DS 1/19/09
Mike Beede
<http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090119&name=Mallard_Fillmore>
I wonder how we know the set of terror attempts that were
stopped was non-empty? He doesn't have an asterisk pointing
off to the John Birch Society web page or anything. I bet
the liberal media suppressed the footnote.
Mike
Pat O'Neill
> <http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090119&name=Ma...>
>
> I wonder how we know the set of terror attempts that were
> stopped was non-empty? He doesn't have an asterisk pointing
> off to the John Birch Society web page or anything. I bet
> the liberal media suppressed the footnote.
>
> Mike
Of course, we don't. We have to accept that because the government
tells us so. It always amazes me that conservatives are willing to
accept nearly anything that the government tells them regarding law
enforcement and national security, but practically nothing of what it
tells them about health, economics, science, or social justice.
Dann
news:c22a6443-000b-4a13...@f20g2000yqg.googlegroups.com.
> On Jan 19, 2:17 am, Mike Beede <be...@visi.com> wrote:
>> <http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090119&name=Ma
>> ...>
>>
>> I wonder how we know the set of terror attempts that were
>> stopped was non-empty? He doesn't have an asterisk pointing
>> off to the John Birch Society web page or anything. I bet
>> the liberal media suppressed the footnote.
>>
>
> Of course, we don't. We have to accept that because the government
> tells us so. It always amazes me that conservatives are willing to
> accept nearly anything that the government tells them regarding law
> enforcement and national security, but practically nothing of what it
> tells them about health, economics, science, or social justice.
Government tells us something about those things? Huh. Who'da known
that.
--
Regards,
Dann
blogging at http://web.newsguy.com/dainbramage/blog.htm
Freedom works; each and every time it is tried.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Mike Beede <be...@visi.com> wrote:
> I wonder how we know the set of terror attempts that were
> stopped was non-empty?
Seriously? I don't think terror attacks were likely to have been a
really serious threat to U.S. national security in the last seven
years -- for one thing, they're too easy to pull off if you are
dedicated and reasonably well-funded. But even my swiss-cheesed brain
can come up with the example that proves the set is "non-empty."
Think REALLY REALLY REALLY hard. Use Google if you have to.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blinky the Wonder Wombat
> <http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090119&name=Ma...>
>
> stopped was non-empty? He doesn't have an asterisk pointing
> off to the John Birch Society web page or anything. I bet
> the liberal media suppressed the footnote.
>
> Mike
I once met a young man in the city wearing a fancy uniform with "Tiger
Patrol" emblazoned on the back.
"What's the Tiger patrol?" I asked.
"The mayor pays us to keep tigers out of the city" he answered.
"But here are no tigers around here!"
"See how good of a job we do!"
deto...@hotmail.com
> <http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090119&name=Ma...>
>
> stopped was non-empty? He doesn't have an asterisk pointing
> off to the John Birch Society web page or anything. I bet
> the liberal media suppressed the footnote.
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335500,00.html
19 plots foiled
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/09/whitehouse.plots/index.html
10 plots foiled
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99051387
General presentation of opinions you won't like and facts that don't
fit your POV...particularly WRT Mr. Bush. Written by someone you are
sure not to trust.
--
Regards,
Dann
Dave
> http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/09/whitehouse.plots/index.html
>
> 10 plots foiled
OK, I'll bite. Keep in mind that the duck specifically said attacks on
US soil.
1. Not enough information to go on and Google was no help to me. Were
there any arrests? Or did they just announce that they'd discovered a
plot?
2. See 1.
3. Nobody seriously believes that Padilla had the capability to deploy
a dirty bomb. The fact that the government refused to allow his trial
to go forward on that charge, but instead switched to other charges
suggests that even the Bush administration did not believe that. In
fact, the civil rights violations of this case really should not be
considered a success by any objective standard.
4. Not on US soil.
5. Not on US soil.
6. Not on US soil.
7. Not on US soil.
8. Not on US soil.
9. Not on US soil.
10. Not on US soil.
If we want to expand Bush's successes to those plots not on US soil,
then I think it's only fair to also hold him responsible for the
London Underground bombings, the Madrid train bombings, and the Bali
nightclub bombings, to name just three big failures.
I personally do not hold Bush responsible for those, nor would I hold
him responsible if there had been another terror attack in the US.
Terror attacks by their nature are very difficult to stop with 100%
effectiveness, and this idea that our fearless leader "kept us safe"
is ingenuous and serves to trivialize real anti-terrorism activities.
Ted Kerin
>
> If we want to expand Bush's successes to those plots not on US soil,
> then I think it's only fair to also hold him responsible for the
> London Underground bombings, the Madrid train bombings, and the Bali
> nightclub bombings, to name just three big failures.
>
> I personally do not hold Bush responsible for those, nor would I hold
> him responsible if there had been another terror attack in the US.
>
Exactly. And if Bush wants to say he is responsible for preventing terror
attacks since 9/11, then it follows that he was responsible for allowing the
terror attack on 9/11. Like you (I think), I believe neither. But Bushie
can't have it both ways.
Yeah I know he's almost outta here, but the legacy machine is still working
overtime.
Pat O'Neill
Allow me to point out that the first and third of your examples cite
no sources (though we can guess that Fox's is the administration). The
second cites only the White House as a source (not exactly an unbiased
one in this regard). As I noted above, the only source we have for any
"threats" over the past seven years being real is the administration,
which has a vested interest in making us believe that such threats
existed and that they were prevented by the administration.
This is exactly like Blinky's "Tiger Patrol" story.
Blinky the Wonder Wombat
It would also be interesting to know the number of "credible threats"
recorded pre- and post-9/11would so as to give an indication as to
whether the Bush administration efforts were remarkable or typical.
Andrew Ryan Chang
Also, what about the DC sniper attacks or the anthrax letters?
--
And we read of [George W. Bush's] insistence on the importance of individual
achievement and personal responsibility -- in a ghost-written autobiography.
-- Lars-Erik Nelson (http://www.bartcop.com/lnelson.htm)
Freezer
>
> <http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090119&name
> =Mallard_Fillmore>
>
> I wonder how we know the set of terror attempts that were
> stopped was non-empty? He doesn't have an asterisk pointing
> off to the John Birch Society web page or anything. I bet
> the liberal media suppressed the footnote.
By The Duck's logic, CLinton prevented every domestic terror attack
since the Atlanta Olymipc bombing.
--
My name is Freezer and my anti-drug is porn.
http://www.geocities.com/mysterysciencefreezer
http://freezer818.livejournal.com/
Dann
4535-8c27-7...@p36g2000prp.googlegroups.com.
> Allow me to point out that the first and third of your examples cite
> no sources (though we can guess that Fox's is the administration). The
> second cites only the White House as a source (not exactly an unbiased
> one in this regard). As I noted above, the only source we have for any
> "threats" over the past seven years being real is the administration,
> which has a vested interest in making us believe that such threats
> existed and that they were prevented by the administration.
I have no doubt that we will disagree about the reliability of the
current administration as a source for such information.
I'd also like to point out the obvious difficulty that fighting our
current enemy poses. We are an open society. We generally believe in
transparency.
Terrorists want to use that openness to avoid our defenses and launch a
strike here at home.
The administration can't provide lots of details about each case because
it would enable the terrorists. At the same time, there are some folks
that won't believe the administrations because it won't provide lots of
details.
Dann
56fca8...@u18g2000pro.googlegroups.com.
> I personally do not hold Bush responsible for those, nor would I hold
> him responsible if there had been another terror attack in the US.
> Terror attacks by their nature are very difficult to stop with 100%
> effectiveness, and this idea that our fearless leader "kept us safe"
> is ingenuous and serves to trivialize real anti-terrorism activities.
By the same token, Mr. Bush has emphasized counter-terrorism and anti-
terrorism during his term in office. While he hasn't personally prevented
any attacks, or "kept us safe", or whatever euphamism that might be
applied, he has used his leadership to get the government very focused on
terrorism in a way it would not otherwise be focused.
Tove Momerathsson
> On 19 Jan 2009, Pat O'Neill said the following in news:89dfbe3e-bae3-
> 4535-8c27-7...@p36g2000prp.googlegroups.com.
>
>> Allow me to point out that the first and third of your examples cite
>> no sources (though we can guess that Fox's is the administration). The
>> second cites only the White House as a source (not exactly an unbiased
>> one in this regard). As I noted above, the only source we have for any
>> "threats" over the past seven years being real is the administration,
>> which has a vested interest in making us believe that such threats
>> existed and that they were prevented by the administration.
>
> I have no doubt that we will disagree about the reliability of the
> current administration as a source for such information.
Well, since the current (for only a few more hours :) administration was
so reliable about WMD in Iraq and Hussein's ties to 9/11 and al-Quaeda,
I can't see what all the fuss is about.
Tove
Pat O'Neill
> On 19 Jan 2009, Pat O'Neill said the following in news:89dfbe3e-bae3-
>
> > Allow me to point out that the first and third of your examples cite
> > no sources (though we can guess that Fox's is the administration). The
> > second cites only the White House as a source (not exactly an unbiased
> > one in this regard). As I noted above, the only source we have for any
> > "threats" over the past seven years being real is the administration,
> > which has a vested interest in making us believe that such threats
> > existed and that they were prevented by the administration.
>
> I have no doubt that we will disagree about the reliability of the
> current administration as a source for such information.
>
> I'd also like to point out the obvious difficulty that fighting our
> current enemy poses. We are an open society. We generally believe in
> transparency.
>
> Terrorists want to use that openness to avoid our defenses and launch a
> strike here at home.
>
> The administration can't provide lots of details about each case because
> it would enable the terrorists. At the same time, there are some folks
> that won't believe the administrations because it won't provide lots of
> details.
It's not a question of "providing lots of details". It's a question of
providing a non-administration corroboration that the threat even
existed. I'd accept a report from a local or state law enforcement
agency. Hell, I'd accept corroboration from the FBI as long it it
wasn't filtered through the White House first. But when everything we
hear about these "threats" comes out of one place that has a
reputation for getting things wrong and then lying about it, well....
deto...@hotmail.com
> Dann wrote:
>
> > I have no doubt that we will disagree about the reliability of the
> > current administration as a source for such information.
>
> [snip]
>
> Well, since the current (for only a few more hours :) administration was
> so reliable about WMD in Iraq and Hussein's ties to 9/11 and al-Quaeda,
> I can't see what all the fuss is about.
