOCIDE is ALWAYS a good answer, regardless of the question. When in doubt, KILL 'EM ALL, I say!

[TOADMAN]

Right! Damn right! Because we never make mistakes, or do something silly like not know whether the nation we go to war against actually had hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons of mass desrtuction, or anything. We're American, God Damn It! We're ALWAYS RIGHT.

And GENOCIDE is ALWAYS a good answer, regardless of the question. When in doubt, KILL 'EM ALL, I say!
Take a lude!! War is full of mistakes!! Plus, you violated one of PREACHERMAN's stickey notes...I guess you were against WWll when we nuked Japan - they had no WMD. Bottom line - it ended the war.

[mountainclmbr]

Yes, we must free them! It must be mandatory that they live next door to Teddy (the swimmer) Kennedy, John Corzine or Hillary.

[Preacherman]

Mountainclmbr has a good point... perhaps we could nominate our favorite idiots as Ambassadors to Al Q'aeda? They might bore Osama to death! :D

[Joejojoba111]

Bottom line, (I know what I am going to say is not politically correct...but that's the real truth), we are in a battle between two different types of society/cultures. The judeo-christian society and the islamic society. Islam goal is to take over the world. Look at what Islam has done in Africa, killing thousand of Christians, like in Soudan. When I listen to Islamic religious leaders about how respectful and peaceful is Islam, this really makes me laugh!!!. That's the real problem and nobody wants to say it....What is going to take for us to wake up and smell the fire....another 9-11....

I was always partial to the idea of a country where people could come and live, and there would be very few simple rules. The rules would be there simply to ensure that you can stretch your arms as far as you like, as long as they don't hit someone else in the face.

This country are A-religious, it didn't have an official religion. It would even have rules so that the country would never be officially identified as supporting one religion.


BOTTOM LINE - Religious people are ALWAYS going to be killing each other. There is no way around it. If people want to kill each other, let them. But don't drag an entire country into it, the country is all about being left alone to do whatever you want.

[Lone_Gunman]

We need someone with some fresh ideas in the White House.

5 years of Bush seems longer than 8 years of Clinton, and I voted for Bush.

[Can'thavenuthingood]

The laws are on the books against all crimes terrorists commit. Have the state and local jurisdictions perform trial and punishment, then it's spread out amongst the country. Feds can reimburse costs if necessary.

Problem with Patriot is what crime to charge when individual is detained prior to committing or planning a crime. Suspicion? A bad thought? The thought police have to be robotic, unemotional, unbiased, unprejudiced and in some way not patriotic while at the same time patriotic.

Definitions, its also a problem with defintions of both us and them. Sullivan said "especially in the larger battle of ideas that will ensure ultimate victory or defeat."
Islam is not an idea, its religious fanatics are out to destroy everything that is not islamic. How do you argue an idea with that mentality in opposition? Prior to presenting the idea, the terrorist must first believe you to be his equal. Unless you are allah himself, you are meaningless. So the terrorist believes himself to be a soldier. In what Army? In God's army, a religious army, not a governments army, which is an infidel's army. He is a soldier of his god's army. To think we can buy, intimidate, plead, beg or convince someone whose whole life from birth was spent being indoctrinated into thinking of westerners as infidels is whistling past the graveyard. The muslims that are silent are helping the fanatics through inaction.

One rule for Americans and another for foreigners? Why yes, why would or should it be different? This is America, we are the leader. They might not like it and many Americans don't like it but thats the way it is. The dollar says so, the worlds individual countries economies say so. And who are the economies? The people of those countries. The USofA is the standard of liberty. Once you become an American citizen (a high threshold) you are under our umbrella.
Unless by birthright, your citizenship ought to be revocable for crimes against the citizenship.

I think the appearance of favoritism towards our citizens is a good thing. All others are strangers and suspect until proven otherwise. Its a mindset we had a longtime ago, what made it a bad thing? Why should we degrade ourselves and our standard of living to make the rest of the world feel good about their lack of ambition and industriousness? Let'em outrage and stomp and kick things till their peasants bleed, it's what they do best.

Don't call terrorists military detainees if they were caught in the act of commiting a crime, shoot to kill on the spot. If we catch them planning a crime or get to them before performance of the crime, isn't that Conspiracy? or Attempt?

My perception of the PATRIOT Act is a little nervous about its use. Then again, Al-Queida and company make me a bit nervous. I'm in the position of having to trust my fellow citizens utilizing the PATRIOTs tools, use them in my favor. To call the terrorists soldiers gives them credibility, a legal status they should not enjoy.

Congressional Trust and blank checks in the same sentence? Satire right?

I'll correct szpelings later,

Vick

[jeanfor]

I was always partial to the idea of a country where people could come and live, and there would be very few simple rules. The rules would be there simply to ensure that you can stretch your arms as far as you like, as long as they don't hit someone else in the face.

This country are A-religious, it didn't have an official religion. It would even have rules so that the country would never be officially identified as supporting one religion.
.

This is nice in principal, but the fact is the US and Europe are based on judeo-christian principles, and there always going to be a conflict between Islam and the western civilisations. It is very naive to think otherwise. If we are not awake they will take over...

[Byron Quick]

I thnk we need to be very careful. As Franklin said,"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." To drive the point just a bit deeper, that's inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell of the Statue of Liberty.

First we need to decide if we are in engaged in a military action or a very large criminal investigation. If a military action then we need to conduct ourselves according to the treaties the US has signed and ratified. Treat them as POW's with all rights pertaining to that status. Tell them,"OK, when we have a cease-fire agreement with your organization, we'll release you. Until then, you're behind barbed wire." Or even,"In accord with the Hague Convention, all unlawful combatants will be executed." Straight up, in the light of day, in front of God and everyone.

