"Bob G" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:15:20 -0500, "Peter Reilley"
wrote:




As a trained lawyer you should know that there is a principle that the
law should be equally applied. (I am not a lawyer.)

Well, to start with, I am not a lawyer. The fellow to whom I was
replying is.

I do have more than the average person's understanding of the law, tho
I am far from a lawyer. Simply because events in life lead me to
studying _some_ law. At one time, I thought I might want to be a
cop. I'm Navy, but the Navy had sent me thru the Air Force's law
enforcement academy. As part of my duties in the Navy involved law
enforcement and security. So I got out of the service at one point
and went through a police academy in a major city. And was a cop for
just short of 3 years. I wasn't cut out to be a cop. Acknowledged
that fact to myself, and went back into the Navy.

Later, starting while still in the Navy, and continuing for a while
after I got out, I took other college level law courses. In
international law, business law, and property law. Had a realtors
license, and at one time even considered going back to school and
becoming a business/property lawyer. As an engineer, working for a
major corp with part of my duties involving negotiating and making
contracts for services we hired, property we owned and others we
leased or rented (I did get legal assistance from one of our corporate
lawyers when I needed it) I got interested in contract law and the
like. But in the end decided to not attempt the switch. While I
found it interresting, and handy to know, it was not something I
wished to do full time. Basically, at heart, I'm a tools and gadgets
and technology guy who is happiest when designing something, making
something, or fixing something. Such, I can get passionate about, and
really enjoy.

Anyway, I've also had the opportunity to sit in court more than a few
times. As a witness, an accuser, a defendent, and 3 times so far, as
a juror. I say so far as I just got notice a couple weeks ago I'm
being put on the "prospective juror" list, again. This time should be
different tho, if I'm actually called. I'm going into the pool for a
federal court.

In other words
you cannot bring the full weight of the law against a person when the law
is not generally enforced just because you don't like him.

Incorrect, happens all the time. Incorrect only in the first part.
Not in the last part. You are correct about the "just because you
don't like him". Generally speaking, and there are exceptions,
neither judges nor juries are gonna look at your case favorably if
they believe you've prosecuting someone simply due to personal
dislike. You can lose a case fast that way. Sometimes, even if the
guy is guilty. Juries just DON'T LIKE it when a case appears to be
one focused on personal dislike, hatred, etc.


This juror feels that this case is selective enforcement. You feel
differently. You have expressed special disdain for the guy.
I don't like Saddam either but he is in the same class as Sharon.
One gets invaded and the other gets showered with money and arms.
The special treatment seems more than random.

In any event, we have all sorts of laws, and all sorts of situations
where those laws are not enforced in one case, but enforced in
another. Many reasons for this. Not all of them "conspiracies of the
priviledged." More often, it's simply because when the perp is
finally called upon his acts and confronted, he stops doing whatever.
Many a cop on the street has settled a problem simply by confronting
an offender, giving him or her a verbal dressing down and a warning,
then let the person go. And the person corrected his or her behavior.
End of problem. No formal charges, no court, no judge required.
Works more often than you might think.

In other cases, sometimes folks simply don't report the offender, for
any one of a number of reasons. They tolerate the offense.

Could be that the ones who know, are reliant on the offender for
income and support. In other cases it's fear of the offender. In
still other cases, the ones who know about the offense, don't agree
with the law. So never report the offense. It goes on and on as
concerns reasons.

Other laws are ones where violations tend to be generally ignored
UNLESS the violation is of such magnitude, or so outlandish in nature,
that it stands out as a situation where reasonable people would not
ignore it.

i.e. Speeding in a motor vehicle. Ignored all the time everywhere.
Cops see it all the time and let it go. BUT ... have the violator not
only speeding, but compounding the fact by driving in a careless and
dangerous fashion, and you may well have a cop ... quite rightly ...
ignoring a dozen other speeders doing the same speed, and singling out
the moron who's engaging in excessive lane changing, tail gating, and
cutting too close in front of others.

There are many other examples.

You gave a long list of things that you know and some of those things are
indeed crimes. Many are of your accusations are quite correct.
Others
are not crimes at all. Giving money to the families of people who died
in
their struggle against Israeli oppression is not a crime, it is admirable
We
give money to US soldier's families that have died. It is normal to
help the
family of fallen soldiers.

