Your analysis of the impact of the minimum wage is ignorant nonsense (as your ad hominem "...you clearly wish..." makes patent.)
In a competitive market, those who hire labor do so to maximize their profits. If they maximize their profits with 10 units of work, they still need 10 units of work to maximize their profits. So long as their competitors are subject to the same minimum wage laws, the cost of work goes up and the employer responds by either cutting profit or (more likely) improving technology.
>the rest are made to work a bit harder to make up for it
That's nonsense. What boss is not already maximizing the labor extracted from an employee?
>....he can always turn off the AC in the kitchen,
More nonsense. A profit-maximizing boss would do that anyway if it were to his advantage. Comfortable working conditions are more important for extracting the maximum value out of more highly-paid workers than from less-highly paid workers.
>you could have negotiated this "a few more pennies for a more annoying job" system...
Still more nonsense. The seller at the bottom of the market cannot compel buyers to pay more for their product, even when that product is labor.
The most important error in your analysis - the way in which Econ 102 does in fact modify Econ 101 - is TECHNOLOGY. When the minimum price of labor goes up, the level of investment in technology that is rational for an employer goes up. The employer buys a better broom, the worker gets more work done in the same amount of time. What's wrong with that?
Which is why George Jr doesn't have to refuse to leave office in 2009. He just has to arrange for a political clone to take his place. When George "Macaca" Allen YouTube'd himself to death, the clone factory started warming up Thompson.
>About 80% of policies supported by Democrats are direct affronts to Economics 101. Some currently debated ones are minimum wages, CAFE standards, protectionist trade policies, and many more.
Ah, but some people go beyond Econ 101 to Econ 102. And even beyond that!
For example, the minimum wage is a good way to establish a floor income for working people, which is good for stabilizing economic fluctuations. The totally unregulated free market results in boom-and-bust cycles such as America suffered every 20 or 30 years between our Civil War and FDR's New Deal.
"Econ 101" is like "Newton's Laws" --- very nice for their time, and still useful as simplifications, but hardly the last word.
The old adage "Never attribute to malice what may be adequately explained by stupidity" should be replaced by "Never attribute to stupidity what may be adequately explained by avarice"
>Taxes are a form of tyranny. I personally am against tyranny and so I am against taxes.
The flaw in your reasoning is in your 1st premise: that taxes are a form of tyranny. That's simply false. It therefore follows that you may be against tyranny but it does not necessarily follow that you are against taxes.
>more than a million Iraqis have died during this conflict
99.44% of whom were not inclined to attack Americans before we occupied their country.
Heck, 99.43% of them loved us after we overthrew Saddam. It's only when we decided to stay that they turned against us.
The problem with your attrition theory - apart from its immorality - is that it recruits them faster than it kills them. That's spelt "defeat" in any language.
In response to your argument that "habeas wasn't suspended; it was only suspended a little bit" let me suggest that you can't be a little bit pregnant.
It is difficult to be impressed with the scholarship in (A) "1863 or whenever", (B) your suggestion that a purported protest by an Attorney General of his own administration's legal violations is relevant in the 19th century but not in the 21st century when John Ashcroft did it, or your purported distinction between a part of the USA that is a "potential" battlefield as opposed to those parts that are not (based, it appears from your argument, solely on the whim of the Executive branch).
>I don't know why I am arguing the same thing with you twice on different threads
Because instead of sound legal argument, you feel the need for ad hominem attacks?
>...find the historical versions and you will find that to even listen to the domestic side, they needed the warrant.... Under the law at the time, they would need to get a warrant either before or after the call and show enough reason to be listening.
Again, you contradict yourself. When you write "after the call" you are conceding that the warrants could be retroactive. And let me note also the penalty for having the retroactive warrant denied is nothing (assuming, one presumes, a good faith warrant application, which is not an issue here.) There is no evidence that terrorists changed their behavior because of warrant requirements.
>who told the president it was legal to do so i the first place? Well, that would be the president's legal council which is outside the justices department.
The president counsel (note spelling) is his private lawyer. If your private lawyer tells you that a violation of the plain text of a statue is legal and the U.S.A.G. says it is illegal, then you go to jail. Thank You For Playing!
>when... the justice department makes changes so it is legal, then I guess it was legal.
When you state that the justice department made changes to make it legal, you are conceding that it was not legal in the first place. Q. E. D.
