There are 14,000 detainees similarly not charged.
The Heretik | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 3:35 pm | #

There are 14,000 detainees similarly not charged.

You mean 14,000 Islamofacsist Terrorists. Why whitewash this with PC terms like "detainees"?
Glenn Greenwald | 09.18.06 - 3:41 pm | #

Glenn: check the title ("mindest" rather than "mindset")
InsultComicDog | 09.18.06 - 3:45 pm | #

Here's a question for them: if, as expected, we discover that the Bush Administration has been listening in on *everything* (phones, email, whatever), then Bush supporters will have no choice but to conclude, by their own logic, that *all* Americans, including Bush supporters, are therefore treasonous terrorism suspects.

Of course, that's why they're supporting Bush - because he's basically told them, "If you don't support me, you're a terrorist supporter!" - and ironically enough, they're *proving* that they support the use of blackmail and terror in politics by succumbing to it.
Chris | 09.18.06 - 3:47 pm | #

Wonder if it would help to send a dozen copies of The Oxbow Incident to D.C.
Lynne | 09.18.06 - 3:47 pm | #

Thus, anyone opposed to warrantless eavesdropping is, to them, opposed to eavesdropping on Terrorists (rather than objecting to the administration's ability to eavesdrop without first demonstrating that there is reason to believe they are a terrorist).

Of course, under the supposedly onerous FISA, they don't have to demonstrate reasonable suspicion before eavesdropping: they can do it up to 72 hours afterwards.
Crust | 09.18.06 - 3:48 pm | #

I gave up on arguing with Bush followers long ago, when the argument was that he had a "nice personality". That alone made me want to bang my head into a wall and cry. I've known plenty of people with "nice personalities" that I wouldn't trust managing cats. As much as I enjoy good ol' George proving me right about not being competent to lead in the first place, it's quite frustrating to see so many people under the influence of his BS.
Chgu | 09.18.06 - 3:48 pm | #

I've been thinking this same thing for a while and glad to see you articulate it so well.

It goes the same with torture. The victim is automatically assumed to be guilty, so torture is ok. As long as the administration can plant that seed in everyone's mind, then the alternative (no torture) is seen as just being weak on terrorism.
AZrider | 09.18.06 - 3:54 pm | #

Not that I'm endorsing the literal application of this, but the cultish psychological self-protection via deliberate ignorance of Bush supporters (maybe I *should* start replacing that term with "followers") reminds me of the zombie-like state into which the bad guys in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" transformed their followers, which they could only be knocked out of by touching fire to their skin.

I don't know what the cure for these people is, though.
Chris | 09.18.06 - 3:55 pm | #

With every ridiculous post, I grow more and more confident that Assrocket and the Powerline boys are running the best right-wing parody site evar!! Doing it so well that they get invited to the White House to meet the President.

I mean, no one could be that stark raving mad, stupid and slavish to the President, could they? Hello? Bueller?
Ugh | 09.18.06 - 3:56 pm | #

Prisoners in Iraq fall into three legal categories: prisoners of war, security detainees, and criminal detainees.

Of course all of them are guilty at the very least of Islamofascism, or they never would have been arrested in the first place.

This situation should not be confused with Guantanamo, where Islamofascists were picked up on the front line of battle or in their kitchens when Afghani warlords saw a chance to make a buck informing on their rivals.

It's all more meat on the great Islamosalami sandwich we get to eat at the Oversimplified Cafe. Try the Torture Lite Latte. Yum.
The Heretik | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 3:59 pm | #

I'm suddenly reminded of when Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois. Why? Because DNA testing was revealing that a whole lot of death-row inmates were innocent of the charges and he preferred to not kill innocents.

If juries can find wrongly in so many cases, imagine if all that were required were an accusation.

Of course Ryan himself has been recently convicted of racketeering so perhaps he's more sensetive than many to the rights of the accused

;)
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:01 pm | #

The mentality that Glenn describes in this post is clearly based on a subscription to what was once known as Führerprinzip.

Wilkommen in das vierte Reich.
IngSoc | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:05 pm | #

Does anyone know of any vocal opposition person who has "dissappeared" recently?
Nobody | 09.18.06 - 4:15 pm | #

It's time for an update to the Twilight Zone segment where Vic Morrow is spewing anti-semetic trash in a bar, and steps outside, right into Nazi Germany, where he is suspected of being a Jew. Let Hinderaker step outside and into Iraq, next to a suspected Arab terrorist, just as a US Military patrol passes by.
lk | 09.18.06 - 4:19 pm | #

Does anyone know of any vocal opposition person who has "dissappeared" recently?

Osama Bin Laden hasn't been heard from in years....oh wait....
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:21 pm | #

And strangely enough, their inability to distinguish between "accused" and "guilty" doesn't seem to extend to such folks as Libby or DeLay. In those cases, they are quick to point the difference that they blind themselves to otherwise.
Genejockey | 09.18.06 - 4:22 pm | #

And strangely enough, their inability to distinguish between "accused" and "guilty" doesn't seem to extend to such folks as Libby or DeLay. In those cases, they are quick to point the difference that they blind themselves to otherwise.
Genejockey

Excellent point.

They can spout the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" talking point right along side the claim that DeLay is the innocent victim of a vicious partisan prosecutor.
Kristin | 09.18.06 - 4:25 pm | #

It's amazing how many "small government" conversatives and self styled libertarians are so quick to accept the guilt of anyone simply on the say-so of the auhtorities.

"Gorsh Clem, if the guvmint says he's a terraist he must be a terraist...them nice guvmint folks wouldn't make a mistake about somethin' like that"
A Hermit | 09.18.06 - 4:29 pm | #

Glenn,

A poster in DailyKos has an interesting post up about a letter sent by nine federal judges to Congress urging rejection of the McCain bill on the grounds that it removes historic habeas corpus protection from US prisoners held overseas essentially rendering them unable to ask for court review of detention or the conditions under which they are held. The McCain bill according to the poster is just a way to maintain the current abusive system without actually touching Geneva. We have been so worried about the the Bush proposal that we forgot that MCain could be just as bad in other ways. This warning from the judges comes on the heels of a recent warning from the British attorney general about the attempts to limit court access rights of GWOT detainees. Would you comment if possible?

The DK poster is MediaFreeze "Judges Tell Congress:Don't Suspend Habeas Corpus" 9/18/06 12:46PM

By the way, I bought your book today and look forward to reading it.
solon | 09.18.06 - 4:31 pm | #

Glenn hits the nail on the head (again) with this post.

Of course, I've found one way to deflate Presiedntial Infallibility Syndrome, which is to:

(1) concede the point that every detainee is a "terrorist"

and then

(2) point out that Bush has released hundreds of detainees -- oops, I mean "terrorists" -- from Gitmo. Which makes him a terrible war leader.

Usually, at that point, even Bush supporters are forced to acknowledge that every detainee is not necessarily a "terrorist".
K Ashford | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:31 pm | #

The myth even extends to foreign policy accusations. WMDs in Iraq, Iranian nuclear program, etc.

The converse myth--that things are indesputably fine upon declaration that they are fine--is just as pervasive and seems to stem from the same disease of mindless radicalism and the cult of personality.
DCLaw1 | 09.18.06 - 4:35 pm | #

It's clear why Bush followers like Hinderaker can't process that distinction -- because the idea that the Bush administration might falsely accuse someone is something they can't consider...

Rarely disagree with you, but there's a a racial point to be made here. Even if the Administration did falsely accuse somebody (but of course they never have), it would be acceptable because the people accused aren't white, and didn't have "American" names. It's easier to demonize people named Yaser Esam Hamdi and even Jose Padilla than, say, Richard Armitage. Ok, bad example.
mepex | 09.18.06 - 4:36 pm | #

The mentality that Glenn describes in this post is clearly based on a subscription to what was once known as Führerprinzip.

Wilkommen in das vierte Reich.
IngSoc | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:05 pm

Well, that too; but basically this is simply a continuous example of the false dichotomy, also known as the fallacy of the excluded middle.

This fallacy occurs when two alternatives are presented so that the implication is that one alternative or the other must be true, when in fact there may be a multitude of other alternatives any of which may be true. Given two alternatives, one must be true and the other false only if one of the alternatives is the precise opposite of the other. This is because given a proposition P and its opposite not P (or ~P), both cannot be true. Hence if one is true, the other must be false. But both may be false.

The first false dichotomy was "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists." Once this was accepted as a reasonable position, all the other false dichotomies have simply followed in the same vein:

"If we don't torture terrorist suspects, the terrorists are going to kill us all."

"If we let terrorist suspects have legal representation or fair trials, the terrorists are going to kill us all."

"If we let the Red Cross know who we are holding as terrorist suspects and where, the terrorists are going to kill us all."

"If we don't listen to every phone call made in the US and read every email, the terrorists are going to kill us all."

"If we let people carry bottles of water on airplanes, the terrorists are going to kill us all."

and of course,

"If we don't remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, the terrorists are going to kill us all."

and having removed Saddam,

"If we don't keep losing 2.5 troops a day in Iraq, the terrorists are going to kill us all.

It is impossible to point out the logical fallacy to these people because the very concept of a logical fallacy is completely alien to them. As far as they are concerned the precise opposite of anything you care to say is "the terrorists are going to kill us all." Its an instant false dichotomy.
Frankly, my dear, ... | 09.18.06 - 4:36 pm | #

There is another implicit lie in Hinderaker's logic.

Even if Bilal Hussein is associated/cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, that still doesn't have anything to do with alQaeda.
snoey | 09.18.06 - 4:37 pm | #

Much of the behavior by Bush administration officials and their blinders-on followers is very much in keeping with the analysis provided in John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience, which I found extremely enlightening.
Invictus | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:38 pm | #

A couple weeks ago the father of a Guantanamo detainee wrote a WaPo editorial headlined "Put My Son on Trial - Or Free Him" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp...6090101535.html

What is truly astounding is that even so-called conservatives, who are supposedly skeptical about the potential abuse of governmental power, view requests like this as antiquated, pre-9-11 thinking, even when we are dealing with American citizens who enjoy[ed?] a right to a public and speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment.

The question for Yoo (and I'm afraid of the answer) is whether "wrong-headed" and "obsolete" things the so-called Unitary Executive may disregard includes not only legislation but the Constitution itself. I realize Yoo said "legislation" but it seems the Constitution itself isn't an impediment of the GWOT, in their view.

Apparently, inherent within the Constitution is the ability of the President to violate it and anyone who believes differently is "quaint" to Gonzalez and unwilling to "work the darkside" according to Cheney. The whole thing is pretty simple to Bush - he's the Decider and anyone, including Yoo, who tells him this gets promoted while anyone who objects, who is against him is with the terrorists and deserves to get swiftboated.

The rule of law has become "obsolete" to the current occupant and while Krugman is crying out, Broder still doesn't see the problem.

Now that's terrifying...
david | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:41 pm | #

Nobody, at 4;15...i know of nobody but it be best to sleep, all critics of this administration, with one eye open...these 'jokers' ain't funny. The rulers may not die in a "bloody conflict in the Middle East," but I'd not wish to languish on...or eyewitness terror in their eyes as they fight their personal death on a lonely death-bed...

I think vengeance does come, one way or another, in the case of choices of deciding to exist in the world void of conscience and obvious moral reprobation? I personally think the fool is terrified of what haunts a walking-dead soul...I'd say live, with No Fear. And no true moral guilt. Be at peace. sleep and rest with a clean conscience. Beyond the horizon, if we live 'right' or go 'left' we on the same side after the squabble ends, I hope?
brotherbruz | 09.18.06 - 4:41 pm | #

Hmmmm. seems like many of these Bush-supporting conservative Republican types had a real problem trusting the gummint from 1993-2000. Makes ya' wonder. Sometimes.
darms | 09.18.06 - 4:45 pm | #

Great work as always, Glenn. This is something that has been bugging me since Bush's speach on 9/11/01 (i.e. how will we be sure which states harbor terrorists?). Your near-final point that Bush supporters simply can't consider their man making such a mistake as a false accusation, however, I think is missing something important in the Bush mentality. I believe that for many Republicans, the crime of terrorism is so immense that the old rules of innocent until proven guilty don't apply. The basic mistake here, of course, is that terrorism relies more on this kind of hysteria than on actual results to maintain its momentum. I still see panic, rather than lemmings.
Utica | 09.18.06 - 4:46 pm | #

FYI, here's the AP press release concerning the detained photographer....

http://www.ap.org/pages/about/ pr...pr_091706a.html
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:49 pm | #

"the terrorists are going to kill us all."......Frankly, my dear"....."

The fact is, in the alternate universe that Rove has constructed so brilliantly, it sells..........and wins elections.
NYDamien | 09.18.06 - 4:49 pm | #

With all due respect, I think you've got it wrong. It's not that the American people believe that they're terrorists because Bush says so (though a distressing many likely believe that they're terrorists because they're Middle Eastern), it's that they don't care if they're not terrorists.

