Here's the thing, the thing is right there in the headline of the post:

Hitchens on Terrorist-Coddlers

The thing is, the thing that gets my paranoia up, that prompts AI to make attention getting analogies to the Gulag Archipelago is that we don't actually know that each person in Gitmo or Abu Ghraib or any of the unremarked holding facilities is a terrorist, or an enemy combatant, or a dumb-fuck unlucky son of a bitch. Really the thing is that Rumsfeld and Ace don't give a fuck, these guys are in Gitmo so they must be terrorist and anyone who wants to quibble on this must be a terrorist coddler who hates America. Presumption of innocence and due process are for traitors.

That's the thing.

Here's my thing.

Once you resort to bullshit analogies to make your point, I start to think you're full of bullshit.

No, presumption of innocence and due process are for defendants in criminal prosecutions, not unlawful combatants captured on a battlefield. There is a long and clear historical distinction between the two, and only someone who is inclined towards the suicide of the West insists that unlawful combatants be treated like civilian criminals.

How very 9/10 of you.

Not just "civilian criminals", Nick, but "civilian criminals" with the Constitutional protections of American Citizens. Giving these bastards the protections of the Geneva Conventions is kind enough; and I might add, not necessary under the Geneva Convention either. My fellow "lefties" don't like me very much when it comes to military matters or the 2nd Amendment, as you can guess.

Worse, granting full Geneva protections to persons who by the very definitions of the Geneva convention are not prisoners of war is damaging, as it implicitly blurs the line between lawful and unlawful combatants.

The VERY PURPOSE of the Geneva conventions is to require combantants to avoid those actions that place civilians (i.e. non-combatants) at risk. Refusing to uphold the distinctions between lawful and unlawful combatants only puts non-combatants at needless risk.

Well it's all well and good to say that these are all unlawful combatants, but that in itself is different than terrorist. Further, in the context of a "War on Terror" one has to ask how does one ever get released once one has been labeled an unlawful enemy combatant? Yet further, the administration has already attempted to embrace and extend this classification to actual citizens in the form of Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi.

Then, finally, the thing is that anyone who asks these questions; anyone who wonders if all of these people scooped up and detained indefinitely are all actually terrorists, well such a person must be a terrorist coddling America hating traitor. It is easy to see the path from there to internal internment for aiding and abetting unlawful enemy combatants for such questions.

I simply read too much human history to believe that this is not entirely possible in our country. And I've seen this administration and some of its supporters lie, bluster and manipulate too many times to not believe that many within that group would not be happy to detain liberals to get the rest of us to roll-over and play dead. To quote a t-shirt, "Imaging no Liberals".

So really the thing is not that I particularly give a rat's ass about the dumb-fuck unlucky Afghani who is wondering why he has been in Gitmo for three years. But I do care about what might happen to me and my friends if we let that dumb-fuck get fucked over. That's really the thing, I don't want to see the inside of a Gitmo because I wonder if justice is being done to others.

Loose shit:
- Anonymous post above is me.
- The t-shirt said "Imagine no Liberals", not "Imaging no Liberals".

1. Clearly, a policy of evaluating and dealing with the unlawful combatants is proper. However, one cannot apply concepts and presumptions from civilian criminal courts to a totally different context without doing a great deal of violence to the proper meaning and assumption of those concepts and presumptions.

2. The second and third paragraphs of this unnamed poster lead me to suspect that Andrew Sullivan is posting here.

The detainees have been thoroughly screened, and some of them have been released and returned to where they came from by our torturing murderous Bushco Regime.

The remainder, about 550 men, are believed to be, for more than a few reasons (THEY claim), the hard core terrorists we are after.
Some of them were captured on the field in Afghanistan, some of them are Al-Quaeda members captured on an ongoing basis. One of them is believed to be the 20th hijacker.

The amount that we do know about the conditions in Gitmo satisfies me. The very fact that some have been released to their homes should tell you that we are not interested in imprisoning innocent people for no fucking reason.

What do you think should happen in Gitmo, VonK? Should we let the people all just go home?

Give them trials? Allow them to call witnesses from their home countries to vouch for their character? What kind of a court do you envision? A jury of their peers? That would be novel, sending jury duty notices to Saudi Arabia. Or no, an American jury? No? A judge? What judge, from what court? Who would choose that person?

Its ridiculous. American jurisprudence is not intended for this use.

> It is easy to see the path from there to internal internment for aiding and abetting unlawful enemy combatants for such questions.

Yes... I see the path now... thank you.

a covert sympathy with the aims and objectives of jihad and an overt, if witless and sinister, hatred of the United States.

And our own Liberals have done more than anyone else on earth to foster this hatred, poisoning our image through a constant repitition of their idiotic bullshit year after year, after year ... It makes me purple with rage!

When the MSM and AI speak of torture, they ought to compare our methods with those of some real torturers, take for example Pol Pot. Out of 15,000 people tortured by the Khymer Rouge only six survived! Those guys knew how to torture!