>no, this isn't a matter of a soldier on duty in Baghdad, they keep their addresses and vote with an absentee ballot
Yes, in fact "caging" is all about that; your denial maybe based on not knowing that Tim Griffin sent a spreadsheet of black soldiers on a FL base to the White House mailbox for the purposes of challenging their absentee ballots. Don't you agree that this is wrong, illegal and not very supportive of the troops?
>I'm not aware of what Ann Coulter does.
OK, so you are not well informed as to contemporary issues in voter fraud. As reported on many places including Fox and in more detail elsewhere, Ann Coulter registered to vote at an address where she did not live, never had lived, and never intended to live. Do you like that?
>The president is claiming that the law didn't apply in this situation because he found powers in the constitution that preempt them
Precisely correct; he committed felony violations of FISA and other laws, and claims he has constitutional sanctions for them. His naked claim (opposed by the Justice Department) dos not make his felonies legal.
>your inaccurately claiming we have a democracy....we are a republic and not a democracy
The distinction between a republic and a democracy does not affect (please consult your dictionary as to the difference between "effect" and "affect") felonies? Surely republics require public officials obey the law.
They also know that "Joe BlowItUp" calling from a pay phone in New York City cannot be listened to without a warrant
Then they know wrongly, as you do for The anti-terror cops can, under FISA, listen to ANY phone call --- they just have to get a retro-active warrant under FISA. So your entire analysis fails out of ignorance.
As to Bush's knowledge of FISA violations, you write:
This just represents the justice departments interpretation of the legalities of it
Are you seriously arguing that if the Justice Department tell the President that doing thus-and-so is illegal, the President can just say "Naah!" and go ahead with a good-faith belief that he's not breaking the law?
Why is this a Presidential prerogative? Why can't O.J. Simpson make the same argument: "I don't think killing Nicole in a fit of anger is murder?"
Such an argument removes the President from all legal fetters. After all, the President could just as easily argue that no law prevents him from cancelling elections and shutting down the courts. Who will tell him otherwise? The Attorney General? The courts that he shut down?
As for the phone jamming, I don't really see a problem with that
It's a crime. But if you have no problem with crime, I can't argue
"Caging", I don't see a problem with either
Again, you are o.k. with felonies, and I accept that. Meanwhile, you have to look at what "caging" really does. If a soldier is serving in Baghdad, he doesn't change his voting registration to Baghdad. But if he is a black soldier (and therefore,statistically, almost certain to vote Democratic) the illegal caging operation will cancel his voter registration... and he will never know.
I consider it as fraud to declare you live somewhere you don't in order to vote a certain way i a certain area
You mean like what Ann Coulter did? I agree, but she got off. And that has nothing to do with "caging".
I don't see this as the same lines of what Nixon did or was claimed to have done. All three examples you mentioned were acted on outside the president and while one had connections to the white house, they were brief in that respect.
It is much better organized and effective that anything Nixon did; and much more dangerous to our democracy. Bush's connection is that he is part of the conspiracy; are you aware of his connection to the upper ranks of the Republican Party that did the felony phone jamming, email hacking and caging?
>But the "battlefield" by your definition is our entire country.
You replied:
This just isn't true. the battle field is anywhere the terrorists are and where they want to hurt us
Your reply did not contradict my assertion; to the contrary, you agreed with me.
Then you go on to say:
All the calls that were monitored under this program... were initiated either entirely outside the country were both callers were outside or with one party inside the country and another outside.
How do you know that? Did you actually RTFA... which states that the Americans were communicating with the U.S. office of the org? And... most to the point... if there were only foreign calls being tapped, why didn't they get a warrant post facto?
Finally you write:
This case isn't about habeas corpus. I[t] was about the government complying with the law that suspended habeas corpus
That is the very type specimen of a contradiction.
P.S.: your ad hominem attacks are further proof you know you are wrong.
>They could have ignored the law because they believe as they stated, that it didn't apply
They knew FISA applied to them, because they asked Attorney General of the United States for an opinion; and he said it applied to them. video
Meanwhile, we know that the Bush Administration has a habit of breaking laws for political advantage (remember the hacking into the email of Democratic Senators? Remember the NH phone jamming? The FL caging ops?) What (other than partisanship) makes you think they wouldn't pull a Nixon?
>.. Nobody ever said it was the dictatorship of the country
But the "battlefield" by your definition is our entire country. You think the "Commander in Chief" has the right to spy on Americans in America because the battlefield is everywhere. That makes the CinC dictator on a battlefield that is our entire country.
