It is my belief that she is charged with breaking U.S. sanctions with the “direct or indirect commercial, financial or trade transactions with Iraq” (as the letter from the U.S. Department of the Treasury had claimed). She isn’t an American company doing bussiness with the Iraqi government. If this law can be invoked to anyone who merly enters Iraq, then that is a vague law. A vague law with a $10,000 fine and a possible 12 years in jail.
That quote was from Rashak Mani not me.
Right, but that’s the thing. The point of the embargo is to hurt that innkeeper. It’s to hurt every single Iraqi, or Cuban, or whomever, by denying them US funds until their government changes its policies or is overthrown. An embargo like this isn’t directed against the government of the country. It’s directed against the people of the country.
I think embargoes are dumb, I think they’re pointless, and I think they’re cruel, but she did violate that law.
If you are making such a claim about her, I would have to ask a cite.
Well, it was mentioned a few posts up, but the [url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030811/ap_on_re_us/human_shield_fine_1]original article[/url says this:
Darnit, I meant to hit preview… Oh well, the link is above, and I quoted the relevant text 
By her own admission, she was at the refinery and planned to stay there. Her goal as a human shield was to stop US attacks at the refinery. Whether she fires a shot or not, she intends to aid the enemy.
The fuel from that refinery helps to run Saddam’s army, if she prevents an attack, that fuel will keep tanks, armored vehicles, etc. running and attacking our forces. If just one extra tanker truck gets out because we had to modify our attack plan that’s going to fuel somebody’s vehicle, and we’ll have a harder time with the war.
Because, following the example of our glorious and radiant leader (may he live forever and never suffer from erectile dysfunction), we have unilaterally decided that the only opinions on the planet that matter are those of Americans.
Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry.
My first though was that you were referring to either Cecil or Bob – but, given the last part of the sentence, I guess it’s your illustrious president after all.:smack:
One needs a declaration of war for there to be a charge of treason. What she was doing may have violated some law, but it was treason as set down in the Constitution. This is also why the “American Taliban” was not charged with treason.
UnuMondo
It is not vague. When you go to McDonald’s and purchase a Big Mac, that is a commercial transaction. If you buy a burger in Iraq, you are engaged in an indirect commercial transaction with that country (your direct transaction with the merchant indirectly funds the country through taxes).
There isn’t a distinction between a company and an individual. Nor can there be – otherwise (assuming for the moment that the goal of the policy is to stop transactions by business entities), companies would just engage in transactions using an individual as an intermediary.
The law is clear, and ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse. You can certainly suggest that it’s a silly law, or that the penalties are too steep – in which case, write your Congressman. But don’t make the absurd suggestion that this law is particularly vague.
I also note that Monty’s link is a recent State Department position on travel to Iraq that supercedes earlier pronouncements. It’s thus out of date. Does anyone know what the prewar travel bulletin stated?
Peaceful protest is NOT aiding the enemy.
Where the fuck is your precious American freedom of speech that you all bleat about at such impassioned length?
Peaceful protest is also NOT standing in front of a strategic military target daring your own soldiers to shoot through you to destroy it.
I would just like someone to explain why this woman. who knowingly broke the law, shouldn’t be punnished according to the law?
I don’t think you get it. This is GD, not IMHO. The proper procedure is to indicate a statement of mine that you believe is in error, and present an argument as to why that is the case, not simply follow an insult with a random statement of opinion, followed in turn by paranoid left wing rantings.
I think that I can help here. The issue here, as far as I can see, is not an issue of law so much as it is an issue of morality (I will assume that I don’t need to go in to how the two, while having many areas that overlap, are different).
Basically, there are a couple of things at play here. First is that this sort of action seems a little like gloating on the behalf of the government. They got what they wanted (a war not supported by the international community, not supported by a sizable minority in the USA and one that increasingly seems like (at best) was gotten in to based on bad information or (at worst) was gotten in to based on lies). There really is no need to grind it in the face of the people that did and continue to protest the war.
Given that the folks that do not favor this current administration (and let us never forget that either slightly over or under half of us did not vote for Bush) tend to look at the motives involved with some suspicion, it is hard to not see actions like this as a way of stifling descent. When they decide to take action like this, it smells like a warning for those of us who would petition the government for redress of our grievances and failing that engage in civil disobedience.
And please understand that I am not saying that it is not lawful for the government to take this action, but I can see how it could be viewed as immoral.
I didn’t vote for Bush and didn’t support the action in Iraq.
But if someone knowingly broke the law, they have to expect to be penalized under the law.
To break a rule, then whine and complain about the consequences which you knew about before you broke the rule, seems very childish.
Gandhi, the patron saint of such resistance, never shirked from going to jail when he broke an unjust law. “Gandhi steadfastly avoided violence toward his opponents. He did not avoid violence toward himself or his followers.”
This lady is doing the opposite. I want to be able to break the law in protest, but I don’t want any thing bad to happen to me as a result.
Huh, I am not reading the linked article from the OP that way. This quote:
seems to say that she refuses to pay, and if they want to throw her in jail to go ahead (although I will admit that I could be reading it wrong as I find it a little hard to parse).
In any event, assuming that my interpretation is correct, she does seem to be willing to accept the consequences for her action.
She was there to protect a refinery - perhaps she was secretly a member of the Bush camp, and they needed an excuse NOT to attack the refinery.
“Oh! There are Human Shields! Better go blow up a water works instead of this oil refinery, the money from which will help rebuild the water works!”
(Tongue - kind of - in cheek)
Binarydrone
If that is indeed the case I have a lot more respect for this lady.
So, what is everyone bitching about, then? She is willing to be responsible for her actions, but people think she shouldn’t be?
Peaceful protest is one thing, but giving aid and comfort to the enemy is another. If the human shields had protested here in the US, the law couldn’t touch them. But acting against US forces in the field is treason, no matter how fucked up the war turned out to be.