Dave Bugg wrote:

I would almost bet that you meant the remark as just a good-natured jab in
the ribs; there are those thread contributors however, who laughingly
believe denigrating a percieved news source scores serious rhetorical
points.

Possibly somewhere in between. The few times I've watched Fox, I kept
expecting a row of cheerleaders to come out chanting "Go Bush" - which is
their perogative if they hadn't picked up that "fair and balanced" motto.

And yes, I perceive a lot of the liberal commentators as bing just as biased.

In short, I'm a cynic. And the older I get, the more cynical I get. I wonder
if we couldn't get better government if we picked names out of a hat and told
them it was their turn to make the country work for four years, or two, or
six, or whatever.

--
It's turtles, all the way down

Larry Blanchard wrote:

In short, I'm a cynic. And the older I get, the more cynical I get.

I hear that!! There's gotta be a cabal for grumpy old cynics somwhere.

--
Dave
www.davebbq.com

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:12:37 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

wrote:
SNIP
From the Fourth Protocol, 1949:

Art. 4. Persons protected by the Convention are those who,
at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves,
in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to
the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.


Sorry Sparky, the 4th Protocol is specifically authored for *civilians*.
A person engaging in combat while dressed in civilian garb - i.e., No
distinguishable uniform is NO LONGER A CIVILIAN, and thus not protected
by this Geneva agreement. That's why we can legally hang spies, incarcerate
them without normal due process, and generally do (almost) anything
we want to them. The Geneva conventions (last I read them - perhaps
Barbara Streisand or Rosie O'Donnell have updated them with their
considerable intellectual abilities) make a clear distinction between
combatants/non-combatants/civilians. Too bad all the Lefties today
can't do the same thing ...


"...The Plataeans had surrendered on the promise that the guilty would
be punished, but only after trial. The "trial" consisted simply in
asking them one by one what they had done for the Spartan side in the
war. It seems that one of Thucydides' purposes in this part of the
history is to illustrate the moral effects of the war by describing
some of the atrocities and injustices committed by both sides."

http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y6701.html


"Athenian atrocities such as those against Melos (whose men were
massacred and women and children sold into slavery, after they had
resisted Athenian demands to join their League in 416/15) “should
rather be ascribed to the evil effects that war has upon the character
of man. In this respect human behaviour has not changed” (174), it
causes distinct discomfort to be told that “the Athenian disposition
of the Mytilenaean problem cannot be considered excessively harsh”
(140; “only” one thousand men were executed, after the Athenians had
changed their minds and did not treat them as they would treat
Melos);"

http://www.trentu.ca/academic/ahc/qq95mcg.htm


"Tritle equates the atrocity at My Lai with Athenian actions at Melos
in 416-5BC. There, Athenian soldiers put to death all adult males,
enslaved the women and children and gave over the territory to 500
Athenian settlers. Tritle sees Melos and My Lai as clear examples of
actions taken by soldiers suffering from battle-induced post traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD). The comparison is natural and euphonic. Melos
and My Lai are the most infamous atrocities perpetrated by the "good
guys" in the Peloponnesian and Vietnam wars. But the Melos side of the
equation is problematical."

http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/...s/16feb01.html


Of course, "This is not another Vietnam" (op cit - various).

Neither is it another Peloponnesian War.

Neither is it a Fifth Century BCE internecine engagement.


It is what it is and is as it was ever thus:


Res Ipsa Loquitur.


If you can downshift for a moment from your argumentative mode and see
the table as it has been set before you, you will find that, once we
are engaged - and "grim visaged war" holds sway, we revert - and that
"we" is actually "WE", as the state is man writ large and we are held
accountable, if not by our gods, then certainly by our historians.

I took Rob's initial point to be a cautionary note that we not become
the next "good Germans", who choose to ignore the horrors inflicted in
our name.

It is a valid assertion and deserves to be treated with respect.



Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

(in
) said:

| Leon wrote:

|| We should do to others as others have done to us. We can crawl
|| into the cutter with them if that is what it takes to win the war.
|| If the enemy does not follow the rules and we do, we cannot win.
|
| False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
| cannot win if we do.
|
| Abandonment of our principles is suicide.

Well said. Thank you.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

Tom Watson wrote:
On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:12:37 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

wrote:
SNIP
From the Fourth Protocol, 1949:

Art. 4. Persons protected by the Convention are those who,
at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves,
in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to
the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.

Sorry Sparky, the 4th Protocol is specifically authored for *civilians*.
A person engaging in combat while dressed in civilian garb - i.e., No
distinguishable uniform is NO LONGER A CIVILIAN, and thus not protected
by this Geneva agreement. That's why we can legally hang spies, incarcerate
them without normal due process, and generally do (almost) anything
we want to them. The Geneva conventions (last I read them - perhaps
Barbara Streisand or Rosie O'Donnell have updated them with their
considerable intellectual abilities) make a clear distinction between
combatants/non-combatants/civilians. Too bad all the Lefties today
can't do the same thing ...


"...The Plataeans had surrendered on the promise that the guilty would
be punished, but only after trial. The "trial" consisted simply in
asking them one by one what they had done for the Spartan side in the
war. It seems that one of Thucydides' purposes in this part of the
history is to illustrate the moral effects of the war by describing
some of the atrocities and injustices committed by both sides."

http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y6701.html


"Athenian atrocities such as those against Melos (whose men were
massacred and women and children sold into slavery, after they had
resisted Athenian demands to join their League in 416/15) “should
rather be ascribed to the evil effects that war has upon the character
of man. In this respect human behaviour has not changed” (174), it
causes distinct discomfort to be told that “the Athenian disposition
of the Mytilenaean problem cannot be considered excessively harsh”
(140; “only” one thousand men were executed, after the Athenians had
changed their minds and did not treat them as they would treat
Melos);"

http://www.trentu.ca/academic/ahc/qq95mcg.htm


"Tritle equates the atrocity at My Lai with Athenian actions at Melos
in 416-5BC. There, Athenian soldiers put to death all adult males,
enslaved the women and children and gave over the territory to 500
Athenian settlers. Tritle sees Melos and My Lai as clear examples of
actions taken by soldiers suffering from battle-induced post traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD). The comparison is natural and euphonic. Melos
and My Lai are the most infamous atrocities perpetrated by the "good
guys" in the Peloponnesian and Vietnam wars. But the Melos side of the
equation is problematical."

http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/...s/16feb01.html


Of course, "This is not another Vietnam" (op cit - various).

Neither is it another Peloponnesian War.

Neither is it a Fifth Century BCE internecine engagement.


It is what it is and is as it was ever thus:


Res Ipsa Loquitur.


If you can downshift for a moment from your argumentative mode and see
the table as it has been set before you, you will find that, once we
are engaged - and "grim visaged war" holds sway, we revert - and that
"we" is actually "WE", as the state is man writ large and we are held
accountable, if not by our gods, then certainly by our historians.

Perhaps, but it is equally true that survival comes before almost
everything. If, in the act of attempting to be as enlightened as
possible and as liberal in our treatment of our enemies as we can be, we
commit suicide, we've lost our humanity just as surely as if we'd been
roasting barbarians on the spit in front of the Pentagon. There has to
be balance and oversight in this matter. Neither the ideological Left or
Right want any such thing. The Right wants a blank check - which I
oppose - and the Left wants to apply the niceties of our domestic social
contract to foreign invaders - which I oppose even more. I do not want
to see our culture be further diminished and eroded so that Michael
Moore can continue to stuff donuts in his chubby little face and lecture
the rest of us about "restraint".



I took Rob's initial point to be a cautionary note that we not become
the next "good Germans", who choose to ignore the horrors inflicted in
our name.

It is a valid assertion and deserves to be treated with respect.


Not when he falsely claims the authority of a document that has no
standing in this particular case. If he (or you) want to make the
case that we ought to tread carefully even when dealing with spies or
other non-uniformed combatants, that's a fair debate. But performing
textual prestidigitation to give an argument the appearance of authority
when the source claims specifically does *not* apply, is cheap political
theater. It is a time-honored canon of war that nonuniformed combatants
enjoy essentially no protection other than the good will of their captors.
This is Reality ... as opposed to the Lefthink that opposes it...


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote:
Leon wrote:
"Michael Daly" wrote in message
...

Torture is torture. Once you throw out the Geneva convention, you have
lost any moral authority and you are no better than the scum you're
combating. If you cease to remain civilized, the terrorists have won.

So shooting them is OK?

Depending on whom you mean by "them", in battle, sure. Shooting
them is OK, same as shooting uniformed soldiers. If they surrender
or are captured alive, they become protected persons. It's still OK
to shoot them, or to execute them in any other 'humane' way, so
long as they have been duly convicted of capital offenses.

We should do to others as others have done to us. We can crawl into the
cutter with them if that is what it takes to win the war. If the enemy does
not follow the rules and we do, we cannot win.

False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
cannot win if we do.

Abandonment of our principles is suicide.


So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated. Survival
comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland inhabited
by a good many of the war critics.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote in message
oups.com...

Michael Daly wrote:
dadiOH wrote:
Locutus wrote:

ahh... another Canadian. Not suprised.

Do you realize what YOUR reputation is in the world?

Possibly that they managed to free some American prisoners while Jimmy
Carter hemmed and hawed for more than a year?

