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Frazzled wrote:You're from Ireland right? You don't really think the British just arrested all the IRA guys they found or suspected right?

If I supported blanket attacks most of the Middle East would be radioactive.

I'm not sure what your first comment means.

When I said blanket attacks, what I meant was that you think it's okay for anyone suspected to be dealt with outside of the normal legal process. Do you believe that? That sort of thing makes me very uneasy, and I'm suprised someone as distrustful of government as you are is okay with it.

Translation of whiny butt comments:

He's a human being and has rights. You're just being an evil American fascist. Frankly the world was a paradise until you and the US came along and spoiled everything. You guys suck. Not us. We're enlightened because we've been at peace while US troops, tanks, and money kept the wolf at bay. We've never done anything like you guys did ever. What? whats a text book?


EDIT: I'll let you call me evil now and feel better about yourself.

I haven't called you evil. I think in this post you're being too defensive. This doesn't have anything to do with them being american, it has to do with them acting outside the legal system. Notice, I didn't say "americans are up to something shady", governments all over the world get up to this sort of stuff all the time.
I've never claimed enlightenment, just a different point of view. Nor have I ever claimed the world was a paradise.
I find that whole translation really insulting, in the context of this thread.

When you post things like this, you make yourself look foolish and intolerant, I think. Of course, you may think the same of me, a lot of the time.

I've been told I'm foaming at the mouth again, which is true. Moving on. In the immortal words of Forrest Gump "Sorry for interrupting your Black Panther Party"


(The above pic is almost avatar worthy. )

Horatio Jackson: Ah, the officer who risked his life by singlehandedly destroying...
Functionary: [whispering in his ear] Six.
Horatio Jackson: *Six* enemy cannon and rescuing...
Functionary: Ten.
Horatio Jackson: Ten of our men held captive by The Turk.
Heroic Officer: Yes, sir.
Horatio Jackson: The officer about whom we've heard so much.
Heroic Officer: I suppose so, sir.
Horatio Jackson: Always taking risks far beyond the call of duty.
Heroic Officer: I only did my best, sir.
Horatio Jackson: Have him executed at once.
Soldier: Yes, sir. Come along.
Horatio Jackson: This sort of behavior is demoralizing for the ordinary soldiers and citizens who are trying to lead normal, simple, unexceptional lives. I think things are difficult enough as it is without these emotional people rocking the boat.

Nevermind.
Not worth the effort.

Intelligence agencies, from every country, break the law simply by existing in a foreign sovereignty. It's their job... and they know the risk of prosecution, or worse.

Also, for everyone pointing out the two Italian's that were charged, most likely were US accomplices as contacts, not Italian operations. Just as likely they are and Italy is politically covering their involvement, who knows?

I would wholly expect us to prosecute Italian agents if they had abducted nationals or other locals to partake in their intelligence operations, and any American's who who involved.

Also, Olympia, Frazz is just saying that IF he believed in certain elements that you are accusing him of, and he had the power to do so, then the Middle East would be a glass bowl by now.

What Frazz is trying to say, and failing at because he's actually barely literate due to dementia and laudenum addiction, is that efforts against terrorism and terrorists aren't legal criminal actions, they're matters of state security. The reason for this is that they're not citizens, generally not residents, and are members of organizations whose stated goal is to attack america, or it's allies.

Now, as a liberal myself, I'm concerned that the power to label a person a terrorist and then deny him certain basic rights is troubling. As a realist, I know that allowing active members of organizations that are essentially at war with the US is dangerous. It's a tight balance, and one that I'm not sure about, but it's far more nuanced than pretty much anybody in this thread is making it out to be.

One of the aspects in the war on terror that IMO the US has failed to play up is that it is a true war, in the sense that there are groups that have declared war on us, they have fighting units and governments, and just because they aren't states doesn't mean we can't treat a known fighter for a cell like a soldier for an enemy nation.