Bull****. Good thing you're not a lawyer. You'd be real embarassed
standing in front of a jury who recognizes common sense as versus BS.

We, in the US, provide life insurance for our servicemen and women,
just as my employer has a life insurance policy on me. In case I
should die in the line of my work. My wife gets the money. FWIW, I'm
retired active duty military. And I've got news for you. That life
insurance policy for servicemembers who die in the line of duty is a
PALTRY, small amount. Most of the civilians I know have larger
policies than that, by far.

Second. We do not pay off just because one of our soldiers killed
someone, performed a suicide attack, etc. If he or she dies on active
duty, even if he or she is a clerk typist, the life insurance policy
is paid. Same as with any life insurance policy held by any civilian.

Third. If we find that a member of our military has DELIBERATELY
targeted innocent civilians when it could be avoided ... we don't pay
on his life insurance. Trust me. We'll put him on trial and try our
best to put him in prison.

Whether you agree or not is irrelevant. But long history, and
international legal agreements, every since we've had such things,
acknowledges that there is a difference between a soldier accidentally
killing a civilian in battle ... or having no choice but to take the
chances of killing some innocent civilians if the enemy is hiding
behind such and NOT killing the enemy despite the chances of civilian
casualties means the likelihood of even higher casualties later ... as
versus deliberately targeting innocent civilians with the express
purpose of targeting civilians.

That last part can be done, the deliberate targeting of civilians,
only in specific circumstances. i.e. It is commonly recognized that
the governing group of an enemy, who do the organizing, give direction
to the soldiers, etc ... aren't, really, "innocent" civilians. Thus a
military force is not tried for attacking, for instance, the
equivalent of our Congress, or a governor, etc. Also, exception is
normally made in the case of a necessity to attack factories making
bombs or other war machinery.

The above, are FAR different than such things as targeting random
buses of ordinary innocent civilians going about their daily business,
setting off bombs in a school, blowing up a cafe, so on and so forth.


The Palestinian fighters were killed in the line of duty. Their families
deserve to be supported.

As to innocent Israelis; when Israeli children are killed it is a tragedy
and I condemn such attacks. Israeli adults are not innocent. Israel is
a democracy for them. They cannot claim innocence of their government's
crimes. They vote for the same criminals time and time again.
There is not a single Israeli political party, left or right, that advocates
giving the Palestinians their rights. It is truly a broken system, it must
be reformed or replaced. Apartheid South Africa found peace by way
of equal rights and Israel can too.

How do you overthrow such a system? I cannot think of any other way
given the resources that the Palestinians have and the nature of the enemy
that they face.


All of the crimes and non-crimes that you list are commonly committed by
many others around the world. There is little clamor from the accused
(Bush) to
go in and "fix" those problems. Indeed the noise about these crimes
from the
accused seems correlate with the friendliness of the criminal. This
leads
to my suspicion of the unjust application of the law.

You've already indicated both a misunderstanding of the law, and a
definite bias to your thinking.

First off, while we may well dislike and disagree with what many
people in the world do. Fact is, we don't have the resources, the
will, nor an interest in attacking everyone with whom we disagree.

If YOU don't like what country X is doing to their people, And ... if
... you want something done to stop it. YOU get off your ass, go
there, and volunteer to fight against the oppressors. Or shut the
hell up, because you're just all mouth and don't even believe what
you're saying or you are a coward. Take your pick.

We, as a country, can not reform the world, alone. And have no
intentions of doing so. We try to offer encouragement, a nudge in
what we think is the right direction. Etc. But we don't plan now or
ever to try to control the whole planet. Whatever for? The vast
majority of US citizens know next to nothing about what things are
really like in other countries. And frankly don't care. Not because
they're evil. Simply because they have their own lives, interests,
persuits, families, and so forth. And if there is something somewhere
else they really want, they go check out the stores to find one where
they can buy whatever it is. They don't plan invasions to get it.
Why the HELL do yah want to go invade a place, when in almost every
case if you offer them a reasonable amount for whatever, they'll sell
it to you? Remember? We ARE supposedly rich as a nation.
Relatively, I suppose that's true enough. It's true enough so that
you'd have to hunt really hard, except in some newsgroup where the
whackos hang out, to find an American who has ever had any thought in
his or her life about wanting the US to control the world. They don't
want it. They want left alone, that's what they want.