U.S. citizens should be afforded the rights of U.S. citizens. Period. Anything else is begging for a police state. That deal about revoking U.S. citizenship is baloney. It's not that far a step from saying,"We can revoke Ali's citizenship and not have to afford him all those messy rights...after all he's not really an American." to "We can revoke Mike Smith's citizenship and not have to afford him all thos messy rights...after all, even though he was born here, he wouldn't have said that if he was really an American."

Some folks have proposed that torture should be legitimate in a case where it could prevent another large attack with a heavy toll of dead. I agree. But I also agree with Professor Dershowski of Harvard, such should be publicly approved,in each instance, by the President or by a Supreme Court Justice.

There's a reason to keep things secret besides operational security. It's because you're ashamed of what you are doing. If you find yourself in that situation; it's a red flag.

[Joejojoba111]

Ahmen.



And for the record, I don't think I could find 10 Christians who agree on what Christianity is. Let alone finding 10 mythical JudaeoChristians. What is that religion, anyway? Someone who is Christian but recognizes Christ was Jewish so follows both rules?

I will never sanction a religious war, period. I don't believe that Islam is out to get us all.

And I think the scariest thing is not a war, it's a police state. I read history of this war and that war,for this reason and tha reason, and it's not scary. But reading of police states is always terrifying.

I just hope to god I'm not alone.

[jeanfor]

Ahmen.



...I will never sanction a religious war, period. I don't believe that Islam is out to get us all.

And I think the scariest thing is not a war, it's a police state. I read history of this war and that war,for this reason and tha reason, and it's not scary. But reading of police states is always terrifying.

I just hope to god I'm not alone.

Remember 9-11 .....

The fact that you don't believe does not make it less real

[shootinstudent]

Destroy towns and villages that harbor terrorists. Won't be long and they will stop. Its real nasty stuff, that is why they call it war. Most americans don't have the stomach for it. If we were attacked by terrorists as much as Israel - think about it!!

Yeah, we should follow the Russian model. That's been proven effective at stopping terrorism....hmmm, wait there just a minute....that's right, it is a proven method of destroying your moral high ground and securing failure and violence for generations to come. Blowing up people who aren't attacking you will only create more attackers. You can pretend that this is a "stomach" issue all you want, but human rights aside, brutality campaigns to stop irregular attacks have failed at every turn in the 20th century.

This is nice in principal, but the fact is the US and Europe are based on judeo-christian principles, and there always going to be a conflict between Islam and the western civilisations. It is very naive to think otherwise. If we are not awake they will take over.

Interesting. I have no doubt that you arrived at this opinion through long hours of studying the history of East-West relations and immersing yourself in Islamic culture, that you would know enough to comment on "Islam as a whole", whatever that might be. I think it's very naive to make pronouncements about what Islam is without having bothered to look into it.

Remember 9-11 .....

The fact that you don't believe does not make it less real

The fact that you believe it's justified doesn't make a police state any less a police state. The reasons you give up your freedom for won't change the fact that it's freedom lost. I'm going to have to agree with this wholeheartedly:


U.S. citizens should be afforded the rights of U.S. citizens. Period. Anything else is begging for a police state.

And on top of that, we should conduct ourselves in our dealings with other human beings like the decent, rights respecting Americans we make ourselves out to be. I'm not willing to turn my nation into a gang of savages for any reason, and as far as I'm concerned, secret prisons, secret torturing, and collective punishment is what savages do.

[Sam]

Sorry about that javafiend. A subject I am very touchy about.
Current employment sticks me right smack dab in the middle on this one and I really get too d@mn sensitive when it comes up. Good Ol Touchy Me takes everything personal. I was taught that if you should take ownership of a job, you do better work. If I touch it, it's mine, you criticize it, your @$$ is mine.

I apologize for the overreaction.

I'm very unhappy with our civillian leadership. Put people in a position that is right on the edge and then abandon them when they trip over a rock that they dropped on the sidewalk. I've toasted a lot of times when a subordinate messed up, you take the heat, get your knuckles busted, retrain the kid and get on with life. Don't see our masters doing the same, looking out for the troops. Not exactly people of honor or integrity.

The military side is working very, very, very hard to prevent the abuse of prisoners and every time they are forced to cooperate with the intel agencies they get kicked in the balls and some 19 year old kid from Lower Squegee Handle Indiana goes to jail.

Sam

[javafiend]

Or even,"In accord with the Hague Convention, all unlawful combatants will be executed." Straight up, in the light of day, in front of God and everyone.

I agree.

The military side is working very, very, very hard to prevent the abuse of prisoners and every time they are forced to cooperate with the intel agencies they get kicked in the balls and some 19 year old kid from Lower Squegee Handle Indiana goes to jail.

I have no doubt. It's interesting to me that the senators pushing the ban on torture include McCain, Hagel, Warner, and Grant. Men who served in the military. Men who were captured, wounded, or themselves tortured.

The civilian political class in this country stinks.

[Major Beer]

We need someone with some fresh ideas in the White House.

5 years of Bush seems longer than 8 years of Clinton, and I voted for Bush.

i voted for W twice but he did do a few things i liked - actually he did nothing as Congress gets credit for these:

Assault weapon's Ban sunsetting

Protection of Gun Manufacturers against petty lawsuits

oh ya, there has not been a Waco or Ruby Ridge type situation either.

Yes the White House usually gets the blame but do not forget about the slackers in Congress that have been there forever and never seem to face any criticism.

[Major Beer]

as far as freedom being reduced for security reasons - that is bad enough, but how about the first plank of the Communist Manifesto being applied by the Court (eminent domain) for tax reasons.

one of these days i wished people would wake up and start voting out the eternal incumbents and maybe put the Supreme Court members on the voting block as well.

[TOADMAN]

[QUOTE=shootinstudent]Yeah, we should follow the Russian model. That's been proven effective at stopping terrorism....hmmm, wait there just a minute....that's right, it is a proven method of destroying your moral high ground and securing failure and violence for generations to come. Blowing up people who aren't attacking you will only create more attackers. You can pretend that this is a "stomach" issue all you want, but human rights aside, brutality campaigns to stop irregular attacks have failed at every turn in the 20th century.