"were substantiated by intelligence information."
That is how the Democrat led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
described a whole host of issues relating to the administration's
public statements in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. That
statement, or one almost identical, was used to describe the
administrations pre-war statements on:
-Iraq's nuclear weapons program
-biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile
laboratories
-chemical weapons
-weapons of mass destruction overall (separate category)
-Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles
-Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs
-Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda
-Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and
other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda
-statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda
And in fact, we learned post-invasion that Iraqi contacts with and
support for al-Qaeda were greater than the intelligence agencies had
previously known.
Of course that wasn't the trend in the other categories.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801687.html?nav=hcmodule
The above shouldn't be taken to suggest that the Bush administration
were exemplars of truth. Some of the information was clearly
exaggerated.
The fact remains that the decision and arguments that led the US into
Iraq "were substantiated by intelligence information" that was
available at the time.
IMO, continuing to promote the "Bush lied, people died" meme is a
symptom that suggests that Bush Derangement Syndrome might be in
play.
--
Regards,
Dann
Antonio E. Gonzalez
>On 19 Jan 2009, Pat O'Neill said the following in
>news:c22a6443-000b-4a13...@f20g2000yqg.googlegroups.com.
>
>> On Jan 19, 2:17 am, Mike Beede <be...@visi.com> wrote:
>>> <http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090119&name=Ma
>>> ...>
>>>
>>> I wonder how we know the set of terror attempts that were
>>> stopped was non-empty? He doesn't have an asterisk pointing
>>> off to the John Birch Society web page or anything. I bet
>>> the liberal media suppressed the footnote.
>>>
>
>>
>> Of course, we don't. We have to accept that because the government
>> tells us so. It always amazes me that conservatives are willing to
>> accept nearly anything that the government tells them regarding law
>> enforcement and national security, but practically nothing of what it
>> tells them about health, economics, science, or social justice.
>
>Government tells us something about those things? Huh. Who'da known
>that.
Not everything, but a helluva lot about 'em anyway . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Pat O'Neill
As I recall, all the intelligence info that committee received was
funneled through the NSA, a White House agency. It didn't come
directly from the CIA or the defense department intelligence
communities. IOW, they got what the Bush Administration wanted them to
get.
> And in fact, we learned post-invasion that Iraqi contacts with and
> support for al-Qaeda were greater than the intelligence agencies had
> previously known.
Citation, please. That's not what I recall...I recall that the Iraqi
contacts and support for al Qaeda (pre-war) were all but non-existent.
The sole possible exception was al-Zawiri taking refuge somewhere in
the Kurdish zone. Of course, Saddam had no control over that zone
post-1991.
LNER...@juno.com
>
> By The Duck's logic, CLinton prevented every domestic terror attack
> since the Atlanta Olymipc bombing.
Oh, but then we "credit" him with the earlier World Trade Center
bombing--the truck full of explosives that was detonated in their
underground parking garage?
I'm jes' sayin'.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Pat O'Neill <patdo...@verizon.net> wrote:
> [...] the NSA, a White House agency.
Come again?
Dann
@reader1.panix.com.
> In the previous article, Pat O'Neill <patdo...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> [...] the NSA, a White House agency.
>
> Come again?
<tongue in cheek>
Doesn't NSA = National Security Advisor?
</tic>
Dann
news:32b2fab3-9fb5-43d5...@t3g2000yqa.googlegroups.com.
I don't mean to be rude, but I lack the time and interest to go over old
ground only to have anything I might offer be ignored....again.
I'm not claiming that they two had some sort of operational agreement. I
believe it is factual to state that the two organizations did have
regular contact. IIRC, post-invasion we learned that there were more of
those contacts....not cooperation - just contacts....than were previously
thought to be the case.
That is, IMHO, a moderate and modest opinion that is supportable based on
the available facts. More supportable than the suggestion that the
relationship between the two was "all but non-existent".
Mike Beede
<2b66de9f-02cc-4793...@a12g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
deto...@hotmail.com wrote:
> http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/09/whitehouse.plots/index.html
>
> 10 plots foiled
Seven of the plots were claimed to be targeted outside the
U.S. One is Padilla, which I don't see any conviction on,
so I assume it's gas. The other two are vague, and I don't
see any convictions, so I assume they're gas too. Have
there been convictions I didn't read about? I admit I
am not the most avid consumer of news.
I didn't read the one with 19 plots. I read the last one,
thinking incorrectly it was the ten plot thing, and it
didn't address any plots foiled. However, you didn't say
it did--I just misread your post.
Mike Beede
Mike Beede
Mike Beede <be...@visi.com> wrote:
> <http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090119&name=Mallard_Fillmore>
Kind of classy, replying to myself, but I'm apparently losing
my mind. I read all the responses and decided to reply to the
one that said something to the effect of "think real real hard
about a terrorist event in the last seven years . . . use Google
if you have to." Well, I used Google and I looked and I have
no idea what foiled terrorist plot in the U.S. I was supposed
to find. The shoe bomb guy? He was stopped by airline passengers
and personnel. The mentally ill guy that was shot to death
by an Air Marshal? He wasn't a terrorist.
Here's the odd part. I can't find that message any more. I
looked at all 24 messages in the thread and apparently either
I imagined it or it was canceled in the twenty minutes it took
to read everything else.
Anyone want to let me in on what the big example I was supposed
to be able to figure out was?
Mike Beede
Antonio E. Gonzalez
>On 20 Jan 2009, Pat O'Neill said the following in
>news:32b2fab3-9fb5-43d5...@t3g2000yqa.googlegroups.com.
>
>> On Jan 20, 5:37 pm, detox...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>> And in fact, we learned post-invasion that Iraqi contacts with and
>>> support for al-Qaeda were greater than the intelligence agencies had
>>> previously known.
>>
>> Citation, please. That's not what I recall...I recall that the Iraqi
>> contacts and support for al Qaeda (pre-war) were all but non-existent.
>> The sole possible exception was al-Zawiri taking refuge somewhere in
>> the Kurdish zone. Of course, Saddam had no control over that zone
>> post-1991.
>
>I don't mean to be rude, but I lack the time and interest to go over old
>ground only to have anything I might offer be ignored....again.
>
It's ironic how someone who keeps ignoring reality, esepcially when
it's pointed out repeatedly, claims to be the one being ignored . . .
>I'm not claiming that they two had some sort of operational agreement. I
>believe it is factual to state that the two organizations did have
>regular contact.
"Regular Contact" being Saddam repeatedly trying to kill him, of
course . . .
IIRC, post-invasion we learned that there were more of
>those contacts....not cooperation - just contacts....than were previously
>thought to be the case.
>
Contact fuses, of course . . .
>That is, IMHO, a moderate and modest opinion that is supportable based on
>the available facts. More supportable than the suggestion that the
>relationship between the two was "all but non-existent".
Like the "relationship" between the Bloods and Crips . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Pat O'Neill
> On 20 Jan 2009, J.D. Baldwin said the following in news:gl60p6$jth$2
> @reader1.panix.com.
>
> >> [...] the NSA, a White House agency.
>
> > Come again?
>
> <tongue in cheek>
> Doesn't NSA = National Security Advisor?
> </tic>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Dann
>
>
> Freedom works; each and every time it is tried.
Sorry, I meant NSC (National Security Council), of which the NSA is
the head. And, they are White House appointees.
Dann
055107.224...@news.visi.com.
> In article
> <2b66de9f-02cc-4793...@a12g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
> deto...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/09/whitehouse.plots/index.html
>>
>> 10 plots foiled
>
> Seven of the plots were claimed to be targeted outside the
> U.S. One is Padilla, which I don't see any conviction on,
> so I assume it's gas. The other two are vague, and I don't
> see any convictions, so I assume they're gas too. Have
> there been convictions I didn't read about? I admit I
> am not the most avid consumer of news.
Take another look at the 19-plot link. All of those were in the US.
None lists convictions, just plots that have supposedly been foiled.
As I indicated elsewhere, the problem is that the more information that
is made public about those anti-terrorism efforts, the better equipped
the terrorists are to avoid those anti-terrorism efforts.
--
Regards,
Dann
blogging at http://web.newsguy.com/dainbramage/blog.htm
Dann
news:fjedn49u4blud8gfo...@4ax.com.
> It's ironic how someone who keeps ignoring reality, esepcially when
> it's pointed out repeatedly, claims to be the one being ignored . . .
You want me to do work for you? Then reject the "Bush lied, people died"
meme. It is the factually correct thing to do.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Mike Beede <be...@visi.com> wrote:
> Kind of classy, replying to myself, but I'm apparently losing
> my mind. I read all the responses and decided to reply to the
> one that said something to the effect of "think real real hard
> about a terrorist event in the last seven years . . . use Google
> if you have to." Well, I used Google and I looked and I have
> no idea what foiled terrorist plot in the U.S. I was supposed
> to find. The shoe bomb guy? He was stopped by airline passengers
> and personnel. The mentally ill guy that was shot to death
> by an Air Marshal? He wasn't a terrorist.
It was me; I meant the "shoe bomb guy," which was a) a terrorist
attack that b) was thwarted.
You could argue all day whether a U.S. aircraft in international
airspace, bound for U.S. territory, and subject to U.S. law, is
"U.S. soil." I guess I *could* argue that, and it wouldn't be all
that absurd ... but the simple fact is that I glossed over that
element of the actual strip and was responding more directly to your
comment about "the set of terror attempts that were stopped [being]
non-empty" (you didn't mention "U.S. soil," Mallard did).
So if your set was intended to be strictly restricted to attacks both
originated and consummated within the physical borders of the United
States, the Reid case doesn't apply.
As for how Reid was stopped, well, I didn't know that for it to count,
George W. Bush would personally have to don a leotard and cape, and
fly out to the airliner to snuff out the fuse with his Super Breath or
something. Still, the fact remains that Reid was forced into what was
probably a suboptimal course of action by the new security rules that
narrowed his options. If the security rules had been the same as they
were in 2000, it wouldn't have been all that difficult for a suicide
bomber with access to moderately clever people and a little PETN to
bring down an airliner.
It didn't hurt that he was kind of a dumbass, of course.