>Are you making this shit up as you go along? The supreme court has never ruled on the habeas corpus of Lincoln years
Thank you for the profanity; it is evidence that you know you are wrong.
You are completely wrong about Lincoln and habeas; a good place to start learning is Ex Parte Milligan 71 U.S. 2 (1866)
Your only answer to me is that "A criminal won't do a crime because he thinks he might be caught". I wish that were true - our courts would have a lot less business!
It is simply untrue that "the terrorists" didn't know we were tapping phones; ever since "Carnivore" anyone who reads a newspaper knows that we have and use that ability.
The only reason an executive has for bypassing Court review of a wiretap is that it is breaking a law. The most common motivation for that, as Nixon proved and you seem to fear to acknowledge, is the tapping of political opposition.
Few logicians will be impressed with your "no-one in the know..." claim, since secret briefings on secret matters are... secret! That is, they can not be shared with the public.
The Founders of our Republic anticipated the Royallist arguments you advance, and discarded them. The "commander in chief" power is much less than the dictatorship of the nation.
Indeed, our Supreme Court ruled on the idea that our entire nation could be a battlefield, and rejected it, in the Lincoln habeas corpus cases. That, as you may not have learned, involved a vastly greater threat to our nation than 9/11.
You, who would trade your freedom in exchange for security, will deserve and end up with neither. However, anyone who argues that America is a Republic, not a Democracy, is not a serious discussant.
You seem to be arguing that the President is Dictator on the battlefield, and that the Battlefield is anywhere on earth that the Dictator proclaims it to be.
This is simply false. The "Commander in Chief" clauses as intended by the framers gives no such power to the Executive; they had extensive experience with kings, and didn't like them. And they had great experience with savage war, so you needn't go all "post-9/11" on us.
If our courts none-the-less rule that the President may spy on whomever he thinks is an enemy, where-ever and when-ever he wishes, then we don't live in a Democracy and might as well be honest about it. To trust a Dictator not to spy upon his domestic political foes is to ignore history.
If Nixon would spy on his domestic political enemies, why wouldn't Bush?
This Administration or its operatives have already admitted hacking into the email of Democratic members of congress; wiretapping allies at the U.N.; conducting wiretapping programs in violation of FISA; and a host of other illegal operations done for political advantage, not for national security.
Really, one should not trust the government so much.
Petraus' strategy would have had a better chance of working in 2003 or 2004, before the population turned against the occupation and the resistence organized. Now that it is fully underway, counterinsurgency doctrine & experience says he needs 1 reliable soldier for 50 civilians, meaning something like 400,000 troops. He's not gonna get that many foreign troops, either U.S. or Coalition.
The IA could do it but will not so long as their effort is part of the occupation. If IA was doing it on their own, with our funding and perhaps air cover from offshore or Kuwait, they'd succeed. That's what's gonna happen some day anyway; might as well cut to the chase.
>it's simply evidence that disputes your 'they'll get along' theory If you are interested in a serious discussion, cut out the sarcasm and just say what you mean. Nowhere did I state that there are no death squads or other atrocities committed by nearly every faction in Iraq, except maybe the Kurds. In the real world, death squads may or may not be indicators of later genocide, c.f. Central America in the 1970-80s and Columbia today. As any 2nd-Amendment proponent will tell you, when both sides of a dispute are heavily armed, they both have a motivation to work things out. The fact that there's a lot of people with guns in Iraq doesn't mean that they armed factions won't eventually come to a resolution other than genocide.
>Contrary to your belief, Iraqi Sunnis are and have been getting out of Iraq because they are afraid. Again, your sarcasm makes it difficult to have a reasoned discussion. Of course anyone with the money to do so flees the combat zone, but it's not just the Sunnis. The NYTimes article to which you cite : "...despite the ethnic and religious motives of most of the Iraqi factions, the Iraqi civil war resembles internal conflicts in revolutionary China or Cambodia: there is a cleansing of the intelligentsia and of anyone else who stands out from the mass...".
>...show us your evidence that Saudi Arabia is involved finacially or militarily to protect the Sunnis in Iraq Widely reported even in Mainstream Media: "...Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, including shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, according to key Iraqi officials and others familiar with the flow of cash."
>...your 'get along' theory... What "get along theory"? Since you refuse to read anything but blogs from interested parties, don't expect to learn anything except the viewpoints of interested parties. The Rey Stewart book is not, as you suggest, by a Washington Post reporter, but by someone who actually ran a couple of Iraqi provinces for the CPA.
