rayban1 wrote:Dlowan
As I suspected you threw a load of platitudinous rhetoric at the wall, hoping I would swallow some of it...........not a chance. Below you will find the legal discourse with justification for the President's decision to proceed on the path that he is following by using the term "enemy combatant" for those captured or detained in our war against the Islamist Fascists who want to take us all back to the sixth century.
This is the source and below is an excerpt which puts it all into perspective:
http://www.fed-soc.org/Laws%20of%20war/enemycomb.pdf
< It is well settled, in both international and U.S. domestic law, that individuals captured in war may be detained during the conflict and they are not entitled to all of the elaborate due process rights guaranteed to criminal defendants. (These include the right to retain and consult with counsel) The enemy combatants detained in the war against terror, like other prisoners taken in war before them, have not been subjected to a criminal justice process. Their confinement is not for purposes of punishment or deterrence. Rather it is to ensure that they do not return to the fight against the United States. If criminal charges are actually brought against any of the detainees, they will be entitled to counsel, and all of the process that is due, at that time.>
This then is the basis for the decision and I would have chosen the same course of action even knowing that my critics in the press would probably try to turn it into a debate with never ending intellectual ramifications which is exactly what you and all the sob sisters on this forum want to do.
The requirement to gain information from those captured to assist the president in his responsiblity to protect the American people plus the absolute neccesity to prevent any of those captured from returning to combat were ample justification for this decision and this was confirmed by the Presidents legal advisors as is evident in the source document.
Your assertion that the US military should be taking action to punish those guilty of abuse of the established guidelines is a valid point but you fail to recognize that they (the US military) are doing exactly that by conducting investigations in every reported abuse..........You and the world wide media just don't accept the evidence so I recommend you take off your blinders.
Furthermore, your platitudes regarding healthy debate are absolutely meaningless this far into the game.........debate causes divisiveness which is exactly what the our enemies are hoping for as in the case of the lost war against the communists in North Vietnam. Walter Cronkite sealed the loss in his Feb 1968 broadcast (after a few days in Vietnam) in which he concluded that the US was "Mired in Stalemate" and that the war was "unwinable". I hope never again to see the power that he wielded during that evening broadcast. Endless debates by intellectuals have never yielded anything but divisiveness but that is the price we pay for living in freedom and that is the foundation for my rage that you commented about. The destructiveness of endless "debate" creates a sense of frustration which results in a feeling of rage against those who are so blinded by an ideology that says "ALL WAR IS BAD" and if only we stick our heads in the sand and debate it, it will just go away.
If you want to help the enemy.........then continue on with your drivel about debate and endless misguided criticism of our military which you swallow from the New York Times or any other overly critical news source such as Al Jazeera.
So - your position is that all countries - except the US - should continue to observe normal human rights during wartime? Your country has been very happy to condemn abuses by other countries and to prosecute them where possible.
I am amused at your extracting - presumably from your nether orifice - the nonsensical fiction that I think all war is bad. I suggest you stop fantasising and attend to what people actually say.
As for your "help the enemy"line - I am not surprised to note that you consider public discussion dangerous - such as that normally encouraged in democracies - since you appear incapable of conducting it in any manner approaching civility. I find the notion that all questioning of government and military conduct and decision making should cease during war both stupid, and dangerous.
If you note with approval that your country is attempting to punish some of the abuses, why do you become hysterical with rage when those abuses are discussed?
Please - do not bother to answer.
From here you will find some reasoned, and apart from one poster, civil debate about the opinions re the status and rights of these prisoners, but of course, such debate is currently evil, no?
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1411073#1411073
As a matter of interest, when would you consider the US's at warness to have stopped, and normal democratic rights to debate to begin again, in your ideal world?
Given that the US is at "war" with international terrorism - a cloudy entity - what are your criteria for when that war is over? This is quite an important question when you are saying that debate should be stilled for the duration.
Or - are you being more sensible and speaking of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Didn't Bush declare Iraq won? Do you mean when the last American troop leaves? I wonder how long that will be? When the insurgency ends? That could be many decades - many countries deal with insurgency and guerillas for decades.
Afghanistan? When will that be "won"?
It is easy to defeat third world countries and win a war - but harder to defeat insurgencies. Afghanistan, especially, is a known grave yard for super powers.
I wonder how long you are recommending that debate be silenced?
Good day - I hope you find some nice kneecaps to shoot.
well some of that stuff did happen while i was working as a contracted counselor at a optimist boy's detention highschool (they had to live in onsite dorms by court order ), but even worse, i lived in hollywood and even, even, even worse i wound up managing a recording studio that was favored by the hardcore gangster rappers in the mid '90s. you wouldn't believe the hardware those guys keep in the trunk. don't know about now, but back then they had the lapd totally outgunned. not long after i finally quit, a guy got ticked off, came back with some friends and blew 2 guys away. real sociopaths. 