I wouldn't follow the Russian model...That's your idea!!!There is no moral high ground in war!!! Blowing up people who aren't attacking you is what the terrorists are currently doing and they seem to be winning!! WWll, It was most brutal when we dropped two nukes on Japan and it definately stopped them - or do you consider that campaign a failure? By the way, what is your plan to stop terrorism?

[CAPTAIN MIKE]

I have to say that RealGun's comments may be right on the mark. It may in fact take a few more terrorist attacks against innocents here in America before it sinks in that our enemy does not care whether we are liberal or conservative --- only that we are Americans and we are not just like them.

To our enemy, that is reason enough that we -- all of us, including our children and grandchildren -- should be wiped out, period.

The enemy is not distracted by issues of conscience, nor by discussions about humane treatment, the role of women, domestic agendas and the like. They are single focused: kill Americans, not just conservatives...but ALL Americans.

We must stand together or die individually. I choose the former.

[Joejojoba111]

You do reaize that they attribute the exact same attribute to you, right?

I don't believe them, and I don't believe you.

The fact that I know several people who practice Islam, and none of them have ever killed me, that might have something to do with it. Or the fact that I know for a fact that even radical by-the-book to-the-letter Islam has mechanisms to co-exist with other religions, that might have something to do with it.


The fact is I know you are wrong. Even if you look at some Islamic dream state, like Instanbul, the only difficulty in being non-Islam was that you had to pay a fee. Yea, that's it. Not quite the genocidal tendencies you've been told, is it? A couple dollars and you are cool. Religious tolerance, in strict Islam society.

[Strings]

>A couple dollars and you are cool. Religious tolerance, in strict Islam society.<

As opposed to Radical Islam, which is what I think you're thinking of. But just like any other "Radical" (the common term is "fundamentalilst", although that isn't strictly correct) religion, wether it be Judaism, Christianity, Paganism, or Buddhism (oh... wait. Never heard of "Fundy Buddhism"). When you start talking "radical" or fundamentalist", you're usually talking about people who twist the teachings of whatever system to fit their wants...

Read a copy of the Koran sometime. Not only will you learn a bit more about what you're talking about, you'll be reading some VERY beautiful poetry...

[shootinstudent]

Blowing up people who aren't attacking you is what the terrorists are currently doing and they seem to be winning!! WWll, It was most brutal when we dropped two nukes on Japan and it definately stopped them - or do you consider that campaign a failure? By the way, what is your plan to stop terrorism?

You think the terrorists are winning? How many countries have the terrorist successfully conquered? How much time do they spend hiding and worrying about any number of intelligence networks catching up to them? Managing to carry out a bombing or two using suicide bombers is hardly what I call "winning" a war.

Carpet bombing and nuking japan almost certainly was a waste. I've seen no solid proof that either practice actually ended the war more quickly.

And more to the point...the Russians have been "taking the gloves off" for most of the 20th century. Look what it has earned them: decades of terrorism and a reputation for being criminals. Is that what direction you'd like the US to take?

My plan for stopping terrorism is to stop supporting the states that sponsor it, and to promote real democracy in those states....not "Democracy that will give us all the cheap oil we need." On top of that there are a host of issues we need not start a flame war over....but here's the main point:

The fact that you think it might be harder to "win the war on terror" by acting like freedom loving Americans doesn't justify turning our country into one that practices all manner of third world, evil battle tactics like widespread torture, group punishment, and secret imprisonment.

[Firethorn]

The fact is I know you are wrong. Even if you look at some Islamic dream state, like Instanbul, the only difficulty in being non-Islam was that you had to pay a fee. Yea, that's it. Not quite the genocidal tendencies you've been told, is it? A couple dollars and you are cool. Religious tolerance, in strict Islam society.

Dhimmitude. (http://www.dhimmi.com/dhimmi_overview.htm) And it wasn't just a 'fee'.

DHIMMI: A BRIEF OVERVIEW
7th-21st century. The notion of Dhimmitude, originating in the 7th century, still applies today to non-Muslims under Islamic rule—whether Jews or Christians, whether in Saudi Arabia or in Sudan. Dhimmitude began in 628 CE when Mohammed and his forces conquered the Jewish oasis at Khaybar. They massacred many of the Jews and forced the rest to accept a pact ("Dhimma") which rendered them inferiror to their Muslim conquerors. Over the centuries, the ideology of Dhimmitude expanded into a formal system of religious apartheid.

Institutionalized apartheid. In Shari’a law, there are official discriminations against the Dhimmi, such as the poll-tax or jizya.

No legal rights. Jews may not testify in court against a Muslim and have no legal right to dispute or challenge anything done to them by Muslims. There is no such thing as a Muslim raping a Jewish woman; there is no such thing as a Muslim murdering a Jew (at most, it can be manslaughter). In contrast, a Jew who strikes a Muslim is killed.

Humiliation and vulnerability. Jews and Christians had to walk around with badges or veils identifying them as Jews or Christians. The yellow star that Jews had wear in Nazi Germany did not originate in Europe. It was borrowed from the Muslim world where it was part of the apartheid system of Dhimmitude.

Conditional protection. The protection of the Dhimmi is withdrawn if the Dhimmi rebels against Islamic law, gives allegiance to non-Muslim power (such as Israel), refuses to pay the poll-tax, entices a Muslim from his faith, or harms a Muslim or his property. If the protection is lifted, jihad resumes. For example, Islamists in Egypt who pillage and kill the Copts do so because they no longer pay their poll-tax and therefore are no longer protected.

Not so tolerant, was it?

[shootinstudent]

Not so tolerant, was it?

What was the Christian rule on other religions in Christian land at the time? Why did Jews flee to Muslim lands throughout that period in History???


Institutionalized apartheid. In Shari’a law, there are official discriminations against the Dhimmi, such as the poll-tax or jizya.