>Shia areas of Iraq are sitting on top of some of the biggest oil reserves in the world. They don't need the Sunnis.
Correct. They don't need the expense of genociding the Sunnis, who would fight back with Saudi backing. Thanks for pointing this out.
>So all of the killings by Shia death squads NOW is just an illusion, and is not really happening?
Nope, non sequitur, and I didn't say that.
>If the US leaves, you think the Sunnis and Shia will simply agree to end it? How is the US preventing this agreement now?
History tells us they eventually come to an agreement, because the cost of annihilating each other vastly exceeds the value they obtain from making a deal. Especially when each side has rich foreign backers. Our presence (a) provides them with proxy forces with which to fight the other, and (b) more importantly, we are an occupying force that is killing a lot of them. The Iraqis don't want an occupying force. Surely you can understand their feelings on that subject.
>>And nobody in Iraq wants the Sunnis to call in their Sunni allies, which worldwide vastly outnumber the Shiites. Call in who?
So... "foreign fighters" are not a significant element in Iraq? Perhaps you're right. P.S. our Pentagon is not nearly as sanguine as you concerning Sunni intervention; your geopolitical analysis is polemical, not factual.
>>You really need to study just a little bit of history about tribal societies in general and Iraq in particular. >You should follow your own advice before you start preaching to others.
You don't offer any sources but merely repeat Bush Administration talking points; why not try a few works by experts: "The Prince of the Marshes", "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", "Cobra II", "Fiasco" and of course "State of Denial".
>the genocide that is all but certain to take place in the absence of a hundred thousand+ multinational forces
It is not "all but certain" and it is in fact, not very likely... or at least it didn't used to be very likely, but it grows more likely the longer we stay.
You really need to study just a little bit of history about tribal societies in general and Iraq in particular. The tribes & other factions have made accomodations for over a thousand years, and they will do so again for very simple reasons of economics: the value that Shiites get from killing Sunnis is far less than the value they get from dealing with them. And nobody in Iraq wants the Sunnis to call in their Sunni allies, which worldwide vastly outnumber the Shiites.
The specter of genocide is waved by the same fools who invaded Iraq without bothering to notice that Sunnis and Shiites had differences, and its purpose is the same: to maintain an American presence as long as it is profitable. We're leaving someday, and there will be enough fighting afterwards so that the neocons and their dupes can say "I told you so" but this level of violence is already occuring; delaying our departure only makes it worse.
If you're really interested in learning instead of repeating talking points, read "Prince of the Marshes" by Rey Stewart, and maybe a few other books about Iraq by someone other than an apologist for the continued occupation. Arguing on/. is a waste of time.
>it was about as bipartisan as you can possibly get.
Nope; do the math. A majority of the Democrats voted against AUMF/Iraq.
And, of course, the vote was based on Bush's explicit promise that it wasn't a vote to invade without first getting a vote in the UN... AND to first try every peaceful step to get rid of Saddam's WMDs... neither of which condition was met.
Your comment fails to appreciate (a) the fact that most of the violence in Iraq comes from native Iraqis; foreigners, while not insignificant, are the vast minority; and (b) that doesn't take very many civilian deaths to really annoy an occupied population.
I could explain to you the nature of tribal societies and what it requires a man to do when foreign soldiers kick down his door in the middle of the night and ransack his home with a boot on his neck while his woman looks on. But it will do no good; you will simply protest that not all our soldiers do that, and the Iraqi should just suck it up.
But he won't just suck it up. He can't. It will do no good to paint his local school house; he HAS to strike a blow to feel like a man again.
Of course, explaining these realities to supporters of Bush's occupation is like kicking down a conceptual door and ransacking their ideology. It will do no good. They won't learn. They can't.
You might profit from reading "Fiasco", "Cobra II" and "Assasins Gate".
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Your analysis of the impact of the minimum wage is ignorant nonsense (as your ad hominem "...you clearly wish..." makes patent.)
In a competitive market, those who hire labor do so to maximize their profits. If they maximize their profits with 10 units of work, they still need 10 units of work to maximize their profits. So long as their competitors are subject to the same minimum wage laws, the cost of work goes up and the employer responds by either cutting profit or (more likely) improving technology.
>the rest are made to work a bit harder to make up for it
That's nonsense. What boss is not already maximizing the labor extracted from an employee?
