Come on, David. I’m not using that as a justification of what’s going on and you know it. We’re supposed to be fighting ignorance here, not spreading it. I didn’t bring up the issue of legality and you can’t balme me for challenging it when someone else does. I’m not going to go thru again what I did on page 1 and 2 of this thread, but I put forth a clear argument, with cites, as to why it’s legal. I have yet to see a convincing argument that it isn’t. If you’d rather simply re-inforce just one side of the debate you’re posting in the wrong message board.
Except, you know, he’s NOT defending their right to do it (and never has…he has been opposed to Gitmo and the imprisonment the whole time). He’s simply pointing out that the folks who are attempting to say its illegal are, you know, wrong. This being GD and all he kind of has a point.
If you wish to debate with him on THAT, then simply point out what laws are being broken. Otherwise, stop trying to paint him with the immorality brush, or portray him as somehow supporting the administration simply because its not illegal. 'Cause, you know, he DOESN’T support them on this issue…nor do I for that matter.
That fighting ignorance thing DOES seem to be taking a rather long time at that…
-XT
Has there been a writ of habeas corpus issued by a court that the administration has refused to comply with? I’m not aware of any, but I’ll welcome being corrected if I’m wrong on that point.
I think you’re confusing the Adminisration’s use of legal stall tactics (scummy and reprehensible as they may be) with violations of the legal code of the US. If a lower court issues an order and the administration appeals that to a higher court, that’s not illegal. If it goes to the SCOTUS and is upheld, them the adminsitration is bound by that decision. So far, the SCOTUS has ruled (in Rasul v Bush) that US courts do in fact have jurisdiction over the territory of Guantanamo-- overruling Bush’s contention that they do not. But that’s as far as the process has gotten. There have been a few other rulings regarding the detention of US citizens (Padilla and Hamdi), but AFAIK, there haven’t been any further rulings wrt non-citizen enemy combatants being detained by the administration. The administration is going to appeal every lower court decsion up to the SCOTUS, and this process is going to drag on forever. That tactic can be described by many different adjectives (disgusting, slimy, even counter-productive in the WoT), but “illegal” is not one of them.
I say with all honesty that I welcome the correction of any errors I’ve made in that analysis.
n.b.: If you want to argue International Law, then I’ll bow out of that discussion. The US has violated IL so many times over the last few decades as to render such a judgement meaningless. There are simply no means of enforcing international law against the US, so it’s an empty phrase in that respect.
You’re right. They sound just like the United States of America.
I was similarly perplexed by this statement, at least until I thought about it for a while. Because eventually it dawned on me that this perspective — which I modestly propose be called the “Harris Doctrine” — can be retroactively employed to gain uniquely valuable insights into past events.
Take, for example, the famous photograph of the Vietnamese girl burned by napalm. Most people, I think we can agree, look at this picture and see a poor, innocent civilian fleeing from a horrifying bomb attack conducted by a United States ally.
But now, with the clarity of the Harris Doctrine to guide us, we see that such an overly simplistic interpretation leads to error. Indeed, what’s really happening here is that the young girl is the one who is attacking. She’s not running away from the napalm fire; she is deliberately running toward a news photographer, carrying with her the agony and terror she plans to use to assault American values and goodwill. She has no conventional weapons — hell, she doesn’t even have clothing — so she’s attacking us the only way she can, with her naked, smoking flesh.
And she succeeded: this shocking image became one of the rallying points of those opposed to the Vietnam action. Therefore, her attack led at least indirectly to the defeat and withdrawal of American forces, and the fall of the South Vietnamese government. She’s not the victim; we are.
So, obviously, the application of the Harris Doctrine can be used to clear away the mists of confusion, and to eliminate the difficult moral ambiguity we might experience when we hear about the prisoners’ suicides. I don’t know about you, but I feel a whole lot better about the War on Terra.
You are right, you don’t support the action. As to pointing out that what is being done hasn’t been ruled illegal, at least not yet, once is enough. If it doesn’t soak in the first time, it probably won’t the second and repetition of it over and over is easily interpreted as support whether or not it is…
Perhaps. Which is why I make a point to explicitly say that I don’t support the action in many of the posts where we’re discussing it’s legality. As far as I’m concerned, anyone feigning confusion on that issue can… well, this isn’t the Pit, so I won’t say it.
Cite? Or, better still, coherence? What has Khomeini to do with the PLO? Or with any bombings in France?
That’s not what I was referring too, I was referring how the French public conscious and the ‘Arab street’ conscious are closely parallel.
And…
I was saying that France’s support for Islamists and PLO types in the Middle East hadn’t provided them with any protection from their wrath.
