Again, list one right which you believe you've lost -- if you're so convinced
that you've lost `lots' of rights, there must be one you can give as an example, no?
If you would actually follow the case, you would know
that the decision that a suspect is an enemy combatant
is subject to full judicial review. Mr. al-Muhajir, for example,
is appealing his designation as a combatant in a Manhattan
courtroom, and has had full access to counsel at every stage of
the process to prepare this appeal.
I don't agree that USA PATRIOT allows anything to be done
without a warrant which legally required a warrant before --
perhaps you can expand on this claim, with pointers to the
language in USA PATRIOT which you claim affects this.
USA PATRIOT does explicitly make legal some things which were
long ago ruled legal, but which the executive branch had voluntarily
chosen not to do, such as search the web, or listen to speeches
given in public. None of these make any change in what your
rights are under law, however.
If you want to argue that an FBI agent looking for al Qaeda members
should not be able to go to Google and type in `al Qaeda' (the
situation before USA PATRIOT and the attendant executive orders), go
ahead, but I can't see any grounds for considering allowing him to do
so a diminishment of anyone's rights.
Again, if `lots' of rights have been curtailed, surely you can provide
even one example...
After all, if you keep saying you've lost `lots' of rights, but can't think
of a single example of a right which you claim you had on September 10, 2001
which you claim you don't have now, all you're doing is blowing hot air.
And in the process you're making people who complain about actual
attempts to curtail people's rights look bad, because people will assume
that they're peddling the same unbacked paranoia that you are...
Okay, so you agree, at least, that you haven't (`yet', if you wish) actually lost any rights at all? After all, there is always someone, somewhere, calling for
you to lose some rights, but if the system is, as seems to be the case, working to prevent this from happening, it's far from clear what your complaint is...
Again, you post articles `full' of people saying we should do so, but no examples of anyone actually doing so. Not one of those articles listed any rights which are actually claimed to have been lost.
So, I will ask you yet another time: if you really believe that we have lost any rights since September 11, please provide at least a single example of a right which you feel you had on September 10, 2001, and which you feel you no longer have. One.
Any political activist that chains himself to the doors of the local courthouse can be deemed a domestic terrorist. There goes Political Speech. This is the modern Alien and Sedition Acts.
Your argument is at best a bit tortured. Are you suggesting that chaining yourself to a courthouse door was legal before USA PATRIOT?
For that matter, can you point to any evidence that would support your rather tortured claim that such behavior meets the definition provided in USA PATRIOT?
Section 411 of the Act also poses an ideological test for entry into the United States that takes into consideration core political speech.
I hate to break it to you, but entering the US as a non-citizen is a privilege, not a right, as the Supreme Court has ruled again and again.
Section 213 of the Act authorizes federal agents to conduct "sneak and peek searches," or covert searches of a person's home or office that are conducted without notifying the person of the execution of the search warrant until after the search has been completed. Section 213 also authorizes the delay of notice of the execution of a warrant to conduct a seizure of items where the court finds a "reasonable necessity" for the seizure. Normal search warrants have to be conducted under the supervision of an appointee of the one being searched and anything seized must be inventoried and the inventory given.
First off, this is nothing new -- there are plenty of other areas for which such searches are authorized. Or did you think that when the police, with warrant, tap a phone or bug a residence they notify the subject? So again, this is nothing new -- and again, such searches have been used against organized crime and other RICO figures for years, and have been upheld in court.
Under Section 216 of the Act, courts are required to order the installation of a pen register and a trap and trace device31 to track both telephone and Internet "dialing, routing, addressing and signaling information" anywhere within the United States when a government attorney has certified that the information to be obtained is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation." No affidavit of probable cause is required. Once installed on an Internet Service Provider (ISP), Carnivore devours all of the communications flowing through the ISP's network-not just those of the target of surveillance but those of all users-and not just tracking information but content as well.
At the risk of stating the obvious, no law short of a constitutional ammendment can `require' courts to approve any search or seizure. This section, which you try so hard to misconstrue, merely sets new guidelines for requests -- and it isn't a change in law, but rather countermands a standing executive order.
Section 203 of the USA PATRIOT Act authorizes the disclosure, without judicial supervision, of certain criminal and foreign intelligence information to officials of the FBI, CIA, and INS
Again, the only thing preventing such information sharing before was an executive order -- this was never illegal, and has been upheld in the courts.
Section 412 vastly inflates the Attorney General's power to detain immigrants who are suspected of falling into a class of persons engaged in terrorism.
Again, immigration is a privilege, not a right. While your interpretation of this ammendment is at best contentious (the supreme court has always placed limits on the amount of time someone can be held before expulsion, and USA PATRIOT makes no attempt to change these limits), this is still not a civil rights issue.
Not expressly stated in the Act, but already in use by the federales is the labelling of a citizen as an "enemy combatant,"
Umm, hello? This practice goes back to the earliest days of our republic, and was upheld by the Supreme Court most recently in the 1942 case
Ex Parte Quirin -- see this journal entry for details.
So, again, nothing you mention here is new, and nothing you mention here changes the nature of any of your existing constitutional rights.
So, I'm going to ask you again: can you name a single right which you think you had on September 10, 2001 which you think you do not have now?
That article makes little sense -- it alleges that USA PATRIOT has taken away basic rights, but it provides no example of any language from the bill affecting these rights, nor any explanation of how extending practices which were already ruled constitutional when they were put into effect against organized crime forty years ago (which is all USA PATRIOT does) can possibly be a reduction of rights.