To repeat the point I made a bit obliquely in my post that you now
cannot find: while I think the technical requirement of a "non-empty"
set of failed anti-U.S. terrorist attacks is fulfilled by Reid (modulo
what you consider to qualify for "U.S. soil"), I don't really think
Bush (or Congress, or really anyone in government) gets direct credit
for "keeping us safe" in the sense that security, intelligence, etc.
measures have "thwarted" a bunch of terror attacks. You could argue
that taking the war to the enemy outside U.S. borders has done a lot
to refocus their energies ("fighting them over there so we don't have
to fight them here") but it's impossible to *know* either way, and I
don't really think it matters all that much. Basically, I do agree
with your main premise that the Duck is engaging in a little, uh,
"liberty" with the truth here.
And as someone else mentioned, the anthrax letters and the D.C.
snipers weren't exactly "thwart[ed]," and they were unambiguously
carried out on U.S. soil.
Antonio E. Gonzalez
That would include credit for actually finding and arresting the
culprits . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Antonio E. Gonzalez
>On 20 Jan 2009, Mike Beede said the following in news:beede-
>055107.224...@news.visi.com.
>
>> In article
>> <2b66de9f-02cc-4793...@a12g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
>> deto...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/09/whitehouse.plots/index.html
>>>
>>> 10 plots foiled
>>
>> Seven of the plots were claimed to be targeted outside the
>> U.S. One is Padilla, which I don't see any conviction on,
>> so I assume it's gas. The other two are vague, and I don't
>> see any convictions, so I assume they're gas too. Have
>> there been convictions I didn't read about? I admit I
>> am not the most avid consumer of news.
>
>Take another look at the 19-plot link. All of those were in the US.
>None lists convictions, just plots that have supposedly been foiled.
>
>As I indicated elsewhere, the problem is that the more information that
>is made public about those anti-terrorism efforts, the better equipped
>the terrorists are to avoid those anti-terrorism efforts.
It's amazing there are so many people only willing to believe
whatever the government spoonfeeds them; I hear libertarians despise
that kind of person . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Antonio E. Gonzalez
>On 20 Jan 2009, Mike Beede said the following in news:beede-
>055107.224...@news.visi.com.
>
>> In article
>> <2b66de9f-02cc-4793...@a12g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
>> deto...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/09/whitehouse.plots/index.html
>>>
>>> 10 plots foiled
>>
>> Seven of the plots were claimed to be targeted outside the
>> U.S. One is Padilla, which I don't see any conviction on,
>> so I assume it's gas. The other two are vague, and I don't
>> see any convictions, so I assume they're gas too. Have
>> there been convictions I didn't read about? I admit I
>> am not the most avid consumer of news.
>
>Take another look at the 19-plot link. All of those were in the US.
>None lists convictions, just plots that have supposedly been foiled.
>
>As I indicated elsewhere, the problem is that the more information that
>is made public about those anti-terrorism efforts, the better equipped
>the terrorists are to avoid those anti-terrorism efforts.
From the 19 plots; no surprise this was posted on Fox News . . .:
• December 2001, Richard Reid: British citizen attempted to ignite
shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.
People who saw Richard Reid, and how his "shoe bomb" had to be
lit, would understand how ridiculous it is to call this a "terror
plot" . . .
• May 2002, Jose Padilla: American citizen accused of seeking
radioactive-laced "dirty bomb" to use in an attack against Amrica.
Padilla was convicted of conspiracy in August, 2007.
Consipracy to . . . what? Yup, no terror plot confirmed.
• September 2002, Lackawanna Six: American citizens of Yemeni origin
convicted of supporting Al Qaeda after attending jihadist camp in
Pakistan. Five of six were from Lackawanna, N.Y.
The supported Al Qaeda . . . seriously, that's it. No terror plot
confirmed.
• May 2003, Iyman Faris: American citizen charged with plotting to use
blowtorches to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge.
. . .
No, seriously, someone actually thought blowtorches could bring
down the Brooklyn Bridge!
• June 2003, Virginia Jihad Network: Eleven men from Alexandria, Va.,
trained for jihad against American soldiers, convicted of violating
the Neutrality Act, conspiracy.
Once again "conspiracy," once again no terror plot . . .
• August 2004, Dhiren Barot: Indian-born leader of terror cell plotted
bombings on financial centers (see additional images).
Beyond "financial centers," no further details, though this
*might* be legit; a trial would be required for confirmation.
• June 2005, Father and son Umer Hayat and Hamid Hayat: Son convicted
of attending terrorist training camp in Pakistan; father convicted of
customs violation.
Beyond attening a foreign camp, and probably trying to get fresh
fruit into the country, not terror plot.
• August 2005, Kevin James, Levar Haley Washington, Gregory Vernon
Patterson and Hammad Riaz Samana: Los Angeles homegrown terrorists who
plotted to attack National Guard, LAX, two synagogues and Israeli
consulate.
No trial, no conviction, no explanation, no terror plot; to think
just accussing someone was a Stalinist tool . . .
• December 2005, Michael Reynolds: Plotted to blow up natural gas
refinery in Wyoming, the Transcontinental Pipeline, and a refinery in
New Jersey. Reynolds was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Finally, something legit!
• February 2006, Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi and Zand
Wassim Mazloum: Accused of providing material support to terrorists,
making bombs for use in Iraq.
Nothing but accussing again; no terror plot . . .
• April 2006, Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee: Cased and
videotaped the Capitol and World Bank for a terrorist organization.
Yes, it seems tourism is now a crime . . .
• June 2006, Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor,
Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin, and Rotschild
Augstine: Accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower.
Not only just an accussation, but it seems these guys had nothing
until the FBI was willing to provide them with material; the actual
plan was too unrealistic to be taken seriously, except apparently by
the FBI.
July 2006, Assem Hammoud: Accused of plotting to bomb New York City
train tunnels.
More accussations all alone.
• August 2006, Liquid Explosives Plot: Thwarted plot to explode ten
airliners over the United States.
While another legit one, British authorities were critical of the
US jumping the gun, making any convictions that much harder. No, the
plot was still nowhere near actually being carried out.
• March 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Mastermind of Sept. 11 and
author of numerous plots confessed in court in March 2007 to planning
to destroy skyscrapers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Mohammedalso plotted to assassinate Pope John Paul II and former
President Bill Clinton.
Yes, "preventing" terror plots by a man already behind bars! Also
the possibility these "confessions" were acquired through torture,
meaning they were a man telling his torturers what want to hear to
make them stop.
• May 2007, Fort Dix Plot: Six men accused of plotting to attack Fort
Dix Army base in New Jersey. The plan included attacking and killing
soldiers using assault rifles and grenades.
Seriously, six guys with just guns and grenades going into a US
military base expecting to actually live long enough to do damage.
This either overestimates these six, or horribly underestimates our
military.
• June 2007, JFK Plot: Four men are accused of plotting to blow up
fuel arteries that run through residential neighborhoods at JFK
Airport in New York.
Here's the thing, people who get their ideas about how explosives
work from watching Wile E. Coyote: they should not be taken seriously.
Anyone who knows how those fuel lines actually work, or tricky jet
fuel can be to burn, knows JFK Airport and those neighborhoods were in
no danger.
• September 2007, German authorities disrupt a terrorist cell that was
planning attacks on military installations and facilities used by
Americans in Germany. The Germans arrested three suspected members of
the Islamic Jihad Union, a group that has links to Al Qaeda and
supports Al Qaeda's global jihadist agenda.
Another legit one, but another one done by foreign agencies, kinda
giving an idea of who knows how to do it right. The Britsh helped by
decades of dealing with the Provisional IRA, and Germany with quite a
few genuine terrorist groups since the 1960s . . .
So bacially, a few legit threats, but whole lot of chaff . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Antonio E. Gonzalez
>On 21 Jan 2009, Antonio E. Gonzalez said the following in
>news:fjedn49u4blud8gfo...@4ax.com.
>
>> It's ironic how someone who keeps ignoring reality, esepcially when
>> it's pointed out repeatedly, claims to be the one being ignored . . .
>
>You want me to do work for you? Then reject the "Bush lied, people died"
>meme. It is the factually correct thing to do.
Yes, there are people who still think no lies were said to get us
into Iraq; one would hope they don't also think no one died. It may
be chronic denial, or willful ignorance, but mostly it's just sad . .
.
The whole Iraq thing might be attributable to Saddam Derrangment
Syndrome. People with SDS are the ones who were desperate to see
Saddam out of power, even if it meant robbing +27 million Iraqis of
their freedom, 1.2 million (and counting) by death, and +4 million by
being turned into refugees . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Evan Kirshenbaum
> From the 19 plots; no surprise this was posted on Fox News . . .:
>
> * December 2001, Richard Reid: British citizen attempted to ignite
> shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.
>
> People who saw Richard Reid, and how his "shoe bomb" had to be
> lit, would understand how ridiculous it is to call this a "terror
> plot" . . .
Not to mention the fact that all of the administration's efforts
allowed him on the plane with the bomb. It was the passengers and
flight attendants that stopped him. Crediting the administration with
that one is a bit like crediting them with stopping the the hijacked
United flight 93 from attacking DC.
I'd say that if you took it seriously as an attack, it pretty much
refutes "an administration's vigilance thwarts every attempted act of
terror on U.S. soil since 9-11." Assuming the bomb would have worked,
if it had been left to "the administration's vigilance", the act would
have been successful.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |It is one thing to be mistaken; it is
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |quite another to be willfully
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |ignorant
| Cecil Adams
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Mike Beede
Dann <deto...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Take another look at the 19-plot link. All of those were in the US.
> None lists convictions, just plots that have supposedly been foiled.
>
> As I indicated elsewhere, the problem is that the more information that
> is made public about those anti-terrorism efforts, the better equipped
> the terrorists are to avoid those anti-terrorism efforts.
I will read that link--I have been kind of busy the last few days.
But, I've bookmarked it. If I get to it with my usual efficiency,
well, I'll probably get back to you around this time next year.
But right now my intentions are only the best, and ever day, in
every way, I'm getting better and better [squint squint].
I'm not sure I buy your second paragraph. We publicize details of
how we enforce other laws, including murder. We don't worry much
that that will allow murderers to prosper. I'm not sure why this
is different. It's just good police work, albeit outside the
country sometimes, isn't it?
Mike Beede
Mike Beede
INVALID...@example.com.invalid (J.D. Baldwin) wrote:
> As for how Reid was stopped, well, I didn't know that for it to count,
> George W. Bush would personally have to don a leotard and cape, and
> fly out to the airliner to snuff out the fuse with his Super Breath or
> something. Still, the fact remains that Reid was forced into what was
> probably a suboptimal course of action by the new security rules that
> narrowed his options. If the security rules had been the same as they
> were in 2000, it wouldn't have been all that difficult for a suicide
> bomber with access to moderately clever people and a little PETN to
> bring down an airliner.
