The difference is clear: there already exists a clear mechanism for trying war crimes in an international tribunal -- remember, Mr. Milosevic is not being tried in the ICC, which did not even exist when his case was convened.
We can discuss whether the trial of Milosevic is correct, especially since his own nation was denied the opportunity to try him themselves. I have my doubts.
Such a discussion, however, has nothing to do with the ICC, which would be empowered to try any citizen of any nation at any time, without benefit of their own laws, without requiring a special tribunal to be empowered (something which only occurs when there is no relevant national government, as with the trials of Nazi leaders at Nuremburg), and without a requirement that the crimes in question be international in nature.
This last point is particularly telling -- the ICC reserves to itself the right to try citizens for violating UN principles (remember -- the ICC is not bound to only enforce a specific law, which is the most basic limit on a real court's powers) in their actions in their own country, even if the case is being tried in that country.
Are you really suggesting that US citizens should be so unmindful of the rights for which our ancestors fought and bled as to cede those rights to an undemocratic, unlimited, and unappealable `court' simply because the court in question has the word `International' in front of its name?
With due respect, the problem with the ACLU is not limited to their lack of defense for the second ammendment. While you are correct that the historical ACLU accomplished great things, the modern ACLU has turned into much more of a liberal lobbying group, defending such imaginary `rights' as the `right' to race-based preferences in college admissions or the `right' to welfare without job training requirements.
No, the difference is that American citizens acting on American soil or under American jurisdiction abroad will now be subject to prosecution in a court which is not subject to the protections of due process in the American constitution.
Let's perform a thought-experiment here, shall we? Let's suppose that the liberals' worst fears about the current administration were actually grounded, and AG Ashcroft were to announce tomorrow that ``rom now on, people we arrest will be tried in a new international court instead of in US courts, so that we do not have to follow US rules of due process in dealing with them.''
Would you be defending this, too? And if not, how do you get off defending this when Kofi Anan says it?
It seems to me that the average/. reader understands quite well the risks involved in trying people in a `court' that enforces ideas rather than a specific law, and which is not bound by the type of requirements on due process that the US Constitution provides for citizens here.
If `the rest of the world' felt that US citizens in US courts should not have the protections of the US Constitution, we would not then scrap those protections on account of this. Why should we be willing to do so in any other court?
OK, let's get this straight: If an American president were to suggest that American citizens should be tried by an unaccountable court, which was not bound to follow the US Constitution or observe rules of due process, and did not even have a clearly defined set of laws it was enforcing, we would all be up in arms, right?
At least I hope so.
So why do you expect/. users to be in favor of trying US citizens in an unaccountable court which is not bound to follow the US Constitution or observe rules of due process and does not even have a clearly defined set of laws it is enforcing, just because the UN says so?
The problem I have with this argument is that we are not talking about `vigilante' justice at all here -- international law has always recognized the rights of nations to defend themselves, and this is explicitly present in the UN charter.
That we sought, and received, UN Security Council clearance for our actions in Afghanistan is a nicety, but the fact is that we are exercising our national rights, and indeed living up to our national responsibility to protect our citizens.
To argue that this is a violation of `due process' is to misunderstand the essential differences between war and law enforcement. When US troops stormed up the cliffs on D-Day, they did not take aside their German prisoners and read them their miranda rights...
The problem with this argument is that our actions after September 11 have nothing at all to do with `revenge', and everything to do with preventing a repeat of the attacks of that day -- a repeat which, with the aid of the types of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons which Iraq and other powers are developing, could be many times more deadly than the attacks which we have already seen.
I'm all for peace -- as the US has been in general -- but the first responsibility of a nation is to defend its citizens, and sometimes that means preempting forces which are planning future attacks. Waiting until a suitcase-nuke goes off in downtown LA is not an option.
No, my friend, I read the definition of totalitarian you posted, and to repeat, if you think that Microsoft, for all that we both dislike some of their business practices, meets that definition, you really are swimming in the shallow end of the pool.
The same goes for `domineering' -- posting a hysterical Boston Globe article which doesn't actually find anything particularly objectionable to point at does not make for a very convincing argument.
So, to bring this back on topic, if you can look at a nation like China, which locks tens of thousands of its citizens in forced-labor camps for wanting to vote or wanting to practice a non state-approved religion, which uses forcible sterilization and mandatory abortions in the name of `public health', and which has expansionist designs on almost all of its neighbors, and see the US as the `totalitarian' and `domineering' party in this picture, you're certainly not playing with a full deck...