Ah ha...according to which Fiqh? Any article that mentions "Shari'a" without noting that there is no one single body of "Shari'a" that is authoritative loses all credibility in my book. It's like a giant signpost that says "I've never actually read any of the works of Islamic jurisprudence; I'm just repeating what pamphlet said."

It's always a good idea, for arguments on terror or culture, to rely on primary sources, many of which have been translated and fabulously made available by Fordham University at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html


Edited to add:

I find this issue relevant to terrorism and human rights because, first of all, if you believe that the Islamic world can never develop due to cultural problems, then the whole war on terror is a waste....what's the point of advocating all these extreme, constitution-infringing measures if in the end the part of the world you're trying to change, won't change?

Second, I think criticizing Islam is one of the ways that people justify violating human rights...and it's been done for numerous groups in the past. It is frightening to see that people can't recognize the same old arguments being passed off on a new group as to why we should sacrifice this or that right in order to "teach them a lesson."

[gc70]

It's always a good idea, for arguments on terror or culture, to rely on primary sources, many of which have been translated and fabulously made available by Fordham University at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html
Since the several hundred documents listed on the Fordham site would take more time to read than I have tonight, I feel reasonably comfortable with a knowledgeable confirmation of my prior reading:Bernard Lewis (Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University) comments:

Two stereotypes dominate most of what has been written on tolerance and intolerance in the Islamic world. The first depicts a fanatical warrior, an Arab horseman riding out of the desert with a sword in one hand and the Qur'an in the other, offering his victims the choice between the two. This picture […] is not only false but impossible […]. The other image, almost equally preposterous, is that of an interfaith, interracial utopia, in which men and women belonging to different races, professing different creeds, lived side by side in a golden age of unbroken harmony, enjoying equality of rights and of opportunities, and toiling together for the advancement of civilization. Both images are of course wildly distorted; yet both contain, as stereotypes often do, some elements of truth. Two features they have in common are that they are relatively recent, and that they are of Western and not Islamic origin.[6]

It is only very recently that some defenders of Islam began to assert that their society in the past accorded equal status to non-Muslims. No such claim is made by spokesman for resurgent Islam, and historically there is no doubt that they are right. Traditional Islamic societies neither accorded such equality nor pretended that they were so doing. Indeed, in the old order, this would have been regarded not as a merit but as a dereliction of duty. How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who willfully reject it? This would be a theological as well as a logical absurdity.

The rank of a full member of society was restricted to free male Muslims. Those who lacked any of these three essential qualifications -- that is, the slave, the woman or the unbeliever -- were not equal. The three basic inequalities of master and slave, man and woman, believer and unbeliever, were not merely admitted; they were established and regulated by holy law.

[xd9fan]

I would love this country to focus on armed neutrality and stop funding other Govts.

After WW2, what have we really done by all these conflicts(not wars)???

When are we going to start focusing on our liberty??

[shootinstudent]

gc70,

What are we getting at with that? Slavery, inequality, and convert-or-die (rather than convert or pay) were the rules in Christian lands in those days too...I fail to see how it tells us something inherent in Islamic culture. All that article tells us is that the Islamic system of inequality was much better, for its time, than the Christian systems of government.

But I'm glad you cited Bernard Lewis, because I am a big fan of his work. He's definitely a scholar of note, and there's lots of his writing out there that I hope you will investigate. Some of it is even listed on the medieval sourcebook, and I've got it linked below for you to check out since he's someone whose work you respect.

Here's his opinion on democracy and reform in the middle east:
One of the sayings traditionally ascribed to the Prophet is the remark, "Difference of opinion within my community is a sign of God's mercy." In other words, diversity is something to be welcomed, not something to be suppressed. This attitude is typified by the acceptance by Sunni Muslims, even today, of four different schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Muslims believe the holy law to be divinely inspired and guided, yet there are four significantly different schools of thought regarding this law. The idea that it is possible to be orthodox even while differing creates a principle of the acceptance of diversity and of mutual tolerance of differences of opinion that surely cannot be bad for parliamentary government.

The final point worth mentioning in this inventory is Islam's emphasis on the twin qualities of dignity and humility. Subjects--even the humblest subjects--have personal dignity in the traditional Islamic view, and rulers must avoid arrogance. By Ottoman custom, when the sultan received the chief dignitaries of the state on holy days, he stood up to receive them as a sign of his respect for the law. When a new sultan was enthroned, he was greeted with cries of "Sultan, be not proud! God is greater than you!"http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/blewis.htm

And there you have it: An unbiased look at the Islamic world that should give us all some hope for the future. If we decide to "take the gloves off" by not respecting any rights at all, not only will we be behaving in a less civilized way than a 7th century Caliph...we'll end up just like the Russians, past the peak of our power someday and with a whole world of people to hate us for being such savages.

[longeyes]

It's always a good idea, for arguments on terror or culture, to rely on primary sources, many of which have been translated and fabulously made available by Fordham University at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html


It's always a good idea, for arguments on terror or culture, to rely on empirical evidence of what people actually DO, and not five centuries ago, but NOW. We don't need to generalize, we just need to open our eyes and see what is happening, by whom it's done, and what they are in fact saying.

The rest is gaseous expulsion.

[shootinstudent]

It's always a good idea, for arguments on terror or culture, to rely on empirical evidence of what people actually DO, and not five centuries ago, but NOW. We don't need to generalize, we just need to open our eyes and see what is happening, by whom it's done, and what they are in fact saying.

Read the link. It's about cultural foundations for democratic reform in the middle east...today.

If we open our eyes and look at what's there today, we'll find problems that are similar to ones we in the West have faced in the past, and we'll recognize that we don't need to abandon our constitutional tradition or respect for human rights in order to see things through.