I'm not horribly interested in an "america sucks/america is awesome" pissing match, but the unspoken agreement amongst all industrialized nations is that the US does the dirty work, with the UK as a wingman. The US really is the world's policeman, and the real world isn't black and white. While I don't agree with many of the US's actions, they're generally better thought out than many think, and with more tacit approval than people think.

Look at the UN history to see how many times they said "somebody should do something about Iraq." I opposed the Iraq war, but nobody is going to convince me that we were as unilateral as many would believe.

Polonius wrote:What Frazz is trying to say, and failing at because he's actually barely literate due to dementia and laudenum addiction

Dude can I sig that?

Feel free.

olympia wrote:Mubarak is, of course, a dictator. I suspect that majority of Egyptians would support his overthrow through free elections, or barring those, the use of violence.

Don't they have pharaohs?

utan wrote:Horatio Jackson: Ah, the officer who risked his life by singlehandedly destroying...
Functionary: [whispering in his ear] Six.
Horatio Jackson: *Six* enemy cannon and rescuing...
Functionary: Ten.
Horatio Jackson: Ten of our men held captive by The Turk.
Heroic Officer: Yes, sir.
Horatio Jackson: The officer about whom we've heard so much.
Heroic Officer: I suppose so, sir.
Horatio Jackson: Always taking risks far beyond the call of duty.
Heroic Officer: I only did my best, sir.
Horatio Jackson: Have him executed at once.
Soldier: Yes, sir. Come along.
Horatio Jackson: This sort of behavior is demoralizing for the ordinary soldiers and citizens who are trying to lead normal, simple, unexceptional lives. I think things are difficult enough as it is without these emotional people rocking the boat.

I don't remember that episode of CSI.

Polonius wrote:One of the aspects in the war on terror that IMO the US has failed to play up is that it is a true war, in the sense that there are groups that have declared war on us, they have fighting units and governments, and just because they aren't states doesn't mean we can't treat a known fighter for a cell like a soldier for an enemy nation.

I think having previously declared wars on poverty and drugs didn't help.

Frazzled wrote:Crime is irrelevant. Thats the problem its not the mob, its a war. We didn't try to arrest Yammamoto, we sent a squadron of P-38s to blow his brains out. Catch the difference?

Government must be kept as small as possible. This is because government is inefficient and full of incompetence. Unless you're talking about the police or an intelligence service accusing someone of a crime, then suddenly government is infallible and there's no need for trial or any of that other due process malarky.

The mind of the rightwinger is an amazing place. I once downed a full jar of peyote and for a second I was one with Ayn Rand, but it wasn't for a second and then I was stuck back in the real world, once again having to deal with logic and reason.

As a Brit I have to remember that our MI5 shot dead three unarmed IRA guys in Gibraltar (Death On The Rock,) and our anti-terrorist police shot dead an unarmed Brazilian student who had no terrorist connections, in a tube station, and a bloke walking home from the pub with a chair leg.

What this says to me is you have to keep a strict eye on how your security forces operate.

Polonius wrote:One of the aspects in the war on terror that IMO the US has failed to play up is that it is a true war, in the sense that there are groups that have declared war on us, they have fighting units and governments, and just because they aren't states doesn't mean we can't treat a known fighter for a cell like a soldier for an enemy nation.

They could have arrested him, though, instead of taking him to a third location to be tortured.

I'm not horribly interested in an "america sucks/america is awesome" pissing match, but the unspoken agreement amongst all industrialized nations is that the US does the dirty work, with the UK as a wingman.

Sort of. In this case of the renditions multiple countries have been involved, most notably the Italians and the Germans.

The student shooting, however, wasn't that ruled a justifiable circumstance?

And as for the CIA policies...

It's time for a change. Not with CIA policy, but with international law. The world has changed since the Geneva Conventions went through, and we're abiding by them--to the best of our ability when dealing with groups that don't abide by ANY rules.

We've not violated any Geneva Accords. by those accords all those Gitmo guys could have been shot as they weren't wearing uniforms and representing sovereign states.