To rephrase yopur post: `here's a speech on the topic from Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed socialist from Vermont'. What did you expect such a fringe figure to say?
I likewise do indeed poo-poo the article you post from Dr. Mercieca, though I do so because his anti-Americanism is well known, and his article is typical `why do they hate us? because we don't give enough money to NGO's like mine!' rot, not because it comes from the UN, a body whose human rights committee includes China, Syria, and the Sudan.
Unfortunately, the Boston Globe, which is often a reasonable source, seems similarly hysteric here. What is their objection? That people are trying to find a cure for AIDS? That free drugs are being provided to people who participate in a study? That normal scientific method is being used, and people who choose to participate are being given either a drug or a placebo? What does the author think we should be doing? Not doing such studies at all? Running free drug distribution programs for all the world? And in any case, what makes such a study (to use your words, and the words of the original poster) either `totalitarian' or, for that matter `domineering'?
Can you explain what you mean here? What would you consider to be examples of American `organizations' acting in a `totalitarian and domineering' manner overseas? What are your sources for these examples?
Two problems with this. First, why do you assume that because the Chinese do not have freedom of speech they should not have freedom of speech? I hope you are not suggesting that only us in the West deserve to have freedom of speech. Are you?
Second, Yahoo is an American company, so what exactly is your objection to Americans not wanting Yahoo to help the Chinese oppress their own citizens?
No, they are corporations which invest on behalf of individuals, who can always seek a different fund if they are unhappy with the practices their investment fund is backing. Or they are corporations which themselves have shareholders.
It is exactly this accountability which made divestiture a powerful tool against apartheid. There's no reason it couldn't be used to prevent American companies from assisting China's oppression of their citizens.
What (the other) AC said. Trying to suggest that the US is `just like China, man' only shows that you're not very familiar with either. Start here to see what I mean.
Shareholders are human beings, who have their own opinions and motivations. I own shares in some companies. You may as well. I'm certainly not motivated by profit alone, and I'm sure you aren't either. Why do you assume that other shareholders are?
Businesses aren't driven by any such abstract motivation at all, but by their direct legal responsibility to their shareholders.
If those shareholders (as I feel they should) oppose the idea of Yahoo building such filters, then Yahoo will not build them (or it is breaching its legal obligations).
At the least, it is certainly reasonable to expect an internet company in a free nation like ours not to stand up for such oppression, by implementing it in their own portals.
I fully realize that the cost of this may be not doing business in China. So be it -- better this than supporting such a regime.
What's your argument here? That because the execs at Enron and Worldcom were corrupt, we shouldn't expect another American company (Yahoo) to behave ethically?
Yes, the Chinese government is totalitarian and corrupt. And for the record, I think we should be lecturing them on this, pretty constantly. But that's beyond the scope of this discussion, which is about what an American company should be willing to do.
With due respect, this is exactly the point. Businesses should not be entering such markets if the price of entry is support for oppressive regimes.
You seem to want to turn this into a case of Americans wishing to impose our ideals on others. While I'd love to have a long thread someday on why it would be better for the Chinese if they did adopt our ideals of liberty and democracy, that's not the issue here. The issue is whether American companies should be helping them enforce their ideals of oppression and totalitarianism.
And if freedom and democracy are not `the only way a country can be run effectively', then what? Is our goal to run countries `effectively', or to run them in a manner which provides liberty and democracy to their citizens?
You are right (to an extent) that Yahoo is not in a position to change China's oppressive system, and that they almost certainly would not be able to do business in China if they are not willing to abide by China's laws.
But why does this give them a free pass to tacitly support such laws by enforcing the removal of web content from their portal? The fact that it is, indeed, legal for them to thus assist China's government does not make it the right thing for them to do.
I, for one, am very disappointed that they are willing to do this.
And if they wanted to do business in South Africa twenty years ago, they would have had to purge sites claiming blacks should have the same rights as whites, and if they wanted to do business in Nazi Germany, they would have to purge all articles written by Jews.
Would you be okay with that, too? Or would you agree with me that there are some steps a business should not be willing to take?
And if they do agree to this, how does this affect their argument here in the US that they are not liable for customer content because they can't control it?
With due respect, the article about Chile you link to goes no farther than raising questions about what happened in Chile, expressing hope that further declassification of documents will clarify matters. The declassification of a wide range of documents in the three years since that article appeared has done just that -- and as I said, while the US was opposed to Allende (with good reason), the declassified documents have shown that the US was nonetheless taken by surprise when the coup occured.