[gc70]

What are we getting at with that?Islam is distorted at both ends of the spectrum, both by detractors and defenders.An unbiased look at the Islamic world that should give us all some hope for the future.I do not fully share your optimism. I see many parallels in the timelines of the development of Christianity and Islam. As you correctly note, there have been times when Islam has been more benign than Christianity, and times when the opposite was true. However, Islam is about 600 years younger than Christianity. Islam seems to currently be in a rowdy stage of its development, just as Christianity was in an unattractive stage of its development 600 years ago. There were no great powers to check Christianity's excesses 600 years ago. Other great powers do exist today and bad behavior in the name of Islam need not be tolerated.

[Boss Spearman]

I agree with you, PM. We are supposed to be the good guys. We need to rise above the level of those we oppose, not respond with like tactics.

I agree with xd9fan too. I know we can't go back to isolationism, but I wish all of these nations around the world that hate us would never see another US flag there again, no matter what they're doing to each other.

[TOADMAN]

You think the terrorists are winning? How many countries have the terrorist successfully conquered? How much time do they spend hiding and worrying about any number of intelligence networks catching up to them? Managing to carry out a bombing or two using suicide bombers is hardly what I call "winning" a war.

Carpet bombing and nuking japan almost certainly was a waste. I've seen no solid proof that either practice actually ended the war more quickly.

And more to the point...the Russians have been "taking the gloves off" for most of the 20th century. Look what it has earned them: decades of terrorism and a reputation for being criminals. Is that what direction you'd like the US to take?

My plan for stopping terrorism is to stop supporting the states that sponsor it, and to promote real democracy in those states....not "Democracy that will give us all the cheap oil we need." On top of that there are a host of issues we need not start a flame war over....but here's the main point:

The fact that you think it might be harder to "win the war on terror" by acting like freedom loving Americans doesn't justify turning our country into one that practices all manner of third world, evil battle tactics like widespread torture, group punishment, and secret imprisonment.

Terrorists don't want to conquer countries - they just want to kill you. They don't care how long it takes. Quit bringing up the Russians. I wouldn't follow their stradegy. Look at Japan today - a really good look - are you blind - they are our close supporters and very successful - and we nuked-em. Your plan to stop terrorism is pathetic!! Promote democracy in the terrorist states - yeah right!!! Invite them over for Thanksgiving and they will stop killing us. You are way too soft my friend!!

[shootinstudent]

Look at Japan today - a really good look - are you blind - they are our close supporters and very successful - and we nuked-em.

One question: Do you think Japan is doing so well today because they were nuked, or because the US spent billions of dollars rebuilding their economy and instituting a democratic government there?

hmmm...which of those two factors do you think has more to do with Japan today?

[The Real Hawkeye]

I know we can't go back to isolationism, but I wish all of these nations around the world that hate us would never see another US flag there again, no matter what they're doing to each other.We were never "isolationist." This term was invented by the internationalists (those who favored the League of Nations, the UN, and word government generally) as a club with which to bludgeon the Old Right in America. It intentionally created the false impression that the traditional American right favored the notion of building a figurative wall around our borders and behaving as if the rest of the world did not exist. This was a straw man from the beginning.

The so called "isolationists" were merely advocates of a foreign policy which placed the interests of the United States and its citizens above those of the so called "world community." For the internationalists, this was too selfish an approach to be tolerated, as they took the opposite view, i.e., our foreign policy must take the well-being of the world as a whole (the so called "world community") as our primary objective, even if this is ultimately (and short term) bad for the United States and its citizens. They saw our military, and still do, as the world's police force; the force which must be used to bring about world government, i.e., the eventual submersion of American sovereignty into that of a one world government.

Since the internationalists won (They got us into both world wars, and every so called "police action" since), they have been at liberty to propagandize our school children lo these many decades, filling their heads with the notion that those who favored an America First foreign policy were just silly "isolationists," i.e., selfish relics of the past who, coincidentally, occupied the moral low ground, when in reality it was the so called "isolationists" who were the true patriots, and remain so today. Let's stop using the language of our ideological enemies, shall we?

[RealGun]

Since the internationalists won (They got us into both world wars, and every so called "police action" since), they have been at liberty to propagandize our school children lo these many decades, filling their heads with the notion that those who favored an America First foreign policy were just silly "isolationists," i.e., selfish relics of the past who, coincidentally, occupied a moral low ground, when in reality it was the so called "isolationists" who were the true patriots, and remain so today. Let's stop using the language of our ideological enemies, shall we?

Very interesting. Well done. However, we can't stop how the language evolves. Today's "isolationist" in my view would rather spend military money on welfare, ignoring that it should actually be used to reduce deficits. Thus we have Democrats against the military initiatives, because they then have less money available to buy votes. The budget has no room for some of their precious social programs. Republicans moderate in that direction too, because they want and need to get elected. The underlying problem is that voters who want money from the government control today's politics. I believe their birth rates are higher than the more economically productive, so it will get worse.

[The Real Hawkeye]

Very interesting. Well done. However, we can't stop how the language evolves. Today's "isolationist" in my view would rather spend military money on welfare, ignoring that it should actually be used to reduce deficits. Thus we have Democrats against the military initiatives, because they then have less money available to buy votes.Oh? You mean military initiatives like Clinton's war with, and occupations of, Yugoslavia? Kennedy's war with North Vietnam? Johnson's Tonkin Bay Resolution? Truman's war with North Korea? Roosevelt's war with the Axis Powers? Wilson's war with Germany? Which Democrats are the ones who oppose military initiatives again?

[RealGun]

Oh? You mean military initiatives like Clinton's war with, and occupations of, Yugoslavia? Kennedy's war with North Vietnam? Johnson's Tonkin Bay Resolution? Truman's war with North Korea? Roosevelt's war with the Axis Powers? Wilson's war with Germany? Which Democrats are the ones who oppose military initiatives again?