Or that the took over command under NATO in Afghanistan when the US
wanted to
free troops for Iraq?

Or that their navy patrolled the Persian Gulf protecting US ships in the
lead-in
to the Iraq invasion?

Or that they are the only country on the planet to have contributed
troops to
_every_ UN peacekeeping mission since the UN came into being?

Or that they fought in _all_ years of both WWI and WWII? And were the
first to
win a major victory against the Germans in WWI while the yanks were still
hiding
at home?

The Canadians also took in men, women and children fleeing slavery
in the US, draft resisters and deserters during the Vietnam war, and
helped keep us supplied with booze during Prohibition.

--

FF

Yes and even with some of the name calling and snide comments made in this
thread. I'm sure we Canadians would still take your citizens in and feed and
shelter them, and make them feel welcome if another national crises were to
happen again. Not that I would want to see that again any time soon. Try to
think of us like your mom, we may not go to the bars and strip joints with
you. But when things turn to **** on a night out ,it's nice to know mom's
there to give you a meal and a bed.:-)
( My intent with the above was not to suggest that Canadians are your
parents/ guardians or any other controlling factor to the US, just that we
will no doubt try to do in the future what we have tried to do in the past.)
Jim

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 19:31:51 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

(References to Mr. Moore having the dietary habits of a housefly
regretfully snipped.)

It is a time-honored canon of war that nonuniformed combatants
enjoy essentially no protection other than the good will of their captors.
This is Reality ... as opposed to the Lefthink that opposes it...

"The 1979 First Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions
(Protocol 1) seeks, among other things, to effectively bring legal
combatant status to forces not adhering to the uniform and certain
other regulations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, which arguably
can include terrorists. The definition of an "international armed
conflict" would include "armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting
against colonial domination and alien [foreign] occupation and against
racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination,
as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration
on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and
Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United
Nations." (From article 1[4])"


Is it about the canons, or the cannons?





Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| wrote:
||
|| False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
|| cannot win if we do.
||
|| Abandonment of our principles is suicide.
|
| So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.
| Survival comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland
| inhabited by a good many of the war critics.

It would seem that you've not noticed the rather large number of men
and women who valued our principles more highly than their personal
survival - and the lesser (but still awesomely large) number who did
not, in fact, survive - all so that you and I might live in what you
so casually refer to as "fantasyland".

If you choose to discard our fundamental principles in favor of some
hoped-for longevity; most will understand - and I would guess that
most will also be ashamed for you.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 20:42:13 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
wrote:

Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| wrote:
||
|| False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
|| cannot win if we do.
||
|| Abandonment of our principles is suicide.
|
| So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.
| Survival comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland
| inhabited by a good many of the war critics.

It would seem that you've not noticed the rather large number of men
and women who valued our principles more highly than their personal
survival - and the lesser (but still awesomely large) number who did
not, in fact, survive - all so that you and I might live in what you
so casually refer to as "fantasyland".

If you choose to discard our fundamental principles in favor of some
hoped-for longevity; most will understand - and I would guess that
most will also be ashamed for you.


An old Philly guy (via Boston) said it best:

"Those Who Would Sacrifice Liberty for Security Deserve Neither."



Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

Tim Daneliuk writes:
wrote:

Abandonment of our principles is suicide.


So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated. Survival
comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland inhabited
by a good many of the war critics.

Hyperbole. The US won't be annihilated by allowing habeus corpus, nor
would presenting the actual evidence, classified or otherwise, lead to
the annihilation of the united states.

So, you may trust GWB and Rumsfeld to not abuse their power, but when the
next president declares _you_ an enemy combatent, and you have no
recourse to the court system, habeus corpus or even to see the evidence
against you, don't complain to the rest of us.

scott

Tom Watson wrote:
On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 20:42:13 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
wrote:

Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| wrote:
||
|| False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
|| cannot win if we do.
||
|| Abandonment of our principles is suicide.
|
| So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.
| Survival comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland
| inhabited by a good many of the war critics.

It would seem that you've not noticed the rather large number of men
and women who valued our principles more highly than their personal
survival - and the lesser (but still awesomely large) number who did
not, in fact, survive - all so that you and I might live in what you
so casually refer to as "fantasyland".

If you choose to discard our fundamental principles in favor of some
hoped-for longevity; most will understand - and I would guess that
most will also be ashamed for you.


An old Philly guy (via Boston) said it best:

"Those Who Would Sacrifice Liberty for Security Deserve Neither."



It is the very *defense* of Liberty that requires making these kinds of
hard decisions. You are severely kidding yourself if you think
the historic defenders of our Liberty did not make naughty choices
in said quest.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Morris Dovey wrote:
Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| wrote:
||
|| False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
|| cannot win if we do.
||
|| Abandonment of our principles is suicide.
|
| So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.
| Survival comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland
| inhabited by a good many of the war critics.

It would seem that you've not noticed the rather large number of men
and women who valued our principles more highly than their personal
survival - and the lesser (but still awesomely large) number who did
not, in fact, survive - all so that you and I might live in what you
so casually refer to as "fantasyland".

If you choose to discard our fundamental principles in favor of some
hoped-for longevity; most will understand - and I would guess that
most will also be ashamed for you.


It is not a "fundamental principle" that we roll over and play dead
for combatants hiding behind civilian garb. It is not a "fundamental
principle" that such individuals be extended the benefits of our
social contract. It is not a "fundamental principle" that such
individuals should be entirely free of duress, discomfort, and even
intimidation. Only in the degenerate lexicon of the New Intellectual
are these "principles" of any sort. And *I* and thoroughly ashamed
of *them* - the people that insist I commit suicide and then try to
hide behind some perverse and malignant reinterpretation of Liberty
to suit their ideological stupidities. You do not negotiate with
Evil, you crush it to death with extreme violence so that the crushing
is quick and complete. But our fine New Intellectual degenerates
cannot even utter the notion that Evil even exists. They're too busy
trying to rehabilitate child predators, terrorist, despots, and fools.

Your premises are lousy and your conclusions correspondingly worse.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Scott Lurndal wrote:
Tim Daneliuk writes:
wrote:

Abandonment of our principles is suicide.

So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated. Survival
comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland inhabited
by a good many of the war critics.

Hyperbole. The US won't be annihilated by allowing habeus corpus, nor
would presenting the actual evidence, classified or otherwise, lead to
the annihilation of the united states.

So, you may trust GWB and Rumsfeld to not abuse their power, but when the
next president declares _you_ an enemy combatent, and you have no
recourse to the court system, habeus corpus or even to see the evidence
against you, don't complain to the rest of us.

scott

I don't trust any politician. But you are playing a not-too clever
game of misdirection. The right of habeus corpus is extended only
to participants in our socio-legal contract. It is *not* extended
to foreign invaders. No matter how much you try to dance around this
issue both history and legal precedent are on my side of this debate:
Combating enemy invaders - in or out of uniform - is NOT a domestic
law enforcement problem and thus our domestic criminal/civil law
does NOT apply.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tom Watson wrote:
On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 19:31:51 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

(References to Mr. Moore having the dietary habits of a housefly
regretfully snipped.)

It is a time-honored canon of war that nonuniformed combatants
enjoy essentially no protection other than the good will of their captors.
This is Reality ... as opposed to the Lefthink that opposes it...

"The 1979 First Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions
(Protocol 1) seeks, among other things, to effectively bring legal
combatant status to forces not adhering to the uniform and certain
other regulations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, which arguably
can include terrorists. The definition of an "international armed
conflict" would include "armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting
against colonial domination and alien [foreign] occupation and against
racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination,
as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration
on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and
Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United
Nations." (From article 1[4])"


Is it about the canons, or the cannons?


Ah yes, the sleight-of-hand continues. You conveniently forgot to mention
that the US - indeed a great many nations - are not signatories to this
convention (Nor should any sane society be.). When the best arguments
you propose are based on partial and/or misleading authority, you truly
are in a lost end game. There *is* a good argument (or two) to be made
for the position you and the rest of the ideological Left want to get
to, but I'm not going to teach you how to make it. The homework will
be good for you.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

"Jim Northey" wrote in message
news:n5iVg.94992$1T2.82743@pd7urf2no...

Yes and even with some of the name calling and snide comments made in this
thread. I'm sure we Canadians would still take your citizens in and feed
and shelter them, and make them feel welcome if another national crises
were to happen again. Not that I would want to see that again any time
soon. Try to think of us like your mom, we may not go to the bars and
strip joints with you. But when things turn to **** on a night out ,it's
nice to know mom's there to give you a meal and a bed.:-)
( My intent with the above was not to suggest that Canadians are your
parents/ guardians or any other controlling factor to the US, just that we
will no doubt try to do in the future what we have tried to do in the
past.)
Jim

You better, considering how much you owe the US.

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:17:12 -0500, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

There *is* a good argument (or two) to be made for the position you and the
rest of the ideological Left want to get to, but I'm not going to teach you
how to make it. The homework will be good for you.

You have an excellent command of language, and you express your opinions well.
But you presume too much if you think I want you as my teacher in these
matters. I expect a teacher to lead me to my own conclusions, something I
cannot depend upon you to do any more than I can a politician.

--
Art Greenberg
artg at eclipse dot net

Art Greenberg wrote:
On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:17:12 -0500, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

There *is* a good argument (or two) to be made for the position you and the
rest of the ideological Left want to get to, but I'm not going to teach you
how to make it. The homework will be good for you.