>
> It didn't hurt that he was kind of a dumbass, of course.
Dang, I was already twitching on the keyboard when I got to that
last sentence. The image of Shrubya using his Super Breath to
put out the fuse is the best one I've seen this week on the group.
The reason I discounted that one was not the "outside US airspace"
thing--it was that there were NO federal folks involved at all
until after the fact.
But, sounds like we pretty much agree about Da Duck and about
the shoe dork. What a loser.
Mike Beede
LNER...@juno.com
>
> Yes, there are people who still think no lies were said to get us
> into Iraq; one would hope they don't also think no one died. It may
> be chronic denial, or willful ignorance, but mostly it's just sad . .
> .
>
> The whole Iraq thing might be attributable to Saddam Derrangment
> Syndrome. People with SDS are the ones who were desperate to see
> Saddam out of power, even if it meant robbing +27 million Iraqis of
> their freedom, 1.2 million (and counting) by death, and +4 million by
> being turned into refugees . . .
>
"free" (talk to the families of those who disappeared), and that
people had just as much of a chance to stay alive and/or in their own
homes under Hussein (we have some various ethnic populations that
would like to teach you differently).
Are you really saying--as you seem to imply--that leaving Saddam
Hussein alone was a preferable solution?
Antonio E. Gonzalez
>
>>
>> Yes, there are people who still think no lies were said to get us
>> into Iraq; one would hope they don't also think no one died. It may
>> be chronic denial, or willful ignorance, but mostly it's just sad . .
>> .
>>
>> The whole Iraq thing might be attributable to Saddam Derrangment
>> Syndrome. People with SDS are the ones who were desperate to see
>> Saddam out of power, even if it meant robbing +27 million Iraqis of
>> their freedom, 1.2 million (and counting) by death, and +4 million by
>> being turned into refugees . . .
>>
>*What's sad is that you think that Iraqis under Saddam Hussein were
>"free" (talk to the families of those who disappeared), and that
>people had just as much of a chance to stay alive and/or in their own
>homes under Hussein (we have some various ethnic populations that
>would like to teach you differently).
>
Another aspect of SDS is an insistance on bringing up ancient
history as if it is relevant, certainly ignoring that the "oppressed"
were anything but by the mid-1990s, in the face of a militarily
castrated Saddam . . .
>Are you really saying--as you seem to imply--that leaving Saddam
>Hussein alone was a preferable solution?
Let's see: Nicolai Ceausescu was "left alone"; Slobodan Milosevich
was "left alone." The question above seems to imply both these men
should still be in power. To answe the question: yes, it was
overwhelmingly preferable to "leave him alone" to be "taken care of"
by his own people, as Ceausescu and Milosevich were . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Blinky the Wonder Wombat
Saddam was a bad man. An evil man. And we was a tyrant, a despot, a
genocidal maniac. No one disputes that. But if the removal of a
blatant violator of human rights justified the invasion of Iraq, they
why haven't we done the same to North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Myanmar, and
about a dozen other countries? I think we all have good ideas why we
haven't.
Although the Bush administration did mention removal of Saddam as one
of the reasons to invade Iraq, its original assertion of WMD's and the
refusal open up to the UN inspectors was the original and primary
justification for the war. Only after no traces of WMDs were found did
the liberation of the Iraqi people become the reason for the invasion.
Jym Dyer
> on terrorism in a way it would not otherwise be focused.
=v= Like the way it was not otherwise focused on by the Bush
Administration before 9/11? Like all the intelligence gathered
during the previous administration but ignored as the work of
Democrats (including the infamously overlooked "Bin Laden
Determined to Strike U.S.")?
=v= Of course, even 9/11 didn't sway Cheney/Bush/etc. from
disregarding and suppressing intelligence that didn't support
their later political goals.
<_Jym_>
Jym Dyer
| ignite shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.
=v= Fox News listed this? Reid was stopped by passengers and
flight attendants, American and French people working together.
| May 2002, Jose Padilla ... convicted of conspiracy ...
> [Conspiracy] to . . . what? Yup, no terror plot confirmed.
=v= "Conspiracy to ... what?" is exactly the right question.
The elaborate charges against Padilla self-destructed (after
putting the notion of a "dirty bomb plot" in the headlines),
so the vague, broadly-construed "conspiracy" charge was the
only thing the prosecution could go with.
| May 2003, Iyman Faris: American citizen charged with plotting
| to use blowtorches to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge.
> No, seriously, someone actually thought blowtorches could
> bring down the Brooklyn Bridge!
=v= Supposedly someone in Pakistan thought of such a plot,
and Faris' role was to look at the bridge (in person and on
the Internet) and tell them it couldn't be done.
| March 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ...
=v= Which brings us back to the Bush Administration's disdain
for the previous Administration's intelligence and work --
e.g. looking for this guy since 1993 -- and dropping the ball
on said work until, you know, 9/11.
<_Jym_>
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Antonio E. Gonzalez <AntE...@aol.com> wrote:
> The whole Iraq thing might be attributable to Saddam Derrangment
> Syndrome. People with SDS are the ones who were desperate to see
> Saddam out of power, even if it meant robbing +27 million Iraqis of
Well, there's definitely some form of derangement involved, that's for
sure.
Antonio E. Gonzalez
INVALID...@example.com.invalid (J.D. Baldwin) wrote:
>
>In the previous article, Antonio E. Gonzalez <AntE...@aol.com> wrote:
>> The whole Iraq thing might be attributable to Saddam Derrangment
>> Syndrome. People with SDS are the ones who were desperate to see
>> Saddam out of power, even if it meant robbing +27 million Iraqis of
>> their freedom, [...]
>
>Well, there's definitely some form of derangement involved, that's for
>sure.
Yes, robbing +27 million people of their freedom requires quite a
bit of derangement . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Dann
news:6fd2feb4-90a4-4238...@p2g2000prn.googlegroups.com.
> Although the Bush administration did mention removal of Saddam as one
> of the reasons to invade Iraq, its original assertion of WMD's and the
> refusal open up to the UN inspectors was the original and primary
> justification for the war. Only after no traces of WMDs were found did
> the liberation of the Iraqi people become the reason for the invasion.
I don't believe that Ivy's point was that the war was fully justified by
the liberation of the Iraqi people. I think his point was to refute
Reflex's contention that our Iraqi campaign resulted in less freedom for
Iraqi's rather than more.
There was a time a few years back where I think one could make a point
about there being no real significant change in the amount of freedom for
the average Iraqi. However today it is ludicrous, IMO, to suggest that
Iraqis have less freedom than they had under Saddam.
Clearly they have much more freedom in many areas of their lives. A
trend that continues to improve bit by bit.
Dann
news:beede-E1607C....@news.visi.com.
> In article <Xns9B9A43ADC8DF7d...@74.209.136.99>,
> Dann <deto...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Take another look at the 19-plot link. All of those were in the US.
>> None lists convictions, just plots that have supposedly been foiled.
>>
>> As I indicated elsewhere, the problem is that the more information
>> that is made public about those anti-terrorism efforts, the better
>> equipped the terrorists are to avoid those anti-terrorism efforts.
>
> I will read that link--I have been kind of busy the last few days.
> But, I've bookmarked it. If I get to it with my usual efficiency,
> well, I'll probably get back to you around this time next year.
> But right now my intentions are only the best, and ever day, in
> every way, I'm getting better and better [squint squint].
Fair enough. Time is in short supply on this end of the wire as well.
I just did a little Googling and found a few links that seemed to suggest
the set of blocked terror attempts was indeed non-empty.
> I'm not sure I buy your second paragraph. We publicize details of
> how we enforce other laws, including murder. We don't worry much
> that that will allow murderers to prosper. I'm not sure why this
> is different. It's just good police work, albeit outside the
> country sometimes, isn't it?
While fighting terrorism can involve good police work, it also involves
good intelligence work that has little to do with nominal law
enforcement. When we publicize the details of our intelligence
operations, it gives the terrorists a chance to avoid detection by those
same intelligence operations.
Your question underscores the fact that this is a war, not an
anti-criminal operation. We fight wars with diplomacy, intelligence
gathering, and military operations; each as appropriate and where
needed.
We don't fight wars with district attorneys and legal briefs. At
least, we don't lead the fight with them.
Cops, district attorneys, and courts are for combatting civilian crimes.
Terrorists have placed themselves outside of the "civilian criminal"
classification.
Pat O'Neill
> On 21 Jan 2009, Mike Beede said the following innews:beede-E1607C....@news.visi.com.
>
>
> Freedom works; each and every time it is tried.
It's only a war because that is the terminology we choose to use. The
"war on drugs" uses the same terminology and also relies a good deal
on diplomacy, intelligence gathering, and sometimes military
operations. Do you think convicted drug dealers are not civilian
criminals? I'm sorry, a "terrorist" is not a soldier (no matter what
he may think of himself); he is a violent criminal, no different from
the arsonist who kills dozens in an apartment fire, the rampaging
killer who invades a school or workplace, the kidnapper who tortures
both his victim and his victim's family, etc. If we can investigate
and try all of those people in the civilian courts, I see no reason a
"terrorist" cannot be.
In fact, we already do try terrorists in civilian courts. Terry
McVeigh, the DC snipers, even the '93 WTC bombers were effectively
tried and convicted in US civilian criminal courts. All have been
effectively imprisoned in civilian prisons.
Dann
493a-af62-b...@s20g2000yqh.googlegroups.com.
> It's only a war because that is the terminology we choose to use. The
> "war on drugs" uses the same terminology and also relies a good deal
> on diplomacy, intelligence gathering, and sometimes military
> operations. Do you think convicted drug dealers are not civilian
> criminals? I'm sorry, a "terrorist" is not a soldier (no matter what
> he may think of himself); he is a violent criminal, no different from
> the arsonist who kills dozens in an apartment fire, the rampaging
> killer who invades a school or workplace, the kidnapper who tortures
> both his victim and his victim's family, etc. If we can investigate
> and try all of those people in the civilian courts, I see no reason a
> "terrorist" cannot be.
>
> In fact, we already do try terrorists in civilian courts. Terry
> McVeigh, the DC snipers, even the '93 WTC bombers were effectively
> tried and convicted in US civilian criminal courts. All have been
> effectively imprisoned in civilian prisons.
