September 28, 2006
Torturing the Truth
The New York Times has issued forth a typically hysterical editorial attacking the anti-terrorism legislation passed by the House yesterday on a vote of line 253-168. The Senate will likely pass their version of the bill today, and President Bush will likely sign the measure into law by the weekend.
I rarely read the Times anymore, especially their editorials, but from time to time, their hyperbole-filled missives are worth the read, if for no other reason than to try to understand just how out of touch the "liberal elite" is with mainstream Americans.
The Times editorial begins:
Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.
Hmmmm... the "mindless politics of a midterm election." I wonder, does this ever apply to Democratic-led Congresses, or only Republican-led ones? I think we know the answer.
But here's the gem:
...The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists.
I'd like for the Times to go out of their way for once and try to apply a little logic and reason, and—God forbid, facts—to support their contention that the legislation will make American soldiers "less safe." The truth the Times and its liberal supporters refuse to confront is that our enemies in this war against Islamic terrorism do not now, nor have they ever, followed any civilized notion of how to conduct warfare against military or civilian targets, and when they have been able to capture American soldiers, they have tortured, mutilated and beheaded them.
Perhaps Bill Keller and company should search their own archives:
The American military said today that it had found the remains of what appears to be the two American soldiers captured by insurgents last week in an ambush south of the capital, and a senior Iraqi military official said the two men had been "brutally tortured."An American military official in Baghdad, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that both bodies showed evidence of "severe trauma" and that they could not be conclusively identified. Insurgents had planted "numerous" bombs along the road leading to the bodies, and around the bodies themselves, the official said, slowing the retrieval of the Americans by 12 hours.
[snip]
General Caldwell declined to speak in detail about the physical condition of those who had been found, but said that the cause of death could not be determined. He said the remains of the men would be sent to the United States for DNA testing to determine definitively their identities. That seemed to suggest that the two Americans had been wounded or mutilated beyond recognition.
"We couldn't identify them," the American military official in Baghdad said.
Neither Mr. Keller nor his liberal supporters in the blogosphere seem to have anything approaching a reasoned response as to how this legislation will make the native barbarity of our enemies any more depraved than it already is. Perhaps the Times thinks they'll use dull knifes for beheading instead of sharp ones. The simple fact remains that no law we pass will affect how terrorists treat captured soldiers. They will brutally torture and kill any soldier they capture after this legislation becomes law, just as they did before.
As for the "lasting damage" the Times shrieks will occur, I notice they didn't try to provide specific details. Fortunately for the Times, hyperbole doesn't rely on factual support, as history shows that past wartime Democratic Presidents have done far more damage to the Constitution than measures our present Administration would even consider.
During World War I, Woodrow Wilson pushed through the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, cruelly slapping aside the notion that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism" embraced by today's defeatists. Heavy media censorship, the crushing of free speech about the war (at least for those that dissented) and even imprisoning former Presidential candidates was par for the course for Wilson's wartime Presidency.
Bush, in stark contrast, has not made any attempt to muzzle the press, even to the point of allowing classified document leaks to news agencies like the Times without shutting the paper down or putting so much as a single reporter in jail.
The hyperbole continues:
Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That's pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush's shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.
It may come as a shock to the editors of the Times, but Democrats themselves have made themselves look soft on terrorism long before this legislation came around.
The party of "defeat and retreat" features leadership that wants to force the American military into a headlong withdrawal from Iraq, genocidally ignoring the fact that such an act would destabilize the fledgling democracy even worse, possibly leading today's sectarian violence to denigrate into full-scale genocide. John Murtha has yet to explain how withdrawing thousands of miles away to Okinawa will make the streets of Baghdad any safer. Ned Lamont has yet to explain how shifting our forces away from the central front of the war on Terror in Iraq and the terrorist forces assembled there will make America safer. The Fringe Left is far more interested in loosing Iraq to make the Bush Administration look bad than combating terrorism. Their only plan is withdrawal and defeat. Democrats look soft on terrorism because they are soft on terrorism as shown by their own actions, not the actions of any other group.
The screed goes on:
Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.