It's a position I heartily disagree with, but I can see how it could be perceived in a crude cost-benefit analysis. "If a few innocent Muslims get imprisoned to make us safer, then it's worth it." To put it another way, it's perceived that 'real Americans' would still get their trial.

Call it collateral damage. It's war, the great remover of moral complexity, that makes these snap judgements OK to some. I think that's part of the appeal, really.

K
Keifus | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 4:50 pm | #

Thank you Glenn!

Stephen Hadley pulled that very trick on This Week yesterday, making the point that detainees are evil murderers intent on destroying us, etc. And of course, boy genius Stephanapoulos failed to point out the difference between a detainee and an actual, bonafide terrorist.
roberto | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 5:06 pm | #

As was posted on Ameriblog, what we learned from 9/11 is that "Due process is for the innocent."
roberto | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 5:14 pm | #

Stephen Hadley pulled that very trick on This Week yesterday, making the point that detainees are evil murderers intent on destroying us, etc. And of course, boy genius Stephanapoulos failed to point out the difference between a detainee and an actual, bonafide terrorist.
roberto

Lame, but not surprising. All those people (career Democrats) are lame. They live inside the same bubble as the administration. They are courtiers in the same palace.
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 5:22 pm | #

It's a position I heartily disagree with, but I can see how it could be perceived in a crude cost-benefit analysis. "If a few innocent Muslims get imprisoned to make us safer, then it's worth it." To put it another way, it's perceived that 'real Americans' would still get their trial.

Several commenters have made this point - I don't disagree with it. It is definitely the case that many Bush followers DO recognize that some of the people detained and/or punished and killed are innocent but they don't care because that's just part of the cost of the War of Civilizations (and when their names are "Mohammad" or "Ismail" and they live in or visit an Arab country, they are often inherently suspect, or at least guilty by proximity, and are to blame in one sense or another even when they've done nothing).

I also agree with the person who made the point the other day that one of the reasons so many Bush followers distrust the IAEA and have such success demonizing it is because of the name of its Director (the same reason Kofi Annan is so valuable - his name, national origin and appearance - in demonizing the UN).

That's all true, but it's a slightly different point. It IS the case that even in the fairest and most just system, innocent people are going to be wrongfully convicted and unfairly punished, and we all accept that as a necessary price to pay for an ordered society (we KNOW that there are innocent, wrongfully convicted people in prison right now, but we don't open the doors to the prisons as a result).

But there is a difference bewteen (a) a basically just system that affords the accused the right to deny their guilt but nonetheless wrongfully convicts innocent people and (b) treating mere accusations themselves as tantamount to guilt. Bush supporters are engaging in (b), even though it's true that they recognize that some of the people who get swept up in that assumption may be "innocent" (or, more accurately, not exactly guilty of the crime of which they are accused).

But they want to dispense with the process and the proof stage altogether because, to them, the word of the President is good enough.
Glenn Greenwald | 09.18.06 - 5:28 pm | #

Glenn writes:

the whole point is that we can't know they are terrorists until we give them a fair trial. But to Bush followers, the Leader's decision to detain them and accuse them is all we need to know.

I have a friend who defected from Communist Poland in 1979. This whole "Guilty until proven innocent" was the corner stone of the totalitarian/communist Polish regieme and the Soviets.

It's frightingly amazing how the hard-core "American Values" right-wingers are now the same as the old Warsaw pact.

I guess Reagan didn't win the cold war after all... :) He just imported it.
Moses | 09.18.06 - 5:41 pm | #

I feel like part of the cultural ground for Bush supporters' inability to distinguish between accusation and guilt was prepared by several generations of cop shows. From Dragnet to Hill Street Blues to 21 Jump Street to NYPD Blue to the Law and Order franchise, and many more, we have been marinated in images of police officers' hunches being confirmed. We identify with them and their process. When they suspect someone, they're almost always right, and when they do make a mistake, they almost invariably figure it out and go after the right guy. The biggest drama tends to be that they can't get people they know are guilty because of legal technicalities. Over and over, rules and procedures are presented as arbitrary impediments to getting the (always genuinely guilty) bad guys. Very often, as in 21 Jump Street, officers are shown breaking major rules, and it's presented as a good thing, because they get the bad guy. Years and years of this leads to an unconscious feeling that accusation must be the same as guilt, and that the authorities need to be rescued from all those picky rules that weigh them down and tie their hands. This unspoken cultural atmosphere helps foster the blind faith of the Bush followers that when he calls someone a terrorist, that person really is a terrorist.
Yvonne | 09.18.06 - 5:43 pm | #

Bush is a republican therefore he is right according to his followers...Thank God we have independent thinkers and voters in this county or only the extremist repugs or dems would be leading the country at all times....gotta keep the middle and I think Bush has lost them.
Mary | 09.18.06 - 5:49 pm | #

I should add that I'm not the only one to worry about the effect that police dramas are having on our sense of due process. But I'm not aware of anyone exploring what role their ideology may be playing in our current torture-and-terror debate, and I think it's possibly an important part of the puzzle of how we've ended up in this very scary and anti-American place.
Yvonne | 09.18.06 - 5:51 pm | #

The deep irony is that this makes Bush and his followers believers in the FRENCH traditional system, aka Napoleonic law, where you are guilty until proven innocent...
Metatone | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 5:51 pm | #

I should add that I'm not the only one to worry about the effect that police dramas are having on our sense of due process. But I'm not aware of anyone exploring what role their ideology may be playing in our current torture-and-terror debate, and I think it's possibly an important part of the puzzle of how we've ended up in this very scary and anti-American place.

It doesn't help to conflate correlation with causation. Clint Eastwood made an entire career out of playing the guy willing to break a few rules, if it resulted in getting the bad guys. Americans in general, like taking shortcuts and phrases like "due process" sounds like just so much tedium.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 6:08 pm | #

I've been summoned for jury duty a half dozen times or so over the last 25 years and it never fails that during voir dire at least one juror admits that they don't think the police would have arrested the suspect if he wasn't guilty, so it doesn't surprise me that so many Americans can be taken in my this approach from our government. What does surprise, and shock and dismay, me is that the people leading our government would actually exploit this. It never occurred to me that responsible people would challenge the notion that in our system of justice you are, and should be, innocent until proven guilty.
mrgumby2u | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 6:17 pm | #

To be fair--not that it's necessary to be fair to them--Bush followers are merely typical authoritarian types. In common with much of humanity, they tend to assume that anyone their authority figures accuse of wrongdoing is, in fact, a wrongdoer. Thus we have the law 'n' order hysteria of 15 and 20 years ago, the Salem witch hysteria, and so on and so forth back through history. "Innocent until proven guilty" seems not to be the default assumption for most of humanity.
anonymous | 09.18.06 - 6:22 pm | #

Thousands of Bush followers' blogs carry http://stoptheaclu.com on their blogroll because the pro-Bush bloggers see due process as a luxury and/or as a sin.

According to TTLB, all those links make "Stop The ACLU" one of the world's most popular blogs. (Though not quite so popular, when measured by site visits.) But why is fear and loathing of the ACLU and of due process such a popular position?

The Bush followers have a profoundly pessimistic view of the world. For instance, a recent article at "Stop The ACLU" was titled, "Ten Reasons Why the West Will Lose the War on Terror" and here's their NUMBER ONE reason: http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/...-will-lose- gwot

1. The West lacks the will to survive. We make mountains out of trivial political issues, such as humiliating terrorists, and obsess instead about the rights of people who will cut our throats at the first opportunity. 9/11 has been relegated to historical movie status, not the “wake up call” it should have been. Too many Americans view the war with radical Islam as an inconvenience or a political problem and not something that concerns and threatens their very existence. A reality check is essential for survival.

Glenn,

One thing that might help you to understand the mindset is that the Bush followers are only recognizing "malice" as a possibility for abuse.

"Bush is not maliciously locking people up; he's only locking people up when he has a reason. Therefore, he's not the demon that people make him out to be."

They don't realize that protections exist not just to prevent malice, but also to help prevent mistakes.

And, sad to say, they don't recognize that freedom is truly precious... thus, detaining someone is a truly heinous thing to do unless there is cause.
John Palmer | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 6:27 pm | #

Interesting idea, Yvonne. It's all part of the commodification of dissent/cool/rebellion documented by Thomas Frank.

It's irresistable. Put a hero in a context of weakness and cowardice and cynicism, and you have instant drama. A parallel myth is that Repubs support business and competition, when in fact they support corporate monopoly and don't give a damn about small businesses.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the Association of Police supported Clinton, because that tedious due process is what they're all about.

It's been noted before how much the necons' worldview seems to be constructed of movie cliches, or episodes of '24'.
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 6:45 pm | #

White House to revise terror proposal

"WASHINGTON - The White House told lawmakers it would send Congress a revised proposal late Monday for dealing with terrorism suspects as the number of GOP senators publicly opposing President Bush's initial plan continued to grow.

A Republican-led Senate committee last week defied Bush and approved terror-detainee legislation that Bush vowed to block. Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Senate Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote.

A spokesman for Warner said the Virginia senator expected to receive another draft of the legislation. No details were immediately available....."
Eyes Wide Open | 09.18.06 - 6:48 pm | #

If this rhetorical strategy succeeds, perhaps the GOP can start using it with respect to domestic issues. They can launch the "Pedophilia Search Program" that allows the FBI to search all homes, without warrants, for child pornography. If anyone objects to the warrantless searches, they can be accused of supporting pedophiles' rights. We can then suspend the rules of evidence in cases involving serial murder. Those who opposed it can be accused of wanting to set serial kilers free. And on and on.

Who needs process when no one is ever innocently accused?
A.L. | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 6:49 pm | #

Op-ed in today's LA Times:
Head-in-the-Sand Liberals by Sam Harris.

Pretty much the same sort of thing: Liberals don't understand that All the Muslims Want to Kill Us, and so on. I'd estimate about 80 percent of it is projection.
P J Evans | 09.18.06 - 6:50 pm | #

Clearly, the Enablers cannot possibly conceive a situation where they, themselves, will be detained indefinitely by the Government on secret charges while their friends and colleagues wink at each other and say "I had a feeling about that guy all along ..."

If they would only realize that history is littered with examples of authoritarian enablers who ended up the victims of the very authoritarian mechanisms they championed in the beginning, they might rethink their support.
Rufus | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 6:54 pm | #

Does anyone know of any vocal opposition person who has "dissappeared" recently?
Nobody

Well, do you find PAUL WILLIAM ROBERTS credible?
Eyes Wide Open | 09.18.06 - 7:09 pm | #

Yeah, Sam Haris is a "liberal" who thinks that only the fascists in Europe are making sense now. Right.

He seems like a normal reasonable guy, until you get on the topic of Islam. My wife tried to read the End of Faith, but the antiislamicism just oozed from the page.

I can only assume that he approached Islam from some wrong angle, perhaps as a religion first. Historical facts that contradict his demonization of Islam, like Saladin's release of Christian prisoners even after Richard the Lionhearted slaughtered thousands of Moslem ones, do not appear to have reached him. He badly needs to read some history.
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 7:13 pm | #

Glenn,
Do you think that the burden of proof was satisfied in blaming Osama bin Laden and/or al-Qaeda for 9/11? Was anyone charged and tried for their involvement, other than the strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui (who pled guilty but is clearly non compos mentis and the jury apparently had doubts about his involvement and refused to sentence him to death)?
whig | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 7:21 pm | #

Glenn:

Powerline's latest deceit involves the detention and imprisonment by the U.S. military in Iraq of an AP photographer, Iraqi citizen Bilal Hussein. But the military has brought no charges of any kind against Hussein and refuses to have any public hearing....AP has protested this state of affairs by insisting: "'We want the rule of law to prevail. He either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable,' said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer." But when Hinderaker "reported" these events to his readers, he falsely claimed that "the Associated Press, rather than expressing any embarrassment that it has been publishing propaganda photos taken by an apparent associate of al Qaeda in Iraq, is campaigning for Hussein's release." As Sargent points out, AP is not campaigning for his release, but is insisting that he either be charged with a crime or released. Sargent asks: "Why on earth would Powerline readers put up with such deception?

Actually, it is AP which is engaging in the deception. The Army is detaining Hussein as an enemy agent. It has no jurisdiction in sovereign Iraq to charge Hussein with any civilian crime. Therefore, when AP is arguing that the Army charge or release their enemy propagandist employee, they are indeed campaigning for his release because the Army can not charge him with any civilian crime. Hinderaker is completely correct in this case.

This principle is just axiomatic -- the fact that someone is accused by the Bush administration of being a terrorist or suspected by the administration of working with terrorists does not, in fact, mean that they are a "terrorist."