This is what happens when people like Fonda don't get prosecuted for treason. If there are no consequences it then becomes OK. And you see the rise of the moonbats in the Democratic party.

Oand lets be absolutely clear, if the positions were reversed the only thing the Islamofasicts would debate would be hacksaw or serated knife.

Liberals are fellow Americans.

Any recent and past criticism of the President's initiation of this war, when Syria, northern Pakistan and Iran were more likely pulse points of terrorism tied specifically to 9/11, is freedom of speech and conscience.

It is unAmerican to take a contrarian vp everytime. It's like some sort of mental brain block. And I see it with Ann Coulter, Malkin, Limbaugh, Hannity and the likes of Eleanor Clift and Maureen Dowd.

I understand why some conservative feel liberals are unAmerican. I've watched Fox news and heard Rush Limbaugh. I hope you realize that Liberals are constantly blugeoned with hate speech from some on the right. Don't forget there are some liberals who are patriotic, like myself, who simply disagree with much of what's going on.

VonK:

I hear what you're saying and I understand where you're coming from but I don't agree. At least mostly. I don't want to see innocent people in a situation like the people at Gitmo either. But, for now, at least until I have proof that there are some kind of atrocities going on there, I am willing to give our government the benefit of the doubt. For one thing, I am satisfied that they are not just grabbing anybody off the street [like you and me] and throwing them in there. And, as far as I can tell, Gitmo is no picnic; but they are really being as decently treated as circumstances permit.

That being said, the way that the US is treating those prisoners is actually a model of how it should be done, notwithstanding the whining of some people. They could just take 'em and shoot 'em, which we are fully entitled to do because they were captured fighting us in a war while out of uniform. We just wouldn't want to do things like that not only because are we really ARE the "good guys," but also because other potential prisoners that we could get information from would be less likely to surrender when in a tight spot.

That right there is the biggest reason why anti-war people should slurp down a big frothy mug of shut the fuck up about the way our prisoners are being treated. We WANT the enemy to think that they will be decently treated, whether we really do that or not. We WANT them to want to give up more easily. We DO want to WIN this thing, RIGHT?

Get all wigged out all you want about people getting labeled as a "terrorist coddlers" when they bad-mouth the US and her treatment of prisoners, but that's just the way it is. We're in a war and if we want to really win it, we should have some common sense about how we choose to use our freedoms of speech and press. We should treasure them, and guard them jealously, but there's no need to use our freedoms as an excuse to do something stupid that encourages our nation's enemies.

I'm NOT saying we should cover bad things up and make them go away. I'm just saying we shouldn't make things that aren't really that bad appear worse than they really are, because it aids and encourages our enemies. That's just not very smart.

I hope you realize that Liberals are constantly blugeoned with hate speech from some on the right.

That's because we hate you so much for fucking up our country in so many ways asshole!

Fuck you too fuckface. You've screwed up my airways with a constant hatefest on Fox news. Fuck off.

Another nice quote from Hitch:

"I should very much like to know how a Gore administration would have dealt with the hundreds of foreign sadists taken in arms in Afghanistan."

Interesting. Would he issue each of them American lawyers, and assume they were innocent, as if they were rounded up in a mall parking lot instead of in the field, trying to kill Americans?

I think not. Like him or not, Gore's approach would likely be identical, because it is virtually the only humane thing that can be done with these people.

I hate to miss the upcoming flame war with SFS, but it's quitting time. Have fun.

Somehow I just get the feeling that Gore would launch a few cruise missles and declare victory. I don't see him as having the stomache for the hard slog. Hopefully I'd be wrong, but...

hate speech from some on the right.

"Hate speech," what the fuck does that mean? Liberals trot out that phrase to accuse anyone who disgrees with them of being "hateful" when they can't defend themselves in an argument, like this asshole. They are trying to equate "hateful speech" with speech that calls for violence, no matter how untrue it is. What a sleazy, shitty, low down DMC lawyer trick! So fucking what if I say I hate your guts you ignorant, pussy, motherfucker? It should send shivers up the spine of all Liberals that such a truly dangerous idea has gained credibility. Exactly who shall judge what speech is and what it is not? Liberals used to say: I disagree with everything you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it. The reason why mucn pornography was unleashed in Flynt v. Falwell was to defend the right of unpopular speech to be heard. Liberals now want to take that back by passing laws forbidding speech that they don't want to hear. And you can't figure out why we hate you so much?

"It is unAmerican to take a contrarian vp everytime." I agree. We see this knee-jerk reaction coming to the left on everything military or Republican. I see it from Democrats on a mass basis. They oppose Gitmo not because it is a problem, but because they want it to be a problem and they oppose it from a knee-jerk reaction. They have yet to put a single valid argument against it. They're big on unsupported opinion (prove that Gitmo creates terrorists without media bashing and leftist bashing alone on its own) and have absolutely no answers. They accuse American GIs of heinous acts with no valid proof other than a terrorist follows the AQ training manual and makes false claims.