You have an excellent command of language, and you express your opinions well.
But you presume too much if you think I want you as my teacher in these
matters. I expect a teacher to lead me to my own conclusions, something I
cannot depend upon you to do any more than I can a politician.


If you will not my "excellent command of the language" you will see that
I specifically do NOT wish to be your (or anyone else's) teacher. I was
merely pointing out that a much more coherent argument for the position
espoused by "Tom Watson" existed than the one he was trying to use.
Are you and "Watson" one and the same, BTW?

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Doug Miller wrote:
In article .com, wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:
In article ,
wrote:
Doug Miller wrote:

Get a grip. Do you have *any* idea at all what went on in Iraq under
Saddam
Hussein?

Torture is torture.

Oh, really? So you're equating sleep deprivation with rape and murder?

Once you throw out the Geneva convention, you have lost any
moral authority and you are no better than the scum you're combating. If
you
cease to remain civilized, the terrorists have won.

Terrorists aren't covered by the Geneva Convention, which sets forth specific
conditions that must be met in order to be covered. Armed men captured on the
field of battle while wearing neither military uniform nor insignia don't
meet
those conditions.

That's a damn lie.

No, Fred, it's the truth.

Someone who has been captured by persons
other than his own countrymen becomes a protected person.
That a protected person can be tried and punished for crimes
comitted prior to capture, such as fighting in civilian disguise,
does not change the fact that the person is protected.

Wrong. Fighting in civilian disguise changes everything.

Citation?


It doesn't make any difference if the captive is a spy, sabotuer,
'terrorist', your grandmother or the worst war criminal since
Joseph Mengele. Once captured, he is a protected person.

That simply is not true.

Citation?

Please forgive me if I do not accept dialog from a B-movie
as authoritative.

--

FF

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:
Leon wrote:
"Michael Daly" wrote in message
...

Torture is torture. Once you throw out the Geneva convention, you have
lost any moral authority and you are no better than the scum you're
combating. If you cease to remain civilized, the terrorists have won.

So shooting them is OK?

Depending on whom you mean by "them", in battle, sure. Shooting
them is OK, same as shooting uniformed soldiers. If they surrender
or are captured alive, they become protected persons. It's still OK
to shoot them, or to execute them in any other 'humane' way, so
long as they have been duly convicted of capital offenses.

We should do to others as others have done to us. We can crawl into the
cutter with them if that is what it takes to win the war. If the enemy does
not follow the rules and we do, we cannot win.

False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
cannot win if we do.

Abandonment of our principles is suicide.


So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.

We have never even come close to being annihilated.

Fewer Americnas have killed and injured by all or our enemies
combined in the last 30 years than are inadvertently killed
by our medical establishment in a single year.

To even raise the issue of 'annihilation' is asinine.

--

FF

wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:
Leon wrote:
"Michael Daly" wrote in message
...

Torture is torture. Once you throw out the Geneva convention, you have
lost any moral authority and you are no better than the scum you're
combating. If you cease to remain civilized, the terrorists have won.
So shooting them is OK?
Depending on whom you mean by "them", in battle, sure. Shooting
them is OK, same as shooting uniformed soldiers. If they surrender
or are captured alive, they become protected persons. It's still OK
to shoot them, or to execute them in any other 'humane' way, so
long as they have been duly convicted of capital offenses.

We should do to others as others have done to us. We can crawl into the
cutter with them if that is what it takes to win the war. If the enemy does
not follow the rules and we do, we cannot win.
False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
cannot win if we do.

Abandonment of our principles is suicide.

So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.

We have never even come close to being annihilated.

Fewer Americnas have killed and injured by all or our enemies
combined in the last 30 years than are inadvertently killed
by our medical establishment in a single year.

To even raise the issue of 'annihilation' is asinine.


It is not. In the early days of what would become WWII, the Left argued
as you have - "There's no serious threat to us. It's just asinine to
worry about it." Fast forward 15 years. Hitler and Stalin are
responsible for something on the order of 100 *million* deaths in total.
History is full of other such examples of what happens when you
ignore evil.

Today's threat isn't just an Islamist Terrorist threat per se.
Today's asymmetric warriors are testing the waters to see if they can
bring down a superpower. What ties them together far more than religion
is their tribalist mentality - of which there is plenty to go around on
the planet. The combination of a suicidal eschatology and a tribal
mentality, fertilized with global communications, transport, and
technology, will inevitably follow the same course as pre-war Hitler and
Stalin. The task today is to prevent the snowball from rolling down the
hill before it gets so big it cannot be stopped.

Your deeply held fantasies about how the world *ought* to operate are at
odds with considerable historical evidence to the contrary. You can
begin self-remediation by admitting out loud that "Evil" is a real thing,
and that, left to its own devices, it will grow.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
Scott Lurndal wrote:
Tim Daneliuk writes:
wrote:

Abandonment of our principles is suicide.

So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated. Survival
comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland inhabited
by a good many of the war critics.

Hyperbole. The US won't be annihilated by allowing habeus corpus, nor
would presenting the actual evidence, classified or otherwise, lead to
the annihilation of the united states.

So, you may trust GWB and Rumsfeld to not abuse their power, but when the
next president declares _you_ an enemy combatent, and you have no
recourse to the court system, habeus corpus or even to see the evidence
against you, don't complain to the rest of us.

scott

I don't trust any politician. But you are playing a not-too clever
game of misdirection. The right of habeus corpus is extended only
to participants in our socio-legal contract. It is *not* extended
to foreign invaders.

A particulary pathetic misdirection. No one has suggested habeas
relief
for foreign invaders. But I will later in this article.

You are not, by any chance, characterizing persons arrested in
Pakistan or Afghanistan, or captured in combat in Afghanistan
and taken to Guantanamo Bay, and who have never seven attemtped
to enter the United Statesas foreign invaders, are you?

That the Constitution allows the Congress (nor the courts nor
the President) to suspend habeas corpus in the event of invasion,
makes it clear that habeas corpus applies absent an explicit, and
permissible, suspension.

See:

EX PARTE QUIRIN
317 U.S. 1 (1942)

The motion for habeas corpus relief was heard and denied by
the USSC. If the foreign invaders in question could not be, under
any circumstances, entitled to the writ the Court would not
have heard their petition, rather than hearing and then denying
their application.

No matter how much you try to dance around this
issue both history and legal precedent are on my side of this debate:

Please provide cittations.

Combating enemy invaders - in or out of uniform - is NOT a domestic
law enforcement problem and thus our domestic criminal/civil law
does NOT apply.


Just who are these invaders to whom you keep refering?
What country did they invade?

--

FF

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:
Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| wrote:
||
|| False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
|| cannot win if we do.
||
|| Abandonment of our principles is suicide.
|
| So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.
| Survival comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland
| inhabited by a good many of the war critics.

It would seem that you've not noticed the rather large number of men
and women who valued our principles more highly than their personal
survival - and the lesser (but still awesomely large) number who did
not, in fact, survive - all so that you and I might live in what you
so casually refer to as "fantasyland".

If you choose to discard our fundamental principles in favor of some
hoped-for longevity; most will understand - and I would guess that
most will also be ashamed for you.


It is not a "fundamental principle" that we roll over and play dead
for combatants hiding behind civilian garb. It is not a "fundamental
principle" that such individuals be extended the benefits of our
social contract. It is not a "fundamental principle" that such
individuals should be entirely free of duress, discomfort, and even
intimidation.

And only the straw men in your fantasyland have suggested
any such things.

Care to join us in the real world?

--

FF

Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| Morris Dovey wrote:
|| Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:
||
||| wrote:
||||
|||| False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
|||| cannot win if we do.
||||
|||| Abandonment of our principles is suicide.
|||
||| So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.
||| Survival comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland
||| inhabited by a good many of the war critics.
||
|| It would seem that you've not noticed the rather large number of
|| men and women who valued our principles more highly than their
|| personal survival - and the lesser (but still awesomely large)
|| number who did not, in fact, survive - all so that you and I might
|| live in what you so casually refer to as "fantasyland".
||
|| If you choose to discard our fundamental principles in favor of
|| some hoped-for longevity; most will understand - and I would guess
|| that most will also be ashamed for you.
|
|
| It is not a "fundamental principle" that we roll over and play dead
| for combatants hiding behind civilian garb. It is not a
| "fundamental principle" that such individuals be extended the
| benefits of our social contract. It is not a "fundamental
| principle" that such individuals should be entirely free of duress,
| discomfort, and even intimidation. Only in the degenerate lexicon
| of the New Intellectual are these "principles" of any sort. And
| *I* and thoroughly ashamed of *them* - the people that insist I
| commit suicide and then try to hide behind some perverse and
| malignant reinterpretation of Liberty to suit their ideological
| stupidities. You do not negotiate with Evil, you crush it to death
| with extreme violence so that the crushing is quick and complete.
| But our fine New Intellectual degenerates cannot even utter the
| notion that Evil even exists. They're too busy trying to
| rehabilitate child predators, terrorist, despots, and fools.
|
| Your premises are lousy and your conclusions correspondingly worse.

Then we have irreconcilable differences of opinion. My first principle
was aptly set forth by Jefferson when he wrote: "We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, ..." In my mind
and heart, I broaden "men" to "persons"; and I add emphasis to "all."