To start, the military and not the Bush Administration is detaining this enemy agent. I doubt that any of the civilian leadership nevertheless President Bush knew anything about Hussein's detention until AP started defending its enemy propagandist.

Next, this is an overseas war not a civilian judicial matter. The military indeed has almost unlimited discretion to detain foreign enemy agents on the battlefield the same way they have discretion to detain foreign enemy combatants. Under the Geneva Conventions, this man is only entitled to a status hearing. To extend United States constitutional rights to the enemy in a foreign war zone is way beyond loony Glenn.

Those who favor greater protections for accused terrorists for military commissions are labelled by Bush followers as advocating for "terrorist rights" even though the whole point is that we can't know they are terrorists until we give them a fair trial....Our entire system of Government and the Bill of Rights is based on the principle that to be accused by the Government of being guilty of a crime is not the same as being guilty.

Dude, you are advocating granting United States civilian criminal defendant constitutional rights to foreign enemy combatants during a war for the first time in our history. That is the epitome of advocation for "terrorist rights." If the label fits, wear it. Try to defend your position to the American people rather than whining about being called on your position.

Thus, anyone opposed to warrantless eavesdropping is, to them, opposed to eavesdropping on Terrorists (rather than objecting to the administration's ability to eavesdrop without first demonstrating that there is reason to believe they are a terrorist).

That is a flat out lie. The NSA program targets international telecommunications where one end is a number captured from al Qaeda. There is indeed reason to believe that some of the targeted communications involve al Qaeda. This reasonable suspicion is enough to engage in intelligence gathering, but not enough to provide probable cause for a FISA or criminal evidence warrant.

UPDATE: The reliably misleading Mitch McConnell shows how this is done: "For example, I imagine it would be awkward for many of my Democrat colleagues to go home and explain a vote to provide sensitive, classified information to terrorists . . . " Those who advocate rules whereby accused terrorists can actually see the evidence to be used against them to determine if they are terrorists are, to McConnell, going to "vote to provide sensitive, classified information to terrorists."

Information provided by spies embedded in the midst of the enemy or by captured enemy is indeed highly classified for good reason - the enemy doesn't know what has been compromised. This is military intelligence 101.

Therefore, those who advocate allowing enemy during a time of war to have access to this closely held intelligence are indisputably casting a "vote to provide sensitive, classified information to terrorists."

How does that compromise security? The military discloses closely held intelligence to the captured enemy. The captured enemy discloses it to their civilian attorneys. Those attorneys disclose it to the enemy outside.

Far fetched? Attorney Lynn Stewart was recently convicted for passing messages from imprisoned enemy terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman in prison to the enemy overseas.
Bart | 09.18.06 - 7:23 pm | #

Do you think that the burden of proof was satisfied in blaming Osama bin Laden and/or al-Qaeda for 9/11? Was anyone charged and tried for their involvement, other than the strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui (who pled guilty but is clearly non compos mentis and the jury apparently had doubts about his involvement and refused to sentence him to death)?

I'm personally convinced that Osama bin Laden is responsible, directly or indirectly, for numerous terrorist attacks against the U.S., including the 9/11 attacks, but if we captured him, I think he ought to be tried before being punished. If trials were good enough for the likes of Adolph Eichmann, they are good enough for OBL.
Glenn Greenwald | 09.18.06 - 7:24 pm | #

Once again, you hit the nail on the head, Glenn:

"Therefore, there are only two choices which a Bush follower like Hinderaker can recognize..."

That's the problem with the blind followers; there is never a common ground, only the two extremes. Take, for example, the NSA issue. To them its either (a) let the President wiretap anyone, anytime without a warrant or (b) let bin Laden call whoever he wants without scrutiny. How they fail to see the third option -- comply with the LAW and get warrants when you're gonna tap Americans phones -- is beyond me. I think it goes back to the Dean theory of authoritarianism. These people are so blinded by what they see as "patriotism" (read: support for Bush no matter what he does regardless of how ridiculous and illegal it may be) that they refuse to see the rational, level-headed "compromise." I'm afraid that there is just no hope for these people. And that scares me.
Mike | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 7:24 pm | #

Glenn said: "the whole point is that we can't know they are terrorists until we give them a fair trial."

The other night I heard Bill Frist call the detainees at GITMO "terrorists." I suppose he also subscribes to the notion that if Dear Leader says you are a terrorist, then you are.
the walker | 09.18.06 - 7:25 pm | #

BART - That is a flat out lie.

I'm going to ask you to exercise greater restraint in coming to my blog and writing sentences like this on a virtually daily basis. I extend even the people whom I find to be the most destructive and dishonest the courtesy of not labelling what they say "lies" or calling them "liars" except in the rarest of circumstances, when there is no other characterization that is plausible.

By contrast, you come to my blog and call me a liar with great regularity. Feel free to argue what you want here, but there is a limit on the type of constant accusation that I'm willing to tolerate on my blog.
Glenn Greenwald | 09.18.06 - 7:30 pm | #

I'm personally convinced that Osama bin Laden is responsible, directly or indirectly, for numerous terrorist attacks against the U.S., including the 9/11 attacks, but if we captured him, I think he ought to be tried before being punished. If trials were good enough for the likes of Adolph Eichmann, they are good enough for OBL.
Glenn Greenwald

And THEN can we put him in the man-sized meat grinder?
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 7:42 pm | #

The European Court of Human Rights just demonstrated why Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is simply too vague to apply to interrogations of any detainee.

The European Court of Human Rights recently held that "degrading treatment" under Article 3 bars any interrogation that might arouse "feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority capable of humiliating or debasing them and possibly breaking their physical or moral resistance."

Such an interpretation is insane. The entire purpose of interrogation is to break the physical and moral resistance of the interrogated person. Under such an interpretation, every single police interrogation would be illegal. However, degrading treatment has no widely accepted definition, thus every judge is invited to come up with such insanities.
Bart | 09.18.06 - 7:45 pm | #

Bart:

"That is a flat out lie. The NSA program targets international telecommunications where one end is a number captured from al Qaeda. There is indeed reason to believe that some of the targeted communications involve al Qaeda. This reasonable suspicion is enough to engage in intelligence gathering, but not enough to provide probable cause for a FISA or criminal evidence warrant."


You just proved Glenns point: the only reason you have to believe that the NSA program is being used in the way you mentioned above is because thats what the Bush administration says. The fact is that noone knows who the program is targeting and how it's being used because the BA refuses to let Congress oversee and the courts rule on the program. I would like to trust that the President isn't abusing this power, but what reason has he given to assure me of this? Like Reagan said, "trust but verify." Since he won't let the appropriate bodies "verify", I'm afraid that I can't "trust" him.
Mike | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 7:45 pm | #

Far fetched? Attorney Lynn Stewart was recently convicted for passing messages from imprisoned enemy terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman in prison to the enemy overseas.
Bart

Yes, an "enemy" with which we were not yet "at war." A little different. Those German spies we shot had little hope of getting any intelligence to Germany through their defense lawyers. Much more like Guantanamo.

Idiot.
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 7:45 pm | #

This is why we have to repeat over and over again:

Bush lies. It's been proved.

Bush lies. If he says someone is a terrorist, they're probably not.

Bush lies. If he says there are WMD in Iraq
Nathanael Nerode | 09.18.06 - 7:47 pm | #

In fact, this kind of thinking underlies a lot of conservative "get tough, law 'n' order" bluster for decades now. They're opposed to all sorts of rights and procedures for suspects and consideration of exonerating evidence for convicts, because their view of law enforcement starts with the assumption that anyone who is accused is guilty. If you start there, you can justify almost anything.

(Of course, that only applies to lowlife "criminals," not poor well-intentioned white-collar types who just got ensnared in all those unreasonable government regulations and tax laws.)
Redshift | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 7:49 pm | #

Help!! I'm a Bush follower!! I have a central defect in my mindset!!

Good grief.
Gotta Know | 09.18.06 - 7:52 pm | #

Sorry for the triple post, but I'm catching things after I hit 'submit.'

I'm personally convinced that Osama bin Laden is responsible, directly or indirectly, for numerous terrorist attacks against the U.S., including the 9/11 attacks, but if we captured him, I think he ought to be tried before being punished. If trials were good enough for the likes of Adolph Eichmann, they are good enough for OBL.

You may be surprised to learn that the FBI has said that they "have no hard evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11." Just take a look at the bin Laden's FBI Wanted poster; 9/11 IS NOT listed. Gonzo was confronted on this when he appeared on Washington Journal a few months back and he said that sometimes these things are kept in "sealed indictments." While I'm sure that's true and if there is a file on bin Laden it's "sealed", but Gonzo doesn't admit to this. He just uses the example. Interesting to note.
Mike | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 7:52 pm | #

Bart -- Since you've previously demonstrated that you consider Powerline a reliable source, unless you can provide a link to the actual European Court decision, I'm inclined to assume that characterization came from a source with as much credibility as Powerline, which is to say, none.
Redshift | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 7:53 pm | #

Bart's defense of the military's right to detain any enemy combatant in the war theater misses a critical point -- in a war like this one, it is extremely difficult to tell who is and is not an enemy combatant. In many areas, his argument could be taken to defend simply detaining every able-bodied male of military age.

Heavy-handed tactics like that played a major role in starting the insurgency in the first place. I do not claim any great knowledge of military law or procedure, but in a case like this, some sort of process to determine who is or is not the enemy is vitally important.
Enlightened Layperson | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 7:54 pm | #

it is extremely difficult to tell who is and is not an enemy combatant

And of course we are all aware of the lethal potential of cameras. Anyone armed with such a potent weapon MUST be an enemy combatant.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 8:00 pm | #

Hinderaker is not a very American name....what kind of terrorist spawn is he?
marky | 09.18.06 - 8:09 pm | #

Oh BTW, Glenn, you missed the part where the Army found bomb making material in Hussein's apartment and residue on Hussein's person.

That isn't surprising. AP also ignored this bit of news when defending its enemy combatant 'reporter.' Fox News broke the pertinent news.
Bart | 09.18.06 - 8:15 pm | #

Bart:

"enemy propagandist employee"

How do you know that? Don't you know the military is sometimes wrong? You've just proved Glenn's entire point: you believe in Bush's infalliability. How about that status hearing, which hasn't happened?

"The Army is detaining Hussein as an enemy agent. It has no jurisdiction in sovereign Iraq to charge Hussein with any civilian crime."

Then why not ask the government of Iraq to? That's what the AP said: ask the government of Iraq to charge him, or let him go. After all, if he really is an enemy agent, he would be working against the government of Iraq. Supposedly the US troops are there to support the new government of Iraq. That's what Bush says, and you believe him, don't you?

Supposedly we are there on behalf of the government of Iraq, our supposed ally, and the government of Iraq has asked that the journalist be released. How do you get out of that one? If our Army was supporting the British government in Britain, and it locked someone up, and the British government asked them to let him go, and we didn't, the British would indubitably kick us out for ignoring their laws. What do you think the Iraqi government's reaction is?

"The military indeed has almost unlimited discretion to detain foreign enemy agents on the battlefield"
What foreign enemy agents? I see a reporter. What battlefield? He was not detained in the midst of a shootout. Oh wait -- you believe Bush is infalliable, so when
Bush or his military says that he's an enemy agent and says he was captured on the battlefield, you believe them.

"The NSA program targets international telecommunications where one end is a number captured from al Qaeda."

How do you know that? Even if Bush is telling the truth, it's communications where one end is a number from someone Bush *claims* is associated with al-Qaeda. Of course, Bush could be wrong. He's never shown any evidence of this possible al-Qaeda connection to any court, including the FISA court. But of course, to you Bush is infalliable.
Nathanael Nerode | 09.18.06 - 8:28 pm | #

"Therefore, those who advocate allowing enemy during a time of war to have access to this closely held intelligence"

Enemy? What enemy? How do you know they're enemies? Bush could be wrong. But, of course, to you Bush is infalliable. Suppose it turns out, after a fair trial, that this person is an enemy. They're still imprisoned with no hope of return to the battlefield and they have had no contact with any active enemies. Giving them some information on *what proved that they were an enemey* gives them information that they can't use to hurt anyone.

"Attorney Lynn Stewart was recently convicted for passing messages from imprisoned enemy terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman in prison to the enemy overseas."

No, Lynne Stewart was convicted of passing a *paraphrased* press release from her client to a reporter. Based on the identical behavior of his other lawyer Ramsey Clark, who was not charged. Clark: "I don't know of anything that Lynne did that I didn't do. This case would never have been brought except for the fear generated, and the advantage that the Bush administration was taking of it, by the events of September 11, 2001." Heard of "trumped up charges"? Meanwhile, the government introduced all manner of irrelvancies at trial in order to make the jury think that she was some sort of terrorist supporter. Courts and juries aren't always right either, and for obvious reasons she's appealing. Of course, the government illegally spied on her conversations with her client, as it turned out.