This may come as a shock to the Times, but the legislation passed by the House does not reinterpret the murky language of the Geneva Conventions, and in fact, does just the opposite: it clarifies and delineates a clear policy of what constitutes legal interrogation methods. The United States have never before attempted to clearly define how U.S. law should meet Geneva's standards, even though it should have done so when the standard was agreed to in 1929. What upsets the Times and many on the left is that this legislation strips them of their ability to label anything and every interrogation technique they don't like as torture.
The Times Hyperbole Drive (unrelated to the Hitchhiker's Improbability Drive, and far less coherent) then kicks into overdrive as they kick out an unsupported list of possible abuses:
Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.
The President patently does not have this power. The House bill's language states that a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another tribunal will determine if someone is to be classified as an enemy combatant, not the President. The Times goes beyond hyperbole and delivers a falsification.
The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there's no requirement that this list be published
As I stated previously, the legislation passed by the House does not reinterpret the murky language of the Geneva Conventions, and in fact, does just the opposite: it clarifies and delineates a clear policy of what constitutes legal interrogation methods. The Congress should have passed this legislation, or something like it, prior to World War II.
Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.
Congress has the power to say that foreign terrorists are not entitled to the rights of American citizenship, and they have done so, much to the chagrin of those who would coddle them.
Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.
Again, more hyperbole based upon an outright falsification. President Bush does not determine the status of a captured terrorist; a Combatant Status Review Tribunal made up of military judges makes that determination.
Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.
The Times does a masterful job of spinning the actual language of the legislation, which stipulates that coerced evidence could only be used if certain conditions were met. Among those conditions are that "totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable," meaning that other information must support to coerced information. If a detainee confesses under interrogation to a bomb plot and no evidence can be found to support the admission, his confession cannot be used as evidence. Again, President Bush does not make any determinations whatsoever, the language of the bill explicitly delegates that power to the judge.
Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.
Of course, the Times is referring to American civil and criminal law, which follows a somewhat different set of rules than the military criminal justice system. With the conviction of terrorist-supporting lawyer Lynne Stewart, an ugly truth already known by many in the legal and intelligence communities was shown to the world; not only were terrorists using confidential lawyer-client letters to smuggle information to one another, they also discovered that some activist lawyers actively participated. The decision to allow some secret evidence and testimony to protect the lives of sources and intelligence operatives is a reasonable one. Apparently, the Times would rather a defendant learn the source of the information so that he could pass it along to others so that the sources could be eliminated. That the source is quite likely to be tortured before being murdered is not apparently a concern of the Times.
Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.
Of course the definition is unacceptably narrow for the Times. As I stated previously, the Congress, by finally defining terrorism, strips the ability of the Times to label anything and everything it wants as torture. The Times loses a rhetorical tool, and that seems to be their primary concern. The assertion made by the Times that "the bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture" is unconscionable, and a willful distortion of the bill's language and reality. There are literally millions of things the legislation didn't address—the price of tea in China, how long a detainee's hair may be, or if he's allowed to watch The View—but that does not translate into an acceptance or denial of a practice covered under other laws. The bill also refused to stipulate that the detainees cannot be assaulted by wookies or unicorns, so I'm certain the Times will address the oppression of terrorists by fictional beings in their next missive.
The Times finishes with a call to action for Democrats to filibuster the bill, which patently won't happen. Democrats may not like giving America the tools to fight terrorism, but unlike the Times, they are occasionally forced to interact with reality.
Bush, in stark contrast [to Woodrow Wilson], has not made any attempt to muzzle the press, even to the point of allowing classified document leaks to news agencies like the Times without shutting the paper down or putting so much as a single reporter in jail.
But let's be honest here. You'd prefer it if he did, right?
Posted by: d at September 28, 2006 11:51 AMSo this is what passes for a defense of Bush, these days? "Bush - not as bad as the most horrible abusers of our freedoms." or "Bush - no one put in jail - yet."
Posted by: zen_less at September 28, 2006 12:08 PMYou keep using the argument that it's only bad guys we're going to be treating like this. When the fact is that we don't know who has been locked up without trial. We're imprisoning people whom we aren't even certain are terrorists.
Why is it suddenly so absurd to demand that people whom we've locked up know why in fact they have been? Why, in America of all places, are people arguing that some don't have that right! This is still America isn't it?