I believe that every person is accountable for what they do. I believe
that within the purview of the USA, all persons should be subject to
the same legal standards. If (for example) within our purview, the
crime is murder - then the offender should be tried for that crime;
and if found guilty, punished in the same manner as other murderers. I
do not find it appropriate to maintain different systems or standards
of justice for arbitrary groupings of persons.

I understand your desire for retribution for wrongs; as well as your
loathing of evil and your desire to eliminate it. I also understand
that you would impose your own personal notion of justice (and perhaps
your own personal definition of evil) on all the rest of the world.
I've seen this before - and don't need more.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
SNIP

I don't trust any politician. But you are playing a not-too clever
game of misdirection. The right of habeus corpus is extended only
to participants in our socio-legal contract. It is *not* extended
to foreign invaders.

A particulary pathetic misdirection. No one has suggested habeas
relief
for foreign invaders. But I will later in this article.

There's a shocker.


You are not, by any chance, characterizing persons arrested in
Pakistan or Afghanistan, or captured in combat in Afghanistan
and taken to Guantanamo Bay, and who have never seven attemtped
to enter the United Statesas foreign invaders, are you?

I stand corrected. What I should have said was:

The right of habeus corpus .... It is *not* extended to
foreign invaders OR people with whom we are at war.

That the Constitution allows the Congress (nor the courts nor
the President) to suspend habeas corpus in the event of invasion,
makes it clear that habeas corpus applies absent an explicit, and
permissible, suspension.

See:

EX PARTE QUIRIN
317 U.S. 1 (1942)

The motion for habeas corpus relief was heard and denied by
the USSC. If the foreign invaders in question could not be, under
any circumstances, entitled to the writ the Court would not
have heard their petition, rather than hearing and then denying
their application.

No matter how much you try to dance around this
issue both history and legal precedent are on my side of this debate:

Please provide cittations.

Your citations are utterly irrelevant because they are about people
who are _part of our socio-legal contract_. They simply do not
apply to the enemy when engaged in war. This is US criminal, and
even indirectly, civil law you and yours keep trying to drag onto
the battlefield. The burden lies with you to show why the protections
of the Constitution, given and interpreted, should accrue to people
with whom we are at war. It is mind boggling you cannot grasp the
difference.


Combating enemy invaders - in or out of uniform - is NOT a domestic
law enforcement problem and thus our domestic criminal/civil law
does NOT apply.


Just who are these invaders to whom you keep refering?
What country did they invade?

Again, it should have said "foreign invaders OR those with whom
we are at war".

Example of "foreign invaders": The 9-11 attackers.
Example of "those with whom we are at war": "Insurgents in Iraq"

Shall we now devolve into a Clintoneque debate about what words and
letters mean? It is absurd that any thinking person, regardless of
politics, insist that our legal protections be extend to a hostile
enemy during time of war. But absurdity is the special province of
the Modern "Intellectual" Left and the buzzing flies that surround
them. The Right is ridiculous, the Left is dangerous.



--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Locutus wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Rod & Betty Jo wrote:
"Michael Daly" wrote in message
...
Doug Miller wrote:

Oh, really? You honestly think he's worse than Saddam Hussein

Given his attitude towards torture, I'd say they're about the same.

Mike

Is there some code or rule someplace that requires anti-Bush tirades to
be
ignorant and stupid? To compare any approved Bush "torture" of which
includes sleep deprivation, cold rooms , loud music, maybe water boarding
(harmless but scary)....

Dilawar's hands were cuffed behind his back and chained to the ceiling.
his feet were shackeled to the floor. He was struck in the legs until
the
muscles were pulverized, damaged beyond recovery. His shoulders were
dislocated. He was denied food and water. After four days he died,
still hanging from the ceiling.

At his trial, Willie Brand described DIlawar's treatment as
"sleep deprivation."

Yes, OP's tirade was ignorant and stupid. So was your reply.



Source?

Brand described Diliwar's (also spelt Dilawar) treatment as
"sleep deprivation" in an incredibly sympathetic interview on
60 Minures that aired March 5, 2006. A brief summary is he

http://webmail.spamcop.net/horde/ser...4%2Frecap.html
A transcript can be purchased from CBS.

That his treatment was charaterized as sleep deprivation by the defense
at
Brand's trial was reported in the press at the time of his
court-martial.

But Brand's statments cannot be reconciled with the autopsy:

http://www.altavista.com/web/results... &kgs=1&kls=0

A description of Dilawar's "interrogation" and death:

http://www.altavista.com/web/results...ar&kgs=1&kls=0

Brand's court-martial:

http://www.altavista.com/web/results...&kgs=1&kl s=0

An article about the murders of DIlawar and Habibulah, which repeats
the "sleep deprivation" defense:

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artm...w.cgi/47/18176

--

FF

Robatoy wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
[snipped for brevity]

Strong opinions on
important matters require a different forum for your voice to be heard
and count for something. Otherwise it's no different than an XboX vs.
PS3 flame war.

R

The political forums (fora?) are nothing BUT a flame war.

Do you suppose that is:

1) Because they don't discuss woodworking there?

or

2) Because they do discuss politics there?

--

FF

Rod & Betty Jo wrote:


...btw, did you guys see the tag below the image of FagBoy Foley on
FoxTV?
This is what it read:
Foley (D-FL)....lol..I guess they figured if he was gay, he'd have to
be a democrat.

See what I mean about the mindset of blind faith?

r

I suppose it takes a true believer to read "something" into a simple
typo.....

When Fox re-aired the segment later in the day the incorrect
graphic was removed. NOT corrected, there was no graphic
correctly identifying Foley as a Republican.

--

FF

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
SNIP

I don't trust any politician. But you are playing a not-too clever
game of misdirection. The right of habeus corpus is extended only
to participants in our socio-legal contract. It is *not* extended
to foreign invaders.

A particulary pathetic misdirection. No one has suggested habeas
relief for foreign invaders. But I will later in this article.

There's a shocker.


You are not, by any chance, characterizing persons arrested in
Pakistan or Afghanistan, or captured in combat in Afghanistan
and taken to Guantanamo Bay, and who have never seven attemtped
to enter the United Statesas foreign invaders, are you?

I stand corrected. What I should have said was:

The right of habeus corpus .... It is *not* extended to
foreign invaders OR people with whom we are at war.

Are persons with whom we are not at war _potentially_ entitled
to habeas relief?


That the Constitution allows the Congress (nor the courts nor
the President) to suspend habeas corpus in the event of invasion,
makes it clear that habeas corpus applies absent an explicit, and
permissible, suspension.

See:

EX PARTE QUIRIN
317 U.S. 1 (1942)

The motion for habeas corpus relief was heard and denied by
the USSC. If the foreign invaders in question could not be, under
any circumstances, entitled to the writ the Court would not
have heard their petition, rather than hearing and then denying
their application.

No matter how much you try to dance around this
issue both history and legal precedent are on my side of this debate:

Please provide citations.

Your citations are utterly irrelevant because they are about people
who are _part of our socio-legal contract_.

Please explain how those foreign invaders, German-born Nazi sabotuers,
became part of _part of our socio-legal contract_.

Please explain how to identify those person who are and are not
_part of our socio-legal contract_.

And then please cite some support for the notion that being a
_part of our socio-legal contract_ is a prerequsite to habeas
relief.

Finally, please explain the legal meaning of _our socio-legal
contract_.

Please cite something, other than yourself, to support your
explanations.

They simply do not
apply to the enemy when engaged in war. This is US criminal, and
even indirectly, civil law you and yours keep trying to drag onto
the battlefield. The burden lies with you to show why the protections
of the Constitution, given and interpreted, should accrue to people
with whom we are at war. It is mind boggling you cannot grasp the
difference.

It is disgusting that you refuse to acknowledge that persons in our
custody and under our protection may or may not also be persons
with whom we are at war.

...

Just who are these invaders to whom you keep refering?
What country did they invade?

Again, it should have said "foreign invaders OR those with whom
we are at war".

Example of "foreign invaders": The 9-11 attackers.

Since habeas relief is mooted by death, that example is asinine
even for a straw man.

Example of "those with whom we are at war": "Insurgents in Iraq"

No one has suggested habeas relief should be available for
Iraqis in custody in Iraq. Another asine straw man.



Shall we now devolve into a Clintoneque debate about what words and
letters mean? It is absurd that any thinking person, regardless of
politics, insist that our legal protections be extend to a hostile
enemy during time of war. But absurdity is the special province of
the Modern "Intellectual" Left and the buzzing flies that surround
them. The Right is ridiculous, the Left is dangerous.


More sophisitcated that typical name calling,
but no more substantive.