Indeed the article doesn't back up any of the wild claims it makes at all...
Perhaps you can explain just what rights you feel you have lost to USA PATRIOT? And
if there are any, perhaps you can explain how you can have lost new rights to a bill
which only extended to organized terrorism measures which had already been ruled
constitutional when employed against organized crime by JFK forty years ago?
The national ID cards [cnn.com] are being pushed with 9/11 rhetoric. They will most likely become law.
Except that Bush has repeatedly stated that he is against a national ID card, even in relatively
mild forms such as standardized drivers' licenses, and no serious proposal for such a card has yet been made
by this administration. Where do you get off trying to pin this on Bush?
A story on Fox news [foxnews.com] should also have some good information for you.
How so? This article doesn't give a single example of a right which is alleged to have been lost.
The 1st amendment has also been under attack. Read about it here [nwsource.com]
Again, this article doesn't present a single example of a limitation which is alleged to have been placed on
the First Ammendment.
So I'll ask you again: can you provide a single example of a right you allege that you have lost since September 11, 2001?
When you go down to McDonald's, for example, the end of receiving a hamburger,
for example, justifies the means of paying $0.89.
So instead of trotting out shopworn cliches, let's look at whether the ends of the
bombings at Hiroshima and Dresden justified the means used.
At Hiroshima, for example, the choice we faced was to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
killing about 100,000 civilians, or make an island-by-island invasion of the Japanese
Home Islands, killing hundreds of thousands of soldiers (American and Japanese) and
almost certainly millions of civilians. If you have any doubt of this, look
at the
invasion
of Okinawa, in which 38,000 American soldiers were killed, 107,000 Japanese
soldiers were killed, and by many estimates, as many civilians died
as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
So when you say the ends at Hiroshima did not justify the means, you are saying that in
your book it is better for us to kill many more people, just to look a little
better in the history books. Now that's hypocrisy for you...
First off, before you bring up Vietnam, you are aware that more Vietnamese were killed by Ho Chi Minh's thugs in
the first three years of `peace' after the war than had died in the entire previous twenty-five years of warfare,
aren't you?
No, the only thing tragic about the Vietnam war is that three presidents in a row were too arrogant to make the case
to the American people that what we were doing there was right and necessary, and too timid to use the force necessary
to win the war.
As for the gulf war, we certainly didn't go to war for `the Kurds', as it was Kuwait which Mr. Hussein had
invaded, but this doesn't change the fact that we answered a request for help from a nation which had been invaded
and from its neighbors which were about to be. If, while saving them from tyranny and declawing (though clearly not
sufficiently) a tyrant who was armed with biological and chemical weapons we also protected our own oil supply, well
hey, `bonus!'.
As for the Kurds, you are aware that US troops and airmen are even now the only guarantors of the level of
autonomy enjoyed by the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, right? Just because you haven't read the newspaper
enough to have `heard much' doesn't mean that our men out there putting themselves in harm's way to prevent Mr. Hussein
from committing genocide haven't...
Don't fool yourself into believing that Osama Bin Laden is attacking us because of the gulf war either -- as I said,
someone who lists events from the fifteenth century AD as grounds to attack our civilians isn't going to stop just
because of a few troop movements.
And by the way, the world economy has changed a lot since the seventies. Russia is already producing more Oil than
any of the OPEC nations, and is bringing more capacity on by the year, and with Russia gone as a customer, the Saudis
can't afford not to sell to us -- it's not like they have any other source of income.
First off, al Qaeda has never been about `issues' -- their worldview is diametrically
opposed to ours, and they have always picked and chosen issues as needed to justify
their terroristic goals. Put differently, do you really think that someone
who still lists the loss of Spain in 1492 as a central grievance (the `tragedy of
Andalusia', he calls it) is going to stop attacking us based on a few troop movements?
Furthermore, I would argue that the US has an incredibly strong track record of
doing the right thing, and not of fighting for `money' at all (what money? We have
the world's strongest economy right here at home!). If you'd like us to believe
otherwise, you'll need to provide evidence, not assertions...
Well, you've intentionally misinterpreted everything I wrote and
then conveniently skipped over the parts you don't want to argue.
Interesting. Anyway, read things like this [iranian.com] if you
want to learn about democratic initiatives in Iran, and recognize
that I realize this place is still a tyranny; my point was there
is movement in that direction. Your comment about the Ottoman empire
has nothing to do with anything I said; and I gave three examples
of regimes who have historically come closer to being reasonable
regimes than Turkey. Regarding Iran supporting Hezbollah -- duh!!
All the Arab nations in the middle east aid Hezbollah and Hamas,
overtly when they can get away with it, as well as covertly. If
the US wants to stop Hezbollah and Hamas (who have no designs on
the US, but that's another story) as well as al Qaeda, they need
to think of something more intelligent than bombing, unless they
are prepared to exterminate the Arab world, since every bomb creates
more sympathizers. To think American bombs whaling on Teheran will
somehow reduce Arab sympathy for Hamas is laughably naive.
Your mistake is to make the subtly racist assumption that people in
the Arab world somehow don't want or don't deserve to be free. You
suggest that `every bomb creates more sympathizers', but as can be
seen by looking at the cheering crowds welcoming our march accross
Afghanistan, this is simply untrue. Iran is in a similar state of
crisis, with mass movements among many of the young calling for
regime change being brutally suppressed by the current dictatorship.
A little push, and things could turn out very nicely indeed.