You'll notice that when the left hands out the benefit of doubt they give it freely to America's enemies but totally withhold it from America's GIs. They claim credit for uncovering Abu Ghraib months after the military started their own investigation and issued a press release about it.

Anything supported by the majority of GIs they knee-jerk against. If Bush supports it their against it. If Republicans are for it they're suddenly against it, even if they supported it in the past (such as Social Security reform or winning in Iraq). The GIs and Bush are pro-success in Iraq, and major Democrat Kucinich now wants us to cut and run and abandon Iraq to the terrorists.

"Any recent and past criticism of the President's initiation of this war, when Syria, northern Pakistan and Iran were more likely pulse points of terrorism tied specifically to 9/11, is freedom of speech and conscience."
Any time anyone left or right advocates handing victory over to America's enemies then it IS treasonous, and is anti-American, and IS evil. It is worse when they actively support victory for America's allies and those who you champion in that sentence have been far more guilty of this than the right wing nut-jobs.

"I understand why some conservative feel liberals are unAmerican. I've watched Fox news and heard Rush Limbaugh. I hope you realize that Liberals are constantly blugeoned with hate speech from some on the right." Hardly bludgeoned since the overwhelming majority of outlets are left-leaning, Fox News hating, and reach a larger audience than moderate and conservative, and right-wing radio and Fox. ABC, CBS, ABC, CNN, NY Times, LA Times, Seattle PI, Oregonian, etc far outweigh the moderate to conservative voices out there.

" Don't forget there are some liberals who are patriotic, like myself, who simply disagree with much of what's going on."
I won't forget that. I was a Democrat through much of my enlistment, supported most gay issues and am still very liberal. I was driven from the party by Clinton, the party, and liberals who were anti-military, and who tolerated (and sometimes supported) anti-Americanism and anti-American groups (such as ANSWER and the CPUSA). I know there are liberals out there who, if they were running the show, would kick out anti-Americans (and people who advocate troops killing their officers and support people who kill Americans) from anti-war demonstrations. I know there are liberals who would kick those people out of their anti-Bush demonstrations (yes I believe it is possible to be anti-Bush without being anti-American, but in practice it is rarely ever seen beyond lip service to the theory).

Problem is those liberals aren't in charge, they have no power and they refuse to stand up to those in charge and to those who poison their cause. I assert that because I have yet to see a liberal lambaste an anti-American at a rally and try to have them removed, and because of the response from the anti-war crowd towards the pro-America crowd.

Kalroy

Hell, we're descending into the vagueries of definitions now, so we may as well reach the "Abortion Compromise" as I call it (sarcasm alert):

Torture should be Legal, Safe, and Rare. Late-term torture should only be used when the Mother Country's life is in danger.

Hey, if it's a policy that's good enough for unborn children, it's good enough for non-uniformed enemy combatants who kill born children and other civilians by their silence.

Laura - I think that they should be tried.

To quote the SC's WWII ex parte Quirin judgement:
Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful.

Or to quote those quaint Geneva Conventions:

Article 5:
...Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.

So, we invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 and started moving those captured to detention facilities, eventually concentrating at Gitmo. They sat there for three years before they received any fucking due process, and review of their status until June of 2004 the SC ordered such reviews to occur. Prior to this judgment the Bush administration had argued that they could hold these supposed unlawful combatants indefinietly with no recourse. As a result of the court mandated reviews at least two detainees were freed, in addition to the ~200 others that we let go due to other mechanisms.

Meanwhile the ~500 people still detained received their military tribunal trials very very slowly. Such tribunals did not even get started until August of 2004. As of March 2005, more than three years after most of them were detained, the tribunal process was finished and 38 further detainees were freed.

But what about these tribunals? Well, they hardly seem to be a process designed to ensure justice, but more like the old Tudor Star Chamber proceedings. The accused had no right of counsel! And they, or their non-existent counsel, were not allowed to see or challenge secret evidence against them that the tribunals reviewed in classified sessions. It is really striking that 38 were set free.

Again, so I get paranoid about where this sort of process leads. These people detained in Afghanistan and Iraq are non-citizens and so do not get all the protection and process of citizens. But Yaser Hamdi is a citizen and the administration tried to lump him in as an enemy combatant. Jose Padilla is a citizen and was even arrested in the USA, but the administration tried to lump him in this legal black hole of a category. And the administration argued to the SC that those in this category are essentially at our complete and total mercy. Bad things man, very bad things.

MyCountry

You've screwed up my airways with a constant hatefest on Fox news.

I guess that means that we better call the "hate speech" police to come and stop all this free speech that MyCountry doesn't like. After all, MyCountry is "offended" by all this mean hurtful talk and needs his mommy. You hateful, disgusting little pussy! If you don't like don't listen you little turd!

Don't be mean to the mentally disabled. MyCountry doesn't know how to change the batteries in his remote.

Iblis

I am constanly in shock and awe of the Liberal mind. I shall pray for him.

KALROY:

"know there are liberals out there who, if they were running the show, would kick out anti-Americans (and people who advocate troops killing their officers and support people who kill Americans) from anti-war demonstrations."