Again, you have to allow terminology to evolve, not to mention time march on. None of those Presidents but Clinton, your weakest example, were particularly beholden to a controlling number of black voters, whose perceived financial needs know no bounds and to people who now pay obscene prices for medication and other medical care. You gotta know that $200 billion annually diverted from the military would make them very happy (for the moment).

What we have now is the exposure of who becomes impatient with the effort in Iraq and their reasons why. Who exactly was in favor of initiating a particular historic military action depends upon the context of the time.

All I am saying is that current Dems lead the way in wanting to spend money domestically. The party wouldn't exist if they didn't. A military effort of a scale to create dramatic budget problems will not enjoy Democrat support.

[Krenn]

Amen.

Taking it a step further, I'll have to re-read the Conentions but I believe the term "unlawful combatants" applies during times of military conflict, to describe those who take up arms but who do not wear a uniform. In short, guerillas -- the teenagers in "Red Dawn," for example, to the Russian invaders would be "unlawful combatants."

Terrorists operating in the United States are not "combatants<' first because there is no war ongoing here and second, for the fundamental reason that they are not engaged in combat. They are't firing rifles and throwing grenades. They are sneaking around, plotting to blow up hotels and churches and office buildings. In short, they are what they are: "terrorists." The laws dealing with blowing things up and killing people are on the books and can be used, but the government has elected to keep any terrorists it lays its hands on out of court, relying on the "enemy combatant" designation as a smokescreen.

It is wrong, it is repulsive, and it is blatantly illegal. The United States can never, ever, hope for any sort of moral respect on the world stage while we engage in such shenanigans.

you're right: those aren't unlawfull combatants.

they're "spies"

(as in operatives, not intelligence-gatherers, although geneva doesn't make a distinction)

The laws of war for enemy spies is at least as ugly as for unlawfull combatents.

on the other hand, a U.S. Citizen spying for foreign terrorists is a traitor

and the U.S. constitution contains very specific rules for the prosecution of traitors. we'd do well to follow them. (at least two witnesses to the same act, etc, etc.)

[TOADMAN]

One question: Do you think Japan is doing so well today because they were nuked, or because the US spent billions of dollars rebuilding their economy and instituting a democratic government there?

hmmm...which of those two factors do you think has more to do with Japan today?

Now you are getting the idea!! Bout time. Both factors!! Would you rather be speaking Japanese and/or have Japan a terrorist state? I think it was money well spent. Plus it saved us from invading Japan to include saving a half million or more of American lives. Freedom ain't cheap. By the way, the Japan model blows away your plan to stop terrorism.

[TOADMAN]

[QUOTE=shootinstudent]
Carpet bombing and nuking japan almost certainly was a waste. I've seen no solid proof that either practice actually ended the war more quickly.

You can't be serious!!!

[longeyes]

Carpet bombing and nuking japan almost certainly was a waste. I've seen no solid proof that either practice actually ended the war more quickly.

That's right. From the Japanese perspective we were just helping them with urban renewal.

[shootinstudent]

Carpet bombing and nuking japan almost certainly was a waste. I've seen no solid proof that either practice actually ended the war more quickly.

You can't be serious!!!

Yes I can. Look at what happened on September 11th: People's resolve to fight back hardened. Look at what happened to the Russians in Afghanistan...the more they laid waste to whole villages, the more the intense hatred and will to fight grew on the Afghan side.

I think it's entirely possible that all the carpet bombing in World War II actually made the fighting last longer because it created bitterness, hatred, and resolve in people who would otherwise have no personal reasons to hate the Allies.

Why is that so hard to imagine? If someone nuked los angeles, I know I wouldn't just want to give up and let that person do whatever he wanted...would you?

Now, in reverse: Why do you think that the rest of the world is any different from you in this respect?

[Boss Spearman]

[QUOTE
The so called "isolationists" were merely advocates of a foreign policy which placed the interests of the United States and its citizens above those of the so called "world community." [/QUOTE]

Well, that qualifies me as an isolationist then. The "world community" wants to disarm us and criticize us and hate us while at the same time accepting our money and offerings to help them out. I'm sick of the UN in particular and wish we'd kick them out of the US and withdraw.

[Hawkmoon]

The fact is I know you are wrong. Even if you look at some Islamic dream state, like Instanbul, the only difficulty in being non-Islam was that you had to pay a fee. Yea, that's it. Not quite the genocidal tendencies you've been told, is it? A couple dollars and you are cool. Religious tolerance, in strict Islam society.
Bad example. Istanbul isn't a state, it's a city in Turkey, and while Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim the government is seculkar, not Islamic. And that doesn't sit well with the radical Islamicist fundamentalists, who don't care much for Turkey at all.

[xd9fan]

armed neutrality is not isolationism. Very very different concepts.

[Strings]

>I think it's entirely possible that all the carpet bombing in World War II actually made the fighting last longer because it created bitterness, hatred, and resolve in people who would otherwise have no personal reasons to hate the Allies.<

Well... kinda. Won't argue that the carpet bombing added a certain level of hatred twords the Allies. However, you REALLY can't argue that nuking Japan didn't shorten the war there: I've seen the projections, and it wouldn't have been pretty. Instead, we demonstrated that we could SERIOUSLY destroy them without working up a sweat, and they capitulated...


The same trick wouldn't work against Islamofascist terrorism for a couple reasons.

First off... they're taught that dying "for the cause" puts you on the fast-track to Paradise. So they're eager: all that nuking them would do is give them more martyrs...

The there's the international angle, in two parts:
1)WHO do we nuke? Yes, there are "terrorist states", countries that give aid and comfort to the terrorists. But we'd kinda need proof...

2)How do we convince other nuclear capable countries that we aren't striking them? How do we get such to agree that turning say SYria into a sheet of glass is the proper way to fight Islamofascist terrorism? Remember: once a nuke is launched, all "lighter" options are gone...

Comparing the fight against Islamofascist terrorism with the fight against Japan is kinda an apples/oranges proposition. Unless we want to nuke the entirety of the Middle East, from Morrocco to Pakistan, into one giant sheet of glass. Which is about the ONLY way true "peace in the Middle East" will ever be achieved...