Nor does such a push necessarily mean `whaling on Teheran' -- a tactic
only you have brought up in this discussion. My own feeling is that
a US victory in Iraq, followed by the establishment of a democratic
government there would have reverberations accross the middle east,
as people realized that they do not have to live in tyranny -- this
is the real reason the Arab tyrants fear US action against Iraq.
Nor have you given any examples of Islamic regimes who are more free
or democratic than Turkey -- though I welcome you to if you think you
can.
Regarding Iraq, I haven't seen a credible report of Iraqi involvement
in 911, and if there has been such a report, the US Administration
is doing an alarmingly nice job of keeping it quiet, which seems
to be completely contrary to the desire to get some of our allies
to support an invasion. The meetings with Atta have not been
confirmed, and US officials don't even seem to believe them
[washtimes.com]. About the WMD stuff, yeah, Iraq wants WMD, but
the evidence of a real nuclear threat is severely [worldnetdaily.com]
lacking [smh.com.au]. But even if they were pursuing nukes -- get
real. Iraq has as much right as any regime to pursue whatever policy
its statecraft dictates. Why would we feel threatened by Iraqi
nukes? They could never develop a capability that could seriously
threaten American interests, not even indirectly; as self-aggrandizingly
cruel as Saddam Hussein is, he is neither suicidal nor stupid. Keep
in mind too his regime is secular - he has about as much reason to
fear the al Qaeda types as we do; more in fact, since the Iraqi
citizens are far more likely to take up his call to overthrow their
government than American muslims, Chicago gangbangers and Marin
county white kids included.
Here again, you miss the point of my argument. There is at least strong
circumstantial evidence of Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks -- both
the Czechs and the CIA have stood by their statements in this area, despite
the unnamed sources cited in the article you link -- but this is almost
entirely beside the point. If we strike Iraq, it is not because of the
attacks which have already occurred, but to preempt the attacks which
Hussein is preparing for, and which he has threatened.
But here again, you rely on your strange inner voices -- Mr. Hussein
has a long track record of using WMD on his own people and on his
enemies, he has threatened us and our allies with their use, and every
credible source says he has them (chemical and biological weapons) and
will have them soon (nuclear weapons). But you somehow divine that
Mr. Hussein's intentions are peaceful, despite the fact that he himself
says otherwise? Please...
Finally, I don't know why you want to let Mr. binLaden dictate the
terms of our conflict with him. Of course he says it's a "clash of
civilizations" - but we don't have to buy into that; it only helps
him. If we want to defeat him and his kind we need to make sure
the rest of the Arab Muslim world doesn't believe it's a clash of
civilizations. We won't be able to do that by bombing them to
kingdom come.
You miss the point -- these are the terms on which Mr. Bin Laden has
chosen to fight us. Just as Fascism did not go away until it was
decisively defeated and shown to be impotent, Mr. Bin Laden's bizzare
breed of Islamo-Fascism will not go away until the same thing occurs.
You obviously know little of Islamic history. Today, perhaps you
have a point, though I disagree still (look at Algeria, Morocco
for example - hardly democracies but not the bastions of torture
and genocide that Turkey [hrw.org] has been over the years. And
while these places were hardly free, open, and democratic, Egypt,
Iraq, Iran were all more progressive regimes than present-day Turkey
before the US got involved mucking around with their internal
affairs. The fact is the US doesn't want democracy in these countries,
because democratic regimes might allow the people to decide how
much to sell oil for, and, more importantly, whether to develop
different ways of modernizing their societies. The fact is that
tyrannical Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia are good for US economic
interests. If we really wanted a "regime change" in Iraq we would
have supported the Iraqi democratic opposition - which existed and
was quite strong and credible - back in 1990 after we got pissed
off about Kuwait. But we don't want a regime change; we just want
a different dictator to deal with (in one state dept official's
words of the time, we want "an iron fisted junta without Saddam
Hussein."
Actually, I do know a fair deal about Islamic history, and I stand
by what I said. To repeat: Turkey is the closest thing the Islamic
world has ever produced to a democracy. If you want to argue
otherwise, feel free to provide a counter-example, but if you are
going to suggest either the Iberian Caliphate or the Ottoman empire,
each of which tolerated some degree of autonomy for enclaves of
accepted (dhimmi) minorities, but in no way practiced
democratic governance in any form, you're not convincing anyone.
Actually, Iran is modernizing and democratizing, or at least it
was before we put them in the "axis of evil."
On the contrary, Iran is in no way democratizing, much less
modernizing. The secular government, such as it is, is under direct
control of the theocratic dictatorship, who control the courts and
have veto power over all government actions. Nor are they in any
way tolerant of dissent (a basic prerequisite for democracy) -- the
secret police have been quite efficiently living up to their promise
to `fill the hospitals' with any students who oppose the ruling
government.
But this is not what makes Iran part of the axis of evil -- for
better or worse, we do not often interfere in nations which are
only mistreating their own subjects. It is Iran's status as one
of the principal arsenals of global terrorism which makes them a
regime which needs to be changed. One need only consider the
50 tons of Iranian arms en route to Hamas bases in Gaza
which were found on the Karine A, or the constant Iranian
support for Hezbollah to see why this is so.
And Iraq is small potatoes. They had zero to do with 911, and
they're in no position to do anything but sell us cheap oil and
bitch about their sovereignty being violated by no-fly zones.