Posted by: Chris at September 28, 2006 12:21 PMhe has done everything possible to muzzle the press, which at this early date isn't much. doesn't mean he isn't trying.
Posted by: ja at September 28, 2006 12:22 PMWow, you've really tied yourself into knots defending things that if a Democrat tried to do you'd probably be screaming about. Have fun justifying the next move to pull us further down in the moral muck with the people we're fighting instead of upholding the higher principles that have made us great and free.
Posted by: x at September 28, 2006 12:28 PMHabeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)
It makes me proud to be a Republican.
WWI. Yep, a very unpopular, unnecissary war that the US has no business being part of. Makes perfect sense to me.
Posted by: Puddle Jumper at September 28, 2006 12:36 PMour press provides it's own muzzle, as demonstrated by Newseek's Annie Leibowit'z BIG STORY! sad.
Posted by: KEN YTUARTE at September 28, 2006 12:41 PMour press provides it's own muzzle, as demonstrated by Newseek's Annie Leibowit'z BIG STORY! sad.
Posted by: KEN YTUARTE at September 28, 2006 12:42 PM"Our enemies in this war against Islamic terrorism do not now, nor have they ever, followed any civilized notion of how to conduct warfare."
So the world is made up up just us and the Islamic terrorists? There's no possibility of a soverign nation--say North Korea or Syria--using our rewrite of Geneva to detain our citizens without recourse and subject them to coercive interrogation?
"President Bush does not determine the status of a captured terrorist; a Combatant Status Review Tribunal made up of military judges makes that determination."
A Tribunal made up of "military" judges? And who commands the military?
"Congress has the power to say that foreign terrorists are not entitled to the rights of American citizenship, and they have done so, much to the chagrin of those who would coddle them."
So you're assuming that everyone who would ever be detained by these tribunals would always be a "foreign terrorist"? Since when is the right to habeus corpus--which predates the Magna Carta--a form or "coddling"?
"other information must support coerced information"
So the ends justify the means? So as long as someone else confirms a confession (maybe because the confirmation was coerced from him) then it's OK that we subjected that detainee to coersion?
Posted by: jeffbinnc at September 28, 2006 12:46 PMOh.......a Combatant Status Review Tribunal. Using coerced testimony.... in secret..... with evidence not available to me should I be hauled in. Geez, I feel better now; why was I ever worried?
Like most of your brethern, you're a partisan Republican first, an American patriot second. Sickening.
Posted by: montysano at September 28, 2006 12:47 PMWhy suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be arrested may be charged instantly with a well defined crime; of course, the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires that the government should have a man imprisoned on less probable testimony in those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against the government for damages. Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension.
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788.
Confederate Confused.
Here we go again.
Second post you delete. Let's try a third.
Is there any posible way that Right Wingers can understand that the war in Iraq is a mess?, that it is creating more terrorist?, that the war was started to prevent terrorism and is doing the exact opposite?, that attacks all over Iraq are now at the HUNDREDS per week, that in everything but name Iraq is in a Civil War now, that 62 %Iraqis want us dead (not out) BUT DEAD, that we can not sustain the war for much longer with our military over streached to the braking point, that the Pentagon is using "Contractors" as mercenaries to cover for Army personnel shortages at 10 times the cost, that there willl not be enough jails or torturers in America to keep up if we continue in our present way, etc, etc.
You can continue to delete posts my friend, but the truth is hard to delete.
In short is there any way that you can go back to beeing an American first and a partisan hack second? Or do you believe you are doing any one any good with your delusional blogs.
Posted by: gil at September 28, 2006 05:00 PMFree Saddam!!
Free Saddam!!
He tortures terrorists. He doesn't coddle or sing lullabies or ask terrorists nicely not to kill his people or try to overthrow his government.
What is this guy doing on trial?
What has he done that is so bad?
Kill his own people? His own people he killed are terrorists.
Would you rather him ask very nicely that the terrorists don't try to overthrow his government?
Poor misunderstood Saddam. He's just trying to keep his citizens safe, and this is the thanks he gets?
Free Saddam!!
Free Saddam!!