I'm 55 years old, and have literally been around the world. And have
been all over the US. Wanna know something? Before we invaded
Afghanistan, most Americans if asked couldn't have found Afghanistan
on a map. Knew nothing about it. Didn't particularly wish to know
anything about it either. Average Minnesotan I know has plenty to do
to keep himself or herself busy. Got a job, or is going to school.
Or both. Got a family. Got a home to take care of. Friends to
visit, TV to watch. A wife or hubby to try to seduce into bed.
Wanna egt em excited about something? It isn't politics or what's
occuring over in some place they've never been and will likely never
see, that hasn't got anything that they know about they might want.
Wanna get em riled up? Have the tree huggers and PITA talk about
restricting or stopping their fishing and hunting rights. That's when
Minnesotans went to the polls and passed a State constitutional
amendment to guarantee and protect such rights. That's something they
listened up to and paid attention to. Prior to the invasion of
Afghanistan, the average Minnesotan would not only have not been able
to say where the place was, he or she would've not known anything
about the place, much less that there were atrocious human rights
violations being committed there. Or in Cambodia. Or in Africa.
Etc.

Of the few who did know, every one I heard speak of it was saddened
and wished it'd stop. But wasn't inclined to want to send OUR people
to go die for strangers.

Now, whether you realize it or not, there was a fundamental change
when those folks saw the Twin Towers come falling down.

Whereas before only a VERY few meddling busy bodies, and some VERY few
well intended but possibly misguided people ever wanted us to get
involved and interfere in what is really other people's business. And
that's the way most Americans I know thought of these things. MOST
sortta figured it was the UN's problem. And if the UN wasn't doing
anything, must mean they thought no one else ought to interfere.

However, with the fall of those Twin Towers, things changed. One of
the things that changed was folks started wondering ... just what the
HELL is the UN doing? The answer was fairly obvious.

Talking, lining their pockets, talking, lining their pockets, talking
lining their pockets, and talking and lining their pockets.

If you don't know, most US people aren't exactly what you'd call real
patient.

Before, if they even thought about it, just assumed the UN was
actually some sort of effective organization, with real rules that
were enforced. Probably a bunch of lying politicians like all other
lying politicians, almost certainly skimming more money off the top
than they were passing on the countries they bragged they helped. But
what else do yah expect of professional politicians, diplomats,
statesmen, and lawyers? That's normal.

But when Americans saw Americans dying like that, and not even
soldiers ... who voluntarily accept their risks and duties ... they
weren't in a patient mood any more.

Bush, whether or not he may or may not have been inclined to dislike
Saddam personally, does have a duty to the country.

Fact was, if he'd not taken some sort of definite, REAL action ... the
vast majority of the American public would have been inclined to fry
him. And if anyone else other than Bush had been in office, the
public would have felt just the same. Any President would have felt
very real pressure to take action.

Not UN action. REAL action. Make something happen to change things.

Congress felt the same pressure. Or are you one of those suckers who
believe the political rhetoric and outright lies told by several of
them now, that elections are coming up? Originally, Congress passed
the resolutions to allow Bush to take the upper hand and do what he
felt he must. And they KNEW ... every last one of them that he might
well invade. He never, not once, was reticent about that fact. He
proclaimed from the first moment, that if that's what he felt he
needed to do, he'd do it. End of subject.

And when Congress passed that resolution, those that voted 'for'
clamored to immediately get in front of cameras and mikes and let the
public know that, "Yeah, damn right ! I voted for it. We'll do what
we need to do to clamp down on terrorists ... and those who aid them."
Even some of those who now claim ... being the outright, bold liars
they are ... that ... ummm ... well, I didn't really mean what I said
before. I thought we were just talking. I didn't think we'd really do
something like we did.

Those guys are either utter LIARS, or utter IDIOTS ... and in either
case will never get a vote from me.

So Bush did the UN thing trying to gain their cooperation. They did
nothing. As usual. It's what they do best. That, and running if
anything gets too tough or dangerous. We as a country only have a few
friends and allies with the fortitude, conviction, and courage to
stand fast with us when things get tough ... and it isn't the UN.
Hell, the UN won't even go in to deliver medical supplies and food if
they think it's too dangerous. Wanna know who does do such things in
such circumstances? Tends to be the very same folk who stand by us in
war.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I've no use for the UN. Not only
are they useless, thieves, and liars. You'd have to hunt far and wide
to find so many personal cowards in one place. I'm talking about the
heads of the UN. Not the earnest field worker trying to help people.