--

FF

Morris Dovey wrote:
Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| Morris Dovey wrote:
|| Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:
||
||| wrote:
||||
|||| False. Not only can we win without abandoning our principles, we
|||| cannot win if we do.
||||
|||| Abandonment of our principles is suicide.
|||
||| So is clinging to them to the point where we are annihilated.
||| Survival comes before legal nuance notwithstanding the fantasyland
||| inhabited by a good many of the war critics.
||
|| It would seem that you've not noticed the rather large number of
|| men and women who valued our principles more highly than their
|| personal survival - and the lesser (but still awesomely large)
|| number who did not, in fact, survive - all so that you and I might
|| live in what you so casually refer to as "fantasyland".
||
|| If you choose to discard our fundamental principles in favor of
|| some hoped-for longevity; most will understand - and I would guess
|| that most will also be ashamed for you.
|
|
| It is not a "fundamental principle" that we roll over and play dead
| for combatants hiding behind civilian garb. It is not a
| "fundamental principle" that such individuals be extended the
| benefits of our social contract. It is not a "fundamental
| principle" that such individuals should be entirely free of duress,
| discomfort, and even intimidation. Only in the degenerate lexicon
| of the New Intellectual are these "principles" of any sort. And
| *I* and thoroughly ashamed of *them* - the people that insist I
| commit suicide and then try to hide behind some perverse and
| malignant reinterpretation of Liberty to suit their ideological
| stupidities. You do not negotiate with Evil, you crush it to death
| with extreme violence so that the crushing is quick and complete.
| But our fine New Intellectual degenerates cannot even utter the
| notion that Evil even exists. They're too busy trying to
| rehabilitate child predators, terrorist, despots, and fools.
|
| Your premises are lousy and your conclusions correspondingly worse.

Then we have irreconcilable differences of opinion. My first principle
was aptly set forth by Jefferson when he wrote: "We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, ..." In my mind
and heart, I broaden "men" to "persons"; and I add emphasis to "all."

I concur without reservation.


I believe that every person is accountable for what they do. I believe
that within the purview of the USA, all persons should be subject to
the same legal standards. If (for example) within our purview, the
crime is murder - then the offender should be tried for that crime;
and if found guilty, punished in the same manner as other murderers. I
do not find it appropriate to maintain different systems or standards
of justice for arbitrary groupings of persons.

Again, complete agreement.


I understand your desire for retribution for wrongs; as well as your
loathing of evil and your desire to eliminate it. I also understand
that you would impose your own personal notion of justice (and perhaps
your own personal definition of evil) on all the rest of the world.

Not the case, or at least not as you frame it. The only "evil" for which
I see redress is that "evil" which causes harm to others. For instance,
I think drug abuse is "evil" in that is causes great harm to the
individual abusing the drug. But until/unless their drug abuse causes
harm to others, I seek no legal (i.e., forceful) remediation. In the
matter of geopolitics, I similarly do not see it as our (the democratic
West) job to intervene until/unless the actions of other people or
nations jeopardizes that democratic West.

The thing that makes the current situation difficult is that the threat
is a gathering and growing one with very real potential for global
nuclear holocaust. The moral question is analogous to this: If you're in
a bar and someone threatens you, just *when* do you have the right to
act forcefully? Assuming they have the means to carry out their threat
("threat" is only meaningful if the capacity to deliver the promise
exists), do you wait until you've actually been struck by the beer
bottle or can you act during the backswing? What is distressing about
this entire debate is that the political Right wants to use this as an
excuse to "deliver" the enemy into democracy, which clearly does not
work. By contrast, the Left seems to want to wait until we're actually
bleeding on the bar counter before acting, and in the mean time have
some silly nuanced discussion about whether our domestic legal
protections ought to be invoked. What is rarely discussed is the
dimension of the asymmetric threat in a nuclear world connected by
travel, transportation, and techology. In this case, the "beer bottle"
once delivered will be devastating.

Like you, I dislike much of what is going on at the moment, but what
choice do we realistically have? Do we wait for an apocalyptic culture
of suicidal maniacs to be armed to the point that we have no choice but
to respond with nuclear weapons? In the real world the choice is not the
Sunday School choice of simple Good vs. Bad. It is the choice between
Bad and Worse.

The thing that makes this discussion so perverse is that the neo-cons
have conflated defense and "bringing stability and democracy to the
region". No wonder their critics shake their heads in dismay. But,
that said, no matter how lousy the rationale', the general trajectory
of stopping the disease before it is an epidemic is a sound one. Given
any realistic and possible alternative, I'd support it, but I just don't
see one. Lockeian/Jeffersonian Liberty is and always should be our
inarguable guiding principle. But, it's not a suicide pact and ugly
conditions demand ugly responses.

I've seen this before - and don't need more.

I understand and share your angst for exactly the same reasons, I
suspect. But I find it telling that the relatively minor sins of the
West in these matters get magnified out of all proportion but the very
real and far more serious abuses of the asymmetric warriors get's only a
brief glance in the popular debate. As I've said previously, one of the
(many) reasons I've become so completely disaffected with the political
Left is that they have utterly failed in their role as the "loyal
opposition". Instead of dissecting every small failing of the Bush
administration, the US Left should have been acting quietly and
diplomatically within the halls of power to steer a course everyone
could live with. They haven't. They've taken the stance that *anything*
W and his crew does is wrong with hope against hope they can regain
majority power. Their political ambition trumps the good of
democracy.They are contemptible for this. (N.B. That the neo-cons,
however wrong you think they are, have *not* done this. They have taken
a position and stuck to it in the face of great political pressure and
possible loss of power.) Unfortunately, this means that, at least for
now, the neo-cons get it all their way. I find this chilling, but not as
chilling as doing nothing while we argue about whether US Code applies
to Jamal The Suicide Bomber ...



--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto




--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tim Daneliuk said:

nothing any well paid shill wouldn't say.

I regrettably stumbled onto this post, and after laughing for 30
minutes, decided to address the oppressive blather.

It is not. In the early days of what would become WWII, the Left argued
as you have - "There's no serious threat to us. It's just asinine to
worry about it." Fast forward 15 years. Hitler and Stalin are
responsible for something on the order of 100 *million* deaths in total.
History is full of other such examples of what happens when you
ignore evil.

And in what possible way does this relate to an impotent US sock
puppet like Saddam Hussein? Or are you setting the stage for a dialog
on the invasion of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or perhaps Canada.

We shouldn't ignore evil? What about Darfur, et al.?
Funny, I don't see any Warships racing towards Africa - or DC.

Today's threat isn't just an Islamist Terrorist threat per se.
Today's asymmetric warriors are testing the waters to see if they can
bring down a superpower. What ties them together far more than religion
is their tribalist mentality - of which there is plenty to go around on
the planet. The combination of a suicidal eschatology and a tribal
mentality, fertilized with global communications, transport, and
technology, will inevitably follow the same course as pre-war Hitler and
Stalin. The task today is to prevent the snowball from rolling down the
hill before it gets so big it cannot be stopped.

Your arguments over minutia are irrelevant in light of the fact that
we invaded a sovereign country that in no way threatened the US or its
neighbors, to overthrow a leader who had been propped up by decades of
support from the both the magnanimous right and the quivering left.
Who had absolutely no involvement in 9/11, no WMDs, and did not harbor
or embrace terrorists. And in spite of warnings from far more
intelligent and reasonable thinkers than the triad of morons who now
occupy DC, we have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians and
unleashed a bold new generation of US hating terrorists and
theological war upon Iraq, if not eventually the entirety of the
Middle East. Left wing "talking points?" Perhaps because it is fact.
And all the bombastic, self-righteous slights you can muster won't
change hard facts. You can only hope to confuse or suppress those who
dissent; ergo we have your presence here.

Your deeply held fantasies about how the world *ought* to operate are at
odds with considerable historical evidence to the contrary. You can
begin self-remediation by admitting out loud that "Evil" is a real thing,
and that, left to its own devices, it will grow.

Fantasies, hah! This from the Mad Hatter himself. Specious arguments,
Strawmen and subtle ad hominem attacks are apparently your trademarks.

Lest you've forgotten, there are plenty of people in the world, and
many in this country, who might just consider the US in it's various
incarnations the embodiment of evil. History reveals proud traditions
of witchburing, slavery, rape, torture, beheading of troops and
civilians who failed to work productively enough to suit their
benevolent masters, near extermination of the native population of
North America and theft of their lands by force - all of which are
hallmark milestones in the development of this country. Not so
different from the bulk of human history, but hardly anything to crow
about either.

So I relent: I admit out loud that "Evil" is a real thing, and that,
left to its own devices, it will grow.

A self-righteous, self-appointed moral compass for the rest of the
world? Don't make me laugh any harder than I am already. Mostly a
bunch of avaricious, self-interested, domineering, immoral hooligans
who will do or say anything to achieve their personal agendas. Now I
admit, these are survival traits in a dangerous world, but I damned
sure don't want anyone who embraces these qualities as a neighbor.

And all the more reason to boot the lot of these maggots out on their
collective asses. To paraphrase Robin Williams, "politicians are like
diapers - they should be changed often and for the same reasons."

And this is the foulest load of **** I've smelled in 50 years.

Think-tanks filled with propagandists bent on fabricating plausible
arguments for any atrocity, masters of media manipulation, oppression
of dissenting voices, baseless slanders, billions in wasted taxpayer
revenue, cronyism, callous disregard of all life, feigned pandering to
self-seeking religious elements, spin and more spin. I haven't heard
an iota of truth from these ignorant cowards yet. The only consistent
behaviors exhibited by this administration and its cheerleaders are
greed, deception, and self-preservation.

And that's the truth. Phhhhhhhtttttt......
Bye, Bye...

wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:
SNIP

I don't trust any politician. But you are playing a not-too clever
game of misdirection. The right of habeus corpus is extended only
to participants in our socio-legal contract. It is *not* extended
to foreign invaders.
A particulary pathetic misdirection. No one has suggested habeas
relief for foreign invaders. But I will later in this article.
There's a shocker.