Well Robert, he was Rummy's pal, and Poppy Bush left him in power precisely because he balanced the power of Iran.
Posted by: Beel at September 28, 2006 06:39 PMBe careful what new powers you give the presedent. Two Words: President Hillary.
Posted by: Hal at September 28, 2006 07:06 PM"Congress has the power to say that foreign terrorists are not entitled to the rights of American citizenship"
Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution says in part that "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." Nothing anywhere in the Constitution about habeas corpus being restricted to US citizens. Or do you believe the Constution is a living document that has to be updated to fit modern conditions?
And who says detainees at Guatanamo and elsewhere are terrorists, anyway? Executive Branch employees are the ones who decide who to detain. In other contexts many Americans have contempt for the competence of government employees. It's amusing how confident some people can be about a government employee being incapable of error when accusing people of being terrorists.
The whole point of habeas corpus is to force the executive to give a reason why it is detaining someone. The Founding Fathers deeply distrusted executive power. People who don't want any degree of judicial oversight are subversives, trying to destroy our freedoms.
Posted by: Former Republican at September 28, 2006 07:11 PMIt seems to me bloggers like you will defend anything that the Bush admin does. Your attacks lose any teeth if you are not "Fair and balanced". Why is it that in America the only time your voice is heard is if you are in the far right or far left. Why dont Americans listen to the middle.
Contrary to what Bush says there is a middle ground. Guys, I beg of you stop pulling wool over your own eyes and chose the middle path. You cant become "evil" in order to fight evil. If you think we need to waterboard for every waterboard our troops receive, then you are forgetting the tenets of Bible. Please, please go back to when there were no Clintons, Bushs - thats the America we need to bring back. Not this one - I am disppointed.
Posted by: neal at September 28, 2006 07:19 PMI don't remember sleeping for an entire year but I must have a some time. The 'Constitution of the United States' has been modified by the democrats and is now called the 'Constitution of the World, including terrorists'. What a bunch of jerks they have became. As the President said today the 'honorable democratic party is no more'. No honor, no patroitism, anti-american 24-7. The funny part is that they and their supporters will pay the price in the future and some of them have to be smart enough , I think, to know they are destroying the country.
Posted by: Scrapiron at September 28, 2006 07:52 PMstrips the ability of the Times to label anything and everything it wants as torture.
I would not bet on this. The NYT operates in a Reality Distortion Field™ of epic proportion. I really don't think they'll change a thing in their rants.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at September 28, 2006 08:14 PMIs this what we've come to, standards-wise? Praising Bush for not jailing people exercising their 1st amendment rights. The Republic is doomed.
Posted by: Brent at September 28, 2006 08:26 PMthe best part of your website is seeing you get raked over the coals for your asinine articles! Keep up the good work!
Posted by: hehehe at September 28, 2006 09:08 PMActually I find it very amusing that I read a very good editorial on this site and the aurthor gets slammed for it.
Someone that points to the actual lies and misrepresentations of the New York Times, points out the facts of the situation, shows by comparison how restrained Bush has been, (yes I say restrained) compared to former Democratic Presidents in times of war. You, rightly, state the facts for honest debate, and you get nothing but a bunch of criticisms. You state facts and they cry foul.
I have quite often disagreed with decisions that Bush has made, and probably will again.
But we are in a war, and in a war, you STAND BY YOUR COUNTRY and your president. You give him all the tools and power you can to help him win.
These are not soldiers, fighting for their country we are talking about therefore they HAVE no rights. They are not part of the military of any country, therefore the Geneva Convention should not apply to them.
To the comment about "creating more terrorists", has you READ the whole NIE report? Or just mouthing the words from the "objective" New York Times? I saw quite a bit good in that report, about the terrorists being "decentralized", "no global strategy" and is "becoming more diffused".
Then lets NOT forget Abu Ayyub al-Masri, and his statement today about 4,000 insurgents in Iraq have been killed.
Do we ever hear the people that are busy bashing our president mention these points? The good that has come? Of course not, some people are not big enough to notice the good and the right, and definitely not righteous enough to mention it.
Have we lowered ourselves so badly, that we cannot see the truth from the lies of politics?