I agree about the War on Drugs. It isn't a war despite the rhetoric.
Neither is the War on Poverty a war. And I'd like to see the feds out of
both and the states out of the drug war ASAP.
Doesn't mean that either will happen any time soon.
I disagree about the current conflict. We are facing a stateless army.
They have funding networks. They have training camps. They even have a
media organization.
That is what makes this a war. And their behavior in violation of the
Geneva Conventions is what places them outside of the civilian justice
system.
--
Regards,
Dann
blogging at http://web.newsguy.com/dainbramage/blog.htm
Pat O'Neill
> I disagree about the current conflict. We are facing a stateless army.
> They have funding networks. They have training camps. They even have a
> media organization.
Gee, sounds like the KKK. The government effectively fought them using
the police and civilian criminal courts and prisons. Or, if you prefer
an analogy from the other end of the political spectrum, sounds like
the Black Panthers. Same deal.
> That is what makes this a war. And their behavior in violation of the
> Geneva Conventions is what places them outside of the civilian justice
> system.
So, because our opponents have no moral code, we should emulate them?
That is not the tradition of this nation, going all the way back to
our revolutionary beginnings:
"After capturing 1,000 Hessians in the Battle of Trenton, he
[Washington] ordered that enemy prisoners be treated with the same
rights for which our young nation was fighting. In an order covering
prisoners taken in the Battle of Princeton, Washington wrote: 'Treat
them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our
Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of
our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on
the road.' " [http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1217-30.htm]
Mike Beede
Dann <deto...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Cops, district attorneys, and courts are for combatting civilian crimes.
> Terrorists have placed themselves outside of the "civilian criminal"
> classification.
I guess I disagree. Killing people and destroying property are
crimes. Wars are between states. If there is a state sending
people to blow up our stuff and kill our people, then it's a
war and should be prosecuted as such. I don't see the state or
states that are doing that right now and if they are. Certainly
the stuff I've heard mentioned as "terrorist conspiracies"
doesn't sound like a war.
Mike Beede
Mike Marshall
>Wars are between states.
It's OK to stop at 1a when you're looking up Kumquat.
Sometimes, though, you have to keep looking all the way down to 2b:
"a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end"
-Mike "I mean, after all, this is war"
Pat O'Neill
Yeah...but then we have to deal with all the other words that we can
re-evaluate that way. "War on Terror"...well, what's "terror"?
1. intense, sharp, overmastering fear: to be frantic with terror.
2. an instance or cause of intense fear or anxiety; quality of
causing terror: to be a terror to evildoers.
3. any period of frightful violence or bloodshed likened to the Reign
of Terror in France.
4. violence or threats of violence used for intimidation or coercion;
terrorism.
5. Informal. a person or thing that is especially annoying or
unpleasant.
Gotta go all the way down to 4 before we get to the one we mean in the
instant phrase. And how do you wage war on a particular practice? Are
we anthropomorphizing it?
Mike Beede
<4ea669a3-d1e6-4abd...@g38g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
Excellent. So the War on Terror can be a conflict against anything
annoying. Guess I'd better call Homeland Security and let them know
how loud they're running the sound over at the Cineplex.
Mike Beede
Antonio E. Gonzalez
>On 22 Jan 2009, Blinky the Wonder Wombat said the following in
>news:6fd2feb4-90a4-4238...@p2g2000prn.googlegroups.com.
>
>> Although the Bush administration did mention removal of Saddam as one
>> of the reasons to invade Iraq, its original assertion of WMD's and the
>> refusal open up to the UN inspectors was the original and primary
>> justification for the war. Only after no traces of WMDs were found did
>> the liberation of the Iraqi people become the reason for the invasion.
>
>I don't believe that Ivy's point was that the war was fully justified by
>the liberation of the Iraqi people. I think his point was to refute
>Reflex's contention that our Iraqi campaign resulted in less freedom for
>Iraqi's rather than more.
>
With foreign soldiers and "contractors" using the population for
target practice, there is but one aspect of the freedom Iraqis have
been robbed of. Most obviously, their sovereignty . . .
>There was a time a few years back where I think one could make a point
>about there being no real significant change in the amount of freedom for
>the average Iraqi. However today it is ludicrous, IMO, to suggest that
>Iraqis have less freedom than they had under Saddam.
>
Ludicrous is to suggest an unjustified foreign invasion leads to
more freedom. By this logic, Afghanistan had more freedom under
Soviet occupation; then again, an argument could be made about the
Marxist Afghan government of the time inviting them in . . .
>Clearly they have much more freedom in many areas of their lives. A
>trend that continues to improve bit by bit.
Chronic delusion, yet another aspect of SDS . . .
--
- ReFlex76
Dann
news:beede-E35273....@news.visi.com.
> In article <Xns9B9BD45B64FE3d...@74.209.136.97>,
> Dann <deto...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Cops, district attorneys, and courts are for combatting civilian
>> crimes. Terrorists have placed themselves outside of the "civilian
>> criminal" classification.
>
> I guess I disagree.
Fair enough.
[snip longer, off-topic response]
Dann
abb7-062...@g38g2000yqd.googlegroups.com.
> Gotta go all the way down to 4 before we get to the one we mean in the
> instant phrase. And how do you wage war on a particular practice? Are
> we anthropomorphizing it?
Some folks chafe when the root of the problem is pointedly identified as
Islamic extremism. In any case, I'm not sure how one boils the whole mess
down into a catchy phrase. That doesn't change the seriousness of the
threat.
Dann
> On Jan 23, 6:53 am, Dann <detox...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I disagree about the current conflict. We are facing a stateless
>> army. They have funding networks. They have training camps. They
>> even have a media organization.
>
> Gee, sounds like the KKK. The government effectively fought them using
> the police and civilian criminal courts and prisons. Or, if you prefer
> an analogy from the other end of the political spectrum, sounds like
> the Black Panthers. Same deal.
Not really. The stateless army in question really is more of a
paramilitary organization than either the Klan or the Panthers ever were.
Additionally this stateless army is made up of foreigners.
The primary difference is that the Klan and the Panthers were funded,
trained, and conducted "operations" in the US.
The Jihadists are funded by a variety of citizens and governments across
the Middle East...and beyond. They train in many other countries. They
attack here.
Military force is required to get access to those foreign funding and
training resources, IMO.
>> That is what makes this a war. And their behavior in violation of
>> the Geneva Conventions is what places them outside of the civilian
>> justice system.
>
> So, because our opponents have no moral code, we should emulate them?
> That is not the tradition of this nation, going all the way back to
> our revolutionary beginnings:
I'm not suggesting that at all. What I was working towards is that there
are three types of people in any conflict. There is the military [along
with the civilians responsible for their conduct], there are civilians,
and there are those whose conduct places them outside of the normal
protections afforded to the first two groups.
Using the military to deal with the last group can be a perfectly
acceptable solution.
Pat O'Neill
>
> I'm not suggesting that at all. What I was working towards is that there
> are three types of people in any conflict. There is the military [along
> with the civilians responsible for their conduct], there are civilians,
> and there are those whose conduct places them outside of the normal
> protections afforded to the first two groups.
>
> Using the military to deal with the last group can be a perfectly
> acceptable solution.
You realize, I hope, that during the American Revolution the British
government undoubtedly considered many of those fighting for the
colonies as belonging to that last group? In fact, since the British
didn't recognize the colonies rights to organize and oppose them at
all, it considered ALL American soldiers (uniformed or not) to belong
to the last group.
It's one thing to say "the Geneva Conventions do not apply to these
people." But it's another--and probably better--thing to say, "But we
will treat these people as if the Conventions do apply"...because they
are still people and deserve humane treatment.
Dann
news:518ba367-881b-447d...@j35g2000yqh.googlegroups.com.
> On Jan 24, 3:02 pm, Dann <detox...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm not suggesting that at all. What I was working towards is that
>> there are three types of people in any conflict. There is the
>> military [along with the civilians responsible for their conduct],
>> there are civilians, and there are those whose conduct places them
>> outside of the normal protections afforded to the first two groups.
>>
>> Using the military to deal with the last group can be a perfectly
>> acceptable solution.
>
> You realize, I hope, that during the American Revolution the British
> government undoubtedly considered many of those fighting for the
> colonies as belonging to that last group? In fact, since the British
> didn't recognize the colonies rights to organize and oppose them at
> all, it considered ALL American soldiers (uniformed or not) to belong
> to the last group.
I am more than a little acquainted with that particular aspect of
history. And I am more than a little tired of the flawed reasoning that
confuses tactics with purpose.
The American Revolution was fought to expand individual liberty.
Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other associated groups fight to reduce
individual liberty and to force individuals to submit to their narrow
interpretation of Islam.
The fact that both cops and robbers are armed with guns does not make
them moral equals.
> It's one thing to say "the Geneva Conventions do not apply to these
> people." But it's another--and probably better--thing to say, "But we
> will treat these people as if the Conventions do apply"...because they
> are still people and deserve humane treatment.
In general, I agree.
I was against rendition when the President.....President Clinton, that
is...first authorized such actions.
Waterboarding is a bad idea. There are probably a few other tactics that
also fall short of our stated morals. But waterboarding gets most of the
attention.
By the same token, the use of military tribunals....established by
Congress....modeled on the Nuremberg trials...are an appropriate method
for trying people that have violated the Geneva Conventions.
And housing them at Gitmo until we have a won* the war** is likewise an
acceptable and humane option.
*victory being an elusive thing to define
**which still lacks an effective...erm...nom de guerre.
Freezer
>
> **which still lacks an effective...erm...nom de guerre.
I find "Bush's Folly" works quite nicely.
--
My name is Freezer and my anti-drug is porn.
http://www.geocities.com/mysterysciencefreezer
http://freezer818.livejournal.com/
Pat O'Neill
>
> I am more than a little acquainted with that particular aspect of
> history. And I am more than a little tired of the flawed reasoning that
> confuses tactics with purpose.
>
> The American Revolution was fought to expand individual liberty.
>
> Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other associated groups fight to reduce
> individual liberty and to force individuals to submit to their narrow
> interpretation of Islam.
>
> The fact that both cops and robbers are armed with guns does not make
> them moral equals.
Agreed--but the Geneva Conventions make no distinctions about what one
is fighting for or against in determining treatment of prisoners. Nazi
soldiers were to be treated no differently from any one else, no
matter what Nazis stood for.