BOO-YAH, BAY-BAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I'm one of 'em!

Liberal - That's good to hear!

There are certainly plenty of ass-kicking liberals out there. Heck, if we had Hillary in the White House, she'd probably be in Gitmo herself welcoming everyone to "Painville" and introducing herself as the new mayor.

With Al Gore we'd still be waiting around for Naomi Wolf to find a suit that was sufficiently "alpha male."

I love hearing liberals scream how "what about Saudi Arabia or Iran or Pakistan or Mali or whatever the fuck country I can name as a silly distraction from my lack of a coherent argument?" . The truth is that the left in this country would have been just as reactionary and unserious regardless of who we went to war with once the smoking crater of the Trade Center cooled. They want no part of any war that is waged by the American military commanded by a Republican President. Yes, there are several regimes in the Middle East and Asia that are as complicit in terrorism as Iraq, but an invasion of any of them would have drawn an equally shrill reaction.
And, just because Hillary is superhumanly unpleasant doesn't make her tough.

The tribunals are done.

Good.

Let's get on to the executions and the repatriation of the remains.

Because death is the penalty for engaging in combat as an illegal combatant.

Da_Wiz Sends

As one example of how brutal conditions are in Bushitlerburton's Gulag, Michelle Malkin has a link to a site selling the Gitmo Cookbook.

Baked Tandoori Chicken, Rice Lyonnaise, prepared according to halal requirements.... Yeah, I'm beginning to understand Amnesty International's outrage. The detainees aren't fed on MREs, which would put them on an equal footing with our troops, nutritionally if not morally. Courts have already ruled that that would be inhumane treatment.

I would personally like to thank $hit From Shinola for scaring off MyCountry before we were subjected to more of his moronic, hypocritical platitudes.

And uh, people do not end up in US military prisons because they just happened to be out picking flowers in the wrong field. The very few who can be identified as victims of circumstance don't stay locked up for long. To believe that a significant percentage of these prisoners are not criminals is to buy into the liberal lie.

Incidentally, IF even one of these prisoners IS innocent, it's not the US' fault for locking them up when the enemy refuses to properly identify themselves. As someone said above, the rules of war were made to protect civilians, and when they're not followed they place civilians in danger. And it's not the US who is breaking those rules...we're just expected to be responsible for THEIR non-compliance.

Well, we shouldn't be the ones held at fault for locking up innocent non-uniformed Arabs who look just like the guilty non-uniformed Arabs. If there are innocents in US prisons, the fault lies with the terrorists breaking the rules who helped put them there.

Later,
bbeck

Don't waste your time with these 9/10 dreamers; you either understand this is a war or you support the law enforcement model for combatting terrorism that got us into this mess in the first place. Some of them are just clueless, some are rooting for the terrorists, and the rest think they have hit on a winning political strategy to embarrass Bush (which is equivalent to rooting for the terrorists).

The terrrorists haven't won but they sure must be laughing their asses off at the sorry spectacle of the Gitmo critics' "sensitivity" and attempts to pussify the war.

My father-in-law told me that toward the end of WWII the Polish troops used to volunteer to escort captured Nazis to the POW camps and if it was a long march they usually returned much earlier than anticipated and always in a good mood. Figure it out.

These sorry-ass Gitmo prisoners are playing soccer and learning to read; they could have received a bullet behind the ear.

vonK,

So, your theory is that we are on the slippery slope? You don't come out and say it but of course if your logic is followed to it's natural end what you are implying is that George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are leading a coup against the government of the United States. Do you really believe that?

"Article 5:
...Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal."

Okay, so do you have some doubts that those captured (IAW 4b) " That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;" or (IAW 4d) " That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war." then I'd say you had a point. But your argument shows that they are not entitled to have their status determined by a "competent tribunal."

So your example refutes your assertion.

The US if far better than its enemies, despite your opinion. The US is entitled, by international law, IAW the Geneva Conventions to simply execute every enemy combatant it captures, but the US chooses not to.

Frankly my biggest bitch with Gitmo is that showing compassion and humanity towards America's enemies has never resulted in the same shown towards American POWs. In fact history shows the opposite to most likely be true. Even in WWII German officers tended to treat American POWs well because of an elitism (in the case of the Luftwaffe) or because of a fear of cowboy/gangster brutality (in the case of the wehrmacht) or had no effect whatsoever (in the case of the Gestapo).

It is much better to protect our troops with realistic grasp on what works and not on "well meaning aunt Nellisms" that do nothing but ensure our troops will be tortured (the real definition not the liberal definition) and murdered.

Kalroy

Nice, Kalroy.

VonK, how long they have to wait for a tribunal to which they aren't entitled is irrelevant.

I still think it is better to extend the US's long tradition of treating prisoners humanely to them, for the reason Mark mentioned; it makes them more likely to surrender when they're in a pinch, instead of fighting like animals to the bitter end.