Kanluwen wrote:The student shooting, however, wasn't that ruled a justifiable circumstance?

Sort of, but the enquiry did so under strange circumstances, and the general public believe there was a police cover up.

For example, a lot of relevant police records (radio traffic recordings and transcripts) were 'lost' or 'accidentally wiped' before they could be presented in evidence. Also, several witnesses -- members of the public -- contradict the police evidence.

Kanluwen wrote:
And as for the CIA policies...

It's time for a change. Not with CIA policy, but with international law. The world has changed since the Geneva Conventions went through, and we're abiding by them--to the best of our ability when dealing with groups that don't abide by ANY rules.

Surely this thread is about which bits of existing law and human rights we do or don't abide by ATM. On the one side you have the Americans saying it's wrong to try the CIA guys in absentia because it would violate their human rights. (This is also the case under UK law.) On the other side, you have the liberals saying it violated the guy in Italy's rights to be effectively kidnapped on suspicion of terrorist links.

We know that there are people out to get us and destroy aspects of our civilisation they don't like. We know they are hard to fight because if you tried to arraign the guy in Italy before a tribunal for extradition on suspicion of being a terrorist he would just run away and hide. However, a policy that security agents are allowed to grab people on suspicion and hold them indefinitely without trial, is also disturbing. It's exactly the kind of thing Stalin used to do.

We should be careful not to destroy our own civilisation and human rights by chucking habeus corpus and everything out of the window.

If we don't want to treat terrorists as either common criminals or prisoners of war, there needs to be a category of prisoner in between POW and common criminal. However all human rights can't be stripped from them because we would lose moral legitimacy over our enemies.

Kilkrazy wrote:

If we don't want to treat terrorists as either common criminals or prisoners of war, there needs to be a category of prisoner in between POW and common criminal. However all human rights can't be stripped from them because we would lose moral legitimacy over our enemies.

Hear hear, well said.

But then it raises another issue:

Why the hell should we treat people who use the population as a shield, have no qualms with killing innocents to prove that their group is still a threat, and use all manner of tactics to AVOID open combat...as combatants of any sort?

They're operating as a partisan/guerilla force. That's all they have EVER done. They're anarchists at worst, guerillas at best.

And in regards to a category of prisoner between POW and common criminal?

Again--why legitimize them by giving them rights? It will only encourage more groups of the same to crop up.

Kanluwen wrote:But then it raises another issue:

Why the hell should we treat people who use the population as a shield, have no qualms with killing innocents to prove that their group is still a threat, and use all manner of tactics to AVOID open combat...as combatants of any sort?

They're operating as a partisan/guerilla force. That's all they have EVER done. They're anarchists at worst, guerillas at best.

And in regards to a category of prisoner between POW and common criminal?

Again--why legitimize them by giving them rights? It will only encourage more groups of the same to crop up.

Exactly. These people kill children.

Frazzled wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:But then it raises another issue:

Why the hell should we treat people who use the population as a shield, have no qualms with killing innocents to prove that their group is still a threat, and use all manner of tactics to AVOID open combat...as combatants of any sort?

They're operating as a partisan/guerilla force. That's all they have EVER done. They're anarchists at worst, guerillas at best.

And in regards to a category of prisoner between POW and common criminal?

Again--why legitimize them by giving them rights? It will only encourage more groups of the same to crop up.

Exactly. These people kill children.

Actually the guy we captured didn't. He was tried, unconvicted, and released after being shipped around the world and tortured in god damn dungeons. Thats the problem. You scream and go in guns blazing and all you do is fail and feth up on television giving Al jazeera something to play on loop and helping to recruit another 2200 members of Hamas, 3,752 members of the Taliban, 547 members of Al Queda, and Achmadinejad gets a few more votes. You're ideas have failed, these policies don't and didn't work. The "War on terror" has strengthened every international terrorist organization in the middleast. All you've done is given them a better target and alienated us from the disenfranchised and oppressed populaces that they recruit from. When you act like that all you do is screw yourself over. You don't fight violent anti western extremism by DOING THE GOD DAMN THINGS THEY CLAIM WE DO. Thats like fighting a housefire by covering your home in gasoline.