While it is far from clear that Iraq had `zero' to do with 9/11
(consider the meetings in Prague between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi
intelligence shortly before the attacks), it is certainly clear
that they are not small potatoes -- at least I do not consider
a nation with an active biological and chemical weapons program
which is on the verge of possessing nuclear arms, and has already
threatened to use all of these to attack us, and which is (along
with Iran and others) working closely with al-Qaeda to be
`small potatoes'.
It's a terrible regime, and Hussein is a miserable thug, but I
could say the same of our ally Musharraf. The really big fish is
Saudi Arabia, and we won't stop kissing their asses until America
wakes up and begins to see past all this clash of civilizations
bullshit. It's not a clash of civilizations; it's a clash between
rich powerful men who cynically manipulate the populations they
rule.
First off, there are certainly elements of a clash of civilizations
in this fight -- at any rate, that is why Osama bin Laden says he attacked us,
but if you know more about his motives than he does, say so.
Secondly, we're in agreement that the Saudis should go. No doubt about
it. But they are not as much a threat as either Iraq or Iran, nor are
they as dispensable at the moment (try again in a few years -- the Russians
have already surpassed the Saudis as an oil producer, and will soon
surpass them as an exporter), so they will come later. That's all.
John Walker Lindh, the young American captured in Afghanistan
fighting for the Taliban, was convicted and sentenced under a plea
agreement after a public trial.
Certainly. This is one possible way to deal with such a suspect,
but not the only one provided by the Constitution, see below.
Yaser Esam Hamdi also an American who fought for the Taliban
has been detained indefinitely without counsel or trial.
Simply incorrect. Mr. Hamdi is being held as an enemy combatant,
a practice which dates back to the earliest days of our republic,
and was most recently upheld in the 1942 US Supreme Court case
Ex Parte Quirin. The declaration that Mr. Hamdi is an enemy
combatant is, in fact, subject to judicial review, and Mr.
Hamdi has had full access to counsel at every stage of his detention.
He is currently appealing the ruling that he is a combatant in a
Virginia courtroom. For more on the Quirin decision, see below.
Remember that Mr. Hamdi was captured in battle in Afghanistan -- if you
interpret that as unconstitutional (and remember, the Supreme Court does
not), do you also feel that the Germans captured by the American soldiers
who stormed up the cliffs on D-Day should have been read their miranda
rights and given access to counsel?
Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged accomplice in the Sept. 11 bombings,
is on public display in a Virginia courtroom, representing himself
in what promises to be a bizarre public trial.
Certainly true, but again, not the only means the Constitution
provides for dealing with such a suspect.
Jose Padilla who allegedly wanted to assemble and use a "dirty
bomb" laced with radioactive material has been detained without
counsel or trial since May 8. Both men are suspected terrorists.
The relevant difference is simply that Moussaoui wound up in the
criminal justice system because he was arrested before Sept. 11,
when the administration began playing by different rules.
The case of James Ujaama, arrested last week in Denver and detained
as a material witness, has so far been shrouded in secrecy. Ujaama
is an American citizen. Yet federal officials, classifying him
as a material witness, refused at first to say whether he had been
arrested or to confirm his whereabouts.
First off, his name is Abdullah al-Muhajir, not Jose Padilla. You don't call Muhammad
Ali `Cassius Clay', do you?
Second, Mr. al-Muhajir's case is even more directly analagous to the
precedent set in Ex Parte Quirin, and his declaration as an
enemy combatant is subject to the same judicial review as Mr.
Hamdi's is -- and is being heard on appeal right here in New York,
even as we speak. As with Mr. Hamdi, Mr. al-Muhajir has had access
to counsel at every step of the proceedings.
It is instructive to consider the precedent set in Ex Parte Quirin,
as it is remarkably similar to that of Mr. al-Muhajir and Mr. Ujaama. The
case evolved from the 1942 detention of an American citizen, Haupt, who had
returned to Germany at the onset of the war, joined the SS, and then re-entered
the US with a team of saboteurs, with orders to blow up power stations,
Jewish-owned businesses, and other civilian targets. He was held as a combatant,
under precedent dating back to the earliest days of our republic, and the
Supreme Court upheld this practice.
Relevant excerpts from the case, and a link to the full ruling, can be found
in this journal entry of mine.
While Mr. Ujaama is currently being held as a material witness (hardly a new
practice), it is most likely that he will similarly be declared a combatant
before long.
Please explain why the US had to bomb two cities full of civilians to stop the war between Japan and the US. Oh I suppose that the historians who don't like the idea of bombing cities full of women and
children are not "serious" while those who do like the idea of women and children being slaughtered are "serious".
The fact remains, for all your whining, that in the absence of these bombings, the Japanese government was not willing to surrender, and an island-by-island invasion would
have been necessary. The death toll of such an invasion would have dwarfed that of the two atomic bomb attacks. If you are convinced that there are serious historians
who believe otherwise, I welcome you to cite their work -- Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky are not people who I would consider serious, however.
Let me ask you a question - have you ever been to Nicaragua? Have you ever spoken to anyone from Nicaragua? I doubt it.
In fact, I have spoken with Nicaraguans, but this is beside the point -- the fact remains that the Nicaraguan people, far from believing as you claim (without citations, mind you)
that the Contras were their enemies, have voted them into office again and again.
As I said before, every single non-government source in the world has said that the US and the US proxies did most of the killings, but obviously facts don't matter too much to your kind.
He said, again without citing any of these allegedly plentiful sources...
I hope the non-US people on this board realize that you don't speak for the majority.
Actually, I do -- in poll after poll, the majority of Americans name Reagan as the best president of the post-war era. Kinda burns you up
inside, doesn't it?