This way we can lock them up and pick their brains. They yield information which leads to more arrests and good kills.

This is a necessary part of war-- for as long as they're useful, and as long as it takes for them to no longer be a threat in battle.

This is still more humane than our other eminently legal and fair choice.

And as far as Padilla and the others...I hope they get what the Rosenbergs got.

VonKreedon - My impression of you is that if your son was assaulted, fought back, and the whole pack of brawl participants was down at the Police station seeing who would be charged - you would take the side of his assailants. On grounds that if the assailants weren't defended, then the slippery slope would hit your son anyways, and spread out until you, your Mom, and everyone else was arrested for assault.

Terrorist-coddlers instinctively know that taking the side of thugs that assaulted their own son would make them snakes instead of parents, but are blind to how their cries for safeguarding "precious terrorist rights and liberties". Blind to the foul taste their strident efforts leave in our mouths - as we watch them try to put any terrorist/unlawful combatant anywhere on the globe we encounter - under full protection of the US Constitution make them appear to others.

Well it's all well and good to say that these are all unlawful combatants, but that in itself is different than terrorist.

No, while you may indeed validly declare there are "nuances" , the two, as relate to radical Islam, are close. Moreover, I consider any fund-raiser, scout, saboteur, shelterer, planner - no different than the unlawful combatant at the tip of the radical Islam spear that actually kills American soldiers and civilians with a weapon.

Further, in the context of a "War on Terror" one has to ask how does one ever get released once one has been labeled an unlawful enemy combatant?

In past wars, unlawful enemy combatants were normally summarily executed by our troops in the field if comabt exegencies required it, or were tried by tribunal or court martial, and again, normally executed. The answer is that we have a choice of executing them after trial, letting them go if the war is over, or trying them for war crimes that involve long prison stretches for Geneva Convention violations (unlawful combatants). Meanwhile, we are fully legit if we wait awhile to see what happens and treat them as accorded POW treatment. (No POWs in war have ever had their own lawyers unless they were on trial for war crimes.) These guys aren't all criminals, they are dangerous enemies who are at war with us, who do not fight in accordance with Geneva and Hague Conventions regulating warfare...

Yet further, the administration has already attempted to embrace and extend this classification to actual citizens in the form of Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi.

IMO, it is hard to hate a Afghan Talibani who was fighting for his version of the country he wanted. Even a Saudi, where his country and culture promote Jihad. But a US citizen - a real one? Not simply a citizen by accident like Hamdi...but a real born and lived his whole life in the USA or sought and got naturalization-type US citizen like Lindh or Padilla or 20 others involved in teror plots????It's easy to hate them because they are far worse than any foreigner and Bush and Ashcroft erred greatly in not initially treating those traitors as subject to military jurisdiction, as 2 American Nazis were, in Ex Parte Quirin

See, now LauraW has given the only logical reason for treating illegal combatants well. It is not the reason first given by leftists, but it is one of the reasons I've heard discussed by GIs. Though I would still love a solution somewhere that increases the likelihood of our own people being treated well, but short of treating prisoners in accordance with those prisoners own traditions and laws and sticking to it, I don't see a solution.

Guess we'll have to put up with Americans being tortured, raped, and murdered in the name of being the good guys, unless someone (someone waaaaaay smarter than I am) figures out an effective, logical, provable way.

Kalroy

Oh, and here's a prime example of worse than coddling terrorist. Denis Kucinich stated, today, that he (along with unamed Democrats and Republicans) will be pushing a bill to give the terrorists in Iraq unconditional victory in Iraq over the United States. Patterned after our withdrawl in Vietnam, which is also his analogy for Iraq and he claims there is NO parallel with WWII in this war.

Oh, and this from an interview on FoxNews today and NOT scrappleface (though it feels like it should be).

Kalroy

...the thing is that anyone who asks these questions; anyone who wonders if all of these people scooped up and detained indefinitely are all actually terrorists, well such a person must be a terrorist coddling America hating traitor. It is easy to see the path from there to internal internment for aiding and abetting unlawful enemy combatants for such questions.

The leftist blog http://www.newshounds.us/2005/06/15/gimme_some_old_fashioned_reality_please.php
has an account of the Kucinich interview. Their take on the Terrorists winning is far from the mainstream but the account, though biased and leftist partisan, is fairly accurate.

Kalroy

"... they ought to compare our methods with those of some real torturers, take for example Pol Pot."

http://www.federalistjournal.com/fedblog/?p=162

Senator Dick Durbin: "If I read this to you and did not tell
you that it was an FBI agent describing
what Americans had done to prisoners
in their control, you would most
certainly believe this must have been
done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags,
or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—
that had no concern for human
beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This
was the action of Americans in the
treatment of their prisoners."
S6594 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—SENATE June 14, 2005

Senator Durbin can take a flying fuck at the moon, for all I care.

And while he's insulted the brave men and women who defend out country from more attacks, his remarks further insult the millions who died under Pol Pot's brutal regime. Not to mention the Nazi death camps and the Soviet gulag system.