>....he can always turn off the AC in the kitchen,
More nonsense. A profit-maximizing boss would do that anyway if it were to his advantage. Comfortable working conditions are more important for extracting the maximum value out of more highly-paid workers than from less-highly paid workers.
>you could have negotiated this "a few more pennies for a more annoying job" system...
Still more nonsense. The seller at the bottom of the market cannot compel buyers to pay more for their product, even when that product is labor.
The most important error in your analysis - the way in which Econ 102 does in fact modify Econ 101 - is TECHNOLOGY. When the minimum price of labor goes up, the level of investment in technology that is rational for an employer goes up. The employer buys a better broom, the worker gets more work done in the same amount of time. What's wrong with that?
Which is why George Jr doesn't have to refuse to leave office in 2009. He just has to arrange for a political clone to take his place. When George "Macaca" Allen YouTube'd himself to death, the clone factory started warming up Thompson.
>About 80% of policies supported by Democrats are direct affronts to Economics 101. Some currently debated ones are minimum wages, CAFE standards, protectionist trade policies, and many more.
Ah, but some people go beyond Econ 101 to Econ 102. And even beyond that!
For example, the minimum wage is a good way to establish a floor income for working people, which is good for stabilizing economic fluctuations. The totally unregulated free market results in boom-and-bust cycles such as America suffered every 20 or 30 years between our Civil War and FDR's New Deal.
"Econ 101" is like "Newton's Laws" --- very nice for their time, and still useful as simplifications, but hardly the last word.
Likewise, if you define cheese to be electricity, then you can run your computer on cheddar.
The old adage "Never attribute to malice what may be adequately explained by stupidity" should be replaced by "Never attribute to stupidity what may be adequately explained by avarice"
>Taxes are a form of tyranny. I personally am against tyranny and so I am against taxes.
The flaw in your reasoning is in your 1st premise: that taxes are a form of tyranny. That's simply false. It therefore follows that you may be against tyranny but it does not necessarily follow that you are against taxes.
>more than a million Iraqis have died during this conflict
99.44% of whom were not inclined to attack Americans before we occupied their country.
Heck, 99.43% of them loved us after we overthrew Saddam. It's only when we decided to stay that they turned against us.
The problem with your attrition theory - apart from its immorality - is that it recruits them faster than it kills them. That's spelt "defeat" in any language.
Near the end of the article: "Consulting firms that were set up to bring brands into Second Life are busy helping clients explore other worlds."
The best way to profit from a gold rush is to sell tools to the miners ... as Seattle discovered in 1897
In response to your ad hominem attacks, let me quote that great legal scholar George W Bush:
"Any time you hear the United States Government talking about wiretap, it requires --- a wiretap requires a court order." - G.W. Bush
In response to your argument that "habeas wasn't suspended; it was only suspended a little bit" let me suggest that you can't be a little bit pregnant.
It is difficult to be impressed with the scholarship in (A) "1863 or whenever", (B) your suggestion that a purported protest by an Attorney General of his own administration's legal violations is relevant in the 19th century but not in the 21st century when John Ashcroft did it, or your purported distinction between a part of the USA that is a "potential" battlefield as opposed to those parts that are not (based, it appears from your argument, solely on the whim of the Executive branch).
"Any time you hear the United States Government talking about wiretap, it requires --- a wiretap requires a court order." - G.W. Bush
>I don't know why I am arguing the same thing with you twice on different threads
Because instead of sound legal argument, you feel the need for ad hominem attacks?
>...find the historical versions and you will find that to even listen to the domestic side, they needed the warrant.... Under the law at the time, they would need to get a warrant either before or after the call and show enough reason to be listening.
Again, you contradict yourself. When you write "after the call" you are conceding that the warrants could be retroactive. And let me note also the penalty for having the retroactive warrant denied is nothing (assuming, one presumes, a good faith warrant application, which is not an issue here.) There is no evidence that terrorists changed their behavior because of warrant requirements.
>who told the president it was legal to do so i the first place? Well, that would be the president's legal council which is outside the justices department.
The president counsel (note spelling) is his private lawyer. If your private lawyer tells you that a violation of the plain text of a statue is legal and the U.S.A.G. says it is illegal, then you go to jail. Thank You For Playing!
>when ... the justice department makes changes so it is legal, then I guess it was legal.
When you state that the justice department made changes to make it legal, you are conceding that it was not legal in the first place. Q. E. D.