Anyway Bush tried, the UN lied and said they'd try to do something
that'd work. Even while key members had no such intention since they
were on Saddam's paroll. People like good old Jacques, Shroeder, and
the Ruskie. Who claimed "good intentions" when in reality they were
accepting the pay-off to turn a blind eye to what Saddam was doing and
to interfere with us getting what we wanted, which was UN _action_,
not more talk.

So for how long did Bush try to do the UN thing? A year? And got
nothing.

Okay, there is NOT any real legal restriction against our taking
action ourselves if we feel it's a case of self protection. That's
already established. I'd said that on this newsgroup months ago.
Folks told me I was full of it. Just a few days ago Koki, the head of
the UN if you don't know, was on TV and he admitted the same thing I'd
said. UN rules allow any member nation to do what they feel they must
in self defense. UN rules are also "voluntary compliance" agreements.
Not LAW as we know that term in the U.S.

Now I'm no lover of Koki. I've criticized him before. He's
ineffective as a leader who can get things done. But, he's not stupid
or anything. Probably a very bright, well educated fellow. He damn
well knows that there is NO SUCH THING AS LAW UNLESS YOU HAVE THE
FORCE WITH WHICH TO ENFORCE IT.

It's impossible. A law is not a law unless someone has the force to
exert, and the will to use it, to enforce the law. This was true 5000
years ago. It's still true. And will never change. It can't. Not
possible. Just because yah write something on a piece of paper, that
does not in and of itself make sure one and all actually follows
whatever rule you just wrote down. Some will. The folks who agree
with you. The rest are gonna tell yah to stick it up your ass and go
and do what they wanna do regardless of what you think of it. And you
can yell "But you're violating the law !" until you're blue in the
face, or until one of those you're yelling at turns around and smacks
you upside the head to shut you up ... but just saying the words, just
writing down on paper ... doesn't make it law. ONLY ... the ability
and willingness to enforce the law, by physical force if necessary,
makes something law.

Without the willingness and ability to use force to enforce the rule,
it not law.

In any event, I'm not sure I'd have done things the same way Bush did.
Take out Saddam or try to? Yep, you betcha. But I think I'd have
first done some air strikes that'd have been the mother of all air
strikes. I'd have been inclined to do something besides direct
invasion first. Such as target and blow the holy crap out of
everything that even looked like an Iraqi soldier, tank, missle
launcher, barracks, base, the friggin officers' clubs, sank every
military ship or canoe. Then I'd have concentrated EVERY palace he
owned and would have reduced it to dust.

THEN, I'd have placed a phone call to the fellow or one of his
representatives and I'd have asked, "Want to talk with us real
reasonable now? Do we get to send in people and see if you're lying
to us or not about the WMDs and the terrorist training camps, etc? Or
do we have to get serious here and really start trying to hurt you?"

Chuckle, probably good reason I'll never be a commander in chief or a
general or admiral. The above was my first inclination. But even as
I typed it I realized it would not have worked. Saddam and many of
those who supported him the most, probable aren't even sane. They
were living in a friggin La-La land of fantasy, Witness the fact his
own folks didn't think he was sane any more and hid things from him,
routinely told him what he wanted to hear rather than reality, and so
forth. Undoubtedly Saddam would have challenged us to come on in,
just like he did to the very end, thinking his Army was gonna stand up
and die for a friggin crazy man. Most of em had sense enough to know
he was perfectly willing for THEM to die, so he could be a more
glorious figure in history. Most of them had it figured out that he
didn't give a rip about them or their familes. The only thing Saddam
really cared about was ... Saddam. Hell, he once expressed the
opinion that he thought it was perfectly acceptable for 20 million of
his folks to die, if needed, to bolster his power, image, and
prominence in the world.


After 9/11 the US went into a blind rage and invaded Afghanistan.
First to get Al Quaida because they were the people responsible
for 9/11. We had no fight with the Taiban as we were first told.
That soon changed and the Tailbone became our target. We killed
a lot of people but gained little satisfaction. The targets that
we wanted, bin Laden and Omar escaped. We began looking
for another target.