Pull your head out of your fucking ass, Senator.

Are you kidding me, June?? The man is precious, and distracting me from what I thought was my singleminded affection for Howie Dean.

Picture this;

Howie and Dick, The Show.
Two men. One stage.
All the front row seats full of barking moonbats.

At the end of Act II, surprise guest John McCain comes on stage to describe in chilling detail, how the worst part of being in the Hanoi Hilton was when they turned off the air conditioning in his private cell and played Earth, Wind & Fire while he writhed in agony.
The moonbats then erupt in shrill barking and manipulate themselves.

I smell a Tony Award!!

Act I is all Howie, of course.

Coddling terrorists, like coddling criminals, only ensures more terrorists. Liberals even say that terrorists are just poor people unemployed because of us, who'll kill for money, which in this case is not entirely untrue. Getting tough with terrorists, like getting tough with criminals, discourages them. No matter how hardened and fanatical terrorists may be, if they knew they'd be tortured to death as would their families there'd be a whole lot less terrorists. The Iraquis need to get much harder on these guys using whatever means are necessary against them.

While we're on the subject of Gitmo, I am pissed off that the troops must handle those fucking MURDER MANUALS with rubber gloves, so as to not upset the terrorists! WTF is up with that??? I'm not saying the Koran is a "murder manual", but it obviously IS in the hands of those bastards in prison down at Gitmo. What a bunch of BULLSHIT; "Oh, we can't mishandle the Koran". BULLSHIT! The terrorists are the ones defiling the fucking Koran, NOT the troops!

I cannot believe we let these bastards order their meals from a menu and handle their fucking MURDER MANUALS with rubber gloves so as to not "offend" them. Fuck that! They've offended ME, my way of life, my country, and their ideology is the very definition of "evil".

And now they're talking about shutting Gitmo down. Guess what - those bastards are right where I want 'em; on fucking communist soil, under lock and key, and far from the land of the free and home of the brave. They can stay right the fuck THERE until we beat their fellow terrorist, PEDOPHILE (72 virgins?) bastards into submission.

WTF are y'all thinking, fellow Libs? Pull your heads out of your asses and THINK!

I'm not sure why we want terrorists to surrender in the first place. Let them fight to the end like the vicious rabid animals they are; our troops take zero casualties in a stand-up fight. The only times we lose our people are when enemy surrenders aren't a possible factor anyway (IEDs, snipers, suicide bombers, &c). I'm tired of the taxes I pay being used to fatten up Taliban goatfuckers and Saudi child-rapists.

You want us to shut down Gitmo, President Carter, Senator Durbin, et al? Fine. Tell you what - we'll drag every motherfucker out of his cage and shoot him in the head. Bang! Dump all the trash in a big pit and toss a healthy serving of napalm on top of it.

Then we can shut down the whole fucking camp, how does that sound?

I think it sounds great. Criminal, terrorist, unlawful combatant, random unlucky goatfucker who just hates the United States but didn't actually have an AK-47 in his hands at the precise moment when he was captured? Doesn't matter. Let God sort 'em out, though I doubt He'd care very much more than I do.

So now we're hated for killing the poor poor defenseless Moslems. What are they going to do? Saw off our people's heads? Oh wait, they've been doing that for years anyway. Fight to the end? Wonderful. Let them fight and let them die. That way we won't have to listen to shitheads like vonK whining about "due process."

We're at war. The only thing our enemies are due comes out of a Marine's sidearm.

Process that.

Megan, wasn't a bullet in the head the standard treatment for unlawful combatants in WWII and most other wars? Aside from this one, I mean, where the rules of engagement seem to have been set by the Monty Python version of the Spanish Inquisition. "So! You don't want to tell us what your fellow terrorists are planning? Very well. Lieutenant, why don't you make him sit in... the comfy chair!" Bwahahahah.

VonK raises some legitimate questions about Jose Padilla et all, but it's all horseshit because he's not really interested in correcting an ugly but necessary process. Basically, he just wants to shut Gitmo down entirely, part of an essentially non-serious approach to war that puts procedural niceties ahead of dealing with mofos who will wrap themselves in plastique and blow up as many innocent bystanders as possible, or saw the heads off of noncombatants while chanting "God is great!" because it makes such a cool recruitment video. This stuff is actually happening, but VonK ignores it in favor of worrying about whether McHitlerburton is going to start arrresting the giant-puppet crowd. Jiminy. I'm surprised he hasn't started bitching that these POS's weren't read their Miranda rights.

You know what the best part of this whole thing is?

The libs going nuts because a prisoner's culture was disrespected by allowing a -gasp- woman into his personal space.

As if they'd hesitate for a second to violate the personal space of a kluxer by allowing a black cop to interrogate him, if it gets the desired result.

utron: VonK raises some legitimate questions about Jose Padilla

I don't think he does, not really. The only thing I'd change in the formula above is to put Padilla in front of a military tribunal for high treason, revoke his citizenship, and then shoot him in the head. Or, preferably, hang him.