>no, this isn't a matter of a soldier on duty in Baghdad, they keep their addresses and vote with an absentee ballot
Yes, in fact "caging" is all about that; your denial maybe based on not knowing that Tim Griffin sent a spreadsheet of black soldiers on a FL base to the White House mailbox for the purposes of challenging their absentee ballots. Don't you agree that this is wrong, illegal and not very supportive of the troops?
>I'm not aware of what Ann Coulter does.
OK, so you are not well informed as to contemporary issues in voter fraud. As reported on many places including Fox and in more detail elsewhere, Ann Coulter registered to vote at an address where she did not live, never had lived, and never intended to live. Do you like that?
>The president is claiming that the law didn't apply in this situation because he found powers in the constitution that preempt them
Precisely correct; he committed felony violations of FISA and other laws, and claims he has constitutional sanctions for them. His naked claim (opposed by the Justice Department) dos not make his felonies legal.
>your inaccurately claiming we have a democracy....we are a republic and not a democracy
The distinction between a republic and a democracy does not affect (please consult your dictionary as to the difference between "effect" and "affect") felonies? Surely republics require public officials obey the law.
For Electronic Voting:: 14,441
Against Electronic Voting:: -0
They also know that "Joe BlowItUp" calling from a pay phone in New York City cannot be listened to without a warrant
Then they know wrongly, as you do for The anti-terror cops can, under FISA, listen to ANY phone call --- they just have to get a retro-active warrant under FISA. So your entire analysis fails out of ignorance.
As to Bush's knowledge of FISA violations, you write:
This just represents the justice departments interpretation of the legalities of it
Are you seriously arguing that if the Justice Department tell the President that doing thus-and-so is illegal, the President can just say "Naah!" and go ahead with a good-faith belief that he's not breaking the law?
Why is this a Presidential prerogative? Why can't O.J. Simpson make the same argument: "I don't think killing Nicole in a fit of anger is murder?"
Such an argument removes the President from all legal fetters. After all, the President could just as easily argue that no law prevents him from cancelling elections and shutting down the courts. Who will tell him otherwise? The Attorney General? The courts that he shut down?
As for the phone jamming, I don't really see a problem with that
It's a crime. But if you have no problem with crime, I can't argue
"Caging", I don't see a problem with either
Again, you are o.k. with felonies, and I accept that. Meanwhile, you have to look at what "caging" really does. If a soldier is serving in Baghdad, he doesn't change his voting registration to Baghdad. But if he is a black soldier (and therefore,statistically, almost certain to vote Democratic) the illegal caging operation will cancel his voter registration ... and he will never know.
I consider it as fraud to declare you live somewhere you don't in order to vote a certain way i a certain area
You mean like what Ann Coulter did? I agree, but she got off. And that has nothing to do with "caging".
I don't see this as the same lines of what Nixon did or was claimed to have done. All three examples you mentioned were acted on outside the president and while one had connections to the white house, they were brief in that respect.
It is much better organized and effective that anything Nixon did; and much more dangerous to our democracy. Bush's connection is that he is part of the conspiracy; are you aware of his connection to the upper ranks of the Republican Party that did the felony phone jamming, email hacking and caging?
>But the "battlefield" by your definition is our entire country.
You replied:
This just isn't true. the battle field is anywhere the terrorists are and where they want to hurt us
Your reply did not contradict my assertion; to the contrary, you agreed with me.
Then you go on to say:
All the calls that were monitored under this program... were initiated either entirely outside the country were both callers were outside or with one party inside the country and another outside.
How do you know that? Did you actually RTFA ... which states that the Americans were communicating with the U.S. office of the org? And ... most to the point ... if there were only foreign calls being tapped, why didn't they get a warrant post facto?
Finally you write:
This case isn't about habeas corpus. I[t] was about the government complying with the law that suspended habeas corpus
That is the very type specimen of a contradiction.
P.S.: your ad hominem attacks are further proof you know you are wrong.
Are you seriously arguing that terrorists would say "Hey, let's use the phone because the FBI has to talk to a judge before wiretapping us"?
More to the point, Bush himself widely publicized the practice of wiretapping frequently, most famously in saying "Any time you hear the United States Government talking about wiretap, it requires --- a wiretap requires a court order."