To do your homework for you, a full rundown of the content of these declassified files can be found
here. As clearly stated therein, while aware that senior military officials were considering a coup (in response to Allende's suspension of the Chilean constitution and of Chilean democracy), the CIA provided no support to this coup, and had no advance knowledge of when or if it would actually occur. The most you can complain is that the CIA did not actively intervene to defend a pro-Castro anti-democratic dictatorship in Chile, but I can't see how you could square such a complaint with the non-interventionist stance in the rest of your post...
Your complaints about Vietnam are equally odd. Even if we take it as a given that the US-backed government in Vietnam was guilty of `imprisoning and killing' their critics -- something you provide no evidence of -- this is clearly rather less of a matter than the death of hundreds of thousands in re-education camps, as occured under Ho Chi Minh's government, so it's hard to see what your complaint is. Do you really believe that it is never wise to support the lesser of two evils? Or is it just your rule that whatever side the US backs is worse, on principle?
This certainly seems to be your argument in Colombia -- you complain that US-funded coca-eradication programs by the Colombian government are ineffective. Then what? If these programs are not effective does that make FARC right? Does that make the cocaine cartels right? You have presented ample grounds for arguing for more effective programs. You have presented no grounds for opposing the existence of such programs, which are an effort by the democratically elected government of Colombia to deny funding to a totalitarian movement which seeks to sieze control of the nation.
So which is it? If we were to attempt to tell the people of Uzbekistan what form of government they should have, I have no doubt you would be screaming bloody murder over `US imperialism', or whatever today's buzzword is. On the other hand, if we don't, now you want to blame us for that as well.
We don't have a responsibility to anyone to force people to accept the form of government we believe in. We have a very important responsibility to our citizens to prevent other nations from attempting our destruction. That's all.
The link you post to actioncolumbia.org is broken (``Error publishing site resource''). Bad paste? Slashdot error? Can you post it again?
As for your other claims, if coca is actually so much less profitable than potatoes or other crops, why do you think the Colombians began growing coca in the first place? Are they just stupid, in your view? Do they want to grow coca because they're mean? Or isn't it rather more likely that your claim about the value of coca (which you don't back up with any source) is incorrect?
As for your other claims:
Because they are paid to. You know what politicians will do for money.(especialy in poor countries) If they admitted that it does'nt work, they would get no more money.
So at best you can argue that the US is providing funding for programs which are incorrectly claimed to work (and you haven't demonstrated that this is the case yet). It sure seems to me rather a stretch to claim this, but if we accept it at face value, it still hardly works out to the evil US you set out to show...
The truth is that the CIA was as surprised by the coup as anyone else. Bullshit.
There's an astute argument. What's your source for this?
Without your backing he could not have behaved the way he did. So the "we did'nt create him"-exuse is quite futile.
Except that `the way he did' act was a.) not particularly bad (despite propaganda claims at the time), and more importantly b.) clearly better than the alternative, which was Ho Chi Minh's murderous thugs (who as we have agreed, killed more people in the first years of `peace' than were ever killed in the war).
War does that to people. Another case for example is the use of the guilotine in paris. He whould never had gained the power to do so anyvay. If it were not for the actions of your guy before the war.
Funny how this works out. If a local dictator who we support does something you don't like, it's clearly our fault to you, but hey, if a dictator who we opposed does something much worse, murdering hundreds of thousands of his own people, that's our fault too. One quickly gets the impression that your basic rule is `whatever it is, it's America's fault'.
The argument is that you whould if you could. It's not a US thing it's an anyone thing.
Again, what's your complaint here? You haven't given us any reason to believe that the US is misusing its military might, or would do such a thing, but you want us to weaken ourselves just on principle? Well, I've got a principle too, and that's that we should keep the ability to defend ourselves as needed, against any and all comers.
So what are you asking for? Would you like me to say `except for the roundups of people who want to practice religion freely, the forcible abortions and sterilizations, the massive system of labor camps for political dissidents, and the routine executions of alleged `criminals' without anything that could be mistaken for due process, China seems pretty cool?'
What value would such a statement have? Are you arguing that these things aren't important?
Slashdot Mirror
We can discuss whether the trial of Milosevic is correct, especially since his own nation was denied the opportunity to try him themselves. I have my doubts.
Such a discussion, however, has nothing to do with the ICC, which would be empowered to try any citizen of any nation at any time, without benefit of their own laws, without requiring a special tribunal to be empowered (something which only occurs when there is no relevant national government, as with the trials of Nazi leaders at Nuremburg), and without a requirement that the crimes in question be international in nature.