You are not, by any chance, characterizing persons arrested in
Pakistan or Afghanistan, or captured in combat in Afghanistan
and taken to Guantanamo Bay, and who have never seven attemtped
to enter the United Statesas foreign invaders, are you?
I stand corrected. What I should have said was:

The right of habeus corpus .... It is *not* extended to
foreign invaders OR people with whom we are at war.

Are persons with whom we are not at war _potentially_ entitled
to habeas relief?

Only if they are otherwise participants in our legal-social
contract. For example, an Italian visiting the US legally
is entitled to such legal relief. An Italian doing crime
at the US Embassy in Rome is not except as provided by any
governing Italian law. It's worth mentioning that I certainly
agree that any international treaties to which we are party in
such a situation should be honored.


That the Constitution allows the Congress (nor the courts nor
the President) to suspend habeas corpus in the event of invasion,
makes it clear that habeas corpus applies absent an explicit, and
permissible, suspension.

See:

EX PARTE QUIRIN
317 U.S. 1 (1942)

The motion for habeas corpus relief was heard and denied by
the USSC. If the foreign invaders in question could not be, under
any circumstances, entitled to the writ the Court would not
have heard their petition, rather than hearing and then denying
their application.

No matter how much you try to dance around this
issue both history and legal precedent are on my side of this debate:
Please provide citations.
Your citations are utterly irrelevant because they are about people
who are _part of our socio-legal contract_.

Please explain how those foreign invaders, German-born Nazi sabotuers,
became part of _part of our socio-legal contract_.

Please explain how to identify those person who are and are not
_part of our socio-legal contract_.

By means of good intelligence, interrogation, corroborating
evidence, and the testimony of reliable witnesses. When
you catch someone calling 1-800-Al-Queda with C4 in their
apartment, it's a pretty big clue. FWIW, (I said I wasn't
going to do this), one of the strong arguments *against*,
say, torture, is that it corrupts your intelligence gathering
process. If we make it too easy to get "quick results" it's
just too tempting to tempting to use that shortcut and not
focus on sound intelligence gathering. Here again, the
Left opposition is incoherent. You cannot demand, on the one
hand, "no torture, no physical intimidation" and on the other
"no monitoring of suspicious telephone calls". Given that
times of great threat tend to assault our own liberties, I'd
much prefer to give the spooks some latitude - with oversight
and with sunset provisions for that latitude - than to be
tormenting prisoners. But the Left wants *neither*, and that's
just suicidal.

Sidebar:

If you back away from the political tempest and take the long
view here, what you see is a consistent attack in the US
intelligence gathering capabilities starting with the Church
Commission in the 1970s. That commission was inarguably
necessary because the CIA had been very naughty domestically.
But the Church Commission threw out the baby with the bathwater.
We crippled and demoralized the one group of people who have
a hope of acting prophylactically and preemptively. This
got slightly better under Reagan and, arguably, Bush 41, but
got much worse under Clinton. Whatever anyone thinks about
Bubba, he just completely missed the boat in engaging with
our intel people to stamp out UBL and his fellow fleabags.


And then please cite some support for the notion that being a
_part of our socio-legal contract_ is a prerequsite to habeas
relief.

Finally, please explain the legal meaning of _our socio-legal
contract_.

As legal citizens, immigrants, or guests, we implicitly bind
ourselves to a social/legal "contract". We agree to give up
some limited freedom in exchange for the benefits of a
democratic republic. None of us are truly and absolutely
"free" therefore. I am not free to cause murder and mayhem,
because by continuing to live here (legally) I am consenting
to the rules that govern my presence. So, a common criminal
is subject to that same contract ... and its consequences.

OTOH, a person on our shores *illegally* - whether by sneaking
in or because they are invading is, by definition, explicitly
defying our legal/social contract. They are effectively saying
that the rules do not apply to them and they wish to act in
the manner they do. In so doing, they lose the very protections
that legal/social contract provides. As a matter of good manners
and decent behavior, we often extend some portion of those protections
even to such illegal individuals, but _we are not obligated to do so_.
When and where we do so is a matter of judgment on our part. We
generally treat people sneaking over the Rio Grande with some
modicum of legal protection because they mostly do not present
any significant or imminent threat and it is in our interest
to maintain good relations with Mexico. But when someone says they're
coming to blow you up an then does it, all bets are off. We
simply have no obligation or need to treat the invader as anything
other than the soldier of an invading force. If they choose
to act by not wearing a uniform we can go further and treat them
as spies who have essentially *no* rights.

Please cite something, other than yourself, to support your
explanations.

Our "law", both given and found, applies to those people subject to it.
This is true by theorem. If it were not, then we could impose our laws
upon, say, a citizen living in Greenland. A person in this country
illegally and/or attacking it is no more entitled to habeas relief
(beyond that specified in international treaty to which we are party)
than they are entitled to vote, get access to social services, or demand
Social Security payments. The reason? They are not party to the contract
and thus cannot claim its protections. By analogy, demanding habeas
relief for everyone we encounter is like saying that you're entitled
to the benefits, but none of the responsibilities, outlined in a business
contract between me and my business partner. It fails the "common
sense" test.


They simply do not
apply to the enemy when engaged in war. This is US criminal, and
even indirectly, civil law you and yours keep trying to drag onto
the battlefield. The burden lies with you to show why the protections
of the Constitution, given and interpreted, should accrue to people
with whom we are at war. It is mind boggling you cannot grasp the
difference.

It is disgusting that you refuse to acknowledge that persons in our
custody and under our protection may or may not also be persons
with whom we are at war.

...
Just who are these invaders to whom you keep refering?
What country did they invade?
Again, it should have said "foreign invaders OR those with whom
we are at war".

Example of "foreign invaders": The 9-11 attackers.

Since habeas relief is mooted by death, that example is asinine
even for a straw man.

You know what I mean. Assume we'd caught them prior to the act.
They'd have no standing to demand habeas relief. Sheesh.


Example of "those with whom we are at war": "Insurgents in Iraq"

No one has suggested habeas relief should be available for
Iraqis in custody in Iraq. Another asine straw man.

Perhaps not, but habeas relief is one of a spectrum of US legal
protections debated. I've certainly heard repeated arguments
that said insurgents should be dealt with (some of) the same legal
constraints in place when a domestic felon is prosecuted.



Shall we now devolve into a Clintoneque debate about what words and
letters mean? It is absurd that any thinking person, regardless of
politics, insist that our legal protections be extend to a hostile
enemy during time of war. But absurdity is the special province of
the Modern "Intellectual" Left and the buzzing flies that surround
them. The Right is ridiculous, the Left is dangerous.


More sophisitcated that typical name calling,
but no more substantive.



--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
[snipped for brevity]

Strong opinions on
important matters require a different forum for your voice to be heard
and count for something. Otherwise it's no different than an XboX vs.
PS3 flame war.

R
The political forums (fora?) are nothing BUT a flame war.

Do you suppose that is:

1) Because they don't discuss woodworking there?

or

2) Because they do discuss politics there?

They don't discuss anything beyond reciting their memorized
talking points there. I briefly read alt.politics but there
wasn't a thoughtful explication or an original idea to be found.
At least there's some of that here - or there was until this
thread descended into "Neener Neener"...



Let's remember how we got here, shall we. Some time ago, there was an
extended political debate here that got pretty heated. I, in particular,
got a spanking for not backing down. (FWIW, I also got private email
cheering me on by some frustrated Wreckers who were tired of the
lopsided Left-oriented patter that was the norm in those days.)

I pointed out then, and repeat now, that I make it a point to not
introduce OT topics (unless they are humorous) but I felt (and feel)
free to jump into OT chatter already-in-progress. I also affirmed my
pledge to keep it that way, and shortly thereafter the noise died away.
I continued to read the Wreck almost daily and was pleased to see that
the Usual Suspects were keeping their posts on topic for the most part.

Then Robatoy decided to slip in a political announcement complete with a
vulgar profanity *in the middle* of an on topic thread - in fact, he
inserted it in the middle of a *post* without bothering not note that he
was threadjacking (he has some aversion to marking his threads OT for
some reason). This was both cheap and inappropriate, and I responded.

I remain to staying as on topic as the group does. I note that you,
Larry, and even, these days, Tom have similarly observed this protocol.
It seems that Robatoy feels that the Wreck was getting too boring and
needed to vent his political spleen. The results speak for themselves.

As always, the Wreck will be what we want it to be ...


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

DGG wrote:
Tim Daneliuk said:

nothing any well paid shill wouldn't say.

If I'm being paid, then someone owes me a great deal of money.
A "shill"? For whom exactly? I despise the Right, but the Left
terrifies me.


I regrettably stumbled onto this post, and after laughing for 30
minutes, decided to address the oppressive blather.

It is not. In the early days of what would become WWII, the Left argued
as you have - "There's no serious threat to us. It's just asinine to
worry about it." Fast forward 15 years. Hitler and Stalin are
responsible for something on the order of 100 *million* deaths in total.
History is full of other such examples of what happens when you
ignore evil.

And in what possible way does this relate to an impotent US sock
puppet like Saddam Hussein? Or are you setting the stage for a dialog
on the invasion of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or perhaps Canada.

What a convenient snipping of the original text you've done.
The comment was in context of the previous poster arguing that
the threat from the asymmetric warriors wasn't all that great.
My response was a demonstration that large storms start with
small raindrops and was in a far larger context than just Iraq.
But then, preserving context would undermine your ability to bellow.