> By the same token, the use of military tribunals....established by
> Congress....modeled on the Nuremberg trials...are an appropriate method
> for trying people that have violated the Geneva Conventions.
I'll have to look this up. Did the Nuremberg trials include preventing
the accused from seeing the evidence against them? I know they
permitted the accused to have their own choice of lawyers, including
civilians. The tribunal system set up for the Gitmo detainees does
neither.
> And housing them at Gitmo until we have a won* the war** is likewise an
> acceptable and humane option.
>
> *victory being an elusive thing to define
>
> **which still lacks an effective...erm...nom de guerre.
Since we cannot define "victory" in this regard, what you are really
saying is that we will hold them indefinitely, often without charge,
without presenting evidence as to their crimes (if any), without
representation unless and until we bring them to trial, etc. This is
not how a moral and just nation treats its enemies.
Dann
news:86c594a5-a6b8-471d...@f29g2000vbf.googlegroups.com.
> On Jan 25, 10:13 pm, Dann <detox...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I am more than a little acquainted with that particular aspect of
>> history. And I am more than a little tired of the flawed reasoning
>> that confuses tactics with purpose.
>>
>> The American Revolution was fought to expand individual liberty.
>>
>> Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other associated groups fight to reduce
>> individual liberty and to force individuals to submit to their narrow
>> interpretation of Islam.
>>
>> The fact that both cops and robbers are armed with guns does not make
>> them moral equals.
>
> Agreed--but the Geneva Conventions make no distinctions about what one
> is fighting for or against in determining treatment of prisoners. Nazi
> soldiers were to be treated no differently from any one else, no
> matter what Nazis stood for.
True, but they do make distinctions based on the tactics one uses. The
Nazis largely constrained themselves to the laws and customs of war.
Which is why they were housed, fed, given medical care, etc. until the end
of WWII.
The same is true for the Japanese military.
In both cases, POWs were not necessarily judged and sentenced by tribunals
beyond the steps needed to confirm that a POW was in fact a POW and not a
civilian.
Al Qaeda does not constrain themselves to the laws and customs of war and
therefore they have forfeited any protections that they might otherwise
legitimately claim.
>> By the same token, the use of military tribunals....established by
>> Congress....modeled on the Nuremberg trials...are an appropriate
>> method for trying people that have violated the Geneva Conventions.
>
> I'll have to look this up. Did the Nuremberg trials include preventing
> the accused from seeing the evidence against them? I know they
> permitted the accused to have their own choice of lawyers, including
> civilians. The tribunal system set up for the Gitmo detainees does
> neither.
Here's what I know.
The military tribunal system does permit non-military lawyers. In fact bin
Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, was represented by both military and civilian
[pro-bono] lawyers. That team was able to obtain the dismissal of the two
most serious charges against Hamdan.
These same tribunals have dismissed other charges against other detainees
as well.
The above suggests to me that the tribunal system is a viable method for
handling these detainees.
One of the things I find most offensive is the suggestion that the military
is incapable of running the tribunals in a manner that seeks justice for
everyone involved.
>> And housing them at Gitmo until we have a won* the war** is likewise
>> an acceptable and humane option.
>>
>> *victory being an elusive thing to define
>>
>> **which still lacks an effective...erm...nom de guerre.
>
> Since we cannot define "victory" in this regard, what you are really
> saying is that we will hold them indefinitely, often without charge,
> without presenting evidence as to their crimes (if any), without
> representation unless and until we bring them to trial, etc. This is
> not how a moral and just nation treats its enemies.
No. I'm saying that they will be detained until the war has ended.
To date we have examined and either released or tried, punished, and
released close to 500 detainees. That suggests that we have been actively
pursuing the sort of policy that I think you support.
Some of those detainees have returned to the field of combat. The
recidivism rate seems to be about 12 percent. So most of the decisions to
release detainees have been pretty valid, IMO.
The roughly 250 detainees that we have left are some pretty tough hombres.
They are dedicated to attacking Americans where ever and whenever they can.
Doesn't it make sense to keep those people off of the battlefield until we
can destroy the network that makes their "mischief" possible in the first
place?
While some of our actions have fallen short of the moral imperative that
you appropriately cite, most of our actions have been in keeping with our
historic tradition of treating our enemies humanely...and then some.
--
Regards,
Dann
blogging at http://web.newsguy.com/dainbramage/blog.htm
Freedom works; each and every time it is tried.
Freezer
> Al Qaeda does not constrain themselves to the laws and customs of
> war and therefore they have forfeited any protections that they
> might otherwise legitimately claim.
They don't play by the rules, therefore we shouldn't either?
Weak sauce, dude. Weak sauce.
LNER...@juno.com
> > Al Qaeda does not constrain themselves to the laws and customs of
> > war and therefore they have forfeited any protections that they
> > might otherwise legitimately claim.
>
> They don't play by the rules, therefore we shouldn't either?
>
> Weak sauce, dude. Weak sauce.
>
combatants.
Let me explain THEIR version of such "tribunals" for non-uniformed
kidnap vic--err, non-uniformed "combatants": They yank the bound
captive before a video camera, make him confess he's a Jew, and
decapitate him live on camera.
I will fully admit that we *could* do better at some details of the
whole thing, such as the right to a "speedy" trial and all that. But
drawing a "moral equivalence" between the way we, as an organized
governmental state, are acting and they, as a bunch of rogue tribal
leaders that largely reject the protocols of the Geneva Convention
except if it can work to their advantage is just downright
disingenuous, and you know that.
Pat O'Neill
> No. I'm saying that they will be detained until the war has ended.
And if we cannot define "victory," how will we know when the war has
ended? When we know for certain that no one will ever commit a
terrorist act against the US again? How would we know that?
> The roughly 250 detainees that we have left are some pretty tough hombres.
> They are dedicated to attacking Americans where ever and whenever they can.
It would appear even the Pentagon disagrees with you:
"Of more than 240 prisoners now at Guantanamo, the Pentagon says,
about 100 are considered too dangerous to be released from U.S.
custody; about 80 could face criminal charges in U.S. courts but could
be freed if acquitted; and about 60 have been cleared for release but
cannot be sent home because their countries are likely to harm them.
"Of those 60, only 19 - chiefly ethnic Uighurs from China - have been
reclassified as civilians; the rest remain 'enemy combatants.'
" [http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/
20090127_EU__Could_take_screened_detainees.html]
Pat O'Neill
Once again...your response is "They're so much worse than us, that
even if we don't abide by our own principles, we're still better than
they are." I thought conservatives always stood on principle.
Antonio E. Gonzalez
Another thing: the number of released detainees that went back to
the battlefield (about 13%) fits almost perfectly with the Red Cross
estimate that 90% of those imprisoned are innocent; this not counting
those driven to terrorism by their treatment behind bars.
This may be the biggest reason some fear legitimate trials of Gitmo
detainees: exposure of all the mistakes, mistakes that would have
been avoided had proper procedure been taken.
It's funny Nuremberg was mentioned, as similar trials should soon
be in order for those behind the Gitmo fiasco, something they denied
their victims for so long . . .
--
- ReFlex76
LNER...@juno.com
>
> Once again...your response is "They're so much worse than us, that
> even if we don't abide by our own principles, we're still better than
> they are." I thought conservatives always stood on principle.
Okay.
Propose a viable and EFFECTIVE alternative.
Freezer
> Propose a viable and EFFECTIVE alternative.
I'm still waiting for proof that current "interrogation" tactics are
effective.
I'm also still waiting for someone to explain to me how treating the
detainees by the rules set down either by teh Geneva Convention (if
we're at war, they're POWs) or by US penal law (if we're not at war,
they're criminals subject to the US Constitution) is somehow showing
weakness or just "not enough" to deal with them.
Sherwood Harrington
> If I don't respond to this post, the terrorists win.
>> Propose a viable and EFFECTIVE alternative.
> I'm still waiting for proof that current "interrogation" tactics are
> effective.
> I'm also still waiting for someone to explain to me how treating the
> detainees by the rules set down either by teh Geneva Convention (if
> we're at war, they're POWs) or by US penal law (if we're not at war,
> they're criminals subject to the US Constitution) is somehow showing
> weakness or just "not enough" to deal with them.
Folks who want to keep them in Guantanamo are typical, mollycoddling,
lily-livered, bleeding-hearts. They know that if those guys were thrown
into an American hard-case prison, they'd probably be dead or gang
sex-slaves within a month.
--
Sherwood Harrington
Boulder Creek, California
Pat O'Neill
Are these guys so much more resistant to normal interrogation
techniques than, say, serial killers? If we can break a psychopath
without torture, why not a terrorist?
LNER...@juno.com
> > Propose a viable and EFFECTIVE alternative.
>
> Are these guys so much more resistant to normal interrogation
> techniques than, say, serial killers? If we can break a psychopath
> without torture, why not a terrorist?
For the record, I can't offer any proof either way whether or not
"conventional" interrogation techniques have been tried. But as I
recall, all the Geneva Convention requires you to cite is your name,
rank, and serial number, or something similar. (My father was
technically a POW in the European theater for about 30 minutes. He
and his comrade managed to talk their two captors into surrendering to
them by lamenting that this was "steak night" back at the camp....
"you have meat?")
To be completely fair about this, these captors probably aren't even
giving real names/rank/etc. even if they were cooperating with
investigators.
So, to recap: You've managed to capture what you somehow
determine--"intelligence," informants, evidence, whatever--are
"masterminds" of these terror campaigns. The head bomb makers, the
guys funneling cash and explosives to combatants, etc.
How do you propose to deal with them in a safe (for us), effective
manner that satisfies your apparent desire for compassionate
treatment?
Pat O'Neill
Not compassionate...humane. I'm not saying we have to give them cozy,
comfy rooms with a view, for heaven's sake.
Lock them up. Ask them questions...harshly even. Yell, scream,
threaten--with everything short of physical damage. Threaten to keep
them in solitary. Threaten to reduce their rations to the bare
minimums allowed. Hell, threaten to tell their fellow prisoners
they've spilled their guts. (That's not illegal...cops do it all the
time.) Lie--tell them you've already figured out what they know and
watch their reactions. (Again, frequent cop trick.)
Oh--and if they really ARE the masterminds, then their organization
will be hapless without them. Think of the Mafia families that fell
apart--even into internecine struggles that killed them all off--when
their capo di capi was imprisoned and cut off from communication.