The difference, of course, is that we are not talking about punishing
the Saudis for the fact that 15 of the 19 September 11 terrorists were
from `Saudi' Arabia, but rather for the huge amounts of financial
support which they have provided Al-Qaeda as protection money (``here's
a buck, kid, go mess with the US instead of with us'').
Independently of whether we need to take action to prevent further such
payments, what we should certainly be doing is cutting our ties to the
oppressiuve regime there.
50,000 was the normal occupancy of the two towers of the world trade center (minus tourists), and
was cited by Osama Bin Laden in one of the tapes as the highest number of casualties they could
hope for.
"a civilian killed"
Nice that you compare your 3,000 to their one.
I'm not sure what your beef is here -- the comparison is not in who, but in how. Go read the post again, if you're finding it confusing.
"if you insist on doing everything by comparing numbers without context"
Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Comparing numbers doesn't help anyone. Two wrongs do not make a right. Did you not learn that in kindergarten?
If we do nothing, their will be another attack, an attack which, with the aid of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons could kill many times
more people than died on September 11. Given a choice between this, and our action in Afghanistan which has not only served to dismantle a large part
of the terrorist network which made these attacks possible, but also as a side effect saved thousands of Afghan lives and freed the Afghan people from
one of the harshest dictatorships the world has recently seen, I'd say it's pretty clear that what we did was, in fact, quite right, thank you very
much...
Turkey is the closest thing the Islamic world has produced to a free, democratic, and open
society. Yes, they still have some way to go, but they're not doing as bad as you suggest,
and it is certainly in our interest to support their progress.
And, by the way, if your only beef with the US position is that you feel we shouldn't be supporting `Saudi'
Arabia, Egypt, and so forth, well, guess what? We're in complete agreement. OK if we start with the really
big fish (Iraq and Iran, for example), though?
By the way, the `dropping food aid onto minefields' claim is a lie, which
started with the Chomskyites. If you have any credible evidence of this,
fire away, but even the Taliban never claimed this.
And, by the way, most of the 9/11 terrorists passed through Afghanistan for
training -- but if your point is that we should also be going after `Saudi'
Arabia, where 15 of the 19 originated, or Iraq, whose intelligence services
met with Mohammad Atta in Prague not long before the attacks, we're in complete
agreement...
Again, if you see no difference between a civilian killed because he was the target of attackers
who killed 3,000 civilians while aiming for 50,000, and a civilian killed despite the best efforts
of soldiers on the ground to avoid hitting him, you are a half-wit.
But if you insist on doing everything by comparing numbers without context, you need to consider how
many fewer Afghans have died of hunger or of disease due to US food-aid and vaccination programs there
over the last year -- by anyone's numbers, its a lot more than 1,100.
Dual Use? - I see, a tv station full of civilians is "dual use". So, if you define a civilian as "dual use" then it counts as a non-civilian? The rhetoric becomes clear.
Or empty of civilians, as the case may be -- hey, why let something as simple as facts get in the way of your argument -- but yes, a transmitter used for both military and civilian
communications is a dual-use target.
What I find interesting is that neither Milosevic's government nor the post-Milosevic Yugoslav government have claimed any great number of civilian casualties occurred. You clearly
want us to believe that you know something that they do not. Perhaps you can tell us why we should believe this?
Japan is brought up all the time, because Americans still haven't admitted to themselves that they are guilty of one of the biggest mass murders of civilians in history.
Again, as any serious historian would tell you, the number of civilians who would have died in the attack on the Japanese home islands would have numbered in the millions. A little
over one hundred thousand died in the two A-Bomb attacks. If you want us to believe that the former number would have been preferable, you will have to say why...
All non-government sources throughout the world state clearly that the majority of civilian casualties in Nicaragua (and Honduras) were the result of the US and the US proxies. Them's the facts, ignore
them at will.
The people of Nicaragua don't say so, at all -- they've re-elected those `proxies' (actually local freedom-fighters who sought and received US aid) again and again, in elections
that even the UN and Jimmy Carter have certified as fair and open. But here, once again, you would have us believe that you know something about the matter which they do not.
Again, you'll have to provide sources if you want us to believe that...
Slashdot Mirror
Again, list one right which you believe you've lost -- if you're so convinced that you've lost `lots' of rights, there must be one you can give as an example, no?
If you would actually follow the case, you would know that the decision that a suspect is an enemy combatant is subject to full judicial review. Mr. al-Muhajir, for example, is appealing his designation as a combatant in a Manhattan courtroom, and has had full access to counsel at every stage of the process to prepare this appeal.
USA PATRIOT does explicitly make legal some things which were long ago ruled legal, but which the executive branch had voluntarily chosen not to do, such as search the web, or listen to speeches given in public. None of these make any change in what your rights are under law, however.
If you want to argue that an FBI agent looking for al Qaeda members should not be able to go to Google and type in `al Qaeda' (the situation before USA PATRIOT and the attendant executive orders), go ahead, but I can't see any grounds for considering allowing him to do so a diminishment of anyone's rights.
After all, if you keep saying you've lost `lots' of rights, but can't think of a single example of a right which you claim you had on September 10, 2001 which you claim you don't have now, all you're doing is blowing hot air.
And in the process you're making people who complain about actual attempts to curtail people's rights look bad, because people will assume that they're peddling the same unbacked paranoia that you are...
