Iran was pretty repressive already, and became more so throughout the 1990s. Whatever elections were held there did not change the power of the mullahs, which hold ultimate control, as you do know.
Elections alone do not determine whether a country has democracy or representative government, and Iran has neither.
As for their economy, it isn’t doing so hot, owing to decades of socialist mismanagement, the demands of their population, and the diminishing of their oil revenues.
A year ago, I would have agreed with the first sentence. But all the polling I’ve seen recently has terrorism way down on the people’s concerns. Your charge that the Democrats ignore national security issues is without merit. I believe that all the remaining three Democratic candidates are well versed in security matters and would handle the problem infinitely better than Bush.
This is baffling. It’s not a crime to attack America or Americans? Says who? And we have to hold them because they’re not guilty of anything?
If they have committed no crimes, how would murdering them be justified?
What is so difficult? Try them and convict them, or free them. What we don’t have is the right to hold anyone indefinitely without charges being brought.
None of whom differ from Bush in any substantial way on foreign policy and have, in fact, been just as frat-boy belligerent about it in debates and interviews as Bush has been in the actual job*. McCain has Nutso Norman Podhoretz (Nuke Iran!) advising him on foreign policy, f’r godsake!
*with the notable but meaningless exception of Ron Paul.
Running against a guy not running is a tried and true technique. Republicans ran against Carter in 1976, 1980, 1984, and 1988.
The Republican candidates are much in agreement with continuing the failed Bush policies. The Democratic candidtates are much in agreement with setting a new course. A Clinton-McCain debate on security issues wouldn’t be a lot different than Obama-Romney or Edwards-Guiliani.
John Edwards sued on behalf of common people who were being wronged by the system. That’s why Republicans hate trial lawyers- they fight for the people and not the corporations.
I was under the impression that you were asking for our opinions for greater understanding, not intending to bicker and argue as we always do.
Regardless.
Regardless of what you think of Bush, how can yiou even come close to saying that Obama, Edwards, and Clinton are in any way shape or form “well versed in security matters”? Again, completely leaving anything political out of it. None of them have anything to do with any security matter, although Obama has some vague experience as a junior Senator on the Sentae Foreign relations committee. Clinton, though, has nothing much, except that she was First Lady. I really don’t count that as a qualification. Yes, I’ve seen her argument. I don’t believe it for a second.
Well, no, it’s not. People in a foreign country are not breaking any laws by killing Americans except in their local jurisdiction. In Afganistan, that WAS the Taliban we were fighting. In Iraq, .
It has nothing to do with criminality, except in the vague “war crimes” theory. But as a rpactical matter, the purpose of a uniform is to provide immediate recognition of what is a target and what is not. Not wearing one is potential grounds for execution. It doesn’t have to be fancy: a disinctive scarf or something will do. And it can be camoflauge, even. People who do not wear them but take part in hotile operations can be immediately executed as spies, and that applies to Americans as well.
This was adopted by all militiaries in the world for two reasons: unit cohesion, and to prevent unneccessary civilian casualties. It was formally adopted via the Geneva Convention, but applied to warfare between Europeans powers long before that.
With what laws? With whatever arbritrary rules we make up? These people have committed no crime. There is no law against what they did, and in Iraq, they have good (legal if not moral or practical) grounds for saying that the government is illegitimate. Charging them and trying with anything would be a sham; holding them is honest.
You may not like Bush, but everything he has done in regards to Afganistan and Iraq has been consistent with normal practices among nations, and he has gone much farther than he had to, such as with the farcical U.N. hocky.
So you wish to release them. So, in the future, can a terrorist simply shoot a U.S. soldier overseas, immediately surrender, and then be released?
If terrorism is as important today as you say, I’d think that Rudy (9/11) Giuliani would have made it out of singe digits. Do you really think the average American is more scared of being blown up by a terrorist than losing his or her job?
I wonder how you feel about the cost of the Iraq war. Sure, it feels great to get the last laugh… if it cost you perhaps $30. Would you still be laughing if you are asked to pony up $15,000 or $30,000? Please feel free to multiply that amount by the number of family members and dependents you support.
Now that you have that number, how do you feel about achieving the same result for a thousand times less money? I’d feel cheated, scammed, and ripped-off by the person who wasted 500x or 1000x of my money.