But to you, Bush is always right, so to you she must be guilty.

"Dude, you are advocating granting United States civilian criminal defendant constitutional rights to foreign enemy combatants"

ALLEGED foreign enemy combatants. Who knows whether they're enemy combatants? Many of the people in Guantanamo appear to be chicken farmers who were kidnapped by bounty hunters and sold to the US. Surely they deserve a competent hearing to determine whether they were enemy combatantants or not. But to you, Bush is infalliable, so to you they are enemy combatants.

Bart, you ARE Glenn Greenwald's point. Bush lies. Cheney lies. Bush's entire administration has a record of proven lies so long I can't list it (but it's easy enough to Google for). Given how many times they've been proven to have lied, I naturally assume anything they say is a lie now, though I suppose they probably throw in some truth just for flavor. Yet to you Bush is infalliable, so to you it must be reality that is wrong. You still think there were WMDs in Iraq, I bet. And I bet you think that John Kerry lied to get his Silver Star (he didn't, of course), because Republicans promoted it and Bush backed them.

There's a reason I use the term "Bush worshippers". It's understandable idolatry, but please snap out of it: Bush is not God!
Nathanael Nerode | 09.18.06 - 8:28 pm | #

Oh BTW, Glenn, you missed the part where the Army found bomb making material in Hussein's apartment and residue on Hussein's person.

So they actually COULD charge him. Well then have at it. That's why they call it evidence.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 8:29 pm | #

"where the Army found bomb making material in Hussein's apartment and residue on Hussein's person."

Where the Army *said* that it found these things. Of course, they haven't shown any of this evidence to a judge, probably because it doesn't exist. But to you, the Army, like Bush, is infalliable, so anything they say must be true!

Didja know that Bush said that Saddam had no connection with al-Qaeda? Didja know that he said that he didn't care much about bin Laden? Since he said these things, you must believe them, because to you, Bush is infalliable. Now the interesting question is, how do you reconcile those with Bush's other statements sayind that Saddam *did* have a connection with al-Qaeda and that bin Laden was responsible for 9/11? Tricky, when you believe someone's infalliable, when they start contradicting themselves.
Nathanael Nerode | 09.18.06 - 8:31 pm | #

This is from C&L yesterday, but if anyone hasn't seen it, they should.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/20...tions-argument/
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 8:34 pm | #

Bart -- Since you've previously demonstrated that you consider Powerline a reliable source, unless you can provide a link to the actual European Court decision, I'm inclined to assume that characterization came from a source with as much credibility as Powerline, which is to say, none.
Redshift | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 7:53 pm

Not to worry, bart is just being his usual mendacious self. Contrary to what bart claims, the court decision has nothing to do with the Geneva Convention. The article 3 that the court decision mentions and that bart claims is article 3 of the Geneva Convention is actually article 3 of section 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights which says in its entirety: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." In short, bart either doesn't know the difference between the Geneva Conventions and the European Convention on Human Rights or he does but doesn't think that anyone else does. Hanlon's Razor says to assume that bart is stupid, but when he does the same thing day in and day out one has to wonder if anyone could be that stupid and be allowed to cross streets by himself.

In either case, the US is not subject to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 8:37 pm | #

Bart may be a prime example of those who want to stop the ACLU and of those who think that due process is a luxury or a sin. Bart probably hates it when people like Bruce Fein argue that it's better to lose a trial (due to classified and/or inadmissible evidence) than to lose our soul. But given that folks like Bart are all convinced that Bruce Fein & Co. are foolishly enabling the imminent destruction of the USA, should one reasonably expect and demand them to be civil?

They're too damn terrorized to stay civil, and they truly can't imagine why the rest of us aren't equally terrorized.
sysprog | 09.18.06 - 8:39 pm | #

Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 8:37 pm

That was me. Damn HaloScan anyway.
Frankly, my dear, ... | 09.18.06 - 8:39 pm | #

Glenn:

BART - That is a flat out lie.

I'm going to ask you to exercise greater restraint in coming to my blog and writing sentences like this on a virtually daily basis.

Glenn, I have restrained myself for weeks here, patiently and repeatedly laying out the facts and the law to correct any misapprehensions of both. However, we are far beyond that now. All the regulars here know what the facts are. It is no longer possible to believe that these ongoing and daily falsehoods are honest mistakes.

A lie is intentionally making a false statement when the speaker knows it is false.

In this case, you claimed that the NSA program was eavesdropping "without first demonstrating that there is is a reason to [the targets] are a terrorist."

That is a lie.

You know that the NSA program is targeting international calls where one end involves a number captured from al Qaeda.

Indeed, you repeatedly claim, though without any legal authority, that this is enough to provide probable cause that the targeted US person is al Qaeda.

That being so, you knew your claim that the NSA program was eavesdropping "without first demonstrating that there is is a reason to [the targets] are a terrorist" was false when you made it. You can't get a FISA warrant without probable cause that the targeted US person is al Qaeda.

Unlike, many others here, I do not sling around the terms lie or liar freely without supporting the accusation with facts. I laid out these same facts in my original post and notice that you do not bother to deny any of my points and instead are upset at being called out on the lie.

If you can prove that you did not post a lie, then I will apologize.

If you want to ban me for calling you out when you make an false or misleading claim, feel free. Censorship is the first recourse for those who cannot defend their positions.

I am sorry that you are upset. You might want to consider your claims more carefully before posting them.

I am here for an honest debate on the issues.
Bart | 09.18.06 - 8:44 pm | #

You know that the NSA program is targeting international calls where one end involves a number captured from al Qaeda

no...he knows that the President's council ASSERTS that. If we knew that were true then there would be no problem because FISA would allow the program.


I am here for an honest debate on the issues

Exactly 1/2 right. He is here.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 8:54 pm | #

This view is often put more briefly by Bush followers who simply say, to left-wing (and right-wing) supporters of the ACLU, "I hate you because you're going to get me killed."
sysprog | 09.18.06 - 6:25 pm | #

To which I reply:
"Better you than me."
IngSoc | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 8:58 pm | #

The "TSP" ("Terrorist Surveillance Program") operates without getting warrants from the FISA court and without congressional oversight. I'm sure the staff at the NSA are good people, but I'm far more sure that my company's accounting department are good people -- I know it for a fact -- but even so, I don't object to my company getting audited, and I recognize that evading an audit would be a crime. The NSA staff, just like any other human beings, should be subject to some kind of external audit. The FISA system ain't so hot but it's the best we've got. Why abolish it?
sysprog | 09.18.06 - 8:59 pm | #

Exactly 1/2 right. He is here.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 8:54 pm

But perhaps not for much longer if he keeps lying and then lying about lying while calling others liars.
Frankly, my dear, ... | 09.18.06 - 9:03 pm | #

the only way bush could know someone was innocent would be to torture them!
mgallagher | 09.18.06 - 9:04 pm | #

Glenn,

If it would be proper to charge and try OBL before punishing him, what due process should be followed before an invasion of another country is launched?
whig | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 9:05 pm | #

You know that the NSA program is targeting international calls where one end involves a number captured from al Qaeda.

I "know" no such thing. I know that the Bush admnistration claims this, which is not the same thing as its being true -- at least it's not the same thing for people who have a healthily functioning mind, which was the whole point of the post.

And what I said in the post was that the NSA is eavesdropping without "demonstrating" that they have a basis for believing that one part is affiliated with Al Qaeda - they don't demonstrate this because they don't apply for FISA warrants before eavesdropping. To call that statement a "lie" is to engage in trashy, stupid dialogue and I'm not going to allow you to come here and spew reckless accusations like that.

If you want to whine that you're being censored after spending months and months here on a daily basis disseminating mindless ideological crap that I find repulsive without having as much as a syllable of anything you've written censored, feel free.

It's about your behavior and about the most minimal behavioral standards for participating in someone's blog, not about your political views. If you can find someone who will let you go to their blog and call them a liar every day, let me know who that might be. I doubt your censorship-martyrdom cries will generate much sympathy.
Glenn Greenwald | 09.18.06 - 9:08 pm | #

Glenn, I have restrained myself for weeks here, patiently and repeatedly laying out the facts and the law to correct any misapprehensions of both. However, we are far beyond that now. All the regulars here know what the facts are. It is no longer possible to believe that these ongoing and daily falsehoods are honest mistakes.

Hey, Matlock?

Has FISA ruled on the wiretaps? Yes or no.
NobodySpecial | 09.18.06 - 9:14 pm | #

I suggest a compromise. Let Bart comment here, but force him to appear with a gravatar of Pinocchio in full lying mode.

Then no one would need to pay any attention to him unless he is actually making sense.
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 9:20 pm | #

bart: I am here for an honest debate on the issues.

No one here has believed that for some time. I once gave you the benefit of the doubt, but your own conduct in this forum belies your claim.

I would relish debating the issues with someone who sees them the way you claim to see them, but a propagandist deserves no respect, even from those who genuinely hold the views he claims to represent.

There is one other point that should be made. Where I come from, insulting a man in his own house is enough to make you an outcast from civilized society. That, bart, is you. Whatever Glenn decides to do about your comments here, I am done with you.
William Timberman | 09.18.06 - 9:20 pm | #

If you can find someone who will let you go to their blog and call them a liar every day
Well if they really are lying, I don't think it's a problem.

Of course, Bart's assertion hilariously proves the point of your post. How can a rational person possibly believe that one person's claim is equivalent to the truth, especially when that person has a history of distortion and every reason to lie? They don't operate in the same universe where the rules of logic and critical thinking apply.
Nasarius | 09.18.06 - 9:25 pm | #

I personally would be disappointed if bart were banned. Who then would inspire Arne with what he does so well. That said, I can see why the same point being repeated ad namecalling to back it could get tiresome.

It is well known that the issues being debated here will never see light of day in an open courtroom because the administration would be shut down in no time.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 9:34 pm | #

Redshift: ... provide a link to the actual European Court decision

The decision is Ireland v. United Kingdom, Case No. 5310/71, Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (January 18, 1978). The citation is from paragraph 167.
Frankly, my dear, ... | 09.18.06 - 9:36 pm | #

That said, I can see why the same point being repeated ad namecalling to back it could get tiresome.

We'll try that again!

That said, I can see why the same point being repeated ad naseum with nothing but escalating namecalling to back it could get tiresome.

much better.....
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 9:37 pm | #

If it would be proper to charge and try OBL before punishing him, what due process should be followed before an invasion of another country is launched?

Nathanael Nerode:

Bart: "enemy propagandist employee"

How do you know that? Don't you know the military is sometimes wrong?

Sometimes they are. However, I trust the military on the ground in a combat zone far more than their civilian critics.

In this case, they caught the enemy "reporter" with explosives in his apartment and residue on his person.

How about that status hearing, which hasn't happened?

How do you know this has or has not happened?

"The Army is detaining Hussein as an enemy agent. It has no jurisdiction in sovereign Iraq to charge Hussein with any civilian crime."

Then why not ask the government of Iraq to? That's what the AP said: ask the government of Iraq to charge him, or let him go.

AP didn't say that at all. If they want the Iraqis to take custody of this enemy prisoner, they should go to the Iraqis. They fact that they have not indicates again that they are not serious about charging him and instead want their enemy agent released.
Bart | 09.18.06 - 9:37 pm | #

I'm sad to say that William Kristol may indeed be correct, when Kristol writes that Republicans could win some elections by campaigning against the Geneva Conventions. But I predict that Kristol will look foolish (yet again) when Bush flip-flops on his own bill and then says, nevermind, he won't really follow through on his threat to shut down the CIA -- he was just bluffing.
sysprog | 09.18.06 - 9:43 pm | #

Bart:

This may be my last chance to talk to you before you are banned from this blog, so can you indulge me one last time on my favorite obsession, the difference between fighting foreign governments and foreign terrorists?

The first time I raised the subject you said, in effect, that a threat is a threat and an agent of a foreign power is a foreign agent, whether that power is a foreign government or a foreign NGO. You asked what difference I saw.

Here is my answer. Under the Truong formula, which you appear to support, I see two. Truong does not require a warrant for foreign intelligence wiretaps, but does require them to be "reasonable." "Reasonable" is much easier to determine when there is an obvious primary target, such as a foreign embassy, that generates further leads than in a search that begins (in your own words) with a "low probability fishing expedition." You yourself acknowledged that your cases all involved actual agents of foreign powers and not fishing expeditions. I grant that in the present instance some fishing is probably necessary. But that is not the same as saying it should be left to unrestrained executive discretion. The executives who can be trusted with such discretion are the exception and not the rule.

The second difference is that under Truong a clear distinction was made between intelligence gathering, which did not require a warrant, and prosecution, which did. Dealing with foreign government, the primary targets are embassies and diplomats that can be valuable sources without doing anything illegal, and that have diplomatic immunity even if they do act illegally. So there is a substantial amount of intelligence gathering that can take place apart from prosecution. No such immunity exists for foreign terrorists. Any Al Qaeda agent in the U.S. is and should be liable to prosecution.

