Sheesh, so much whining, so little time.
Like you'd be happier if Bush had freaking VETOED those two bills that have now armed over 1,000 of our pilots (with 6,000 more currently enrolled in the TSA training program)?!
Oh yeah, right!
< /MOCKING! >
Posted on 02/02/2004 2:15:54 PM PST by quidnunc
The obvious answer to your comment and the obvious problem with your idea is "How do you tell?" How do you know that someone is a terrorist deserving of punishment? In this country we have a prescribed method to do that. Whether it is terrorism or any other crime, we have prescribed due process to make the decision. The executive branch in NOT PERMITTED to make the decision on its own.
I think that is a very good idea since otherwise we are all subject to arbitrary arrest because some bureaucrat does not like us or we say inconvenient things about them.
Isn't it obvious how out of hand things will get almost immediately if the executive branch can jail anyone without recourse?
No one is a terrorist until a jury tells me so!
This just makes me wonder how much ELSE of your long rant is BS or MISLEADING BS. THIS most certainly is.
The Rovians have done everything they can do to stonewall this commonsense move. It is no where close to being implemented and probably never will be!
They are in serious danger of assuming the STUPID PARTY title.
Sheesh, so much whining, so little time.
Like you'd be happier if Bush had freaking VETOED those two bills that have now armed over 1,000 of our pilots (with 6,000 more currently enrolled in the TSA training program)?!
Oh yeah, right!
< /MOCKING! >
There you go again. Here you are blaming Ashcroft for a precedent set back to WW2 times with the Geneva Convention.
Look kid, I've already explained to you that Bush didn't invent the treatment of enemy combatants...yet you persist in pretending that Bush and Ashcroft are your boogeymen.
That sort of dishonesty has no place in civilized society.
Either correctly place the blame on the Geneva Convention rather than on the harmless Patriot Act, or else leave this forum.
Did any previous administration ever pick up a citizen off the street and lock him away without trial? Not since Lincoln did we have such an evil administration capable of such outrageous behavior. Stop blaming the Geneva convention. The president should know the rare cases when that applies and the everyday situations where due process applies. Jose Padilla is a kidnap victim and George Bush is the head of the gang holding him. Ashcroft is the Capo.
That sounds right. 800 pilots armed in January and another 200+ should have graduated between then and now. Oh, that's 1000+ as I said, by the way... even by your source.
Sheesh, you're probably about to hyperventilate.
Yes, starting with FDR, American citizens who were in the employ of our enemies...have been arrested in their apartments, on the street, in bars...as well as shot on the battlefield, captured by our military, etc.
Of the more than 1,000 U.S. citizens who fought for NAZI Germany against the U.S., I'm aware only of trials for ten of them. The rest were either killed on the battlefield or held as POW's.
But at least 8 of those 10 were classified as "enemy combatants" by U.S. law due to the Geneva Convention.
This meant that they were given no legal protections, unlike what we give to recognized POW's.
Enemy combatants are those spies and saboteurs who wear no recognized military uniform (or carry military ID), by the way...something that was agreed upon worldwide even before GWBush was born. They are not entitled to trials. You can give them a trial if you want, but you don't have to, legally...much in the same way that you can bomb U.S. citizens without giving them trials...IF they are fighting against U.S. forces or working with or in enemy facilities. You don't stop a battle to give due process.
And *all* of your juvenile anger is misdirected, logically, by the way. Even if you got your way and a Libertarian magically became President, the same Geneva Convention would still be the supreme law of our land due to Article 6 of our Constitution, combined with the fact that the Geneva Convention has been legally signed and ratified here.
So even if you got your way, which you won't, you'd still be stuck with the same problem.
So the *key* here is to fight the right battle, which is as dirtboy pointed out above in this very thread...to either reform the Geneva Convention globally or to limit American officials' powers under it domestically.
But I can't believe that an ideologue such as yourself could ever bring yourself to focus on the root of any problem.
All that I can picture in that line of thinking is that you will continue to tilt at nonsensical windmills in some Quixote-esque crusade.
Perhaps you actually think that if you yell loud enough at a popular domestic target that you'll somehow win converts to your 3rd Party cause, or maybe you have other reasons for yelling at Bush and attempting to deflect criticism away from the Geneva Convention, but whatever your motivation has become, it isn't very likely to accomplish anything of note simply because you are focusing away from the core target.
So long as the Geneva Convention remains unchanged as supreme law of this land (per Article 6), enemy combatants are not entitled to trials. Of course, neither are POW's (heck, you'll probably blame Bush for that, too), but at least POW's have some protections from being shot on sight. Enemy combatants have no such protections, legally.
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