I just admitted there are decisions that Bush has made that I disagreed with, can YOU admit the same about your party? I doubt that. The only time I see Democrats questioning their own party, is when they vote for something the President wants.
Wake up. We are at war. The Cut and run days are over, time to stand up tall and proud and get the job done.
If you cannot back your president, sit down, shut up and stay the hell out of his way.
Who am I to speak like this? I am an American who appreicates what MY President is trying to do for us. Do you?
By the way, for the record... Until 2001, I was a Democrat, until i saw the nature of we had become.
Great Article, Confederate Yankee. I will be adding you to my blogroll.
Posted by: Susan at September 28, 2006 09:46 PMscrapiron.
The U.S. Constitution is the one document that sets us apart from tirans like Saddam.
Now it turns out we are about to "legalize" torturing our enemies just like Saddam.
Osama is not your enemy... He is your friend, you maniac Right Wingers are alike.
I am just going to love when the Right has to deal with a Democratic President with this kind of unlimited and uncheked powers. It is Right Wingers like the nut in Oklahoma that will get the taste of the new powers that the "Decider" has given to the Executive Power with a rubber stamp Congress doing what they have been doing for years now .... Bending over.... Banana Republic any one?
It is Right Wing nuts that have "training" camps in Montana, Wyoming, Louisiana, Alabama, etc. In short, It is you Right Wing idiots, the ones that will suffer the most with this new "redefinition" of torture.
I propose that if a Democrat wins the White House the first thing he/she should do is round up the bunch of Right Wing nuts lurking in the wilderness with camouflage fatigues pretending they are "soldiers" of heven knows what. They need some torture to confess where are they hiding their brain.
Remember when you Republicans used to see the Government as the enemy? What now? You have created a "little" qualifier to the extent you are willing to permit the Government to interfere in our lives..... It goes like; We Republicans have never liked the Government in our lives, with the exception that the Executive power can do wherever the hell he wants to any of us?
Welcome to the U.S.A the new Banana Repubic with El Presidente our great decider Bush!!
Posted by: gil at September 28, 2006 09:50 PMThanks gil, by ranting and raving instead of addressing the actual facts of what were written, you just proved my point.
Assumptions are a bitch.... I never have complained about "government". Stick to the facts.
You did mention one thing of note though. The U S Constitution.... ummmm, so you know, the terrorists are NOT part of the US.
The US citizens are exempt from the military tribunals. You really should READ the key parts of the bill before talking about it.
Have a good night folks...tomorrow is another day.
Posted by: Susan at September 28, 2006 10:25 PMPeople that support this shitting on America are filthier than any scum that was ever flushed down a toilet. The sooner you trash have been thrown into the garbage the better off America will be. Go to hell where you belong.
Posted by: Fred at September 28, 2006 10:59 PMwhoa man...put down the crack pipe.
Seriously, the things you say are absolutely UNAMERICAN and betray and murder the very thing you claim to protect.
Learn some history.
My father is a British subject and a legal resident of the USA for 25 years. He loves baseball, pays taxes, and is in most every other way American now. BUT, because he is not a citizen, some asshole can claim he is an "enemy combatant" although he has worked in Boston for the last 25 years and he is denied the right of habeas corpus to challenge the arrest. He is, in effect, a scumbag now to the rest of you.
This is not what my grandfather lost his leg in the Battle of the Bulge for.
It makes me sick.
Posted by: cdunlea at September 29, 2006 12:50 AMHoly crap, Susan! It's been a while since I read such a torrent of mindless cliches...
The bill you defend actually contains provisions by which American citizens can be detained as "unlawful enemy combatants." Setting aside your other incorrect claim that the Constitution doesn't apply to non-citizens in US custody (it does), and the fact remains that your government is constitutionally obligated to abide by the Geneva Conventions and other relevant international treaties ratified by the Senate -- and the Geneva Conventions, contrary to mythology, do not permit the kind of legal black hole created by this awful bill. The 1949 provisions were clear enough, but they were revisited in 1977 and clarified (in Article 75) the fact that even in an unconventional war, no person can be denied minimal legal protections -- this includes being informed of the reasons for detention and being granted "generally recognized principles" of criminal justice.