I believe that fighting foreign terrorists is more like fighting domestic terrorists. The Supreme Court in Keith rejected any distiction between intelligence and prosecution for domestic terrorism and said that a warrant was required in all such cases.

Furthermore, as Arne is fond of pointing out, In Re Sealed Case also rejected the intelligence/prosecution dichotomy and said that the proper dichotomy is between ordinary criminal cases that require a criminal warrant and national security cases that require a FISA warrant. And, as I recall, when Judge Taylor first struck down the TSP, Glenn commented that he did not see any distinction between fighting foreign terrorists vs. domestic terrorists either.

So, if Glenn allows you to post a response, that is my question to you. I have explained what I think is the difference between fighting foreign terrorists and fighting foreign governments. What do you think is the difference between fighting foreign terrorists and fighting domestic terrorists?
Enlightened Layperson | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 9:43 pm | #

sysprog:

The "TSP" ("Terrorist Surveillance Program") operates without getting warrants from the FISA court and without congressional oversight. I'm sure the staff at the NSA are good people, but I'm far more sure that my company's accounting department are good people -- I know it for a fact -- but even so, I don't object to my company getting audited...

Congress has exhaustively audited this program with personal tours of NSA to observe the program, multiple briefings on the programs and in the case of Jay Rockefeller, had over 600 questions answered.

This is Congress' job, not the Courts'.
Bart | 09.18.06 - 9:43 pm | #

On a related topic: torture and Congress.

I've been watching, amazed, as Bush continues push his belief that he needs to be able to torture anyone he needs to. I find it difficult to believe that he really thinks he needs torture to get information from suspects. I also can't imagine that convictions resulting from torture will ever stick for long. (I suppose he intends to sidestep that by delaying trials as long as possible, trying all suspects in tribunals, and executing them as soon as possible.)

One principle the Cheney Gang have stuck to is that of unrestrained violence for the purpose of showing our enemies that we are serious and not like those weak Europeans. Can it be that all they want is to hang on to the aura of the "torture mystique"?
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 9:45 pm | #

Hinderaker's response to the AP for the sin of demanding due process for one of its employees is to take Swiftboating to a new level by (1) linking AP to Al Qaeda using two delusional degrees of separation.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 9:51 pm | #

AP didn't say that at all. If they want the Iraqis to take custody of this enemy prisoner, they should go to the Iraqis. They fact that they have not indicates again that they are not serious about charging him and instead want their enemy agent released.
Bart

Right bart. AP should go to "the Iraqis" (which Iraqis? Which ministry?) and insist they take custody of their photographer from the US Army. Right.

So he can end up dead on the side of the road "with signs of torture."

You are not just stupid, you are inhuman to the point of offensiveness.
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 9:58 pm | #

From AP

“Bilal Hussein has been held in violation of Iraqi law and in disregard to the Geneva Conventions. He must be charged under the Iraqi system or released immediately.”

Italics mine....
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:00 pm | #

The "TSP" ("Terrorist Surveillance Program") operates without getting warrants from the FISA court and without congressional oversight. I'm sure the staff at the NSA are good people, but I'm far more sure that my company's accounting department are good people -- I know it for a fact -- but even so, I don't object to my company getting audited...

Congress has exhaustively audited this program with personal tours of NSA to observe the program, multiple briefings on the programs and in the case of Jay Rockefeller, had over 600 questions answered.

This is Congress' job, not the Courts'.
Bart

Wait, it's Congress' job to supply warrants to TSP? Is that what you are saying?
Baldie McEagle | 09.18.06 - 10:01 pm | #

Samuel Johnson once wrote, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." He meant, of course, that a scoundrel must alwauys, in the end, adopt an air of wounded innocence and holier-than-thouness in order to maintain his or her façade when it has been breached by keen observers. Questioning them is unpatriotic because they are patriots, and to question patriots is unpatriotic because only unpatriotic people question patriots. Through this torturous process of "reasoning," they convince themselves that they are pure as the freshly fallen snow and that all those against them are of the blackest, basest moral character that bears no heeding. In short, black becomes white and white black.
IngSoc | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:25 pm | #

Glenn:

Therefore, there are only two choices which a Bush follower like Hinderaker can recognize -- (1) support the War on Terrorism by supporting the administration's imprisonment of this photographer, or (2) side with the Terrorists by demanding that this Terrorist be released (which is what he told his readers AP is doing). Hinderaker doesn't recognize a third option (such as charge the photographer with terrorism and then determine in a hearing if it's true) because, to him, the Bush administration's accusation of terrorism is tantamount to proof. Anyone who objects to the Bush administration's detention of Hussein is, by definition, objecting to the detention of a Terrorist. Why wait to see if he really is that? The Leader has said it is so. It is thus so.

"Sentence first -- verdict afterwards". The Red Queen via C.L. Dodgson

This is why we need fair trials with all the usual protections, not these jimmied-up mock trials with unseen evidence, etc., "fixed" to make convictions easier to obtain. Particularly in these paranoid times, with plenty of racism and unfound charges flying around, we have to be even more sure that the verdict is warranted by the evidence taken dispassionately. I mean, when the principal megaphones of the RW are calling Decmocrats traitors and calling for the lynching of judges that rule "wrongly", these are indeed perilous times for our real freedoms and we need to be extra cautious.

Cheers,


Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:28 pm | #

If American citizens like Padilla can be labeled enemy combatants, and enemy combatants can (and, of course, should) be tortured at the request of the President, I wonder what will happen when Hillary Clinton starts waterboarding and cold-celling suspected abortion clinic bomb plotters and the Freemen/Waco crowd. She will obviously use the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" to keep an eye on known radical Christians -- and their children, in case she needs to have their testicles crushed to get information from their parents on the next attack. John Yoo & co. wouldn't want it any other way.
88 | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:31 pm | #

Glenn [from the post]:

It's clear why Bush followers like Hinderaker can't process that distinction -- because the idea that the Bush administration might falsely accuse someone is something they can't consider...

How about Arar and el-Masri? Why not point them to these cases?

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:33 pm | #

Help Wanted: Legal Eagles.
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/18/164246/ 229
Skipping over the "teaser" at the beginning of that article, is the rest of the article accurate, in saying that there's no real difference between Bush's bill and McCain's bill?
I'm no legal expert - - this article looks credible but my momma told me not to believe everything I see on the internets.
sysprog | 09.18.06 - 10:34 pm | #

Bart says:

In this case, they caught the enemy "reporter" with explosives in his apartment and residue on his person.

Lie #1: "photographer" not "reporter"

Lie #2: "bomb-making materials" in his apartment, not "explosives". A wristwatch or an alarm clock can be "bomb-making materials" -- a cell phone is a slam dunk: The military said bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured but it never detailed what those materials were. The military said he tested positive for traces of explosives. Horton said that was virtually guaranteed for anyone on the streets of Ramadi at that time.

...

Then why not ask the government of Iraq to? That's what the AP said: ask the government of Iraq to charge him, or let him go.

Lie #3: AP didn't say that at all.

But AP Associate General Counsel Dave Tomlin said Whitman failed to address the main argument made by the AP, that Hussein get his day in court.

"Mr. Whitman says it would be `up to the central criminal court of Iraq' to charge Bilal with any wrongdoing. But the Iraqi court can't do that until the U.S. military hands over Bilal and whatever evidence they have against him to Iraqi authorities," Tomlin said.

"This is exactly what AP and Bilal are asking for," he said. "If the evidence isn't strong enough to support charges, however, Bilal should be released."

Lie #4: If they want the Iraqis to take custody of this enemy prisoner, they should go to the Iraqis.

The Iraqi government has no control over the US military -- none, nada, zero, zip, zilch.

Lie #5: They fact that they have not indicates again that they are not serious about charging him

The Iraqi government has no control over the US military -- none, nada, zero, zip, zilch. He can be charged by the Iraqis only if the US military hands him over to Iraqi control.

Lie #6: and instead want their enemy agent released.

Due process? -- What due process? Enemy agent? -- sure, no proof needed.
Frankly, my dear, ... | 09.18.06 - 10:34 pm | #

Glenn:

Bart: You know that the NSA program is targeting international calls where one end involves a number captured from al Qaeda.

I "know" no such thing. I know that the Bush admnistration claims this, which is not the same thing as its being true -- at least it's not the same thing for people who have a healthily functioning mind, which was the whole point of the post.

Glenn, you sure as heck know this is a fact. You have repeatedly cited Risen, Lichtblau and the NYT leakers as authoritative sources on this program. You cited this article repeatedly and I presumed that you read it. The Risen and Lichtblau article which informed the enemy of the means and methods of this program stated:

What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, they said.

http://www.commondreams.org/head...s05/1216- 01.htm

Moreover, the Administration's slightly more detailed thumbnail disclosure of this program has not been disputed by the NYT's leakers, anyone in Congress which has personally observed the program and any judge who has reviewed secret documents describing the program. Indeed, ACLU is arguing that this disclosure is an undisputed fact and your Judge Taylor has done the same. Don't claim now that you do not know this as a fact. To do so would be another one of those "L" words which upset you.

(Continued on the next post because of the carriage return limits).
Bart | 09.18.06 - 10:34 pm | #

Continued from above...

And what I said in the post was that the NSA is eavesdropping without "demonstrating" that they have a basis for believing that one part is affiliated with Al Qaeda - they don't demonstrate this because they don't apply for FISA warrants before eavesdropping.

Nice spin, but what you said had nothing to do with FISA warrants. Rather you said: Thus, anyone opposed to warrantless eavesdropping is, to them, opposed to eavesdropping on Terrorists (rather than objecting to the administration's ability to eavesdrop without first demonstrating that there is reason to believe they are a terrorist).

NSA does not need to get a FISA warrant to demonstrate that it has reason to believe that the numbers it is targeting are being used by terrorists. As your NYT article linked above disclosed, NSA did describe its reasons to both the FISA court and to the leaders in Congress. The fact that the NSA did not seek a FISA warrant for each telephone number being monitored is irrelevant to your statement because FISA warrants require probable cause, not just a reason to believe, the targeted US person is al Qaeda. Therefore, NSA would hardly be wasting the courts time with its "reasons to believe" that some of the numbers were being used by al Qaeda.

To call that statement a "lie" is to engage in trashy, stupid dialogue and I'm not going to allow you to come here and spew reckless accusations like that.

It is only trashy if the accusation is unsupported and used as an epithet. I am making supported statements of fact. If you would like me to use an accurate alternative term like falsehood or misleading statement, I will be glad to follow your form rules. However, there are only so many ways to call a spade a spade.

If you did not mean what you said, admit that you misspoke and we can move along. Everyone makes mistakes in the heat of blogging and I am no exception. However, I admit my mistakes. So long as you keep making wild statements of fact and law which you cannot support, I will continue to call you on them until you either back them up or admit that you misspoke.

If you want to whine that you're being censored...

:::chuckle:::

That was not a whine, that was a taunt in response to a not so veiled threat of banning from someone who claims to be a free speech absolutist.

Do what you will.
Bart | 09.18.06 - 10:35 pm | #

HWSNBN, clueless as ever, engages in his dissembling on behalf of the Codpiece King:

Actually, it is AP which is engaging in the deception. The Army is detaining Hussein as an enemy agent. It has no jurisdiction in sovereign Iraq to charge Hussein with any civilian crime.

Those detained by the Army must be afforded Geneva Convention rights. If they are civilians, they must be given a hearing, released if no danger, and if they are thought to be criminals, they need to be given trials.

I think that HWSNBN is wrong to say the U.S. has no jurisdiction in a country which it has occupied. Once again, the Geneva Conventions make the occupying country responsible for domestic order.

Cheers,


Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:39 pm | #

HWSNBN:

Therefore, when AP is arguing that the Army charge or release their enemy propagandist employee, they are indeed campaigning for his release because the Army can not charge him with any civilian crime.

If they have no right to try him, neither do they have any right to detain him. So, yes, then they must release him.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:41 pm | #

HWSNBN is completely off in LoonyLand here:

To start, the military and not the Bush Administration is detaining this enemy agent.