How are these two statements compatible? How are soldiers supposed to tell if random person in civilian clothing is an enemy or not? If soldiers are allowed to immediately execute individuals for simply not looking like the opposing side I’m confused as to how this helps to reduce civilian casualties.
*Edit: Sorry for the hijack, Controvert. I just really wanted to know how this reasoning works…
It’s that kind of thinking that put the Democrats at a severe disadvantage in seeking the White House in the first place, for years.
You’re a big party. You have more than one expert. It ought to be in your power to have policies for numerous things.
The notion that you can get “blindsided” by something like antiterrorism policy is just nuts. You may have had that excuse once - you don’t have it anymore. You’ve had years to study for that test.
We have the Bush anti-terrorism policy, which seems to be ignoring the terrorist mastermind and invading a country having nothing to do with terrorism. We have the Giuliani anti-terrorism policy, which seems to be saying 9/11 at every opportunity and proposing that being mayor of a city attacked is foreign policy experience. I think Romney’s is making Gitmo bigger. And Huckabee’s pursuing bin Laden to the gates of hell isn’t exactly a policy.
I’d have to check, but I’m sure that all the Dems have a policy - but since it’s not a big differentiator and because it is low on the importance list, it is not getting a lot of play.
If there was an attack, would it make everyone scared and vote Republican, or would it indicate that the Republican anti-terrorism policy didn’t work? That I don’t know.
I think some Republicans are fantasizing about going back to the good old days of late 2001, when everyone cared and they had a big edge. Wishful thinking.
So what you’re saying is that the US has no jurisdiction to judge illegal combatants fighting US soldiers abroad in violation of the laws of war. I find this hard to believe, after all, I think many countries have passed laws authorizing them to judge such crimes, even when they happen outside their borders (sorry, I know there is a name for this kind of law, but I can’t think of it now). Still, I don’t doubt you, but I’d like to see a cite, and I’d like to know if you think it would be feasible for the US to eventually judge such combatants.
Never gonna happen. Never coulda happened. Oh, I’ll grant that if we had magic advanced management and
Pretty simple, actually. They have a gun and are shooting at? Spies. Demolishing bridges? Spies. Ok, it’s not really that simple and whole volumes of theory and rpactice could be written. And the U.S.'s policy isn’t to kill these people.
But the purpose is to horribly punish anyone who tries to cheat the system. The thinking is (and ti worked in the fundamentally self-interested European context) that if your soldiers will be murdered for trying to rely on the opponent’s sense of mercy and justice, well, they won’t. And you’ll have no reason to because it would make the war messier and less predictable. And when it comes down to it, decent people don’t particularly mind.
We were hit by Al-Quaeda, it’s true. But we’re also going after the financing and organizing of global terror - and it is a global issue, with radical muslim attacks from Africa to Singapore. We started with Afganistan, and as a practical matter we can’t go into Pakistan and will have to deal with it. Iraq, however, was a huge financier and supplier of terrorism ( a biz they msotly got into after Desert Storm), and one step toward shutting down global terror and starting some progress toward softening the eternal crisis in the MidEast. And it has worked, by-the-by. Democracy movements haven’t simply taken over, of course, but the issue has gotten stronger in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and even the West Bank.
And here we get into the real issue. AFAIK, no, it’s not a crime in the U.S. And while it may be unpleasant to keep people in prison, I cannot and can never condone dishonesty, especially in government. Our government has no moral, legal, or ethical right to what people do in other countries. We may execute them if we must, we may imprison them if we must, under the claim that it is a neccessity and not something we enjoy, but to claim we have a right to do so is wickedness itself. It amounts to a claim we have the right to apply our laws to anyone we want. Heck, under your idea, we could apply a tax to everyone in the world and imprison them for not paying! Better to admite we don’t have a good legal justification (because these people have deliberately avoided either the shield or pressure of any laws anywhere) and do what we must solely because we have been forced to do so.
Moreover, there’s an issue with evidence. Soldiers in the field can’t be called back on a whim for testimony, (the Pentagon brass certainly aren’t going to go for that) and they are fundamentally soldiers, not police officers. Things like “Chain of Custody” and jurisdiction are going to kill any such case, or drag it out for years at best. And at the end of the day, what will it prove?
Aside from which, what about crimes committed in the past? Usama ibn Laden’s crimes are in the past. Look up Ex Post facto and then read the Billl of Rights.