most of you will love this

[Inquartata]

Okay, I know if I start posting again, It'll just take WAY too much time, but I had to respond to this debate...

Thank you, Michael Corleone....

First of all, let's get one thing straight about the Geneva conventions: They do NOT apply ONLY to POWs.

And you graduated from which school of international law again? Refresh my memory...

the POW provisions only apply to uniformed personel, but the administration is violating provisions of the convention which are basic human rights provisions and apply to ALL PEOPLE!

If you're referring to Protocol II, concluded in 1977, the US is not a signatory and is not bound by its provisions...

the patriot act (otherwise known as "The Law for the Protection of People and State"), which severely curtails the personal freedoms of Americans and foreign nationals.

Somehow I must have missed those "severe curtailments". Which of my rights have been so severely attenuated that it completely escaped my notice?

since it's passage, the government has used its provisions, among other things, to investigate strippers in reno.

The owner of a strip club, to be precise, not the workers in it. You don't think organized crime and money laundering operations hould be investigated using any tool available?

Additionally, and more disturbingly, they have designated a number of anti-globalization organizations as "terrorist groups". These particular groups have not done anything more violent than civil disobedience.

Are you referring to the sort of organized rioting, sabotage and attempts to shut down cities we see every time the WTO or the G8 tries to hold a meeting? You really consider that sort of behavior "civil"?

I can't help but think of when the government used the red scare to bust unions after WWI, or for that matter when birth control organizations were banned as "marxist" in Germany using the "Law for Protection of People and State", which was passed in the fervor following the Reichstag fire. sound familiar?

Sounds like Godwin's Law is about to be reaffirmed.

"enemy combatant" (a phrase which they created)

From http://www.fed-soc.org/Laws%20of%20war/enemycomb.pdf

The status of “enemy combatant” has a long history under the laws and customs of war.1 It generally can be defined as anyone fighting for the other side in the context of an armed conflict. Where two states are at war, this means their armed forces since, as one standard work explains: “[t]he state is represented in active war by its contending army, and the laws of war
justify the killing or disabling of members of the one army by those of the other in battle or hostile operations.” William Winthrop, Military Law and Precedents 778 (2d ed. 1920). Traditionally, an individual is considered to become an enemy combatant at the point he becomes subject to the authority of a state’s armed force: “So soon as a man is armed by a
sovereign government and takes the soldiers oath of fidelity he is a belligerent.” Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, General Orders, No. 100, April 24, 1863, reprinted in 7 John Moore, A Digest of International Law 173, H.R. Doc. No. 56-551
(1906).


1 Claims that the Bush Administration has either invented or misapplied this term, see Certification Order and Stay at 5, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, et al., No. 2:02cv439 (E.D.Va. Aug. 21, 2002), are incorrect. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently noted, the term enemy combatant “has been used by the Supreme Court many times.” See Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 198, at *15, n.3 (4 th Cir. Jan. 8, 2003) (citing Madsen v. Kinsella, 343 U.S. 341, 355 (1952); In re Yama****a, 327 U.S. 1, 7 (1946); Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 31 (1942)). It also has a long pedigree in non-U.S. sources. See, e.g., British War Office, Manual of Military Law 1929, Amendments (No. 12), ch. XIV, section III, at 12-13 (1929) (The means of reducing an enemy's "powers of resistance are:-- Killing and disabling the enemy combatants; constraining them by defeat or exhaustion to surrender, that is taking them prisoners.") (emphasis added) [hereinafter British Manual].

They have pursued a disturbing and illegal

There speaks Mike the legal authority again.

policy of "pre-emptive war" the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the Lebensraum campaign.

My God(win), one would think "they" went around goose-stepping and singing the Horst Wessel song...

just listen to a senior advisor quoted by Ron Suskind:

Tsk! Mike, with your prodigious legal knowledge and judicial wisdom you should recognize inadmissible hearsay when you come across it...

Every other time in history that these policies have been pursued in a democracy, they have been followed by a transition from democracy to fascism.

Huh...

http://www.britannica.com/ebc/articl...ry=fascism&ct=

"Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority, and harsh suppression of dissent.

Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged. Fascism arose during the 1920s and '30s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems. The leaders of the fascist governments of Italy (1922–43), Germany (1933–45), and Spain (1939–75)—Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Francisco Franco—were portrayed to their publics as embodiments of the strength and resolve necessary to rescue their nations from political and economic chaos. Japanese fascists (1936–45) fostered belief in the uniqueness of the Japanese spirit and taught subordination to the state and personal sacrifice."

So democracy yielded to fascism "every...time in history"? A 20th century phenomenon somehow time-travelled back throughout "history"? Interesting...

[Rogue]

For the sake of humoring you, two things. First, did you bother to read those quotes? Or are you perhaps being willfully ignorant?

"Russert: "The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

- Cheney: "No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection." (NBC, Meet the Press, 11/14/03)"

Exactly how is that not damning?

Did you read the whole quote? Read the next response to Russerts question. It immediately follows your damning statement.

Meet the Press Sunday, September 14, 2003

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn’t have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we’ve learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through mostof the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of ’93. And we’ve learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/
The AP article states nothing to refute Cheney's statements with Russert.
I hope Russert is not to extreme for you.

Second, if you would be willing to spend your precious time and effort and find a decent unbiased news source that says that the White House never linked Sept. 11 and Saddam (not, as you have done, ones in which they say "I never said that" which you have given, for they are not useful when it is so evident that they *did* say it) or one similarly unbiased source that says that Saddam actually had direct links to Sept. 11 I shall immidiately switch my regestration to Republican and vote the ticket from the next election to the day I die. One more stipulation: actually respond to both myself and epeemike. I eagerly await your response.

If it is so evident that they said *it*, produce the evidence. I have referenced quotes that refute your premise that the Bush admin. claimed a 911/Iraq connection. You say, "No you haven't."
One thing you are right on, my time is precious.
Therefore I'm finished wasting it arguing with you on this point.

[telkanuru]

It seems to me that you are not even bothering to read the posts directed at you in their entirety. Until such happens, I deem this rather futile, and, what is infinitely worse, a waste of my time. The last thing I intend to say on this matter is to ask you to try to think about the issue rather than regurgitate information obtained elsewhere.

Also, Inq, now that you've looked up "ad hominem" for the benefit of the board, I suggest you look up "hypocracy" for the benefit of yourself.

[Epee_Pox]

sounds like someone would rather quit than concede.

[Inquartata]

Also, Inq, now that you've looked up "ad hominem" for the benefit of the board, I suggest you look up "hypocracy" for the benefit of yourself.

I tried, but there seems to be no such word.