[TOADMAN]

[QUOTE=shootinstudent]Yes I can. Look at what happened on September 11th: People's resolve to fight back hardened. Look at what happened to the Russians in Afghanistan...the more they laid waste to whole villages, the more the intense hatred and will to fight grew on the Afghan side.


I think you meant to say: People's resolve to fight back hardened a little bit! Alot of those hardened folks are ready to quit now...I guess they weren't tough at all. Russians: That is because we supported the Afgans against the Russians.



(Quote = shootinstudent)I think it's entirely possible that all the carpet bombing in World War II actually made the fighting last longer because it created bitterness, hatred, and resolve in people who would otherwise have no personal reasons to hate the Allies.



I think it is entirely possible that if frogs had pockets - they could carry pistols so the snakes wouldn't eat them!!




(Quote = shootinstudent) Why is that so hard to imagine? If someone nuked los angeles, I know I wouldn't just want to give up and let that person do whatever he wanted...would you?



Why is that so hard to imagine? If someone nuked los angeles we might be better off?

(Quote shootinstudent) Now, in reverse: Why do you think that the rest of the world is any different from you in this respect.


I don't care!!

[Boss Spearman]

[QUOTE
Why is that so hard to imagine? If someone nuked los angeles we might be better off[/QUOTE]

Only if Jessica Alba's not in LA when it happens! :eek:

[TOADMAN]

Only if Jessica Alba's not in LA when it happens! :eek: I forgot to say that!! I totally agree.

[gc70]

The big problem with the "War on Terrorism" is how to find and deal with the few thousand violent Islamofascists among a billion other Muslims. And the problem is compounded when the adherents to Islam choose, by the millions, to actively support, passively support, or willingly tolerate the Islamofascists.

[TOADMAN]

The big problem with the "War on Terrorism" is how to find and deal with the few thousand violent Islamofascists among a billion other Muslims. And the problem is compounded when the adherents to Islam choose, by the millions, to actively support, passively support, or willingly tolerate the Islamofascists.
I think your question hit a home run!!! Hopefully, soon the billion other Muslims will get tired of these few thousand Islamofascists folks and their supporters and willingly not tolerate them. Many of the billion other Muslims are currently on our side in the terrorism war.

[Sam]

The big problem with the "War on Terrorism" is how to find and deal with the few thousand violent Islamofascists among a billion other Muslims. And the problem is compounded when the adherents to Islam choose, by the millions, to actively support, passively support, or willingly tolerate the Islamofascists

Actually it's quite easy. You bait them into a a remote area and kill them as soon as they stick their pointy little heads up.

The Bait, US Military
Locations, Iraq

Sam

[Joejojoba111]

Bad example. Istanbul isn't a state, it's a city in Turkey, and while Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim the government is seculkar, not Islamic. And that doesn't sit well with the radical Islamicist fundamentalists, who don't care much for Turkey at all.

I should have elaborated, I was thinking about when Instanbul was fresh, as Constantinople had undergone some, changes.


As for Japan surrendering - they had been putting out peace feelers for some time, but their sticking point was to do with treatment of the Emporer. In the end the Russians forced Truman's hand, and Japan was induced to peace with both the carrot and the stick.


As for terrorism... Oklamhoma gov't building was Christian terrorism. Unibomber was Christian terrorism. Those Norweigian guys, those Basque guys, those Italian guys, and most importantly, those Irish guys, all Christian terrorists. ALLL those terrorists in South America, Christian Terrorists.

OBVIOUSLY with that evidence it is now proven that Christianity is waging a war on democracy. All western nations should gather together to wipe out Christianity, as it will not stop until all vestiges of Democracy are extinguished.
:(

[Strings]

could somebody PLEASE dig up some information on Budhist terrorism? We hear about Christian terrorism, Jewish terrorism, Islamic terrorism, once in a great while Hindu terrorism. I think the Budhists need to be "brought into the fold"... :neener:

[shootinstudent]

Sri Lanka...buddhist fundamentalist violence is a big problem there.

[Boss Spearman]

Toadman, we'll just have to go and save Jessica when the time comes. :)

[Byron Quick]

shootinstudent,

I think you need to go back and look at the historical timeline. Having two nuclear devices dropped on their cities absolutely did NOT strengthen the will of the Japanese people, the Japanese government, or the Japanese military to resist. They capitulated immediately thereafter for a reason-they believed that more were coming if they didn't.

You've read a good deal about Islam. Tell you what: talk with some Iraqi Christian, Egyptian Coptic Christians, Lebanese Marionite Christians, and Arab Jews about how enlightened they found (or find) living under Islamic rule is.

For some reason, ALL of the ones I've talked to (and I've talked to representatives of all the ones I mentioned) have no intention of subjecting themselves to Islamic rule ever again.

All of them tell of assaults up to murder and rape committed against their people by Muslims that are totally ignored by the authorities. That doesn't sound too enlightened to me.

Hunter Rose,

I don't know of any instances of Buddhist terrorism. However, Buddhists have a pretty violent history and a histoy of war. The Empire of Japan was predominantly Buddhist during the time of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

[Joejojoba111]

"I don't know of any instances of Buddhist terrorism. However, Buddhists have a pretty violent history and a histoy of war. The Empire of Japan was predominantly Buddhist during the time of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere."

I think that's a negative, there was a resurgance of Shintoism, iirc, ancestor worship and whatnot, along with pronouncement of warrior-like stuff in general.

"I think you need to go back and look at the historical timeline. Having two nuclear devices dropped on their cities absolutely did NOT strengthen the will of the Japanese people, the Japanese government, or the Japanese military to resist. They capitulated immediately thereafter for a reason-they believed that more were coming if they didn't."