Geneva 1949 and 1977 also prohibit the use of torture under any circumstances; although it is widely believed that 2/3 of the nations who signed the Convention on Torture (1984) do not abide by its provisions, I would hope that someone as patriotic as yourself would hold the United States to a higher standard. Evidently not.
Posted by: d at September 29, 2006 01:01 AMI have posted the link to the actual Detainee Bill.
Military Commissions Act of 2006--S.3930
Delete my Blog address if we are not allowed to post them, but it is where I have the links so here it is.
http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/
Cluephone cdullea, he doesn't need to be foreign to be declared an enemy compatant. The new legislation applies to US citizens as well. Any one of us could be rounded up KGB style and disappeared, for no reason other than El Presidente deems it so. I'm thinking it might be a good time to get out of the US. The coming collapse will be brutal. Some real estate in the balmy Yukon Territories sounds nice right now.
Posted by: Randy at September 29, 2006 01:08 AMthankfully there weren't any patriots like you at lexington and concord. oh....wait...there were, and they were all wearing nice red coats.
this is a very dark time in the history of this nation.
Actually, Jay K, my fellow North Carolinians were already kicking the crap out of Scottish Highlanders and declaring our independence from Britain months before the Continental Congress got around to the Declaration of Independence.
It never ceases to make me laugh when I hear liberals questioning the patriotism of conservatives, when all the while, Islamic despots around the world parrot your talking points and hope to meet with leading voices on your side:
He was more interested in listening to the child's story about the goat rather than worry about what was happening to the towers. So, we had three times the time necessary to accomplish the events. Osama bin Laden
Sound familiar? It should. Osama bin Laden lifted that from literally thousands of American liberals.
It is no accident that the President of Iran is so enamoured with your buddy Michael Moore that he wanted to meet with him.
Rhetoric from leading liberal voices such as John Kerry and Michael Moore are indisinguishable from the rhetoric issued by the leader of al Qaeda, and yet you somehow think you are the correct side of the debate.
No freakin' way.
osama hates our freedoms, so we'll get rid of them. he hated saddam, we got rid of him. he wanted us out of saudi. we acquiesced. he wanted 'the central front on terror' to be somewhere that he most certainly ain't. done and done. who's driving this hummer?
Posted by: benjoya at September 29, 2006 09:51 AMWhat? Did someone just say something?
Oh, nevermind...
Posted by: Bill Clinton at September 29, 2006 09:57 AMwow, i really stepped into that one. point is, it's hard to decide whether al qaeda or iran is the biggest beneficiary of invading iraq, pulling out of saudi, and eliminating pesky things like habeas corpus.
Posted by: benjoya at September 29, 2006 10:08 AMto be fair, i guess iran doesn't really care about our "re-thinking" our constitution, except insofar as we're moving closer toward their system of jurisprudence. that might make them mildly happy.
our cutting and running from saudi is probably a slight plus for iran, but a real feather in osama's turban.
iraq is a wash. both iran and al qaeda have gained so much from our involvement there.
Posted by: benjoya at September 29, 2006 10:13 AMNow we know for sure you right-wingnuts are the ignorant hillbilly cracker rednecks we always suspected.
You and Bush are traitors who have done nothing but damage our beloved nation. You are the ones who belong in Gitmo.
Posted by: tommo at September 29, 2006 10:20 AMcy...your so-called fellow n. carolinians must be rolling over in their graves, thinking that they gave life and limb for freedoms that you are all too willing to surrender at the slightest sign of danger. how do you sleep at night?
Posted by: jay k. at September 29, 2006 10:23 AMRhetoric from leading liberal voices such as John Kerry and Michael Moore are indisinguishable from the rhetoric issued . . .
Someone who has loudly crowed about teaching college-level composition courses should mind his grammar. "Rhetoric" is a singular noun.
More substantively, it accomplishes or proves nothing to point out that Osama Bin Laden ridiculed W. for continuing to "My Pet Goat" after Andrew Card informed him of the attacks on 9-11. However much that statement might "indistinguishable" from the rhetoric of Michael Moore, the key difference between Osama Bin Laden and Michael Moore is that Bin Laden wants Bush to continue with his mindless policies.