The worst part about it is that we lose all moral highground when you advocate things like this. Especially when you seem so intentionally ignorant and jingoistic about the whole affair simply for the sole purpose of not fixing the problem, but for the purpose of seeming strong.

Again--why legitimize them by giving them rights? It will only encourage more groups of the same to crop up.

Thats the most bunk load of gak I've heard today. It'll probably be the keeper of the day too. I doubt I'll hear something less logical before midnight.

Kanluwen wrote: It will only encourage more groups of the same to crop up.

Why would it ? We're not doing that at the moment and more and more of these groups are cropping up ..so the current "thinking" isn't really working.

have no qualms with killing innocents to prove that their group is still a threat

.. well hat also includes pretty much every nation and a good 50% of the posters on here..apparently.

and use all manner of tactics to AVOID open combat.....They're operating as a partisan/guerilla force. That's all they have EVER done.

..and ? They use tactics ! How unsporting of them ! It's clearly more right to bomb them from 32,000 feet or use remote controlled drones..errr... ?

They're anarchists at worst, guerillas at best.

hmm... I'd say more religious fanatic than anarchist but..I get what you're saying.

To be honest you answered your own question in the first few lines:

Why the hell should we treat people

..because that's what they are, ultimately. It's our ability to acknowledge and act upon this that makes us the "good guys" here.

Human rights?

Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, sh!t like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. - Carlin

utan wrote:Human rights?

Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, sh!t like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. - Carlin

..and ? So what ? We've made up lots of things, that fact that "we" have made them doesn't automatically mean they are worthless, even if the only worth they have is what we give them.

We make up countries, rights, ideals, religi...errr... let's not go there actually ( OT board regulars' J O K E there folks, fret not ! ) and all manner of things, doens't mean they aren't worth fighting for.

utan wrote:Human rights?

Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, sh!t like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. - Carlin

Whelp, looks like I spoke to soon. This little diamond in the rough that-could-only-be-posted-by-a-14-year-old takes the prize for worst thing I've heard today.

Sorry, but anyone who straps a bomb on and blows themselves up in a school in THEIR OWN COUNTRY while yelling "Death to America"?

Not a person.

And actually, if you go and look there have been since 9/11, a huge surge in Islamic extremist group activities, especially in those with ties to Al-Qaeda. The upswings tend towards when Al-Qaeda makes some kind of "political" stance, or a suspected terrorist gets a walk from some simp in a foreign government.

Admittedly, they've all been rather small and don't do too much--but they are groups who Al-Qaeda then recruits from. Add in the fact that most of those groups attract members who had been fighting from the 1970s/80s and have been in a state of constant action against the governments of their "homelands" and you get a batch of hardened guerillas who have no qualms with using the "tactic" of hiding their asses in a civilian population and using force to press the civilians into aiding them with shelter, hiding places, supplies, etc.

Good point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ShumaGorath wrote:

utan wrote:Human rights?

Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, sh!t like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. - Carlin

Whelp, looks like I spoke to soon. This little diamond in the rough that-could-only-be-posted-by-a-14-year-old takes the prize for worst thing I've heard today.

Until you started posting of course.

Kanluwen wrote:And actually, if you go and look there have been since 9/11, a huge surge in Islamic extremist group activities, especially in those with ties to Al-Qaeda. The upswings tend towards when Al-Qaeda makes some kind of "political" stance, or a suspected terrorist gets a walk from some simp in a foreign government.