Okay, so you agree, at least, that you haven't (`yet', if you wish) actually lost any rights at all? After all, there is always someone, somewhere, calling for you to lose some rights, but if the system is, as seems to be the case, working to prevent this from happening, it's far from clear what your complaint is...
So, I will ask you yet another time: if you really believe that we have lost any rights since September 11, please provide at least a single example of a right which you feel you had on September 10, 2001, and which you feel you no longer have. One.
Now, what `mistakes of the past' are we readers allegedly repeating?
Any political activist that chains himself to the doors of the local courthouse can be deemed a domestic terrorist. There goes Political Speech. This is the modern Alien and Sedition Acts.
Your argument is at best a bit tortured. Are you suggesting that chaining yourself to a courthouse door was legal before USA PATRIOT?
For that matter, can you point to any evidence that would support your rather tortured claim that such behavior meets the definition provided in USA PATRIOT?
Section 411 of the Act also poses an ideological test for entry into the United States that takes into consideration core political speech.
I hate to break it to you, but entering the US as a non-citizen is a privilege, not a right, as the Supreme Court has ruled again and again.
Section 213 of the Act authorizes federal agents to conduct "sneak and peek searches," or covert searches of a person's home or office that are conducted without notifying the person of the execution of the search warrant until after the search has been completed. Section 213 also authorizes the delay of notice of the execution of a warrant to conduct a seizure of items where the court finds a "reasonable necessity" for the seizure. Normal search warrants have to be conducted under the supervision of an appointee of the one being searched and anything seized must be inventoried and the inventory given.
First off, this is nothing new -- there are plenty of other areas for which such searches are authorized. Or did you think that when the police, with warrant, tap a phone or bug a residence they notify the subject? So again, this is nothing new -- and again, such searches have been used against organized crime and other RICO figures for years, and have been upheld in court.
Under Section 216 of the Act, courts are required to order the installation of a pen register and a trap and trace device31 to track both telephone and Internet "dialing, routing, addressing and signaling information" anywhere within the United States when a government attorney has certified that the information to be obtained is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation." No affidavit of probable cause is required. Once installed on an Internet Service Provider (ISP), Carnivore devours all of the communications flowing through the ISP's network-not just those of the target of surveillance but those of all users-and not just tracking information but content as well.
At the risk of stating the obvious, no law short of a constitutional ammendment can `require' courts to approve any search or seizure. This section, which you try so hard to misconstrue, merely sets new guidelines for requests -- and it isn't a change in law, but rather countermands a standing executive order.
Section 203 of the USA PATRIOT Act authorizes the disclosure, without judicial supervision, of certain criminal and foreign intelligence information to officials of the FBI, CIA, and INS
Again, the only thing preventing such information sharing before was an executive order -- this was never illegal, and has been upheld in the courts.
Section 412 vastly inflates the Attorney General's power to detain immigrants who are suspected of falling into a class of persons engaged in terrorism.
Again, immigration is a privilege, not a right. While your interpretation of this ammendment is at best contentious (the supreme court has always placed limits on the amount of time someone can be held before expulsion, and USA PATRIOT makes no attempt to change these limits), this is still not a civil rights issue.
Not expressly stated in the Act, but already in use by the federales is the labelling of a citizen as an "enemy combatant,"
Umm, hello? This practice goes back to the earliest days of our republic, and was upheld by the Supreme Court most recently in the 1942 case Ex Parte Quirin -- see this journal entry for details.
So, again, nothing you mention here is new, and nothing you mention here changes the nature of any of your existing constitutional rights.
So, I'm going to ask you again: can you name a single right which you think you had on September 10, 2001 which you think you do not have now?
Let it never be said that /.'s moderation system isn't used to enforce a particular political slant.
Indeed the article doesn't back up any of the wild claims it makes at all...
The Patriot Act. [eff.org]
Perhaps you can explain just what rights you feel you have lost to USA PATRIOT? And if there are any, perhaps you can explain how you can have lost new rights to a bill which only extended to organized terrorism measures which had already been ruled constitutional when employed against organized crime by JFK forty years ago?
The national ID cards [cnn.com] are being pushed with 9/11 rhetoric. They will most likely become law.
Except that Bush has repeatedly stated that he is against a national ID card, even in relatively mild forms such as standardized drivers' licenses, and no serious proposal for such a card has yet been made by this administration. Where do you get off trying to pin this on Bush?
A story on Fox news [foxnews.com] should also have some good information for you.
How so? This article doesn't give a single example of a right which is alleged to have been lost.
The 1st amendment has also been under attack. Read about it here [nwsource.com]
Again, this article doesn't present a single example of a limitation which is alleged to have been placed on the First Ammendment.
So I'll ask you again: can you provide a single example of a right you allege that you have lost since September 11, 2001?
you feel you've lost since September 11, 2001?
In the absence of any actual rights lost, this talk of `giving up liberty for security'
is just FUD, after all...
Some ends justify some means. Yes they do.
When you go down to McDonald's, for example, the end of receiving a hamburger, for example, justifies the means of paying $0.89.
So instead of trotting out shopworn cliches, let's look at whether the ends of the bombings at Hiroshima and Dresden justified the means used.
At Hiroshima, for example, the choice we faced was to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 100,000 civilians, or make an island-by-island invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, killing hundreds of thousands of soldiers (American and Japanese) and almost certainly millions of civilians. If you have any doubt of this, look at the invasion of Okinawa, in which 38,000 American soldiers were killed, 107,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, and by many estimates, as many civilians died as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
So when you say the ends at Hiroshima did not justify the means, you are saying that in your book it is better for us to kill many more people, just to look a little better in the history books. Now that's hypocrisy for you...
