Rich asked me to critically review the article he posted by Alan Dershowitz and I have finally managed to get to it. Amazingly I agree with much that Dershowitz had to say and it is equally enlightening to see that he somewhat agrees with the Bush adminstrations use of enhanced interrogation. The biggest problem with this debate especially from the radical George Soros wing of the Democratic party, that appears to be driving the bus, is that there is no fall back position. One cannot adequately analyze the decisions of another without looking at all of the facts and circumstances that surrounded the decision at the time the decisions were made. Professor Dershowitz recognizes that in exceptional circumstances torture must be an option. This is exactly what happened. Dershowitz wants there to be a court order attached to the torture as well, like a warrant. I disagree because the Constitution states that the President is the Commander in Chief and these are decisions that should be made by the Executive branch not the Judicial Branch. In my opinion the Judicial Branch has way more power than was intended in the Constitution. But that is a discussion for another day.
Many of you may recall your history that under the Democrat administration of FDR we put many Japanese Americans in camps. Our current left leaning history books, that my daughters have used in AP US History, just talk about how wrong this decision was without examining why FDR made the decision and what were the facts and circumstances surrounding the decision that would result in this kind of policy.
There are many on the left who even argue that dropping the two nuclear bombs on Japan were wrong.
In all of these instances there is a balancing test going on between the proposed controversial policy decision and the safety of American citizens. In all three instances the scales came down in favor of making the tough controversial, history changing decision. That is what it means to be the President. The President's biggest responsibility is to protect the safety of American citizens. Based on the decisions Barry has been making lately concerning national security I really wonder if he is up to the task.
Arguably the decision made by the FDR administration to put actual American citizens of Japanese ethnicity into camps is much more offensive than waterboarding three Al Queda terrorists. Yet no one from the FDR administration was threatened with criminal prosecution. What has happened to the Democratic party? Are they so driven by hatred that they cannot rationally see what is in the countries best interests? Now it turns out that Nancy Pelosi knew everything about the enhanced interrogation techniques and never questioned them. In fact it has been reported that congressional members wanted to know if there was anything else they could do to help extract more information. Now she has been caught lying about this for political reasons. She should be the one who is prosecuted for putting her own self political power ahead of the interests of the country.
When KSM was questioned about future attacks his statement was "soon you will know". What does that statement mean to the radical left? To me it means time is of the essence and we can't just sit back and let another attack occur without doing everything in our power to prevent it including waterboarding the piece of Islamic extremist garbage. For a sitting President to make unilateral statements that weakens our ability to protect Americans is totally naive and should be questioned.
Just to put things in perspective here is another loony left response to the argument that the waterboarding of three Al Queda terrrists actually resulted in the stopping of terrorist attacks and the apprehension of numerous Al Queda operatives.
gommygoomy at 07:52 AM - April 22, 2009
What's your point? Waterboarding could have saved the world from an Alien Invasion, and it would STILL be the worst thing that ever happend. Because George Bush did it. Who CARES how many LIVES were saved? Have you noticed what it's done to OUR IMAGE? I know. I know. We lost a lot of people on 911. Women, children, Moms and Dads. All MURDERED in COLD BLOOD. But don't you see? Don't you remember how it brought us all closer together? The WORLD was on our side. They felt pity for us. It was wonderful. Then George Bush went and started doing things to stop another attack. He started FIGHTING BACK. Why couldn't he just leave well enough, alone? Fighting back only makes them madder. Bombing, and shooting? That's not gonna win you any friends. Yeah, we got some information from all of Bushs' TORTURE CHAMBERS, and it probably saved THOUSANDS OF LIVES, but it didn't feed one hungry child. This all could have been accomplished with an apology. I wanna be loved again. Don't you?
It is always about President Bush for these lunatics. Just like the release of the torture memos and now the photographs. When is the left going to learn that he is not President any more and that it is time to MoveOn?
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5 comments:
Mark should be in the construction business with all of the straw men that he has built. Goomy doesn't represent anything.
Yes, the president is the commander and chief as per the constitution. The same document also prohibits cruel and unusual punishment - and there was not an asterisk.
With respect to FDR and Truman, the issue is one of historical perspective. If we view their actions through a 21st century lens they were both clearly wrong. But it wasn't the 21st century and we cannot hold them to our current, enlightened standards.
Rich,
The US Constitution applies to US citizens. The US has tortured many enemy soldiers througout our illustrious history. I heard Obama make the most idiotic comment yesterday about how Churchill didn't torture any German soldiers during World War II. Hey Barry the UK was already at war with Germany and they were under attack by the Germans. Who was he going to torture since they did not have any prisoners to speak of. If Churchill had captured say Goerring who was directly involved in planning attacks against the UK can we honestly say that we know for fact that Churchill would not have authorized his torture? Remember this is the same First Lord Winston Churchill who conspired to put the Lusitania in danger purposely in hopes of sparking an incident that might provoke the US into entering World War I. Many believe that he also had explosives planted in the ship since their was a second internal explosion not caused by the German U boat torpedo that hastened the sinking of this ship. This has never been proven since the ship sank. However many experts believe this to be so.
It never ceases to amaze me how liberals want to extend US Constitutional protections to those not covered by it for the sake of making their argument.
It is also questionable as to whether the Geneva convention applies to these terrorists since they do not fight for a country that is a party to the Geneva convention nor do they wear uniforms.
If Pakistan erupts like it looks may happen it will be very interesting to see how your boy handles it after insulting Pakistan's leadership last night. What a moron we have as President.
Terry could have written that wacko post.
Honestly, does that horrific writing not represent the logical manifestation of the foreign policy of our current administration?
Jimmy - don't be so hard on Mark. His writing has a stream-of-consciousness style, but I don't think you should call it horrific.
Mark - SCOTUS has ruled that the our constitution does not exclusively apply to US citizens. I'm surprised you'd make this mistake as an M law grad.
The Geneva Convention does apply, even though the fringe groups try to use it as a technicality to violate the treaty. The UN and our NATO allies say it applies. It is possible that Myanmar and Sudan agree with you.
Churchill held 200 +/- prisoners when he made the "we will not torture comment." I'll take our presidents word over anyone on this board.
Pakistan is a coming attraction. This is one more account that Bush badly mishandled.
Rich,
He Churchill never made that statement. It is a figment of Andrew Sullivan's imagination.
Hamdi is an American citizen. He was born in the good old USA.
Under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention . . . Taliban
detainees are not entitled to POW status. To qualify as POWs
under Article 4, Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees would have to
have satisfied four conditions: They would have to be part of a
military hierarchy; they would have to have worn uniforms or
other distinctive signs visible at a distance; they would have to
have carried arms openly; and they would have to have
conducted their military operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
Taliban and Al Queda fighters clearly do not meet the second requirement and the US has never ratified the 1977 protocol to the Geneva Convention which relaxed the requirements of the second requirement so it is questionable whether or not the Geneva Convention rules apply to KSM and the other two detainess who were waterboarded.
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