And so goes the logic of our resident self appointed expert on what constitutes an American. Assumption of innocence of the accused before a fucking “quick trial” is one of the motherfucking cornerstones of the country you claim to be so “pro” for. How nice that you can so easily dispense with the whole burden of proof thing and just assume that they are “criminals or enemy agents”.
That’s the type of crap that I would expect from Ann Coulter. Keep it up. Every statement like that pushes another centrist into the “anything but the GOP” camp.
It’s annoying to be criticized for a quote taken out of context. especially when the critic agrees with original statement. At least, I assume you do agree about the relative magnitude of having a few trials delayed vs. routinely torturing, maiming and murdering thousands of men, women and children, year after year.
BTW, what is the normal practice regarding POWs under age 18? If they’re old enough to kill American soldiers, the reason for detaining them is the same as for adult POW’s – to prevent them from continuing to kill our soliders. Your cite says the juvenile enemy combatants are being well cared for and are kept in facilities separate to adult prisoners. What else would you like to see done with them?
Binarydrone, you seem to assume that anything short of absolute perfection is a “slippery slope” toward being the “bad guys.” But, no legal system will ever achieve perfection.
clayton_e, I haven’t seen pundits or posts saying, “Don’t like it? Get out!” Do you have some cites? Or, is this comment hypothetical?
Coldfire, let me guess that your image of the United States derives from reading lefting periodicals. It is true that there is considerable opposition to the Patriot Act, particularly among those on the left and right who are civil liberties buffs. But, there’s no widespread feeling among Americans that we are losing vital freedoms or are in any way comparable to Iraq under the Ba’ath Party. Only a few fringe folks here claim to see any substantial curtailing of the liberties of our own citizens.
december,
I can neither agree nor disagree with the realtionship between delayed trials of “enemy combatants” and the internal workings of the former Iraqi justice system. If you can provide me with some information that links them, such as the money simply not being there to pay for speedy trials because of the war effort, I will submit an opinion,
I am sorry that you feel I took your quote out of context. I only quoted as much as was necessary to provide context to my issue with your statement. You made a statement about giving “criminals or enemy agents” a speedy trial. Obviously, it is unnecessary to give such a trial if it has been determined through some extrasensory insight granted apparently only to those of the neocon persuation that said individuals are already friggin “criminals or enemy agents”. An American approach to the issue is to provide speedy trials to those currently innocent individuals accused of crimes or being an enemy for an agent. Please inform me of what context I missed by not clipping the entire quote.
If you are fine with the weakening of the moral standing of this great nation to the point where we can only say “well we won’t summarily execute you (shredder or no shredder), but we will just imprison you with no charges, no trial, and no legal rights indefinitely”, then I cannot help you. If we are to be the beacon of freedom we seem to think we are, we cannot tolerate such abuses of human rights and must loudly and clearly excoriate those who would order such atrocities in the name of our nation. “Were not as bad as the other guy” does not make for a good image for a “liberating” army.
As far as the question of treatment of minors goes, after a quick googling, the best I could find was this. Section 6.4 says the 1994 Inter-American Convention on International Traffic in Minors
I am no lawyer, and of course this law was meant for more traditional criminal enterprises, but I would think that if the removal of these “enemy combatants” was ruled illegal (under what law the legality is determined I am unsure), then we could be in shit city. Legal quesitons aside, december, do you honestly think that these minors are such a threat to the security of our forces in Afghanistan that they must be ripped from their families? C’mon. Take off the neocon-colored glasses for a second and look at what you are possibly agreeing to.
I never suggested your loss of civil liberties is comparable to that of the suffrages of the Iraqi citizens under the Ba’ath regime, so stop putting words in my mouth. I said it is ironic to claim you’re liberating a people to give them their liberties back (even though that’s only a minor reason to attack their country at best), whilst at the same time curtailing the liberties of your own citizens. Anyone who doesn’t see that irony is either stupid, or too blinded by party propaganda to form an informed opinion. I’m still deciding which side you fall on. Maybe both.
For your information, I do not form my opinion based on the reading of “lefting periodicals” (I’m assuming this means newspapers and magazines with a political slant that leans to the left) alone. The mere fact that, unlike in your case, the Why Israel Can’t Do Wrong newspaper and GOP Masturbation Material Weekly don’t find their way to my mailbox doesn’t mean that I don’t have access to impartial information. I form my opinion based on a variety of sources, both European and American, both left of, right of, and on the center of the political spectrum. I weed out the bullshit spouted by both sides, and tend to go on facts rather than editorials.
>> Only a few fringe folks here claim to see any substantial curtailing of the liberties of our own citizens.
Try telling Mike Hawash: http://www.freemikehawash.org/
Note that the web site is done by his boss Steven McGeady at Intel. That this guy who is no risk of flight is being imprisoned incomunicado is clearly an abuse of the legal system and Intel’s management think so too. But of course, anyone who doesn’t blindly follow the Leader is a fringe anti-American who may be a terrorist sympathiser if not a dangerous child molester.
More specifically, anything that prints material the Wall Street Journal editorial page wouldn’t. That’s who does the bulk of his thinking for him, apparently.
I like this gem:
That sentence could not have been written by a thinking person.
Why, the other day I even saw an article in the New York Times that had something critical to say about Saddam!
Obviously they’re a bunch of koala-felching rightingers!!!**
Some Americans just have this fetish about patriotism. They get carried away and display flags, root for the Olympic team, drive Chevys etc.**
Especially Libya and North Korea. **
Misuse of imaginary verbs will proliferate wildly.**
I’m ashamed to say that I supported the Nazis when they were last in power in the United States. I fell for that promise about getting Amtrak to be profitable and run the trains on time.**
Jackmannii
This thread was supposed to be a parody of the linked GD thread!
The last paragraph under “Moral” was my non-satirical view of the GD thread.
Well, since this thread, I attempted one more parody recently which too was misconstrued. Given these two failed attempts, I am thinking of undergoing a re-calibration program