No, the only thing tragic about the Vietnam war is that three presidents in a row were too arrogant to make the case to the American people that what we were doing there was right and necessary, and too timid to use the force necessary to win the war.
As for the gulf war, we certainly didn't go to war for `the Kurds', as it was Kuwait which Mr. Hussein had invaded, but this doesn't change the fact that we answered a request for help from a nation which had been invaded and from its neighbors which were about to be. If, while saving them from tyranny and declawing (though clearly not sufficiently) a tyrant who was armed with biological and chemical weapons we also protected our own oil supply, well hey, `bonus!'.
As for the Kurds, you are aware that US troops and airmen are even now the only guarantors of the level of autonomy enjoyed by the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, right? Just because you haven't read the newspaper enough to have `heard much' doesn't mean that our men out there putting themselves in harm's way to prevent Mr. Hussein from committing genocide haven't...
Don't fool yourself into believing that Osama Bin Laden is attacking us because of the gulf war either -- as I said, someone who lists events from the fifteenth century AD as grounds to attack our civilians isn't going to stop just because of a few troop movements.
And by the way, the world economy has changed a lot since the seventies. Russia is already producing more Oil than any of the OPEC nations, and is bringing more capacity on by the year, and with Russia gone as a customer, the Saudis can't afford not to sell to us -- it's not like they have any other source of income.
Furthermore, I would argue that the US has an incredibly strong track record of doing the right thing, and not of fighting for `money' at all (what money? We have the world's strongest economy right here at home!). If you'd like us to believe otherwise, you'll need to provide evidence, not assertions...
Nor does such a push necessarily mean `whaling on Teheran' -- a tactic only you have brought up in this discussion. My own feeling is that a US victory in Iraq, followed by the establishment of a democratic government there would have reverberations accross the middle east, as people realized that they do not have to live in tyranny -- this is the real reason the Arab tyrants fear US action against Iraq.
Nor have you given any examples of Islamic regimes who are more free or democratic than Turkey -- though I welcome you to if you think you can.
Here again, you miss the point of my argument. There is at least strong circumstantial evidence of Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks -- both the Czechs and the CIA have stood by their statements in this area, despite the unnamed sources cited in the article you link -- but this is almost entirely beside the point. If we strike Iraq, it is not because of the attacks which have already occurred, but to preempt the attacks which Hussein is preparing for, and which he has threatened.But here again, you rely on your strange inner voices -- Mr. Hussein has a long track record of using WMD on his own people and on his enemies, he has threatened us and our allies with their use, and every credible source says he has them (chemical and biological weapons) and will have them soon (nuclear weapons). But you somehow divine that Mr. Hussein's intentions are peaceful, despite the fact that he himself says otherwise? Please...
You miss the point -- these are the terms on which Mr. Bin Laden has chosen to fight us. Just as Fascism did not go away until it was decisively defeated and shown to be impotent, Mr. Bin Laden's bizzare breed of Islamo-Fascism will not go away until the same thing occurs.But this is not what makes Iran part of the axis of evil -- for better or worse, we do not often interfere in nations which are only mistreating their own subjects. It is Iran's status as one of the principal arsenals of global terrorism which makes them a regime which needs to be changed. One need only consider the 50 tons of Iranian arms en route to Hamas bases in Gaza which were found on the Karine A, or the constant Iranian support for Hezbollah to see why this is so.
While it is far from clear that Iraq had `zero' to do with 9/11 (consider the meetings in Prague between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence shortly before the attacks), it is certainly clear that they are not small potatoes -- at least I do not consider a nation with an active biological and chemical weapons program which is on the verge of possessing nuclear arms, and has already threatened to use all of these to attack us, and which is (along with Iran and others) working closely with al-Qaeda to be `small potatoes'. First off, there are certainly elements of a clash of civilizations in this fight -- at any rate, that is why Osama bin Laden says he attacked us, but if you know more about his motives than he does, say so.Secondly, we're in agreement that the Saudis should go. No doubt about it. But they are not as much a threat as either Iraq or Iran, nor are they as dispensable at the moment (try again in a few years -- the Russians have already surpassed the Saudis as an oil producer, and will soon surpass them as an exporter), so they will come later. That's all.
OK, try to keep your facts straight. In order:
Certainly. This is one possible way to deal with such a suspect, but not the only one provided by the Constitution, see below. Simply incorrect. Mr. Hamdi is being held as an enemy combatant, a practice which dates back to the earliest days of our republic, and was most recently upheld in the 1942 US Supreme Court case Ex Parte Quirin. The declaration that Mr. Hamdi is an enemy combatant is, in fact, subject to judicial review, and Mr. Hamdi has had full access to counsel at every stage of his detention. He is currently appealing the ruling that he is a combatant in a Virginia courtroom. For more on the Quirin decision, see below.Remember that Mr. Hamdi was captured in battle in Afghanistan -- if you interpret that as unconstitutional (and remember, the Supreme Court does not), do you also feel that the Germans captured by the American soldiers who stormed up the cliffs on D-Day should have been read their miranda rights and given access to counsel?
Certainly true, but again, not the only means the Constitution provides for dealing with such a suspect. First off, his name is Abdullah al-Muhajir, not Jose Padilla. You don't call Muhammad Ali `Cassius Clay', do you?Second, Mr. al-Muhajir's case is even more directly analagous to the precedent set in Ex Parte Quirin, and his declaration as an enemy combatant is subject to the same judicial review as Mr. Hamdi's is -- and is being heard on appeal right here in New York, even as we speak. As with Mr. Hamdi, Mr. al-Muhajir has had access to counsel at every step of the proceedings.