I know what you were referring to. Here is what you said:
So France has shady dealings with tyrannical types who’ve been known to then turn around and bite the hand that feeds them. The United States is the absolute champion of that sort of behaviour. Have you ever heard of Osama bin Laden?
Perhaps it has not. Evidently, the United States’s support of the PLO and various Arab tyrannies has been about as ineffective. What’s your point? Shouldn’t this make Americans LIKE the French? They’re so similar!
Maybe it’s like how a Scorpio isn’t supposed to date a Scorpio, or an Aquarius an Aquarius, or whatever. That each is unable to acknowledge how the other offers a close reflection of his own flaws drives both of them crazy. 
The CIA did not fund Al Queda or OBL when it was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.
I’m talking about organisations, such as the PLO or Khomeini, not actual states but revolutionary terrorist organisations in which Governments like the French think they can bargain with, but then in turn get bombed by them.
??? I was talking about how the French support for the Arab street (The French are regarded higher than any other Western power to my knowledge in the Arab world) would give them a view that it was the US’s fault for 9/11.
I don´t recall any bombing in France by the PLO or Iran, I´m curious about what are you refering to.
You shouldn’t mix up all islamist movements. Each one has its own agenda. Bombings in France were done by Algerian islamists, due to french support to the Algerian government. A busload of french workers was bombed last year in Pakistan in all likehood because they worked for the Pakistan’s military. If France is to be bombed by islamists tomorrow, it probably won’t be by Palestinians. Most terrorist actions (like bombings in Bali or in Egypt, for instance) are done by homegrown movements and individuals who care primarily about the situation in their own country.
Besides, I’m not sure what kind of support you think Khomeiny got from France, apart from political asylium when in he was a mere political opponent to a tyranical regime.
In the case of Iran (though I doubt Ryan_Liam was thinking about this), the suicide-bombing that killed french soldiers in Lebanon (at the same time a similar attack was conducted against american troops) was organized by the Hezbollah, itself supported by Iran.
Anyway, Iran under Khomeyni never displayed any kind of goodwill towards france, at the contrary including it in its own version of the “axis of evil”. But then again, I’m not aware of France having been particularily friendly with Khomeyni’s regime, either.
There are conflicting reports about this, and the US denies it (of course). Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that ObL and the US were on the same side in Afghanistan in the '80s. It’s not inconceivable that some funds could have flowed from the US to him, even if in an indirect manner. Of more relevancy, though, is the US’s very direct support of suppressive, dictatorial regimes in the Middle East that created the climate for someone like ObL to emerge. And our close ally, Saudi Arabia, has been playing both sides of the radical Islamist game while we deliberately turned a blind eye.
France may have made its bargain with its own devils, but we’ve done the same, if not worse (simply be virtue of the larger scale on which we operate).
So what? Various Middle Eastern states funded the rag tag bunch of OBL types in Afghanistan or used their personal wealth/donations. They didn’t need US support nor was it in the US interest to support them.
Then cite it. But I don’t think they did.
Yep, but most of those regimes have been able to contain and even destroy those networks due to the highly centralised, clique society they have.
I agree but even they’re waking up to the same problem we’re having with fundamentalist Islamists.
But we didn’t ‘bargain’ with OBL when he was in Afghanistan, yet France did with Khomeini and then got retalitory strikes, even though he’d been given sanctuary in that country.
Since you’re so eager to have cites about US bargains, why don’t you give some cites yourself about french bargains?
As for the sanctuary, what exactly Khomeyni could be accused of when he came to France? To be the political opponent of a dictator?
Now, of course, Khomeyni wasn’t your run of the mill asylium seeker. He was a well-known figure in Iran, and if France chose to shelter him, it certainly wasn’t merely because he fitted the official criterias for political asylium. However, there has been for instance a constant (and of course unverifiable) rumor that the french government of the time offered to the Shah to organize his death, which would have been declined in order not to make him (already popular in Iran) a martyr.
So, the shaddy bargains France had re Khomeyni might not have been the ones you had in mind (apparently, you seem to suspect that France intended/helped Khomeyni to take over in Iran, or if it is something else you have in mind, tell me what). Besides, like other western powers, France had (most unfortunately) very good relationship with the (despicable) Shah’s regime. Nobody in the west was enthralled at the prospect of a theocratic and politically independant Iran.
Plus (since you also seem to suspect it was a way to buy an anti-terrorism insurance), you shouldn’t project current issues in the middle of the cold war. Muslim extremism wasn’t the major concern of the time.
What “support” is this, exactly? Cites, please.
Let’s see a cite for those assertions, plrease. Or is this more “I believe” and “I assume,” like the al-Jazeera thread?