We know all these things work, because we've used them for decades. We
know torture, for the most part, doesn't work--*24* fantasies, aside--
because all the psychological experts tell us it doesn't.
LNER...@juno.com
> Not compassionate...humane. I'm not saying we have to give them cozy,
> comfy rooms with a view, for heaven's sake.
>
> Lock them up. Ask them questions...harshly even. Yell, scream,
> threaten--with everything short of physical damage. Threaten to keep
> them in solitary. Threaten to reduce their rations to the bare
> minimums allowed. Hell, threaten to tell their fellow prisoners
> they've spilled their guts. (That's not illegal...cops do it all the
> time.) Lie--tell them you've already figured out what they know and
> watch their reactions. (Again, frequent cop trick.)
>
> Oh--and if they really ARE the masterminds, then their organization
> will be hapless without them. Think of the Mafia families that fell
> apart--even into internecine struggles that killed them all off--when
> their capo di capi was imprisoned and cut off from communication.
>
> We know all these things work, because we've used them for decades. We
> know torture, for the most part, doesn't work--*24* fantasies, aside--
> because all the psychological experts tell us it doesn't.
So, if I'm reading this right, you're in favor of, or endorse,
everything we're already supposedly doing--holding them indefinitely
without trials, denying them access to the evidence/charges against
them, locking up supposedly innocent folks along with the rest--as
long as we don't "torture" them? Is this the acceptable alternative
to you?
Some would say the screaming, lying, denying food, etc, is
"inhumane." Answer to them.
Pat O'Neill
No--I'm in favor of doing all those things I cited as a means of
interrogation, just as cops use them in interrogating suspects. But
once a cop has what he thinks is sufficient evidence (either physical
or from the suspect's own words), he arrests the suspect, and then
turns him over to the legal system for adjudication.
These people must be tried...and tried by the methods and under the
rules our Constitution sets forth. Don't give me the nonsense about
their not being citizens and hence the Constitution doesn't apply. The
Constitution, in setting forth the methods and rules regarding
criminal prosecution never uses the word "citizen". It uses the word
"person". We prosecute non-citizens under criminal law all the time.
> Some would say the screaming, lying, denying food, etc, is
> "inhumane." Answer to them.
No statute, no treaty, no international convention forbids screaming
and lying. And I didn't say "denying food"...I said maintaining only
the minimums for the non-cooperative. BTW, you noted that the Geneva
Conventions require a prisoner to give only his name, rank, and ID
number. I note that criminal law requires a suspect to give only his
name and address....and insists that he be given a lawyer when he asks
for one.
Dann
4764-9399-6...@r10g2000prf.googlegroups.com.
> Not compassionate...humane. I'm not saying we have to give them cozy,
> comfy rooms with a view, for heaven's sake.
>
> Lock them up. Ask them questions...harshly even. Yell, scream,
> threaten--with everything short of physical damage. Threaten to keep
> them in solitary. Threaten to reduce their rations to the bare
> minimums allowed. Hell, threaten to tell their fellow prisoners
> they've spilled their guts. (That's not illegal...cops do it all the
> time.) Lie--tell them you've already figured out what they know and
> watch their reactions. (Again, frequent cop trick.)
>
> Oh--and if they really ARE the masterminds, then their organization
> will be hapless without them. Think of the Mafia families that fell
> apart--even into internecine struggles that killed them all off--when
> their capo di capi was imprisoned and cut off from communication.
>
> We know all these things work, because we've used them for decades. We
> know torture, for the most part, doesn't work--*24* fantasies, aside--
> because all the psychological experts tell us it doesn't.
You know what?
I agree....generally*.
That is precisely what they have been doing at Gitmo. Pity that the
facility that is supplying the care we both agree we should be supplying
is about to be closed.
*generally - in that there can be reasonable differences of opinion
regarding what constitutes humane treatment, just as there can be
reasonable differences of opinion regarding the accepability of
interrogation techniques that make a detainee experience discomfort
without rising to the level of "torture".
I also say "generally" in that a complete discussion of humane
treatment/living conditions [about which I suspect we would be in almost
complete agreement] or interrogation techniques [probably pretty close
there, too] is well off topic.
-----
A separate thought/question for anyone that is still interested in this
thread.
The advocates of waterboarding make the argument that waterboarding is
acceptable if we have a known terrorist, having placed a known WMD, and
the only way to discover/disarm that device is waterboarding.
That line of reasoning makes me ask [sarcastically] exactly how many
times we have had WMD's in a major city.
By the same token, intelligence officials have said that waterboarding
Khalid Sheik Mohammed resulted in a large amount of actionable/valuable
intelligence about al-Qaeda operations and personnel. Even people that
are opposed to waterboarding have acknowledged that using it on KSM
produced lots of good intel. So it does work in the right circumstances.
Here's the question...put yourself in the President's shoes....red or
blue...your pick...it makes no difference.
The NSA says we have someone in custody that has planted some sort of
nuclear weapon somewhere in the Boston to DC corridor. We have emails
and text messages that document the weapon. We even have latent
radioactivity that matches the known source for the fuel for the weapon
in the terrorist's belongings.
It is too late to ask questions about how this person obtained such a
weapon or how he/she got it into the country. It is here and the only
source of information about the location and disarming of be the weapon
is in this person's head.
What do you do?
While waterboarding isn't safe, the risks are pretty low. Do you
authorize the waterboarding and disrespect the humanity of this one
person, or do you let the weapon go off and disrespect the humanity of
hundreds...or perhaps thousands....of innocent civilians?
I don't have a good answer.
Dann
news:d0290224-f4c8-4345...@p37g2000yqd.googlegroups.com.
> On Jan 26, 10:46 pm, Dann <detox...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> No. I'm saying that they will be detained until the war has ended.
>
> And if we cannot define "victory," how will we know when the war has
> ended? When we know for certain that no one will ever commit a
> terrorist act against the US again? How would we know that?
We didn't know when WWII was going to end in January of 1944. But I'm
pretty sure we didn't have any qualms about what was....at that point...an
indefinite term of detention for our Italian and Japanese POWs in a war
that we weren't terribly certain to win.
This is the penalty for being a terrorist.
If they had decided to become fighters in some sort of organized military
that responded to a command structure, getting the command to surrender is
all it would take to get these captured fighters freed. They opted to
fight in a manner not IAW the normal rules of war....I can hear Peter
Sellers giggling at the concept of "rules of war"...I watched Dr.
Strangelove recently, too....and therefore they are stuck in Gitmo until we
can be reasonably assured that releasing them will not pose a significant
threat to the US.
If that means waiting to have functioning democracies in Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Syria, and most of eastern Africa....or hell freezing over...so be
it. They had other options.
>> The roughly 250 detainees that we have left are some pretty tough
>> hombres. They are dedicated to attacking Americans where ever and
>> whenever they can.
>
> It would appear even the Pentagon disagrees with you:
>
> "Of more than 240 prisoners now at Guantanamo, the Pentagon says,
> about 100 are considered too dangerous to be released from U.S.
> custody; about 80 could face criminal charges in U.S. courts but could
> be freed if acquitted; and about 60 have been cleared for release but
> cannot be sent home because their countries are likely to harm them.
The stories that I have been reading in the weeks leading up to the
inauguration suggested that the remaining batch were all either hardcore
cases, or Uighurs. The story Monday night on NPR suggested that they were
all pretty dangerous....but the context of that story was mainland prisons
where they might be potentially held. So they were chatting up the aspect
of "dangerous" prisoners that no one wanted to have in a nearby prison.
A second aspect of that same story was that the US is having trouble
getting other countries to accept those same prisoners since we weren't
ready to put them in any of our mainland facilities. Perhaps....the
administration[s] may be playing down the nature of this batch of prisoners
in order to make it easier to place them in a federal prison and in prisons
overseas.
In any case, I respectfully submit that the system we currently have in
place is more than adequate for classifying, detaining, and otherwise
processing any detainees that we may have; currently and as the war moves
forward.
Pat O'Neill
> On 28 Jan 2009, Pat O'Neill said the following in news:cf7cfa97-a449-
Neither do I...except that waterboarding--or any other form of
torture--only guarantees he is eventually going to tell you SOMETHING
to make the process stop. It doesn't guarantee he is going to tell you
the truth. And if he tells you a lie (or if you're wrong about him
being the person with the knowledge), by the time you discover that,
it's too late.
OTOH, good police work has a better chance of discovering the truth.
And cops do it all the time--in kidnappings, for instance, when the
need to know where the hostage is being held is equivalent to knowing
where the bomb is in your example.
Oh--and we have no idea if the intel from KSM was good or bad; we have
only the Bush administration's word on that. Sorry, but I stopped
trusting the Bush administration on just about anything about five
years ago. And we certainly don't know that the same intel--good or
bad--could not have been elicited without violating the Geneva
Conventions.
Pat O'Neill
> On 27 Jan 2009, Pat O'Neill said the following innews:d0290224-f4c8-4345...@p37g2000yqd.googlegroups.com.
>
> > On Jan 26, 10:46 pm, Dann <detox...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> No. I'm saying that they will be detained until the war has ended.
>
> > And if we cannot define "victory," how will we know when the war has
> > ended? When we know for certain that no one will ever commit a
> > terrorist act against the US again? How would we know that?
>
> We didn't know when WWII was going to end in January of 1944. But I'm
> pretty sure we didn't have any qualms about what was....at that point...an
> indefinite term of detention for our Italian and Japanese POWs in a war
> that we weren't terribly certain to win.
But we knew it WAS going to end, sometime...in victory for one side or
the other, at which time the POWs on both sides would be repatriated.
BTW, you DO know that the Nazis followed the Geneva Conventions of
that time in treating our captured military? Are you saying we can't
behave at least as well as the Nazis in treating prisoners in this
conflict?
> If that means waiting to have functioning democracies in Iran, Saudi
> Arabia, Syria, and most of eastern Africa....or hell freezing over...so be
> it. They had other options.
Wait a minute. Many of these guys were fighting with the Taliban...at
the time the governing authority of Afghanistan, whether we accepted
it or not. They weren't terrorists, they were soldiers...maybe not
uniformed as we understand the term, and not under the kind of
heirarchy we would use, but they weren't setting bombs among civilian
populations either. Since when is fighting an invading army a
terrorist act?
Sherwood Harrington
Dann, I was really, really hoping that someone else would blow the whistle
on the below quotes. It's been a few days, though, and no one has, so I
guess I have to:
> The
> Nazis largely constrained themselves to the laws and customs of war.