In the speech you cite, Bin Laden thanked Bush for making it so "easy for us to provoke and bait" him and his administration. "All that we have to do is to send two mujahedin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written 'al-Qaeda,' in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses . . ." In this video tape, released a few days before the 2004 elections, Bin Laden was positively gleeful at the possibility that George Bush's "war on terror" might continue.
Now that your Congress has formally accepted tyranny, I'm sure Bin Laden is delighted -- as eager as he was in 2004 to see what next these Americans are willing to surrender.
Posted by: d at September 29, 2006 11:59 AMCluephone cdullea, he doesn't need to be foreign to be declared an enemy compatant. The new legislation applies to US citizens as well. Any one of us could be rounded up KGB style and disappeared, for no reason other than El Presidente deems it so. I'm thinking it might be a good time to get out of the US. The coming collapse will be brutal. Some real estate in the balmy Yukon Territories sounds nice right now.Posted by Randy at September 29, 2006 01:08 AM
Randy and D - I just read S.3930 and have had a hard time seeing the actual part of that law that would allow any "one of us could be rounded up KGB style and disappeared, for no reason other than El Presidente deems it so."
Specifically, what part of S.3930 allows for that?
Posted by: SouthernRoots at September 29, 2006 01:55 PM (A) The term `unlawful enemy combatant' means--
`(i) … or
`(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the
enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006,
has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal,/b> established under the authority of the President or the secretary of Defense.
not an alien, not a non-citizen, a person. If bush (or president hillary) says you're a terrorist, then you're a terrorist. 800 years of jurisprudence down the drain. you must be so proud.
Posted by: benjoya at September 29, 2006 02:46 PMWhat is with your reading comprehension problem, that you can't even understand what you elect to quote?
The tribunals--not the President, be it Bush or the next one--makes the determination.
I'll say it again: Judges make the call. The President is not directly involved in making that determination in any way, shape, or form, any more than a President who appoints a Justice to a federal court or the Supreme Court acutally decides the cases before them.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at September 29, 2006 02:55 PMa "person," not an "alien." do i have to post it another three times before you understand?
Posted by: benjoya at September 29, 2006 03:11 PMor another competent tribunal, established under the authority of the President
again, if any ad hoc, divinely sanctioned star chamber wants to make you a terrorist, you're a terrorist. look for people to disappear at an increasing rate.
Posted by: benjoya at September 29, 2006 03:14 PMthe upside is, though, we can finally all disabuse ourselves of the notion that we are the "freest country on earth" and other adolescent chest-beating
Posted by: benjoya at September 29, 2006 03:19 PMWait, CY -- you mean unelected, unaccountable judges "make the call?" This is outrageous.
On a related note, do you ordinarily take this kind of pounding -- I was going to say "waterboarding," but until yesterday that sort of treatment would have violated the War Crimes Act of 1997 -- in your comments? Or is this just a temporary uptick brought on by the "Stupidest Blogger in America" award you received from Erik at Alterdestiny?
Posted by: d at September 29, 2006 04:56 PMbenjoya -
§ 948c. Persons subject to military commissions
Any alien unlawful enemy combatant engaged in hostilities or having supported hostilities against the United States is subject to trial by military commission as set forth in this chapter.
§ 948d. Jurisdiction of military commissions
(a) JURISDICTION.—A military commission under this chapter shall have jurisdiction to try any offense made punishable by this chapter, sections 904 and 906 of this title (articles 104 and 106 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice), or the law of war when committed by an alien unlawful enemy combatant before, on, or after September 11, 2001.
(b) LAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANTS.—Military commissions under this chapter shall not have jurisdiction over lawful enemy combatants. Lawful enemy combatants who violate the law of war are subject to chapter 47 of this title. Courts-martial established under that chapter shall have jurisdiction to try a lawful enemy combatant for any offense made punishable under this chapter.
Good point reminding readers that the Geneva Conventions and law/customs/usages of war do not equal U.S. criminal or civil law. So many seem incapable of grasping that point.
I've linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2006/10/re-torturing-truth.html
Posted by: Consul-At-Arms at October 1, 2006 03:16 PM