This last point is particularly telling -- the ICC reserves to itself the right to try citizens for violating UN principles (remember -- the ICC is not bound to only enforce a specific law, which is the most basic limit on a real court's powers) in their actions in their own country, even if the case is being tried in that country.
Are you really suggesting that US citizens should be so unmindful of the rights for which our ancestors fought and bled as to cede those rights to an undemocratic, unlimited, and unappealable `court' simply because the court in question has the word `International' in front of its name?
These days, I much prefer the Institute for Justice.
Let's perform a thought-experiment here, shall we? Let's suppose that the liberals' worst fears about the current administration were actually grounded, and AG Ashcroft were to announce tomorrow that ``rom now on, people we arrest will be tried in a new international court instead of in US courts, so that we do not have to follow US rules of due process in dealing with them.''
Would you be defending this, too? And if not, how do you get off defending this when Kofi Anan says it?
If `the rest of the world' felt that US citizens in US courts should not have the protections of the US Constitution, we would not then scrap those protections on account of this. Why should we be willing to do so in any other court?
At least I hope so.
So why do you expect /. users to be in favor of trying US citizens in an unaccountable court which is not bound to follow the US Constitution or observe rules of due process and does not even have a clearly defined set of laws it is enforcing, just because the UN says so?
That we sought, and received, UN Security Council clearance for our actions in Afghanistan is a nicety, but the fact is that we are exercising our national rights, and indeed living up to our national responsibility to protect our citizens.
To argue that this is a violation of `due process' is to misunderstand the essential differences between war and law enforcement. When US troops stormed up the cliffs on D-Day, they did not take aside their German prisoners and read them their miranda rights...
I'm all for peace -- as the US has been in general -- but the first responsibility of a nation is to defend its citizens, and sometimes that means preempting forces which are planning future attacks. Waiting until a suitcase-nuke goes off in downtown LA is not an option.
The same goes for `domineering' -- posting a hysterical Boston Globe article which doesn't actually find anything particularly objectionable to point at does not make for a very convincing argument.
So, to bring this back on topic, if you can look at a nation like China, which locks tens of thousands of its citizens in forced-labor camps for wanting to vote or wanting to practice a non state-approved religion, which uses forcible sterilization and mandatory abortions in the name of `public health', and which has expansionist designs on almost all of its neighbors, and see the US as the `totalitarian' and `domineering' party in this picture, you're certainly not playing with a full deck...
`Move over, death-camp victims, move over survivors of the gulag! People may be marketing their product unfairly!'
And then you go on to say that running drug-trials in an attempt to find a better AIDS drug is `domineering'?
It's been fun, Howzer. Come back when you have a sense of proportion.
I likewise do indeed poo-poo the article you post from Dr. Mercieca, though I do so because his anti-Americanism is well known, and his article is typical `why do they hate us? because we don't give enough money to NGO's like mine!' rot, not because it comes from the UN, a body whose human rights committee includes China, Syria, and the Sudan.
Unfortunately, the Boston Globe, which is often a reasonable source, seems similarly hysteric here. What is their objection? That people are trying to find a cure for AIDS? That free drugs are being provided to people who participate in a study? That normal scientific method is being used, and people who choose to participate are being given either a drug or a placebo? What does the author think we should be doing? Not doing such studies at all? Running free drug distribution programs for all the world? And in any case, what makes such a study (to use your words, and the words of the original poster) either `totalitarian' or, for that matter `domineering'?
Can you explain what you mean here? What would you consider to be examples of American `organizations' acting in a `totalitarian and domineering' manner overseas? What are your sources for these examples?
Second, Yahoo is an American company, so what exactly is your objection to Americans not wanting Yahoo to help the Chinese oppress their own citizens?
It is exactly this accountability which made divestiture a powerful tool against apartheid. There's no reason it couldn't be used to prevent American companies from assisting China's oppression of their citizens.
What (the other) AC said. Trying to suggest that the US is `just like China, man' only shows that you're not very familiar with either. Start here to see what I mean.
Shareholders are human beings, who have their own opinions and motivations. I own shares in some companies. You may as well. I'm certainly not motivated by profit alone, and I'm sure you aren't either. Why do you assume that other shareholders are?
If those shareholders (as I feel they should) oppose the idea of Yahoo building such filters, then Yahoo will not build them (or it is breaching its legal obligations).
I fully realize that the cost of this may be not doing business in China. So be it -- better this than supporting such a regime.