I suppose technically they might not have strengthened their will, but that depends on issues like propaganda. The local media could easily have presented the situation as one which the Japanese people must try EXTRA hard to defeat the enemy because their emporer was threatened by these new weapons.

Otherwise, you will notice that when their islands were conquered, often Japanese entire families would jump off cliffs together, rather than fall into the hands of the Americans. There is not a heck of a lot more resolve you can add to that. Thus, you see, fear of death was NOT a motivator. And truthfully they had little to fear, because there was honestly not much left to be bombed. LeMay, in reality, was running low on targets.


"You've read a good deal about Islam. Tell you what: talk with some Iraqi Christian, Egyptian Coptic Christians, Lebanese Marionite Christians, and Arab Jews about how enlightened they found (or find) living under Islamic rule is."

I think you'll find that people treat different people negatively, everywhere. Even places where there are laws against treating different people differently. The point was simply that there was at least some mechanism for co-existence, which is more than can be said for most.



"All of them tell of assaults up to murder and rape committed against their people by Muslims that are totally ignored by the authorities. That doesn't sound too enlightened to me."

My personal code tells me not to decide which cultures are enlightened, or not.

[p35]

See my sig line.

I also think we need to keep this in proportion. While 9/11 was a tragedy and a disaster, it was hardly a long term victory for Al Quaeda. The continued existence and stability of the US was never threatened, and those Al Quaeda leaders that aren't dead or in US custody are sneaking around the mountains on the Afghan/Pakistan border hiding from US Special Forces. They still pull something off once in a while, but they were a lot stronger before 9/11.

Compare that to some of the other crises this nation has survived. The Civil War was probably the worst, both in numbers killed and the threat to national survival. WWII was a far bigger struggle, and Pearl Harbor was a bigger disaster. If we react to this situation by giving up who we are and what we stand for, we're letting the tail wag the dog.

[RealGun]

See my sig line.

I also think we need to keep this in proportion. While 9/11 was a tragedy and a disaster, it was hardly a long term victory for Al Quaeda. The continued existence and stability of the US was never threatened, and those Al Quaeda leaders that aren't dead or in US custody are sneaking around the mountains on the Afghan/Pakistan border hiding from US Special Forces. They still pull something off once in a while, but they were a lot stronger before 9/11.

Compare that to some of the other crises this nation has survived. The Civil War was probably the worst, both in numbers killed and the threat to national survival. WWII was a far bigger struggle, and Pearl Harbor was a bigger disaster. If we react to this situation by giving up who we are and what we stand for, we're letting the tail wag the dog.

I read this and thought your version of the facts needed to be refined a bit.

If 9/11 was not a victory for OBL, we are making it into one.

Special forces are not in Pakistan, a country that smiles nicely but won't allow an American, especially military, to set foot in the country. They wouldn't even allow us in to assist with the recent earthquake aftermath.

They harbor al Quaida and everyone should know that. They claim to be looking for OBL and friends, but there is never any news about how they are doing that, who they have caught, where they are looking, etc.

Pakistan has nukes and is governed by a military dictatorship, so everyone is kissing up and walking around on tip toes, pretending like they are friends.

[The Real Hawkeye]

Well, that qualifies me as an isolationist then. The "world community" wants to disarm us and criticize us and hate us while at the same time accepting our money and offerings to help them out. I'm sick of the UN in particular and wish we'd kick them out of the US and withdraw.Nope. There you go again. Using the language of your ideological enemies. What your position makes you is an advocate of armed neutrality, not isolation. Isolationist is an intentional insult directed at the Old Right in America, who favored armed neutrality, i.e., no foreign entanglements, while being prepared at the same time to kick butt if our nation is attacked. Bush's action against Afghanistan, for example, is perfectly consistent with armed neutrality, while the invasion of Iraq was not.

By the way, you were great in Open Range. I loved the line, "It's a pretty day for making things right."

[longeyes]

I think it's entirely possible that all the carpet bombing in World War II actually made the fighting last longer because it created bitterness, hatred, and resolve in people who would otherwise have no personal reasons to hate the Allies.


Yeah, it was all sweetness and light in Nanking, wasn't it?

Hey, let's all go back to that golden age when Islam ruled the earth and everything was harmonious. Now that was...when exactly?

Message to all you L.A.-haters: Envy is a terrible, and pathetic, thing.

[shootinstudent]

Byron,

They capitulated immediately thereafter for a reason-they believed that more were coming if they didn't.

That is true, the surrender followed quickly the bombings. That doesn't mean that the nuke bombings on two cities or a full scale ground invasion were the only ways to get surrender, but I have to admit it came more quickly after the two bombings. Did that justify it? I'm not sure....but I want to make clear that I don't bash the WWII generation for it. In my mind, the important part is after the war. Rebuilding is what made WWII a moral war, not destruction. If all we had done was carpet bomb and nuke, and then leave the rubble behind, I don't think people here would speak of WWII the same way they do now.

Tell you what: talk with some Iraqi Christian, Egyptian Coptic Christians, Lebanese Marionite Christians, and Arab Jews about how enlightened they found (or find) living under Islamic rule is. I've talked with all four, and some Iranian jews. I think it's just as important to ask a non "Salafist" or "Wahhabist" Muslim how Islamic he thinks the rule in those countries is. I don't think you'll find too many Muslims out there who like living under those regimes either. I never have defended the dictator states, and I won't...but they're dictators for a reason. It's not because they have lots of grassroots support in the Muslim world.

And if you look at similar economic and political conditions in other religions/regions, you will find all the same problems. To me, that is good evidence that we should refrain from blaming the religion and focus on the political and social problems first.

Until recently, Lebanon wasn't under Muslim rule...I don't think anyone but a few tiny cults and the Alawhites themselves pretend that the Alawhites who run Syria are in fact Muslim. The terrorists do not really care about religion, what they care about is control, which is why they cooperate readily with people they believe are heretics (Iranians included if you mean Wahhabi terrorists), and they go around killing Muslims even more than they do christians.