Oh, and you know what else I find funny? The way people like vonK go "Well if you're throwing anti-American terrorist scum in jail, if you're talking about shooting declared enemies of the United States, OBVIOUSLY we liberals are next!"

It's just like, uh...

I mean I didn't say it. But all right. If you're so convinced that it's as plain as the nose on your face that you're IMMEDIATELY NEXT IN LINE after the terrorists... well, don't you think, then, that there's some room to "question [your] patriotism?"

I have not said anything about shutting Gitmo down or about the supposed abuse of Gitmo detainees. I agree that the majority of alleged abuses wouldn't raise an eyebrow in US prisons, not to mention prisons in Pakistan or Saddamite Iraq; such hysterionics help distract from what scares me about the process of black holing people.

And I am very much interested in doing what is necessary to protect BOTH our national security AND our individual freedom. I think that a basic difference of opinion has to do with which of these two we should give greater priority. I prioritize individual freedom over national security because national security is of substantially less value to me without the individual freedoms.

Regarding Padilla, I'd be fine if he was arrested, charged and tried for treason, but that was NOT what the administration wanted to do; the administration wanted to disappear Padilla. The administration wants to disappear the Gitmo detainees. History shows that acceptance of such disappearances is very dangerous for individual freedom.

Megan - It's not that I think there is room to question my patriotism; it's that I hear people aligned with the party in power questioning my patriotism that gives me the paranoiac willies about how are procedurally treating the Gitmo detainees.

If you're so convinced that it's as plain as the nose on your face that you're IMMEDIATELY NEXT IN LINE after the terrorists... well, don't you think, then, that there's some room to "question [your] patriotism?"

And to think that five years ago I would have described myself as a liberal. My thinking was so compartmentalized I’m surprised I didn’t have to carry one of my two brains around in a jar.

vonKredon:

"I prioritize individual freedom over national security because national security is of substantially less value to me without the individual freedoms."

On THIS, we agree!

Bullshit. National security is of infinitely more value than individual freedoms, especially in a time of war. President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and the republic survived just fine.

"The administration wants to disappear the Gitmo detainees"

Fascinating. And you know this how?

"I prioritize individual freedom over national security because national security is of substantially less value to me without the individual freedoms."

Its a balancing act, to be sure.

As much as you look at things like Gitmo and see creeping statism and think to yourself "It could happen here," I see IED's exploding children on the streets of Baghdad and think the same words.

You can't enjoy your life if you live in a prison, and you can't enjoy your freedom if you're dead.

Laura - Yes, it is a balancing act, and yes I also worry about bombs killing children in American streets. But I believe that we can do far more damage to ourselves than the terrorists can do to us.

Megan asks how I know that the administration wants to disappear the Gitmo detainees. I know because the administration argued, unsuccessfully, to the SC that the detainees had no rights, that the administration was under no compultsion to reveal anything about the detainees, nor to grant anyone access to the detainees, nor have any process to determine how/when to release the detainees. The administration attempted, again unsuccessfully, to argue in court that US citizens that the administration labelled as enemy combatants were also stripped of such protections. Fortunately, from my pov, the out of control activist judiciary disagreed with the administration.

At the risk of traffic whoring claims (guilty), a less polite view on the issue here.

I'd take freedom over security myself, but let's remember the advantage of having a balancing act even if it seems just a little out of whack.

As has been pointed out, the terrorists have to get it right just once, the police have to get it right every day. If the police fail, we're going to have some casualties and there's going to be a backlash.

The backlash, at this point in time, could result in far greater losses of freedom than we could imagine possible at this point. A lot of Americans would choose that over looser restrictions in the name of freedom.

So while I disagree with the Bushies about Padilla, I do recognize their efforts to allow Americans to live as we expect to, and I fear what will happen if they fail to disrupt the terrorists.

I prioritize individual freedom over national security because national security is of substantially less value to me without the individual freedoms.

LOL. What quaint notions one can have from the comfort of a desk chair. Should the war be on your doorstep, I think you would prioritize differently...

...or not. Imagine the worst case scenario, should a nuclear bomb go off on US soil, requiring Martial Law to be declared. Will VK obey? Or will he shout, "What?!!? A CURFEW? That's a violation of my individual freedoms, and I place individual freedoms OVER national security. I know, that sounds COOL, doesn't it? Now excuse me while I pop over to the Starbuck's for a frappucino."

I certainly hope that anyone within earshot will smack VK on the back of the head and snarl, "Will you wake up and smell the fallout? We're...at...war!"

Which is pretty much what people have been trying to tell him here under less obvious but more real circumstances.

Our individual rights get imposed upon every single day. You can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. You can't build a sewage plant in your own back yard. You can't own a gun without a permit. Often these imposing laws merely end up punishing the innocent, but they exist for the common good...and no good is more common than the security of our nation.