We shouldn't ignore evil? What about Darfur, et al.?
Funny, I don't see any Warships racing towards Africa - or DC.

Because, at least for the moment, the Darfur is not yet incubating
anything that will threaten us. I'm not for the eradication of
*all* evil - that's impossible - only the evil than can and will
threaten us.


Today's threat isn't just an Islamist Terrorist threat per se.
Today's asymmetric warriors are testing the waters to see if they can
bring down a superpower. What ties them together far more than religion
is their tribalist mentality - of which there is plenty to go around on
the planet. The combination of a suicidal eschatology and a tribal
mentality, fertilized with global communications, transport, and
technology, will inevitably follow the same course as pre-war Hitler and
Stalin. The task today is to prevent the snowball from rolling down the
hill before it gets so big it cannot be stopped.

Your arguments over minutia are irrelevant in light of the fact that
we invaded a sovereign country that in no way threatened the US or its

Except for the part were the leader of that nation plotted to assassinate
a sitting US President, which should be grounds alone for a violent
response upon that leader's person and government. I'd feel the exact
same way no matter *who* the US President in question was, whether I liked
him or not.

neighbors, to overthrow a leader who had been propped up by decades of
support from the both the magnanimous right and the quivering left.

And the Syrians, and the French, and the Germans, and the Russians,
whose sum total of support *vastly* exceeds the support the US briefly
provided and then withdrew when Sadaam's excesses became clearer.
Do you froth as incoherently when these nations come up in conversation?
You should, they are far more culpable than the US is in this matter.
The world is more subtle than you paint it.

Who had absolutely no involvement in 9/11, no WMDs, and did not harbor
or embrace terrorists. And in spite of warnings from far more

Except, of course, his direct support for killing Jews. Oh wait,
I forgot, that doesn't count as "terrorism". Strapping C4 to
your child and having them explode themselves among other children
is a noble act of a "Freedom Fighter". Making war on civilians
*intentionally* is OK as long as you are a despotic regime and
not likely to vote in the next US election.

You must share with us your access to the alternate universe which you
inhabit. Many nations believed the threat from Iraq to be real as
regards to WMDs - the fact that this turned out to not be the case in no
way undermines the judgments made - internationally and openly - at the
time of the decision. IIRC, something like 98 of the US Senators saw it
that way. And before you huff and puff about the "lies" that got us
there, you might want to explain how - if W and his bunch actually lied
and this were demonstrable - how it is he has not been impeached. I
know, I know, The Rest Of Us are too stupid to see your "truth" and
could not be trusted to demand that impeachment if proof of lying were
demonstrated at any significant level. Here is a small clue: Truth in
geopolitics is not absolute, it is a probability that varies with time
and new information. But it's just too much fun to paint everything in
stark black and white, it certainly requires less analysis and
brainsweat.


intelligent and reasonable thinkers than the triad of morons who now
occupy DC, we have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians and

Oh, that's right, when we *unintentionally* kill civilians during
wartime - having given the target government repeated opportunities
to stand down while we sat on their borders indicating our intent,
that's a moral horror. But when the target of our military operations
kills thousands of his own, funds the suicide bombing of civilians
in another country, invades his neighbors, and kills his domestic
political rivals, that's just fine with you. It's so much more
fun to amplify the accidental byproduct of war and ignore the
conscious acts of brutal dictator. One shudders to think what your
larger ethical system embraces.

unleashed a bold new generation of US hating terrorists and

Because were were deeply beloved prior to the war in that region.

theological war upon Iraq, if not eventually the entirety of the
Middle East. Left wing "talking points?" Perhaps because it is fact.

Nothing you've said is a fact. It's a loathsome foaming at best.

And all the bombastic, self-righteous slights you can muster won't
change hard facts. You can only hope to confuse or suppress those who
dissent; ergo we have your presence here.

I've been "here" for many years. And I've never (as best I can recall)
started an OT political thread. But I will not be silent in the face
of a lot of bad thinking that has the potential to damage my and my
family's future. That means I fight back - hard - against the perverse
and suicidal ideas expressed by people like you. You want to kill yourself,
be my guest, just don't block traffic. But I rather enjoy this republic
and would like to pass it along to future generations.


Your deeply held fantasies about how the world *ought* to operate are at
odds with considerable historical evidence to the contrary. You can
begin self-remediation by admitting out loud that "Evil" is a real thing,
and that, left to its own devices, it will grow.

Fantasies, hah! This from the Mad Hatter himself. Specious arguments,
Strawmen and subtle ad hominem attacks are apparently your trademarks.

Lest you've forgotten, there are plenty of people in the world, and
many in this country, who might just consider the US in it's various
incarnations the embodiment of evil. History reveals proud traditions

And they are uniformly fools. The US unquestionably has acted badly
from time to time. It has also made honest mistakes insofar as no one
can have omniscience as to what needs doing in a complex and connected world.
But the sum total of US sins, pales by comparison to the horrors of even
just the last century. Let me help with your deficient understanding of
history and context and point out the Hit Parade Of Evil from the 20th
Century. Then you can reply with how Eeeeeeeevil the US is by comparison.
(Numbers are estimates and slightly debatable since no one knows for sure):

Aggressor Victim # Civilians Killed

Japan China 25-35 Million
Russia Ukraine 15-25 Million
Germany Jews & Others 7 Million
Cambodia Cambodia 1-2 Million
N. Korea N. Korea No one knows for sure

And the hits keep on coming. If you total up the war dead, Stalin and Hitler
alone are good for something in the neighborhood of 100 million dead.

Meanwhile, who did the US primarily take up arms against? Lessee,
Japan, Russia (indirectly), Germany, Cambodia (indirectly), and N. Korea.

of witchburing, slavery, rape, torture, beheading of troops and
civilians who failed to work productively enough to suit their
benevolent masters, near extermination of the native population of

Are we talking about the tribal slave traders in Africa who sold
their captors to the Europeans? They bear a moral burden many times
that of *any* Western slaving nation AND are still doing it. Our
fine friends in the Muslim Arab world still get good deals on African
slaves from ... Mauretania. Where is your moral outrage in this
matter? Oh, I see, the sins of our former selves - long in the
rearview mirror - are far more worthy of your fulminations than
what is going on *right now*. Because ... ideology always trumps
Reason.

North America and theft of their lands by force - all of which are

Ever bother to read the history of the Plains Indians? They were
easily as savage to each other as any European was. Hardly the
"Noble Savages" portrayed in the Left Madrassas.

hallmark milestones in the development of this country. Not so
different from the bulk of human history, but hardly anything to crow
about either.

You cannot "crow about" what you barely understand. It is indisputably
true that our European forefathers acted with great malice and violence
against the groups you mention. But your abbreviated understanding
of "human history" misses the essential point. Slaving and brutality
have been a part of *every* major culture in recorded history. What
makes the West unique is that it *ended* these behaviors and did
so permanently and durably - something *no* other major culture can
claim. That's primarily because the Judeo-Christian roots of the
democratic West came with the burden of a conscience. In less than
300 years, the US, in particular, ended behaviors that had gone
on for at least the previous 10,000 or so recorded years. So, yes,
our forefathers did, at one point, act horribly. But their *ideas*
led them away from those horrors in relatively short order in the scheme
of things. (See what happens when you actually learn to think about things
instead of just parroting what you read in the latest Noam Chomsky
toilet paper?)


So I relent: I admit out loud that "Evil" is a real thing, and that,
left to its own devices, it will grow.

But, oddly, that seems not to bother you all that much.


A self-righteous, self-appointed moral compass for the rest of the
world? Don't make me laugh any harder than I am already. Mostly a

Absolutely not. We ought oppose evil when it threatens us. Otherwise we
ought offer advice and trade, no more.

bunch of avaricious, self-interested, domineering, immoral hooligans
who will do or say anything to achieve their personal agendas. Now I
admit, these are survival traits in a dangerous world, but I damned
sure don't want anyone who embraces these qualities as a neighbor.

Absent some level of self-interest, you won't have any neighbors.
More correctly, they will not have you as a neighbor. Self-interest
is mandatory for even simple survival. It would appear that
you'd like to survive (presumably) but don't want to do any of the
necessary messy work to do so. Worse still, when others do it for you,
you rage at them for not providing you with your imaginary world
in which no one does anything and everyone lives happily ever
after. There is a place like that, but I don't think you can
get there ... it's on the Disney Channel.


And all the more reason to boot the lot of these maggots out on their
collective asses. To paraphrase Robin Williams, "politicians are like
diapers - they should be changed often and for the same reasons."

That's certainly true, but changing parties never really changes
the politicians very much does it now? When Clinton was in power,
he had the opportunity to short circuit a lot of what's gone
one the past five years. But he was just too busy getting his
groove on to be bothered. So you tell me which is worse.
A President who abdicates his oath to defend the nation or a
President who makes questionable decisions in the consequent
aftermath when preemption is no longer possible? Oh, I forgot,
we suck no matter what we do.


And this is the foulest load of **** I've smelled in 50 years.