OIC. Dubya's not CinC. Well, there goes that (albeit already flimsy) excuse for Dubya's wiretapping. :-)

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:42 pm | #

Here's something to consider: when George Bush sat at his desk before the nation and gravely intoned 'I have intelligence on my desk which indicates Saddam Hussein is reconstituting his nucular weapons program', was he lying? I bet he wasn't. There *really was* a piece of paper on his desk which said 'intelligence indicates saddam is getting his nuke on'; Bush wasn't lying! It's a mafioso-style delegate-the-deceit shell-game, not dissimilar in the slightest to the (honest) claims of ignorance a don might express regarding the disappearance of a key witness in his trial...the don *really doesn't* know what happened to the guy...but one of the don's guys does. (Office of Special Plans, anyone?) hence Bart's claims as to no one being able to prove bush lied. he's right! These assholes learned 30 years ago that putting their plotting and scheming on paper/tapes ain't the best idea...
Send In The Frowns | 09.18.06 - 10:44 pm | #

HWSNBN, once again in florid psychosis:

The military indeed has almost unlimited discretion to detain foreign enemy agents on the battlefield the same way they have discretion to detain foreign enemy combatants....

Nonsense. See the Fourth Geneva Protocol.

... Under the Geneva Conventions, this man is only entitled to a status hearing.

Which he hasn't gotten.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:44 pm | #

HWSNBN:

The NSA program targets international telecommunications where one end is a number captured from al Qaeda. There is indeed reason to believe that some of the targeted communications involve al Qaeda.

HWSNBN knows because he has tippy-top sooper-secret clearance and knows who's been wiretapped. And I'm the King of Rome.....

But if there's "reason to believe that some of the targeted communications involve al Qaeda", then get warrants for those communications. I'd note that there's reason to believe that all international communications contain at least some communications from al-Qaeda (if fact the level of certainty that you will actually intercept some such terra-ist communications is greater if you just sweep up each and every one en masse). So why not listen to everything under this 'rationale' of HWSNBN's. Right? RIGHT???

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:51 pm | #

If there was another "free love" movement, ala 1960, would the hippies be called terrorists?

Imagine all these laws and secrecy of today turned on the protestors of the 1968 Democratic National Convention riot...

Reading things like this post makes me wonder how we can live in an age of knowledge and ignorance simultaneously.
I'm not you | 09.18.06 - 10:51 pm | #

Frankly, my dear:

Bart says: In this case, they caught the enemy "reporter" with explosives in his apartment and residue on his person. --- Lie #1: "photographer" not "reporter"

I stand corrected for what little difference there is between the two. Both communicate the news.

Lie #2: "bomb-making materials" in his apartment, not "explosives". A wristwatch or an alarm clock can be "bomb-making materials" -- a cell phone is a slam dunk: The military said bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured but it never detailed what those materials were. The military said he tested positive for traces of explosives. Horton said that was virtually guaranteed for anyone on the streets of Ramadi at that time.

1) I am not using the AP spin as my source. I am using the Fox News report which I cited above.

2) The fact that this "photographer" has explosives residue on his person is a damn good indicator on what kind of bomb making materials were found in his apartment.

3) While it is true that many citizens of Ramadi have been caught with explosives residue on their person, that is because they were making bombs, not because they happened to innocently brush up against some C4 on their morning stroll.

Then why not ask the government of Iraq to? That's what the AP said: ask the government of Iraq to charge him, or let him go.

Lie #3: AP didn't say that at all.

But AP Associate General Counsel Dave Tomlin said Whitman failed to address the main argument made by the AP, that Hussein get his day in court.

Where in there do you see AP asking the Iraqis to take custody of AP's own bomb maker? They are demanding that the US release him.

Lie #4: If they want the Iraqis to take custody of this enemy prisoner, they should go to the Iraqis. --- The Iraqi government has no control over the US military -- none, nada, zero, zip, zilch.

That might surprise the soldiers who routinely pick up enemy like Hussein, turn them over to Iraqi judges for civilian charges only to see them released because the judges are terrified of being assassinated. Iraq has the authority.

Lie #6: and instead want their enemy agent released. -- Due process? -- What due process? Enemy agent? -- sure, no proof needed.

The military has disclosed its proof to detain Hussein. In reality, the military should execute on the spot anyone found on the battlefield in civilian clothing with explosives residue on their persons. The due process is the chemical test for the residue. There is no innocent reason for having C4 on your person. These illegal combatants like Hussein which you are defending are using their bombs to kill and maim our soldiers and hundreds of innocent civilians.
Bart | 09.18.06 - 10:55 pm | #

Glenn... To call that statement a "lie" is to engage in trashy, stupid dialogue and I'm not going to allow you to come here and spew reckless accusations like that.

Please ban him. I know you will suffer all kinds of bullshit accusations of hypocrisy (not like you don't already) but make it just a time out. He can come back when he learns to behave. Maybe he won't choose to do so. :-)
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 10:55 pm | #

Reading things like this post makes me wonder how we can live in an age of knowledge and ignorance simultaneously.
I'm not you

Radical conservatism, perhaps conservatism in general, is like that.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 10:56 pm | #

Harold "Bart" DePalma's ideal world:

The European Court of Human Rights recently held that "degrading treatment" under Article 3 bars any interrogation that might arouse "feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority capable of humiliating or debasing them and possibly breaking their physical or moral resistance."

Such an interpretation is insane. The entire purpose of interrogation is to break the physical and moral resistance of the interrogated person. Under such an interpretation, every single police interrogation would be illegal.

HWSNBN is nuts!!! He thinks the police in the U.S. are (or at least should be) "break[ing] the physical and moral resistance" of people under interrogation.

Let's keep this psychopath the hell away from any position of responsibility.

Cheers,

P.S.: If you're a drunk in Colorado Springs, don't hire "Bart" to help you out. He thinks you ought to spend time in the holding cell with six cops..... Quite the "defence lawyer". <*Feh!*>

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 10:58 pm | #

I believe that fighting foreign terrorists is more like fighting domestic terrorists. The Supreme Court in Keith rejected any distiction between intelligence and prosecution for domestic terrorism and said that a warrant was required in all such cases.
...
What do you think is the difference between fighting foreign terrorists and fighting domestic terrorists?
Enlightened Layperson | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 9:43 pm

This is not an issue:

FISA § 1801. Definitions

As used in this subchapter:
(a) “Foreign power” means—
...
(4) a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor;
...
(b) “Agent of a foreign power” means—
...
(2) any person who—
...
(C) knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation therefor, for or on behalf of a foreign power;

By definition according to FISA, any person (including US persons) who knowlingly engages in international terrorism is an agent of a foreign power for intelligence gathering purposes.
Frankly, my dear, ... | 09.18.06 - 11:01 pm | #

Bart, of course, tries other sleight of hand with his insistence that this individual cannot be charged with a civilian, presumably from the USCS, crime, as if that is the only option available...
Mike Lamb | 09.18.06 - 11:03 pm | #

I prefer the term "moderates" to current "American conservatives". The moderates were like Eisenhower. Goldwater would probably be a moderate today. ACs are batshit insane.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:03 pm | #

To those who follow these asinine faux debates with right-wing idiots and dissemblers, in which we are effectively forced to "debate" whether or not 1+1=2, it must often seem like we're living in a country in which the Milo Minderbinders, Major Major Major Majors, and General Scheisskopfs of the world have taken over, and we've all become confused, furious and seemingly powerless Yossarians, wandering the streets of the Eternal City, looking for a way out of this Hellerish reality.

There is one, of course, but there is only one catch...
Kovie | 09.18.06 - 11:05 pm | #

Such an interpretation is insane. The entire purpose of interrogation is to break the physical and moral resistance of the interrogated person.

Get a clue, Bart. They are on sale at Wal-Mart.

http://www.mcitta.org/torture.htm
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:05 pm | #

The military has disclosed its proof to detain Hussein. In reality, the military should execute on the spot anyone found on the battlefield in civilian clothing with explosives residue on their persons.

Ahh. So it comes out. Opposition to international law. Opposition to due process. Judge, Jury and Executioner. Complete abandonment of anything approaching democracy. They certainly don't hate you for the freedoms you espouse.

It's sometimes really tough supporting democracy and the rule of law. I can understand why people might prefer fascism and might makes right. It's a lot easier under that system.

I think the phrase you are looking for is "Kill them all and let God sort them out."
edwin | 09.18.06 - 11:07 pm | #

HWSNBN never learns:

[HWSNBN]: That is a flat out lie.

[Glenn]: I'm going to ask you to exercise greater restraint in coming to my blog and writing sentences like this on a virtually daily basis.

Glenn, I have restrained myself for weeks here, patiently and repeatedly laying out the facts and the law to correct any misapprehensions of both. However, we are far beyond that now. All the regulars here know what the facts are. It is no longer possible to believe that these ongoing and daily falsehoods are honest mistakes.

I've detailed HWSNBN's lies here for the better part of a year now, and he not only never owns up to them, he repeats them in another post a cople weeks later. I don't think that HWSNBN is in any position to call others liars, particularly someone as reserved and straight-shooting as Glenn. If HWSNBN has any integrity whatsoever left to impugn, he'd say "Sorry" fifty times and skedaddle. Instead, he'll continue mouthing off, and get himself zapped.

A lie is intentionally making a false statement when the speaker knows it is false.

Or, IOW, "HWSNBN".

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:07 pm | #

You all know that Bart couldn't get into the Marines, right? They wouldn't take him. He wasn't tough enough. He had to join the Army.

Ain't a Real Marine Yet.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:08 pm | #

In reality, the military should execute on the spot anyone found on the battlefield in civilian clothing with explosives residue on their persons.

Suppose he's just been fishing with dynamite, or prospecting for precious metals? Maybe he's a construction worker. Maybe Bart is a giant baby.
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:10 pm | #

They miss Daddy. And nobody's taking their Bushie away. He spanks them right.
Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:14 pm | #

I think the phrase you are looking for is "Kill them all and let God sort them out."
edwin

That would be Bartlejuice.

He's a good Catholic.

Papal Legate Simon de Montfort's order when asked by General of the Papal army how he might tell the difference between the innocent townfolk of Béziers and the Cathar heretics : ``Kill them all, God will recognize his own!''
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:17 pm | #

HWSNBN to Glenn:

In this case, you claimed that the NSA program was eavesdropping "without first demonstrating that there is is a reason to [the targets] are a terrorist."

That is a lie.

No. It's quite true. They are not seeking FISA warrants, and they admit it cheerfully. That's what "demonstrating" means here.

You know that the NSA program is targeting international calls where one end involves a number captured from al Qaeda.

As I pointed out above, HWSNBN knows this to be true because he's got tippy-top sooper-secret clearance and is privy to all this info.... So he calls Glenn a liar bacause Glenn doesn't have this peculiar affliction (which is remediable with large doses of Thorazine).

I think we're seeing good ol "Bart" spiralling in here....

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:19 pm | #

HWSNBN takes a page from "The Major":

I am here for an honest debate on the issues.

No words can add to -- or detract from -- the simple beauty and elegance of those words. Perhaps fitting that those may well be his epitaph.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:22 pm | #

I have given up on trying to convince any Bush supporter of the madness of their leader. Why? I am a medical professional and believe that the majority of Bush supporters and 51% or more of the population is pathological in their thinking;
Webster's:
Main Entry: path·o·log·i·cal
Pronunciation: "pa-th&-'lä-ji-k&l
Variant(s): also path·o·log·ic /-jik/
Function: adjective
1 : of or relating to pathology
2 : altered or caused by disease; also : indicative of disease
3 : being such to a degree that is extreme, excessive, or markedly abnormal
- path·o·log·i·cal·ly /-ji-k(&-)lE/ adverb

The country is sick and needs medical attention stat. I just do not know if it is still possible to save the patient.
Paul Holzapfel | 09.18.06 - 11:22 pm | #

Let's vote.

Ban Bart, Yay or Nay?

I vote Yay!
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:23 pm | #

Arne: Instead, he'll continue mouthing off, and get himself zapped.

I rather get the impression that bart is trying to get himself zapped. Something to do with a martyr complex so that he can boast of having been banned by a First Amendment champion. Somehow the expression "enough to piss off the Pope" comes to mind (and not just because of current events). On the other hand, bart's aversion to the truth seems at times to be pathological so perhaps he just can't help himself.
Frankly, my dear, ... | 09.18.06 - 11:26 pm | #

Paul Dirks:

I personally would be disappointed if bart were banned. Who then would inspire Arne with what he does so well.

Unfortunately, there's no shortage of material.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:27 pm | #

Ban Barometer Bart? I say now way.
Scent of Violets | 09.18.06 - 11:35 pm | #

Well, Arne, I agree with you about the target-rich environment. Shooter is beneath you, but watching you give D-rocks the drubbing he deserves from time to time has warmed the cockles of me aging ticker, and that, most assuredly, is no lie.

And so, with firmness in the right....
William Timberman | 09.18.06 - 11:36 pm | #

HWSNBN is having cut'n'paste difficulties:

NSA does not need to get a FISA warrant to demonstrate that it has reason to believe that the numbers it is targeting are being used by terrorists.

He got the words mixed up a bit in that last cut'n'paste. Here, I'll fix it up fer the regulars:

"NSA needs to demonstrate that it has reason to believe that the numbers it is targeting are being used by terrorists to get a FISA warrant."