In the interests of maintaining freedom, that same freedom may need to be corraled in order to eventually sustain it...and in times of war the imposition may be severe, but it's also TEMPORARY. War requires sacrifices from both soldiers AND civilians, and even when everyone and everything is functioning at peak efficiency, there are going to be mistakes made. And, when civilian laws are followed to the letter, innocent people are arrested, jailed, and slip through due process. If you want to complain, complain about THAT...

...but that's just not as much fun as painting our soldiers and our lawmakers as evil tormenters who are trying to take away our freedoms, is it?

Later,
bbeck

VonK - I prioritize individual freedom over national security because national security is of substantially less value to me without the individual freedoms.

While you backed off later and agreed that national security must be added for "balance" - others in the "civil liberties" cohort absolutely reject that.

To them, civil liberties are the only important thing. I detest them because they eagerly ignore all violations of conducting war by the enemy in their quest extend "civil liberties" to terrorists and to make the US Constitution the protecting document
of all enemies of the US, foreign and domestic.

It's a mindset that holds that all violations of the UN Declaration of Human Rights by our former Communist foes don't matter, nor monstrous African regimes, nor the radical Muslim tactics ---no, only US violations, taken in response mostly to what the other side is doing ---really matter. So we are to unilaterally accord the enemy our best behavior and conditions and access to lawyers - regardless of what the enemy does that disqualifies them by the very Treaties they cite against the US. Because, they think, the US must act perfectly black in white by letter of law of UN "rights" subclauses crafted by Gamboonians and Libyans 40 years ago in all matters of wartime ambiguity no matter how trivial, fear the slippery slope, and demand our civilian courts be in charge of war policy.

I keep thinking how irrelevant the Constitution is to Muslim terrorists....how if we don't keep our citizens protected, all their rights are gone by circumstances imposed by the enemy. What Constitutional rights were left in the end for thousands of US citizens on 9/11? A choice between jumping to death or burning to death??

And I am supposed to be concerned about the "rights" of radical Muslims that seek to take away all our rights??? Their being guaranteed due process & access to a top defense lawyer as opposed to what was the norm for enemy prisoners in other wars??

Frankly, not enough innocent American blood has been shed yet - and IMO, liberal Democrats and absolutist civil liberties advocates are currently positioning themselves way out on a limb that will get sawed off by the public when Muslims launch a real WMD attack on infidels anywhere in the world, or shed innocent American blood in significant quantities one more time in our Homeland.

bbeck - A quick one before I have to go; I have never said anything that would paint our soldiers as evil tormenters. I have so general complaint with how our troops are behaving. I of course am glad to see the Abu Ghraib folks brought up on charges, but the moaning over how the Gitmo etc. detainees are being treated day-to-day seems hystrionic to me. I also recognize that we can and should nott expect the same behavior from troops under fire as we expect from civilians or troops who are not in combat.

But I believe that we can do far more damage to ourselves than the terrorists can do to us.

Recent history suggests you are wrong.

but the moaning over how the Gitmo etc. detainees are being treated day-to-day seems hystrionic to me.

No kidding. It seems to be a politically motivated bullshit attack to me. CF is right (God help me), the Dems are hanging themselves out on a very long limb, waiting for someone to saw it off.

But when they pick themselves up off the ground, they will blame Bush anyway.

I can't believe what's happening in my country. We've got a bunch of Democrats spewing hate America speech on the one side, and a bunch of Republicans trying to whittle away our precious civil liberties on the other side.

Hey, how about shutting the damned borders AIR TIGHT? Try THAT for a change, then take your Patriot Act and your RealID Act of 2005 and ram 'em where the sun don't shine.

Those "Acts" are a piss poor band-aid to atone for lack of leadership, and the lack of the ability of THIS Government to make it's Citizens safe without having to reserve the right to track you with a damned National ID card, or root through your home when you are on vacation without a warrant.

Sorry, but I will DIE before I willingly give up my guns to the Dems, or any more of my civil liberties to a bunch of inept jerks and jerk-ettes in the government.

Either the Constitution works, or it doesn't. Well guess what; it's worked for a very long time, until recently, when the assaults upon its protections begun. Keep your fingers off my guns and quit lining shit out of my Constitution! Oh, and for God's Sake, foreign terrorists have no American Constitutional rights either; nor SHOULD they EVER.

I have never said anything that would paint our soldiers as evil tormenters.

Problem there, tho, is that when you side with those leaders who are motivated by that, you're being used.

...but the moaning over how the Gitmo etc. detainees are being treated day-to-day seems hystrionic to me.

ALL of the moaning over it is politically motivated, VK. This due process nonsense has nothing to do with the Left's concern for freedoms but instead is a lovely double-orgasmo-whammy to the 2 things they hate the most: the military and a Republican administration. Getting to wrap their attacks in this pseudo-love for the Constitution is just gravy...and it's apparently working to rally some who DO care about rights to their cause.

Point being, Gitmo is a non-issue. What's going on in there is NOTHING compared to about a billion or so other bad things that have a greater capability to infringe upon our rights. The only reason it's even being discussed is because it has POLITICAL legs, and people need to stop propping it up.

Later,
bbeck