So you see my problem, fellow juror. You feel that it is justified to
punish in the most extreme manor someone that is no worse than a
lot of other guys out there.

Wrong.

By your reasoning, if the cops come across 5 guys who just murdered a
bunch of folks, but only have the manpower and resources at hand to
catch one, for now. That since the others are gonna get away with it,
they should let the one they got go, so he can go kill some more.

Am I safe to assume that under your reasoning, that since somebody in
the Congo is now killing someone else. And we're not tracking him
down. Then if someone else comes to your home and kills your loved
ones ... we should let him go?

We have not the power, nor the resources, nor the inclination to
police the world, sir. For that matter, it's not even our
responsibility. And if we tried, same folks would curse as for doing
so as those who curse us for not doing so,

So our only alternative. Is to ignore those who hate us, as they'll
hate us no matter what we do. Hate is hate. It is not logical nor
reasonable.

In the case of Saddam, for a whole host of reasons, we as a country,
and it's WE ... not Bush ... remember that all those Congressmen gave
him their support, at first until they figured out the could make
political gain by reversing themselves and trying to backstab him ...
we as a country decided he did pose a danger to US. We decided that
as he was so willing to kill off his own folks in horrid fashion. And
since it was known that he'd take war to other countries any time he
felt he could get away with it. (remember Kuwaitt?) Since he was
KNOWN to have possessed .... and MORE importantly .... he was known to
USE WMDs. And since we had some evidence, evidence so good that even
the UN and Clinton believed it, that he might have more but was hiding
it. And since he'd not allow unrestricted searches to take place to
verify whether he did or did not have em. Since we knew he publically
called, many times, for folks to kill the evil US people. Since we
knew he supported some terrorists, thus it was not unlikely he might
support others, and we had intelligence info saying that in fact he
did, or at least key officials in his government did. And since we
knew from past experience, it's all history if you read it, that
Saddam would attack others quickly, violently, and without mercy any
time he felt like he might get away with it. We warned, "Do this, to
show us your good intentions and that you mean us no harm.", and when
he refused, we ACTED.

Now, you might disagree with this. That's your right ... to disagree.
Simply disagreement doesn't mean you are in fact correct. Many of us
think you are not.

As it turns out, some of our intelligence was faulty. Some of it was
accurate.

It would seem that he either did not have the large stock piles of
WMDs, or managed to get them shipped off elsewhere. Shrug So what?
We NOW know he's not got them. And know that he was trying to keep an
active WMD development program in action. Hiding a lab here, a lab
there, small samples of this and that here and there. His own
scientists say that he was still trying to develop the knowledge to
make the stuff ... for later. Why did we worry about Saddam's WMDs
more than someone else's? Who else has a recent history of being so
friggin willing to use em that he tested a batch out on a whole town
of folks in his own country? Who else has them that seemed like such
a crazy, wild assed, loved to do it mass murderer? Hell, even his own
neighbors and fellow Muslims were scared of him.


Saddam was a bad guy, we agree, but was he going to invade any
neighbor after what happened with the first gulf war? Even if he was
truly insane, was he making preparations to invade a neighbor again?

Your long list of the crimes includes
things that are not crimes at all but rather things that you don't like.
They
have violated laws that are rarely enforced. Is your disdain for this
guy
coloring
your judgement?

Pete.

Nope.

I don't worry about the person who have a history of being a decent,
law abiding citizen who has a gun, either. Or a whole basement full
of guns.

I do worry about the known murders who have guns, however.

Bob


You seem to be making the case of going after anyone that might commit
a crime. You take the accusation that he might have weapons as sufficient
evidence that we need to act. Your line of reasoning will lead to many
such preemptive strikes.

You may argue that preemptive strikes make us safer but the opposite is
true.
Once preemptive strikes become the normal method of diplomatic discourse
we will be the worse off. The notion of preemptive strikes will be used
by everyone. We will be the likely target. We can hardly complain as
we legitimized that reasoning.

While we may be the last standing world power, we do not have the power
to invade everyone. We do not even have the power to invade everyone
in the Middle East even though that is where our government seems to be
taking us.

Live and let live seems to be a better policy.

Pete.