That's what the law says and that's what Dubya ignores. And I'm sure that's what HWNBN meant to say....

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:37 pm | #

If it would be proper to charge and try OBL before punishing him, what due process should be followed before an invasion of another country is launched?

Due process is spelled out in detail in Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Military action can only be authorized by the UN Security Council except in cases of self-defense (by common usage, pre-emption of an impending and imminent attack is considered self-defense; preventive wars where there is no imminent threat is not). As a ratified treaty, the UN Charter is part of US law.
Frankly, my dear, ... | 09.18.06 - 11:38 pm | #

Well, well, well...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14897315/

Canadian was falsely accused, panel says

Muslim held by U.S. was sent to Syria for interrogation

Bart?
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:38 pm | #

Bueller? Beuller?
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:39 pm | #

HWSNBN:

If you did not mean what you said, admit that you misspoke and we can move along. Everyone makes mistakes in the heat of blogging and I am no exception. However, I admit my mistakes.

Here HWSNBN is a liar. He's only admitted two mistakes of the many, many I've demonstrated, and on one of them, he only grudgingly gave it up and persisted with his same inane 'argument' now propped up with dicta instead of the original "holding" he'd claimed.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.18.06 - 11:40 pm | #

Arne... I rather get the impression that bart is trying to get himself zapped. Something to do with a martyr complex so that he can boast of having been banned by a First Amendment champion.

You are right, that's why I say we frame it as a "time out".
Anonymous | 09.18.06 - 11:41 pm | #

OMG. I thought I had read or heard every possible conspiracy theory in existence. Not to mention, I have some of my own that nobody else shares but which I am still convinced are true.

I just got a phone call from a close friend of mine who set up a three way conversation with this close friend of his who I don't know, because this person was telling him some of the same things about this administration that I have been trying to get my friend to believe so he thought I would be intersted in what this guy had to say.

This person said he was a big Bush supporter until five or six months ago but something he saw on television (I won't say what) piqued his interest because it struck him as so highly unusual it got his attention.

He started to investigate things on his own for his own entertainment (he's a successful businessman with a PhD in economics and has nothing to do in any way with politics or the media) and that eventually led him to plumb the depths of some incredible, little known facts. That led him to come to develop a conspiracy theory that is truly mind blowing.

If even one-tenth of what he says is true, then the blogosphere and everyone connected with politics are just whistling Dixie, elections don't matter, and in fact, nothing does.

If Jesus Christ, Jehovah and Allah were to all appear together on CNN and confirm these facts, nobody would believe them.

Is this man a lunatic? Very possibly. But you know, maybe not.....

I decided to pick one thing he said that I thought particularly unlikely because you'd think if it was true, people would still be talking about it on blogs but I never saw any reference to it which suggests that the media at the time never made much of this story and you have to ask yourself: why not?

I'm not saying coincidences don't happen in life: they do. But there's a certain kind of coincidence that doesn't pass the smell test. And when the smelly coincidence happens to be, plop, right in the middle of a very large basket of thousands of other similarly fragranced coincidences, what is that? Just another coincidence?

Here's the link:

Link

All the time this man was talking I was thinking about what some of the posters on this site wrote about Arlen Specter and the single bullet theory.

Now that Glenn has identified Arlen Specter as what he is, I ask you all why the man who is one of the few most corrupt people in this country was chosen to be the point man for the single bullet theory?

If Kennedy's murder was covered up and the truth about the attempted assassination of Reagan was covered up too, then you have to ask youself, what the hell wasn't?

Here's why I am never going to write anything about this again. The only rational thing to conclude is that if the world is completely different than what we all have grown up thinking it is and what's more it always has been, then even if someone could prove it, who the hell would believe him?
Eyes Wide Open | 09.18.06 - 11:42 pm | #

Lets try this quotation game with a more honest slice-and-dice...

Bart: You know that the NSA program is targeting international calls where one end involves a number captured from al Qaeda.

Glenn: ...I know that the Bush admnistration claims this, which is not the same thing as its being true ... And what I said in the post was that the NSA is eavesdropping without "demonstrating" that they have a basis for believing that one part is affiliated with Al Qaeda...

What none of us know is if the NSA surveillance program has been exclusively used for tracking al Qaeda or other Islamist terrorists. Because there is no oversight of this executive branch program, except by some partisan appointees within the administration. The absence of check on the administration is what Glenn has been arguing against. He has never claimed that the program did not track bona fide al Qaeda connections.
The United States has a history of state security apparatus misuse for partisan purposes. There is no reason to believe that this administration is immune from the temptation to use these immense, novel powers for partisan gain.
Oversight by parties other than the executive, real oversight with teeth in it, is the only vaccination against this temptation.
Fluffy | 09.18.06 - 11:56 pm | #

EWO: The only rational thing to conclude is that if the world is completely different than what we all have grown up thinking it is and what's more it always has been, then even if someone could prove it, who the hell would believe him?

Well.... You're in North America, yes? If you're standing in an open field, and you hear hoofbeats approaching you from behind, do you turn around expecting to see zebras? If so, are you content to be disappointed, or do you later insist that you're almost certain that those perfectly ordinary chestnut flanks showed at least a hint of stripes?

Do you then found a research institute, or a Church of the Prevalence of Zebras in the Great Plains? If so, welcome to America.
William Timberman | 09.19.06 - 12:01 am | #

EWO – My impression of conspiracy theories is that they provide a window onto the amount of secrecy a society has. In the US today it seems that both the left and right wings are into conspiracy theories. I would not be surprised if the number of people were greater than 50%. This is a strong indication that there is extensive secrecy in the United States. One searches for truth outside of the government and media because they can not be trusted. Unfortunately, I find that most conspiracy theories are very self-serving. The number of people who have killed Kennedy is truly astounding.

I will admit to a conspiracy theory. I do not think that electronic voting is safe. I think that the type that the US has implemented is particularly subject to abuse. I suspect that Bush did not win either of the last two elections.
edwin | 09.19.06 - 12:16 am | #

As much as I would like to pile on HWSNBN and his tired schtick...

Does the offensive start before the election?

Conspiracy theory? I don't know but, I think that if a shooting air war over Iran starts the world will be on the brink of the WW III or IV or whatever the hell they think war it is.

Maybe gas prices have declined a little too much for some?

Maybe it's the christianist clash of civilizations that they are drooling for?

I made a prediction in this forum over a month ago, the war with Iran (if it comes) will be designed as an extreme power grab for the GOP corporate machine.

I think we're just before the precipice and charging toward it at full speed.
Politically Lost | 09.19.06 - 1:02 am | #

Oh, yeah...
Politically Lost | 09.19.06 - 1:16 am | #

Close tag.
Politically Lost | 09.19.06 - 1:17 am | #

Arne:

I've detailed HWSNBN's lies here for the better part of a year now, and he not only never owns up to them, he repeats them in another post a cople weeks later.

I know HaloScan has eaten up your refutations of Bart, but can you recreate some of your better ones for us? (I was particularly thinking of In Re Sealed Case).
Enlightened Layperson | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 1:25 am | #

Frankly:

I know that FISA defines international terrorists as agents of a foreign power. But Bart is forever saying that FISA should be struck down as unconstitutional. So it seems only fair to ask him, if we dispense with FISA, why international terrorists should be treated more like foreign governments than domestic terrorists.
Enlightened Layperson | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 1:28 am | #

I know it's not possible to throttle haloscan until its final death rattle, but is it possible to send a snarky e-mail to the guy who wrote the program?
Politically Lost | 09.19.06 - 1:48 am | #

Looks like old Bartlbuse is nearing his end. He served a purpose for a while but, well, you can only use toilet paper for so long and then you need a new roll.
nuf said | 09.19.06 - 2:04 am | #

Similarly, McConnell calls Bush's legislation establishing military commissions Bush's "proposal for terrorist detainees." If they are already "terrorists," why bother with military commissions at all? What are the commissions supposed to determine? Why not just skip to the execution part?

Oh, there's still the problem of releasing these "terrorists".

Someone, sooner or later, will point out that Zyklon B is cheaper than prison camps.
Phoenician in a time of Romans | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 2:13 am | #

Enlightened Layperson:

I know HaloScan has eaten up your refutations of Bart, but can you recreate some of your better ones for us? (I was particularly thinking of In Re Sealed Case).

Used to be in Google cache, but they're disappearing. You'd have to ask Glenn if he can work on resurrecting comments from before the transition.

Cheers,
Anonymous | 09.19.06 - 2:30 am | #

Um, damn Holoscan. That was me.
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 2:33 am | #

Bart bizarrely says

I have restrained myself for weeks here, patiently and repeatedly laying out the facts and the law to correct any misapprehensions of both. However, we are far beyond that now. All the regulars here know what the facts are. It is no longer possible to believe that these ongoing and daily falsehoods are honest mistakes.

Indeed we do all know what the facts are. Bart is pathologically dishonest, and I stopped taking him seriously long ago. There was a time when I gave Bart the consideration I give anybody who genuinely believes what they are saying, however absurd it might be, but it quickly became clear Bart was saying whatever he had to in order to justify anything Bush might say or do, to the point where it bacame clear Bart himself doesn't believe what he is saying. Bart is lawyering for his chosen political affiliation--demonstarting the art at its most loathesome necessity.

Everybody deserves a competent defense, and when Bush is brought to The Hague he'll certainly bring the best money can buy, but to have to listen to a dittohead repeat the daily propaganda as he hears it on the radio each morning is just annoying, and I'm amazed Glenn has allowed him to use this site to foist the daily spew on us this long. It's like listening to a jr high debate student practice by defending logically and morally indefensible positions. As a lawyer I'm sure bart prides himself in the ability to argue any side a client might come to him with, but his daily ramblings have grown so ridiculous they border on the pathological, as has been pointed out.

I've said it before, but Bart will be the dittohad screaming loudest when a dem takes over the office of the POTUS. He will reverse himself on virtually every position he's taken defending Bush and the NSA crimespree. All the righties will suddenly rediscover their conservative roots, and pretend they never said any of the things they are saying now. Bart will once again mistrust the govt, and anybody who tries to claim that we know something to be the case because the govt says so will be shouted down loudly and arrogantly. He'll demand that the president obey the law to the very letter, and even the tiniest infraction will bring cries for immediate impeachment. Bart is a partisan to the uttermost fiber of his being. He cares only about his party, and defending it rabidly and arrogantly.

Speaking of which, its the arrogance of the rightwing supporters of Bush that makes them so hard to put up with. When Bart claimed we'd accomplished all we'd set out to accomplish in Iraq, and dared anyone to show him otherwise, it seemed impossible that someone so extravegantly sure of himself could ever avoid having to gracefully admit error and change position if the facst turned out otherwise than he'd so assuredly claimed. But as its become clear even to the last conservative that Iraq is a foreign policy debacle, Bart simply avoids the subject, and moves on the the new talking points.

At this point Bart saves me from having to listen to rightwing media on any given day, as I can come to UT to get the day's spin from Bart, but as Bart has taken to calling Glenn a liar almost daily, well, enough is about enough. From a guy who lies like breathing it's too much. You'd think he'd be a little more appreciative that he hasn't been treated the way rightwing sites treat those who dare to disagree.
armagednoutahere | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 2:35 am | #

You'd think he'd be a little more appreciative that he hasn't been treated the way rightwing sites treat those who dare to disagree.
armagednoutahere

um...ditto
Politically Lost | 09.19.06 - 2:48 am | #

I actually feel sorry for old Bartlbuse.
He has a brother 'over there' and I too would do just about anything to support my brother.

Bart, I hope your brother comes home soon, in one piece. I hope all our troops come home soon.

This madness must end.
nuf said | 09.19.06 - 3:09 am | #

Glenn,

you may have covered this in some previous post. It could be worthwhile to revisit the definition of fascism and see how it applies to the Bush administration itself. For example, Wikipedia writes: "[Fascism] viewed the state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution designed to protect collective and individual rights, or as one that should be held in check." Especially the last part here, about being held in check, will I am sure appear relevant to you.
Rob | 09.19.06 - 3:59 am | #

Someone just wrote me today about this horribly victimized man. The story of what happened to this heroic American is really tragic and points out what happens to people who decide to blow the whistle which is no doubt why almost nobody does. And that's why the crooks always get away with things. Daniel Ellsberg may be disappointed when nobody shows up at the whistleblowing party.
"Defrauding America" by Rodney Stich:Inside Secrets of Government Covert Operations

Review on Conspiracy Planet:

"Defrauding America: Encyclopedia of
Secret Operations by the CIA, DEA
and Other Covert Agencies"
by Rodney Stich

Former government investigator
Rodney Stich is one of the unsung heroes of America. His singleminded dedication in exposing government crimes and coverups has resulted in his own harassment, imprisonment and bankruptcy.