As for:
>They could have ignored the law because they believe as they stated, that it didn't apply
They knew FISA applied to them, because they asked Attorney General of the United States for an opinion; and he said it applied to them. video
Meanwhile, we know that the Bush Administration has a habit of breaking laws for political advantage (remember the hacking into the email of Democratic Senators? Remember the NH phone jamming? The FL caging ops?) What (other than partisanship) makes you think they wouldn't pull a Nixon?
>.. Nobody ever said it was the dictatorship of the country
But the "battlefield" by your definition is our entire country. You think the "Commander in Chief" has the right to spy on Americans in America because the battlefield is everywhere. That makes the CinC dictator on a battlefield that is our entire country.
>Are you making this shit up as you go along? The supreme court has never ruled on the habeas corpus of Lincoln years
Thank you for the profanity; it is evidence that you know you are wrong.
You are completely wrong about Lincoln and habeas; a good place to start learning is Ex Parte Milligan 71 U.S. 2 (1866)
Your only answer to me is that "A criminal won't do a crime because he thinks he might be caught". I wish that were true - our courts would have a lot less business!
It is simply untrue that "the terrorists" didn't know we were tapping phones; ever since "Carnivore" anyone who reads a newspaper knows that we have and use that ability.
The only reason an executive has for bypassing Court review of a wiretap is that it is breaking a law. The most common motivation for that, as Nixon proved and you seem to fear to acknowledge, is the tapping of political opposition.
Few logicians will be impressed with your "no-one in the know..." claim, since secret briefings on secret matters are ... secret! That is, they can not be shared with the public.
The Founders of our Republic anticipated the Royallist arguments you advance, and discarded them. The "commander in chief" power is much less than the dictatorship of the nation.
Indeed, our Supreme Court ruled on the idea that our entire nation could be a battlefield, and rejected it, in the Lincoln habeas corpus cases. That, as you may not have learned, involved a vastly greater threat to our nation than 9/11.
You, who would trade your freedom in exchange for security, will deserve and end up with neither. However, anyone who argues that America is a Republic, not a Democracy, is not a serious discussant.
You seem to be arguing that the President is Dictator on the battlefield, and that the Battlefield is anywhere on earth that the Dictator proclaims it to be.
This is simply false. The "Commander in Chief" clauses as intended by the framers gives no such power to the Executive; they had extensive experience with kings, and didn't like them. And they had great experience with savage war, so you needn't go all "post-9/11" on us.
If our courts none-the-less rule that the President may spy on whomever he thinks is an enemy, where-ever and when-ever he wishes, then we don't live in a Democracy and might as well be honest about it. To trust a Dictator not to spy upon his domestic political foes is to ignore history.
If Nixon would spy on his domestic political enemies, why wouldn't Bush?
This Administration or its operatives have already admitted hacking into the email of Democratic members of congress; wiretapping allies at the U.N.; conducting wiretapping programs in violation of FISA; and a host of other illegal operations done for political advantage, not for national security.
Really, one should not trust the government so much.
Petraus' strategy would have had a better chance of working in 2003 or 2004, before the population turned against the occupation and the resistence organized. Now that it is fully underway, counterinsurgency doctrine & experience says he needs 1 reliable soldier for 50 civilians, meaning something like 400,000 troops. He's not gonna get that many foreign troops, either U.S. or Coalition.
The IA could do it but will not so long as their effort is part of the occupation. If IA was doing it on their own, with our funding and perhaps air cover from offshore or Kuwait, they'd succeed. That's what's gonna happen some day anyway; might as well cut to the chase.
>it's simply evidence that disputes your 'they'll get along' theory
If you are interested in a serious discussion, cut out the sarcasm and just say what you mean. Nowhere did I state that there are no death squads or other atrocities committed by nearly every faction in Iraq, except maybe the Kurds. In the real world, death squads may or may not be indicators of later genocide, c.f. Central America in the 1970-80s and Columbia today. As any 2nd-Amendment proponent will tell you, when both sides of a dispute are heavily armed, they both have a motivation to work things out. The fact that there's a lot of people with guns in Iraq doesn't mean that they armed factions won't eventually come to a resolution other than genocide.
>Contrary to your belief, Iraqi Sunnis are and have been getting out of Iraq because they are afraid.
Again, your sarcasm makes it difficult to have a reasoned discussion. Of course anyone with the money to do so flees the combat zone, but it's not just the Sunnis. The NYTimes article to which you cite : "...despite the ethnic and religious motives of most of the Iraqi factions, the Iraqi civil war resembles internal conflicts in revolutionary China or Cambodia: there is a cleansing of the intelligentsia and of anyone else who stands out from the mass...".