Or when a country gets invaded for no reason, or when people discover that prisoners have been stripped naked and abused for the sadistic amusement of their guards or etc etc

Admittedly, they've all been rather small and don't do too much--but they are groups who Al-Qaeda then recruits from. Add in the fact that most of those groups attract members who had been fighting from the 1970s/80s and have been in a state of constant action against the governments of their "homelands" and you get a batch of hardened guerillas who have no qualms with using the "tactic" of hiding their asses in a civilian population and using force to press the civilians into aiding them with shelter, hiding places, supplies, etc.

and which Govts. spent many years funding these Afghani "freedom fighters" and training them how to do this again ? Oh.. that's be ours wouldn't it ?

reds8n wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:And actually, if you go and look there have been since 9/11, a huge surge in Islamic extremist group activities, especially in those with ties to Al-Qaeda. The upswings tend towards when Al-Qaeda makes some kind of "political" stance, or a suspected terrorist gets a walk from some simp in a foreign government.

Or when a country gets invaded for no reason, or when people discover that prisoners have been stripped naked and abused for the sadistic amusement of their guards or etc etc

Or when the country that has been invaded has flouted international law repeatedly, nobody said jack other than "Don't do that", and then was found to be funneling weapons and funding to fighters in a currently occupied country.
Yep. Nothing like THAT ever happened in Afghanistan/Iraq.

And as for the prisoners? Hey guess what.
NO RIGHTS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW.
Not a single goddamned right, whatsoever. No uniforms, no sovereign army. Our troops could have(and should have) shot them in the head rather than accepting their surrenders.

reds8n wrote:

Admittedly, they've all been rather small and don't do too much--but they are groups who Al-Qaeda then recruits from. Add in the fact that most of those groups attract members who had been fighting from the 1970s/80s and have been in a state of constant action against the governments of their "homelands" and you get a batch of hardened guerillas who have no qualms with using the "tactic" of hiding their asses in a civilian population and using force to press the civilians into aiding them with shelter, hiding places, supplies, etc.

and which Govts. spent many years funding these Afghani "freedom fighters" and training them how to do this again ? Oh.. that's be ours wouldn't it ?

Yep. We messed up helping to train the Taliban. But, the Taliban was a legitimate force...and was, until the downfall of the government they had installed. Now they're nothing but a pathetic off-shoot tied into Al-Qaeda. You'd know this if you weren't so obsessively focusing on "freedom fighters".

Redy you and I might step back out of this discussion so we can mod if needed. We've stirred the pot to a nice boil. Yes!

ShumaGorath wrote:Whelp, looks like I spoke to soon. This little diamond in the rough that-could-only-be-posted-by-a-14-year-old takes the prize for worst thing I've heard today.

A fallacious ad hominem attack.

I assure you, at the time of the quoted statement George Carlin was not 14 years of age and neither am I.

The statement is true.

It matters to the discussion because everyone thinks they are entitled to all sorts of incompatible "rights". When you argue these against each other as if your own perceived "rights" are indisputable. We have once again a "holy war" thread that will merely degenerate into lockdown. Again.

Or when the country that has been invaded has flouted international law repeatedly, nobody said jack other than "Don't do that", and then was found to be funneling weapons and funding to fighters in a currently occupied country.

Why are you bringing America into this..oh, sorry...

Nobody said jack..really..Hmm... other than the international blockades that history and events have since shown were working and preventing Saddam from equipping or building anything like a successful army and/or building WMDs. No we didn't do anything, but even if we hadn't the situation you describe is now.....drum roll.. exactly the same as you describe, only much worse and with thousands of dead and wounded. RESULT !

See, I can use the capslock button too !

Yep. We messed up helping to train the Taliban.

Agreed.

But, the Taliban was a legitimate force

No they were and are monstrous thugs who we should have been against from the start...not sat back and given tacit approval to.

Perhaps you'd know this if you tried applying a bit more logic and thougts to your arguments.

Still it answers one question : When is a freedom figter not a freedom fighter : when they no longer suit the interests of our Govts. it seems.

Redy you and I might step back out of this discussion so we can mod if needed. We've stirred the pot to a nice boil. Yes!

bah, back to the coal face... to the banning list ! *




*nO, NOT REALLY. chill !