Think-tanks filled with propagandists bent on fabricating plausible
arguments for any atrocity, masters of media manipulation, oppression

Yeah, like building schools where there were none before, like feeding
the hungry, clothing the poor, providing medical care all around the world
from the coffers of the American wage earners. We really do suck.

of dissenting voices, baseless slanders, billions in wasted taxpayer
revenue, cronyism, callous disregard of all life, feigned pandering to

Except of course when the life isn't quite out of the bottle yet, then
there's no problem whacking it is there?

self-seeking religious elements, spin and more spin. I haven't heard
an iota of truth from these ignorant cowards yet. The only consistent

It is doubtful you would be able to discern any moment of truth in
between gasps of foam. It is one thing to be critical of a nation's
faults and leaders. I am so critical on a regular basis regardless
of which party is in power. It is quite another to be so ego-obsessed and
cocksure that you can only reach the puerile conclusions above.


behaviors exhibited by this administration and its cheerleaders are
greed, deception, and self-preservation.

And that's the truth. Phhhhhhhtttttt......
Bye, Bye...


One can only hope ...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

wrote in message
ups.com...

When Fox re-aired the segment later in the day the incorrect
graphic was removed. NOT corrected, there was no graphic
correctly identifying Foley as a Republican.
FF


As one whom does not watch FOX 24 hours a day I'd not assume to know when or
if a correction was ever made but I suppose you can make any such assumption
.....nonetheless I'd suggest by now (if ever) "nobody" thinks Folly was or is
a Dem. Nor would I consider FOX so stupid that they would think a small
insignificant "typo" could turn the tide of public opinion one way or the
other. One may also note that verbally the airwaves including FOX repeatedly
stated party affiliation as the pundits blathered on ad nauseam. For a
proper conspiracy theory to have any legs one needs at least some
rational....this doesn't even have a cushion to sit on....On a lighter note
one might surmise that FOX was actually doing Foley a favor or giving him a
out...as a Dem he'd have no historical precedent or need to resignG.
Rod

Tim Daneliuk (in ) said:

| Morris Dovey wrote:
||
|| I understand your desire for retribution for wrongs; as well as
|| your loathing of evil and your desire to eliminate it. I also
|| understand that you would impose your own personal notion of
|| justice (and perhaps your own personal definition of evil) on all
|| the rest of the world.
|
| Not the case, or at least not as you frame it. The only "evil" for
| which I see redress is that "evil" which causes harm to others. For
| instance, I think drug abuse is "evil" in that is causes great harm
| to the individual abusing the drug. But until/unless their drug
| abuse causes harm to others, I seek no legal (i.e., forceful)
| remediation. In the matter of geopolitics, I similarly do not see
| it as our (the democratic West) job to intervene until/unless the
| actions of other people or nations jeopardizes that democratic West.

That's a form of isolationism that I don't think will work.
Interventions are seldom welcome; and we would do well to participate
as members of a global community intervention team. Unilateral
interventions should only be done as a last ditch desperation effort.

| The thing that makes the current situation difficult is that the
| threat is a gathering and growing one with very real potential for
| global nuclear holocaust. The moral question is analogous to this:
| If you're in a bar and someone threatens you, just *when* do you
| have the right to act forcefully? Assuming they have the means to
| carry out their threat ("threat" is only meaningful if the capacity
| to deliver the promise exists), do you wait until you've actually
| been struck by the beer bottle or can you act during the backswing?
| What is distressing about this entire debate is that the political
| Right wants to use this as an excuse to "deliver" the enemy into
| democracy, which clearly does not work. By contrast, the Left seems
| to want to wait until we're actually bleeding on the bar counter
| before acting, and in the mean time have some silly nuanced
| discussion about whether our domestic legal protections ought to be
| invoked. What is rarely discussed is the dimension of the
| asymmetric threat in a nuclear world connected by travel,
| transportation, and techology. In this case, the "beer bottle" once
| delivered will be devastating.

Your assessment seems to be unduly pessimistic; which doesn't mean
that you're necessarily wrong - but I just don't think the actual
threat level is really so high.

I don't go to bars - in part because I really don't enjoy being around
****faced people who can't control themselves. In the relatively few
real life fights I've been in, I've tried first to avoid a fight
altogether, taken the first and only blow from an oponent, and then
fought berserk. I've never fought to inflict pain - I fight to end the
fight as quickly and decisively as possible.

| Like you, I dislike much of what is going on at the moment, but what
| choice do we realistically have? Do we wait for an apocalyptic
| culture of suicidal maniacs to be armed to the point that we have
| no choice but to respond with nuclear weapons? In the real world
| the choice is not the Sunday School choice of simple Good vs. Bad.
| It is the choice between Bad and Worse.

We have a number of choices: We can become culturally aware, learn a
bit of world history, and recognize that all peoples have something to
offer. We can be the kind of friend that no one wants to pick a fight
with. We can look back at our own recent history and notice that power
flowed to us most rapidly when we empowered others; and drained away
most rapidly when we attempted to use our power to control others. We
can do a lot better job of listening to both friends and adversaries.

| The thing that makes this discussion so perverse is that the
| neo-cons have conflated defense and "bringing stability and
| democracy to the region". No wonder their critics shake their
| heads in dismay. But, that said, no matter how lousy the
| rationale', the general trajectory of stopping the disease before
| it is an epidemic is a sound one. Given any realistic and possible
| alternative, I'd support it, but I just don't see one.
| Lockeian/Jeffersonian Liberty is and always should be our
| inarguable guiding principle. But, it's not a suicide pact and
| ugly conditions demand ugly responses.

There are possible ways of slowing down and ultimately stopping the
"disease"; but we'll first need to decide that's what we really want
to do...

|| I've seen this before - and don't need more.
|
| I understand and share your angst for exactly the same reasons, I
| suspect. But I find it telling that the relatively minor sins of the
| West in these matters get magnified out of all proportion but the
| very real and far more serious abuses of the asymmetric warriors
| get's only a brief glance in the popular debate. As I've said
| previously, one of the (many) reasons I've become so completely
| disaffected with the political Left is that they have utterly
| failed in their role as the "loyal opposition". Instead of
| dissecting every small failing of the Bush administration, the US
| Left should have been acting quietly and diplomatically within the
| halls of power to steer a course everyone could live with. They
| haven't. They've taken the stance that *anything* W and his crew
| does is wrong with hope against hope they can regain majority
| power. Their political ambition trumps the good of democracy.They
| are contemptible for this. (N.B. That the neo-cons, however wrong
| you think they are, have *not* done this. They have taken a
| position and stuck to it in the face of great political pressure
| and possible loss of power.) Unfortunately, this means that, at
| least for now, the neo-cons get it all their way. I find this
| chilling, but not as chilling as doing nothing while we argue about
| whether US Code applies to Jamal The Suicide Bomber ...

The sins of the West are "relatively minor" only to westerners. There
are cultural issues at play with no shortage of ignorance and
misunderstanding at any side.

One of the difficulties we've made for ourselves is that we've allowed
political and economic stakeholders to fabricate "wedge issues" to
polarize our thinking. We really need to rediscover our center - to
focus on what we have in common and the amazing kinds of things we can
do when we work together to get problems solved. That doesn't mean
that disagreements vanish - but it does mean that we see differences
of opinion as indicators of opportunity to engage in constructive
dialog to work out better solutions.

A pox on both the left _and_ the right! Let's get back to the center.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:17:12 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

There *is* a good argument (or two) to be made
for the position you and the rest of the ideological Left want to get
to, but I'm not going to teach you how to make it. The homework will
be good for you.

You suffer from delusions of competence.



Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:06:14 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:


It is the very *defense* of Liberty that requires making these kinds of
hard decisions. You are severely kidding yourself if you think
the historic defenders of our Liberty did not make naughty choices
in said quest.

Weak.

Signing off now.


Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

In article .com, wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:
In article ,

wrote:
Doug Miller wrote:

Get a grip. Do you have *any* idea at all what went on in Iraq under
Saddam
Hussein?

Torture is torture.

Oh, really? So you're equating sleep deprivation with rape and murder?

Once you throw out the Geneva convention, you have lost any
moral authority and you are no better than the scum you're combating. If
you
cease to remain civilized, the terrorists have won.

Terrorists aren't covered by the Geneva Convention, which sets forth
specific
conditions that must be met in order to be covered. Armed men captured on
the
field of battle while wearing neither military uniform nor insignia don't
meet
those conditions.

That's a damn lie.

No, Fred, it's the truth.

Someone who has been captured by persons
other than his own countrymen becomes a protected person.
That a protected person can be tried and punished for crimes
comitted prior to capture, such as fighting in civilian disguise,
does not change the fact that the person is protected.

Wrong. Fighting in civilian disguise changes everything.

Citation?

The Geneva Conventions. You don't seem to have read them very carefully.

I refer you to Tim Daneliuk's posts in this thread, in which he has already
pointed out your errors in detail, with greater eloquence than I am capable
of.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

In article , wrote:

I wonder
if we couldn't get better government if we picked names out of a hat and told
them it was their turn to make the country work for four years, or two, or
six, or whatever.

Undoubtedly. Start up a petition requesting that the Constitution be so
amended, and I'll be the first to sign it.

Another option, I suppose, would be to raise the salaries of the President,
VP, House, and Senate to seven or eight figures -- that way, we might attract
candidates who are motivated by money rather than power. Not that there's
anything particularly good about that... but given the choice between a man
who simply seeks money, and a man who is motivated by the desire to gain and
hold power over other men, I'll pick the greedy man every time.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.