Yes, the Chinese government is totalitarian and corrupt. And for the record, I think we should be lecturing them on this, pretty constantly. But that's beyond the scope of this discussion, which is about what an American company should be willing to do.
You seem to want to turn this into a case of Americans wishing to impose our ideals on others. While I'd love to have a long thread someday on why it would be better for the Chinese if they did adopt our ideals of liberty and democracy, that's not the issue here. The issue is whether American companies should be helping them enforce their ideals of oppression and totalitarianism.
And if freedom and democracy are not `the only way a country can be run effectively', then what? Is our goal to run countries `effectively', or to run them in a manner which provides liberty and democracy to their citizens?
But why does this give them a free pass to tacitly support such laws by enforcing the removal of web content from their portal? The fact that it is, indeed, legal for them to thus assist China's government does not make it the right thing for them to do.
I, for one, am very disappointed that they are willing to do this.
Would you be okay with that, too? Or would you agree with me that there are some steps a business should not be willing to take?
And if they do agree to this, how does this affect their argument here in the US that they are not liable for customer content because they can't control it?
To do your homework for you, a full rundown of the content of these declassified files can be found here. As clearly stated therein, while aware that senior military officials were considering a coup (in response to Allende's suspension of the Chilean constitution and of Chilean democracy), the CIA provided no support to this coup, and had no advance knowledge of when or if it would actually occur. The most you can complain is that the CIA did not actively intervene to defend a pro-Castro anti-democratic dictatorship in Chile, but I can't see how you could square such a complaint with the non-interventionist stance in the rest of your post...
Your complaints about Vietnam are equally odd. Even if we take it as a given that the US-backed government in Vietnam was guilty of `imprisoning and killing' their critics -- something you provide no evidence of -- this is clearly rather less of a matter than the death of hundreds of thousands in re-education camps, as occured under Ho Chi Minh's government, so it's hard to see what your complaint is. Do you really believe that it is never wise to support the lesser of two evils? Or is it just your rule that whatever side the US backs is worse, on principle?
This certainly seems to be your argument in Colombia -- you complain that US-funded coca-eradication programs by the Colombian government are ineffective. Then what? If these programs are not effective does that make FARC right? Does that make the cocaine cartels right? You have presented ample grounds for arguing for more effective programs. You have presented no grounds for opposing the existence of such programs, which are an effort by the democratically elected government of Colombia to deny funding to a totalitarian movement which seeks to sieze control of the nation.
We don't have a responsibility to anyone to force people to accept the form of government we believe in. We have a very important responsibility to our citizens to prevent other nations from attempting our destruction. That's all.
As for your other claims, if coca is actually so much less profitable than potatoes or other crops, why do you think the Colombians began growing coca in the first place? Are they just stupid, in your view? Do they want to grow coca because they're mean? Or isn't it rather more likely that your claim about the value of coca (which you don't back up with any source) is incorrect?
As for your other claims:
Because they are paid to. You know what politicians will do for money.(especialy in poor countries) If they admitted that it does'nt work, they would get no more money.
So at best you can argue that the US is providing funding for programs which are incorrectly claimed to work (and you haven't demonstrated that this is the case yet). It sure seems to me rather a stretch to claim this, but if we accept it at face value, it still hardly works out to the evil US you set out to show...
The truth is that the CIA was as surprised by the coup as anyone else.
Bullshit.
There's an astute argument. What's your source for this?
Without your backing he could not have behaved the way he did. So the "we did'nt create him"-exuse is quite futile.
Except that `the way he did' act was a.) not particularly bad (despite propaganda claims at the time), and more importantly b.) clearly better than the alternative, which was Ho Chi Minh's murderous thugs (who as we have agreed, killed more people in the first years of `peace' than were ever killed in the war).
War does that to people. Another case for example is the use of the guilotine in paris. He whould never had gained the power to do so anyvay. If it were not for the actions of your guy before the war.
Funny how this works out. If a local dictator who we support does something you don't like, it's clearly our fault to you, but hey, if a dictator who we opposed does something much worse, murdering hundreds of thousands of his own people, that's our fault too. One quickly gets the impression that your basic rule is `whatever it is, it's America's fault'.
The argument is that you whould if you could. It's not a US thing it's an anyone thing.
Again, what's your complaint here? You haven't given us any reason to believe that the US is misusing its military might, or would do such a thing, but you want us to weaken ourselves just on principle? Well, I've got a principle too, and that's that we should keep the ability to defend ourselves as needed, against any and all comers.
What value would such a statement have? Are you arguing that these things aren't important?