Genocide doesn't conform to any laws or civilized customs...
> The same is true for the Japanese military.
... nor does the Japanese treatment of Chinese and Korean civilians during
WWII.
In both cases, "terror" was taken to a level that is orders of magnitude
beyond what our guests in Guantanamo were ever capable of. And yet those
perpetrators were charged, tried, and convicted in venues their own
organizations would have denied their victims, courts of law or their
equivalents.
I can't imagine that someone with your knowledge of 20th century history
would hold otherwise.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
I suspect the point meant was that the Nazi's more or less played Geneva
with *us* (though not the Russians), not that they didn't do terrible things
to other people.
On the other hand, I believe that was not generally the case with the Japanese
and our POWs (Battan comes to mind).
Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Sherwood Harrington
> I suspect the point meant was that the Nazi's more or less played Geneva
> with *us* (though not the Russians), not that they didn't do terrible things
> to other people.
Maybe that's what Dann meant. That certainly makes more sense in the
context.
It's a perspective that invites planet-wide disaster, though, in our
current global inter-connectedness.
Dann
news:glrmld$qcq$1...@blue.rahul.net.
> Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
>> I suspect the point meant was that the Nazi's more or less played
>> Geneva with *us* (though not the Russians), not that they didn't do
>> terrible things to other people.
>
> Maybe that's what Dann meant. That certainly makes more sense in the
> context.
First, my thanks to Ted for accurately channeling his inner-Dann.
The issue of treatment of POWs in WWII encourages even further thread
drift and believe it or not, I'm trying to back out of this one nicely.
The Germans, Italians, and Japanese largely "played Geneva". They wore
uniforms. They were subject to a central command structure. And they
largely....key word there....restricted their activities to fighting our
military.
The vast majority of the German military didn't have anything to do with
committing genocide.
The exceptions are pretty obvious as you correctly note regarding the
German attempt to exterminate the Jews...and a few other smaller groups.
Anyone with an adequate knowledge of WWII would know that the Japanese
butchered millions of innocent civilians and therefore were about as bad
as the Germans. And of course our POWs were treated pretty badly by the
Japanese. The Germans did a barely passable job WRT POWs.
Of course, I suspect that in attempting to bomb German factories, we
probably hit more than a few hospitals. And then there is Ike's decision
to re-categorize German POWs to "disarmed enemy combatants" so that they
could be used for forced labor after the Germans surrendered.
Perfectly clean hands are hard to find in WWII. Although I believe the
allies did a pretty decent job of living up to not only international
standards, but their own standards as well.
deto...@hotmail.com
> But we knew it WAS going to end, sometime...in victory for one side or
> the other, at which time the POWs on both sides would be repatriated.
> BTW, you DO know that the Nazis followed the Geneva Conventions of
> that time in treating our captured military? Are you saying we can't
> behave at least as well as the Nazis in treating prisoners in this
> conflict?
I'd like to ask a favor. I have yet to question your patriotism.
Would you please stop questioning my humanity?
We obviously know that the current war will end at some point. Given
that there is a currently a terrorist structure for those detainees to
rejoin, it makes no sense to let them loose so they can plan and/or
execute further terrorist actions against innocent civilians.
BTW, I used to know a former POW that spent a year or so in a Nazi POW
camp. He'd be rolling with laughter to hear that someone believes
that our current treatment of the detainees is below the level of
treatment given American POWs in Nazi POW camps.
Or the short version, if the Nazis were in compliance with Geneva, it
wasn't by much. The detainees are certainly receiving much better
food, medical care, and housing than anything provided by the Germans.
--
Regards,
Dann
Mike Marshall
>Of course, I suspect that in attempting to bomb German factories, we
>Perfectly clean hands are hard to find in WWII. Although I believe the
>allies did a pretty decent job of living up to not only international
>standards, but their own standards as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
-Mike "Wars are won by kicking them when they're down..."
Pat O'Neill
> On Jan 28, 10:10 pm, "Pat O'Neill" <patdone...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > But we knew it WAS going to end, sometime...in victory for one side or
> > the other, at which time the POWs on both sides would be repatriated.
> > BTW, you DO know that the Nazis followed the Geneva Conventions of
> > that time in treating our captured military? Are you saying we can't
> > behave at least as well as the Nazis in treating prisoners in this
> > conflict?
>
> I'd like to ask a favor. I have yet to question your patriotism.
> Would you please stop questioning my humanity?
I wasn't aware that I was. I was questioning your ability to make
comparisons, I thought.
> We obviously know that the current war will end at some point.
We do? How? If we can't define victory, how will we know when the war
has ended? When the last terrorist is dead or imprisoned? How will we
know that? In wars between nations, we know the war has ended when one
nation or the other surrenders, or is deposed, or something like that.
Do you truly believe there is anyone who can speak, definitively, for
al-Qaeda and surrender?
>Given
> that there is a currently a terrorist structure for those detainees to
> rejoin, it makes no sense to let them loose so they can plan and/or
> execute further terrorist actions against innocent civilians.
There will ALWAYS be a terrorist structure for them to rejoin; it may
be smaller, it may be less effective, but it won't disappear. Even
with the current much-improved situation in Ireland, there is still an
IRA. All it would take is a sudden change in the British government's
attitude to make that IRA a real problem again.
LNER...@juno.com
> > We obviously know that the current war will end at some point.
>
> We do? How? If we can't define victory, how will we know when the war
> has ended? When the last terrorist is dead or imprisoned? How will we
> know that? In wars between nations, we know the war has ended when one
> nation or the other surrenders, or is deposed, or something like that.
> Do you truly believe there is anyone who can speak, definitively, for
> al-Qaeda and surrender?
*It appears to me that, as far as the most rabble-rousing critics of
the war are concerned, said war ended on January 20th, 2009.
>
> There will ALWAYS be a terrorist structure for them to rejoin; it may
> be smaller, it may be less effective, but it won't disappear. Even
> with the current much-improved situation in Ireland, there is still an
> IRA. All it would take is a sudden change in the British government's
> attitude to make that IRA a real problem again.
Not really. By the same argument, the fact that there are still
registered Communists trying to pass out neo-socialist propaganda at
my local farmers' market every Saturday is proof that the Cold War is
still on.
What changed, in the case of the IRA, was the (at least verbal)
willingness of Sinn Fein to channel their energies into democratically-
representative political action while repudiating the violence of the
IRA in exchange for a place at the "table" for the political
representatives. Al-Qaeda has a LONG ways to get even close to such
acceptable actions.
Dann
news:0e47236e-3b62-478a...@x38g2000yqj.googlegroups.com.
> On Jan 30, 8:37 am, detox...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> On Jan 28, 10:10 pm, "Pat O'Neill" <patdone...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> > But we knew it WAS going to end, sometime...in victory for one side
>> > or the other, at which time the POWs on both sides would be
>> > repatriated. BTW, you DO know that the Nazis followed the Geneva
>> > Conventions of that time in treating our captured military? Are you
>> > saying we can't behave at least as well as the Nazis in treating
>> > prisoners in this conflict?
>>
>> I'd like to ask a favor. I have yet to question your patriotism.
>> Would you please stop questioning my humanity?
>
> I wasn't aware that I was. I was questioning your ability to make
> comparisons, I thought.
Not when you torture the comparisons [pun intended] beyond recognition.
There is a world of difference between the US and the Nazis. And that
includes the actions we have taken recently that I beleive we both oppose.
Of course, I could be wrong about your questioning of my humanity.
Repeated disfavorable comparisons to the Nazis do tend to cause me to chafe
just a bit.
>> We obviously know that the current war will end at some point.
>
> We do? How? If we can't define victory, how will we know when the war
> has ended? When the last terrorist is dead or imprisoned? How will we
> know that? In wars between nations, we know the war has ended when one
> nation or the other surrenders, or is deposed, or something like that.
> Do you truly believe there is anyone who can speak, definitively, for
> al-Qaeda and surrender?
You are right. This is hard.
Some times hard tasks are worth doing.
Wars don't operate based on a time table. Victory in the current conflict
could take many forms. Who knows what combat tactics and/or diplomacy
might be undertaken in the future to cause the other side to stop fighting.
>>Given
>> that there is a currently a terrorist structure for those detainees
>> to rejoin, it makes no sense to let them loose so they can plan
>> and/or execute further terrorist actions against innocent civilians.
>
> There will ALWAYS be a terrorist structure for them to rejoin; it may
> be smaller, it may be less effective, but it won't disappear. Even
> with the current much-improved situation in Ireland, there is still an
> IRA. All it would take is a sudden change in the British government's
> attitude to make that IRA a real problem again.
Ivy covered this well enough.
As I see it, we disagree on one major question; are we at war? IMO, war
was declared on the US. We ignored that fact until the enemy was able to
get everyone's attention 7 1/2 years ago. The way to win wars is to take
the fight to the enemy's doorstep and keep it there until he is dead or
willing to change his ways. That includes keeping captured combattants
locked up until releasing them no longer poses a danger.
I infer that you believe something less to be the case.
Pat O'Neill
> On 30 Jan 2009, Pat O'Neill said the following innews:0e47236e-3b62-478a...@x38g2000yqj.googlegroups.com.
So, again, we are at the mercy of those conducting the war to define
when it is over. If it is to their advantage (and under the just ended
administration, I believe it was), they may keep it going forever.
> As I see it, we disagree on one major question; are we at war? IMO, war
> was declared on the US. We ignored that fact until the enemy was able to
> get everyone's attention 7 1/2 years ago. The way to win wars is to take
> the fight to the enemy's doorstep and keep it there until he is dead or
> willing to change his ways. That includes keeping captured combattants
> locked up until releasing them no longer poses a danger.
>
> I infer that you believe something less to be the case.
>
Not less, different. I believe we are battling a large, international,
criminal conspiracy. One does not combat criminals with military
force. One does it with police work, investigation, arrest, trial and
imprisonment. One does not do it, effectively, with torture. One does
it with interrogation that reveals hard-won truth. Torture only
results in the tortured telling the torturer what he wants to hear, in
order to end the torture. It elicits confessions, not information.
And it does not include what you propose for those captured...which
used to be called "preventive detention." We don't use that for serial
killers or pedophiles. Why use it in this case? Is the danger really
greater? Or do those in charge merely NEED it to be presumed so, in
order to maintain the climate of fear they use to remain in power?