It is instructive to consider the precedent set in Ex Parte Quirin, as it is remarkably similar to that of Mr. al-Muhajir and Mr. Ujaama. The case evolved from the 1942 detention of an American citizen, Haupt, who had returned to Germany at the onset of the war, joined the SS, and then re-entered the US with a team of saboteurs, with orders to blow up power stations, Jewish-owned businesses, and other civilian targets. He was held as a combatant, under precedent dating back to the earliest days of our republic, and the Supreme Court upheld this practice.
Relevant excerpts from the case, and a link to the full ruling, can be found in this journal entry of mine.
While Mr. Ujaama is currently being held as a material witness (hardly a new practice), it is most likely that he will similarly be declared a combatant before long.
Please explain why the US had to bomb two cities full of civilians to stop the war between Japan and the US. Oh I suppose that the historians who don't like the idea of bombing cities full of women and children are not "serious" while those who do like the idea of women and children being slaughtered are "serious".
The fact remains, for all your whining, that in the absence of these bombings, the Japanese government was not willing to surrender, and an island-by-island invasion would have been necessary. The death toll of such an invasion would have dwarfed that of the two atomic bomb attacks. If you are convinced that there are serious historians who believe otherwise, I welcome you to cite their work -- Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky are not people who I would consider serious, however.
Let me ask you a question - have you ever been to Nicaragua? Have you ever spoken to anyone from Nicaragua? I doubt it.
In fact, I have spoken with Nicaraguans, but this is beside the point -- the fact remains that the Nicaraguan people, far from believing as you claim (without citations, mind you) that the Contras were their enemies, have voted them into office again and again.
As I said before, every single non-government source in the world has said that the US and the US proxies did most of the killings, but obviously facts don't matter too much to your kind.
He said, again without citing any of these allegedly plentiful sources...
I hope the non-US people on this board realize that you don't speak for the majority.
Actually, I do -- in poll after poll, the majority of Americans name Reagan as the best president of the post-war era. Kinda burns you up inside, doesn't it?
Independently of whether we need to take action to prevent further such payments, what we should certainly be doing is cutting our ties to the oppressiuve regime there.
"aiming for 50,000"
What? Evidence?
50,000 was the normal occupancy of the two towers of the world trade center (minus tourists), and was cited by Osama Bin Laden in one of the tapes as the highest number of casualties they could hope for.
"a civilian killed"
Nice that you compare your 3,000 to their one.
I'm not sure what your beef is here -- the comparison is not in who, but in how. Go read the post again, if you're finding it confusing.
"if you insist on doing everything by comparing numbers without context"
Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Comparing numbers doesn't help anyone. Two wrongs do not make a right. Did you not learn that in kindergarten?
If we do nothing, their will be another attack, an attack which, with the aid of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons could kill many times more people than died on September 11. Given a choice between this, and our action in Afghanistan which has not only served to dismantle a large part of the terrorist network which made these attacks possible, but also as a side effect saved thousands of Afghan lives and freed the Afghan people from one of the harshest dictatorships the world has recently seen, I'd say it's pretty clear that what we did was, in fact, quite right, thank you very much...
And, by the way, if your only beef with the US position is that you feel we shouldn't be supporting `Saudi' Arabia, Egypt, and so forth, well, guess what? We're in complete agreement. OK if we start with the really big fish (Iraq and Iran, for example), though?
And, by the way, most of the 9/11 terrorists passed through Afghanistan for training -- but if your point is that we should also be going after `Saudi' Arabia, where 15 of the 19 originated, or Iraq, whose intelligence services met with Mohammad Atta in Prague not long before the attacks, we're in complete agreement...
But if you insist on doing everything by comparing numbers without context, you need to consider how many fewer Afghans have died of hunger or of disease due to US food-aid and vaccination programs there over the last year -- by anyone's numbers, its a lot more than 1,100.
Dual Use? - I see, a tv station full of civilians is "dual use". So, if you define a civilian as "dual use" then it counts as a non-civilian? The rhetoric becomes clear.
Or empty of civilians, as the case may be -- hey, why let something as simple as facts get in the way of your argument -- but yes, a transmitter used for both military and civilian communications is a dual-use target.
What I find interesting is that neither Milosevic's government nor the post-Milosevic Yugoslav government have claimed any great number of civilian casualties occurred. You clearly want us to believe that you know something that they do not. Perhaps you can tell us why we should believe this?
Japan is brought up all the time, because Americans still haven't admitted to themselves that they are guilty of one of the biggest mass murders of civilians in history.
Again, as any serious historian would tell you, the number of civilians who would have died in the attack on the Japanese home islands would have numbered in the millions. A little over one hundred thousand died in the two A-Bomb attacks. If you want us to believe that the former number would have been preferable, you will have to say why...
All non-government sources throughout the world state clearly that the majority of civilian casualties in Nicaragua (and Honduras) were the result of the US and the US proxies. Them's the facts, ignore them at will.
The people of Nicaragua don't say so, at all -- they've re-elected those `proxies' (actually local freedom-fighters who sought and received US aid) again and again, in elections that even the UN and Jimmy Carter have certified as fair and open. But here, once again, you would have us believe that you know something about the matter which they do not. Again, you'll have to provide sources if you want us to believe that...