>...show us your evidence that Saudi Arabia is involved finacially or militarily to protect the Sunnis in Iraq
Widely reported even in Mainstream Media: "...Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, including shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, according to key Iraqi officials and others familiar with the flow of cash."
>...your 'get along' theory...
What "get along theory"? Since you refuse to read anything but blogs from interested parties, don't expect to learn anything except the viewpoints of interested parties. The Rey Stewart book is not, as you suggest, by a Washington Post reporter, but by someone who actually ran a couple of Iraqi provinces for the CPA.
>Shia areas of Iraq are sitting on top of some of the biggest oil reserves in the world. They don't need the Sunnis.
Correct. They don't need the expense of genociding the Sunnis, who would fight back with Saudi backing. Thanks for pointing this out.
>So all of the killings by Shia death squads NOW is just an illusion, and is not really happening?
Nope, non sequitur, and I didn't say that.
>If the US leaves, you think the Sunnis and Shia will simply agree to end it? How is the US preventing this agreement now?
History tells us they eventually come to an agreement, because the cost of annihilating each other vastly exceeds the value they obtain from making a deal. Especially when each side has rich foreign backers.
Our presence (a) provides them with proxy forces with which to fight the other, and (b) more importantly, we are an occupying force that is killing a lot of them. The Iraqis don't want an occupying force. Surely you can understand their feelings on that subject.
>>And nobody in Iraq wants the Sunnis to call in their Sunni allies, which worldwide vastly outnumber the Shiites.
Call in who?
So ... "foreign fighters" are not a significant element in Iraq? Perhaps you're right. P.S. our Pentagon is not nearly as sanguine as you concerning Sunni intervention; your geopolitical analysis is polemical, not factual.
>>You really need to study just a little bit of history about tribal societies in general and Iraq in particular.
>You should follow your own advice before you start preaching to others.
You don't offer any sources but merely repeat Bush Administration talking points; why not try a few works by experts: "The Prince of the Marshes", "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", "Cobra II", "Fiasco" and of course "State of Denial".
>the genocide that is all but certain to take place in the absence of a hundred thousand+ multinational forces
It is not "all but certain" and it is in fact, not very likely ... or at least it didn't used to be very likely, but it grows more likely the longer we stay.
You really need to study just a little bit of history about tribal societies in general and Iraq in particular. The tribes & other factions have made accomodations for over a thousand years, and they will do so again for very simple reasons of economics: the value that Shiites get from killing Sunnis is far less than the value they get from dealing with them. And nobody in Iraq wants the Sunnis to call in their Sunni allies, which worldwide vastly outnumber the Shiites.
The specter of genocide is waved by the same fools who invaded Iraq without bothering to notice that Sunnis and Shiites had differences, and its purpose is the same: to maintain an American presence as long as it is profitable. We're leaving someday, and there will be enough fighting afterwards so that the neocons and their dupes can say "I told you so" but this level of violence is already occuring; delaying our departure only makes it worse.
If you're really interested in learning instead of repeating talking points, read "Prince of the Marshes" by Rey Stewart, and maybe a few other books about Iraq by someone other than an apologist for the continued occupation. Arguing on /. is a waste of time.
>it was about as bipartisan as you can possibly get.
Nope; do the math. A majority of the Democrats voted against AUMF/Iraq.
And, of course, the vote was based on Bush's explicit promise that it wasn't a vote to invade without first getting a vote in the UN ... AND to first try every peaceful step to get rid of Saddam's WMDs ... neither of which condition was met.
Your comment fails to appreciate (a) the fact that most of the violence in Iraq comes from native Iraqis; foreigners, while not insignificant, are the vast minority; and (b) that doesn't take very many civilian deaths to really annoy an occupied population.
I could explain to you the nature of tribal societies and what it requires a man to do when foreign soldiers kick down his door in the middle of the night and ransack his home with a boot on his neck while his woman looks on. But it will do no good; you will simply protest that not all our soldiers do that, and the Iraqi should just suck it up.
But he won't just suck it up. He can't. It will do no good to paint his local school house; he HAS to strike a blow to feel like a man again.
Of course, explaining these realities to supporters of Bush's occupation is like kicking down a conceptual door and ransacking their ideology. It will do no good. They won't learn. They can't.
You might profit from reading "Fiasco", "Cobra II" and "Assasins Gate".