Hounded and nearly destroyed by
government agents, his story will remind you of the persecution of dissidents in the former Soviet Union. In today's National
Security State of America, he has however persevered."

My friend wrote me that this guy's books are terrific sources of information about what really goes on.

BTW, I read an article on Huffpo by a Retired General who says we are already in Iran and have started military operations there.

Dark days are all around us.

On another topic, Justin Raimondo wrote the most fascinating article in defense of the Pope. It's on antiwar.com.
Eyes Wide Open | 09.19.06 - 4:24 am | #

I'm late to the conversation but I wanted to comment on what Yvonne said upthread about cop shows on TV preconditioning people to the mindset that if someone is charged with a crime that they must be guilty.

Am I wrong in thinking that civil forfeiture laws have had the same effect? My understanding of the laws are that you must prove your innocence in order to have your seized property returned.
marcus alrealius alrightus | 09.19.06 - 4:42 am | #

To Arne -

When you're detailing the dissembling stupidity that is Bart, do you do one misstatement/omission/straw man/outright lie at a time?

I only ask because you've become the best guage for how riddled with errors (deliberate or otherwise) Bart's comments are.

I confess its also become a guilty pleasure watching you eviscerate him.
yankeependragon | 09.19.06 - 6:29 am | #

I will admit to a conspiracy theory. I do not think that electronic voting is safe. I think that the type that the US has implemented is particularly subject to abuse. I suspect that Bush did not win either of the last two elections.
edwin

It's safe... for Republicans. This is the tag line for this clown....

Thank goodness for Diebold in November.

(They even brag about it.)

Who comments at Newsbusters. Here is his profile:

http://newsbusters.org/user/4151

(retired software engineer and CEO)

Comments here:

http://newsbusters.org/node/7202

They should be rounded up and shot as traitors to democracy.
Anonymous | 09.19.06 - 6:38 am | #

Farther down the thread at Newsbusters:

I also find it comical that socialist Web sites like Salon.com make you watch a commercial before you can see their content. I'm shocked a liberal would submit to those rules!

Of course, some times those ads are for socialist PBS programs...

Socialist PBS programs... These people truly are a cancer that must be cut from the body politic and erxcised from the fabric of America.
Anonymous | 09.19.06 - 6:41 am | #

It seems preposterous that USA is
now devolving to legal stooging and
tinpot dictator run rigged levels of
juris-dereliction but with Bush2WH
that should not surprise based on
this sorry administrations record.
The torture,wiretap and detainee
policy this Bush2 WH promotes and
condones is surely not a high point
in American government,legal process
or international conduct and choice
of behavior. As with all things on
Wheel of Life what goes around will
come around. The first American soldier
or group of American soldiers hauled up
on charges in a process
similar to this WH's proposed track will face the
consequences of this nonsense firsthand.
It will be a genuine G.W.Bush
moment/quote when(if) he responds to
being asked how it was possible to
be so ignorant of such an outcome.
R.Ashen | 09.19.06 - 7:02 am | #

Don't ban Bart because he's rude -- he seems to genuinely believe that he has conclusively demonstrated to the "regulars" that Glenn is a liar -- ban him because he's insane on numerous levels and draws people into beating their heads on his brick wall. Someone who answers the question of how he knows that someone is guilty by saying that he trusts those that made the charge over their critics ... well, that person has a brain so filled with fallacious rot that it is beyond repair, and incapable of producing useful output.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 7:16 am | #

That being so, you knew your claim that the NSA program was eavesdropping "without first demonstrating that there is is a reason to [the targets] are a terrorist" was false when you made it. You can't get a FISA warrant without probable cause that the targeted US person is al Qaeda.

The idea being that BA/NSA is getting warrants for its warrentless wiretapping program? I'm confused. Is it even possible to wiretap an innocent?

The very fact of having been wiretapped or arrested or tortured or killed is proof enough that they are al Qaeda. My having typed this is due process. Off with their heads!

There is no gap, no difference between your guilt and my infliction of pain upon you. By torturing you I affirm your guilt and my righteousness. How could it be any other way?
hoipolloi | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 7:26 am | #

All the time this man was talking I was thinking about what some of the posters on this site wrote about Arlen Specter and the single bullet theory.

I know it's not politically correct to say so, but almost no one who talks about the single bullet theory actually knows any facts about it; they assume it's nonsense because that's what they've heard and that's what they're inclined to believe. I myself was so inclined for 30 years, but my beliefs weren't rationally based. If you would rather have your opinion on the matter to be based on fact and reason than on bias, read

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/sbt.htm
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 7:32 am | #

Bart writes:

Sometimes they are. However, I trust the military on the ground in a combat zone far more than their civilian critics.

And thats the problem. THey're not in combat. And, frankly, I was in the army and it was the most uncomfortable four-years of my life. Not the discipline, etc., but because I was surrounded, on a daily basis, by and large, by a population that was pig-ignorant, brainwashed and not-too-bright.

And the officer corps... I shudder at the medacious group think... From atrocities to their cover-ups...

Anyway, I took two things from the military:

1. The US military is not special in any way, shape or form. Just well armed.

2. The expression: "He couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel."


The second applies to the incurious people like you, Bart. Who write their propaganda without even a rudimentary understanding of our treaty (you know, force of law) obligations to which we are signatory. Not only the various Geneva conventions, but the treaties on Human Rights, etc.

What we have done violates many articles of the Geneva conventions and other treaties we have signed (and enforced in the past). For example, moving the detainees to Guantanmo is a Geneva violation. You can't move the people out of their country. You must detain and try them there.

You can't use cooercive interrogation techniques. You can't have secret detention camps. You can't prohibit Red Cross access.

It goes on and on and on... All of our illegal acts and failures.

But the problem is, Bart, you and people like you keep thinking we're wearing the white hats. That we're some "good cowboy" come to dispense justice while bending a few rules.

We're not seen that way Bart. We're seen as the corrupt Sherrif who uses his gange of thugs to impose his will upon the town. We're not the hero's in this one Bart. We gave away the role.

It's just a drama with two sides doing wrong and calling it right.
Moses | 09.19.06 - 7:34 am | #

Bart please enumerate for us your previous mistakes which you will now admit...

Or maybe just one instance where you admitted you were wrong....
druidbros | 09.19.06 - 7:54 am | #

Ugh | 09.18.06 - 11:32 am
If we can't betray our most fundamental national principles and become an international pariah, then the terrorists will have won.

Without having read the commentary let me make a few observations.
* Vietnam won the war.
* Korea won and established a regime in half the country.
* Warlords have chased us out of one country and threaten to do it again.

While we have maintained our "moral dignity" millions have died after we have lost or drawn every war for the last fifty years. In reality those with "will" win, while dilletantes lose.

The current controversy is over similar stresses faced daily by new parents. There is no beating, no killing, no pulling of fingernails, nothing remotely like the tortures imposed by our opponents. And yet it is still too much for the delicate sensibilities of the left.

I hope that being a "princpled" loser satisfies your soul.

And yet this set of "principles" allows for the thought that perhaps a brutal dictator should have been left
in power to do what we will not.

Our hands are clean while Darfur grinds humans by the thousand into hamburger. Is that a good principle for us?
I'm sorry but it boggles my mind that millions can die while we debate the cruelty of loud music, or sleep deprivation. Where is the moral superiority in that arithmetic?

Looks more like moral vanity to me.
shooter242 | 09.19.06 - 8:15 am | #

Remember, everyone: Bart once wrote that Bill Clinton was a "serial perjurer", and that Sandy Berger was a "felon".

Only problem is, Bill Clinton has never been convicted of any crime, and Mr. Berger was convicted of a misdemeanor.

In a pure legal context, these statements are lies.

Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
angrypoodle | 09.19.06 - 8:18 am | #

2) The fact that this "photographer" has explosives residue on his person is a damn good indicator on what kind of bomb making materials were found in his apartment.

No. It isn't. First, field tests are over-reactive and deliberately designed to be that way. Do you not remember all the FOX PROPAGANDA about the Iraqis using chemical weapons?

Pesticides and fertlizers, every one of them. Why? Because to simple, expedient field test equipment the chemicals look too similar.

Second, since you claim to have been in the military, you should understand just from your exercises using pyrotechniques and blanks that smoke will cover anyone in the range. A photographer trying to take award winning (valuable) photos will, by the nature of his work, be close and involved with the battlefield. It is inevitable that his cloths will have residue from the smoke.

Third, there is a wide variety of common house-hold chemicals that can be used to make bombs. Imagine my surprise when my classified "Improvised Explosive Devices" and "Unconvential Warfare" manuals were being sold at the local "Army/Navy Surplus" store back in the mid-80's. Teaching Americans, one-and-all, how to teach common household cleaners and items into low-grade and high-grade explosives. So, unless he had REAL bomb materials in large quantities - detonators, military grade plastic explosives, improvised munitions, etc., mere possessing "bomb making materials" is bullshit. Just looking around my house:

I have bleach. I have salt substitute from the health store because I believe in living a healthy life and try to keep my salt intake down to what is naturally present in food. Oh, no! These are bomb making materials and, if I also have enough chemistry in my background, I could easily turn it into plastic explosives.

I have styrofoam used to pack my old computer that I pack-ratted away in the attic. I have gasoline for my lawn mower. Congratuations, I can now make Napalm in a bucket.

We like roses at our house and have over 100 rose bushes. I have a wide selection of organic fertilizers and SOME chemical fertilizers. Those nasty, liquid non-organic fertilizers with a little bit of Diesel fuel (which I don't have but could get at Mapco) can be combined to make a fertilizer bomb like McViegh's.

How about a fire bomb? Lots of ways to do that. How about this one:

CaC2 + 2 H2O → C2H2 + Ca(OH)2

Cavers know what this is! The Carbide Lamp which provides light AND helps keep the caver warm in the chilly underground enviroments.

So, since I have these things, and they can be used to make bombs and you probably have at least some of these things, I think you should post your name and address so I can call the NSA and have you detained as a terrorist suspect. After all, only a terrorist would have these things, right? And you watch Fox News (a favorite of Timothy McViegh). And you associate (read) right-wingers whom, through a few degrees of seperation, have at least a tenous association with the terrorist McViegh, you have a terrorist connection.

And, since you live by the rule that you're guilty by association (no matter how tenous) and you haven't yet proven you're innocent, you must be guilty.

(Absurd, yes, but it's the way your kind operate anymore. Guilty by association and inference. But then, being stupid and paranoid is easy.)

Fourth, Fox is bullshit. Long before Bush and the neocons came onto the scene, I gave up on Fox and the rest of the Murdoch empire simply because they aren't even to the level of the National Enquirer. They routinely distort to the point that their information is to be regarded the same as Pravda or other Soviet-era semi-fictional news reporting. Don't use Fox as a source, it only makes you look like a bigger idiot.
Moses | 09.19.06 - 8:19 am | #

And thats the problem. THey're not in combat.

No, the problem is that truth isn't determined by who Bart trusts. Don't validate Bart's red herrings by taking them seriously.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 8:20 am | #

Vietnam won the war.

Shitter reveals his fascist racist self by identifying Vietnam as our opponent in that war.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 8:25 am | #

Looks more like moral vanity to me.

Maybe you should take off those rosy-red tinted glasses.
AJ | 09.19.06 - 8:25 am | #

Korea won and established a regime in half the country.

So Korea established a regime in half of Korea -- amazing. Or it would be for anyone who doesn't have shit for brains.

Here's some info for you, you racist fucking moron: Korea was divided by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 19fucking45. So the regime of North Korea was established 5 years before the U.S. engaged in a "police action" (which my father served in) in response to a North Korean attack on South Korea. The regimes of North and South Korea existed before the conflict, and they existed after the conflict, with the same border.

You and Bart should fuck off and die; the world would be a much better place without you.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 8:36 am | #

I think Bush supporters have internalised the 1% solution.

He is brown and the government suspects him. They need no more evidence.
Rob Sommerville | 09.19.06 - 8:42 am | #

Or they're yellow -- that alone is sufficient for these vicious racist fucks to consider all Koreans and all Vietnamese to be our enemy, and that we haven't killed or enslaved all of them shows our lack of will.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 8:49 am | #

From shooter242 at 8:15am:

Without having read the commentary let me make a few observations.
* Vietnam won the war.
* Korea won and established a regime in half the country.
* Warlords have chased us out of one country and threaten to do it again.

Someone was sleeping through his various history classes:

1. North Vietnam 'liberated' South Vietnam after the US completely withdrew its forces from the South. This was, in effect, one country invading another.

2. The regime in North Korea was already established when it invaded South Korea in 1950. The North was save from conquest by the US-led forces by the forcible intervention of the Chinese army; President Truman wisely disregarded MacArthur's proposals for pushing into China itself lest WWIII result. The final arbitration in 1953 was as much due to Eisenhower's diplomatic overtures as simple war-weariness on the part of the Koreans.

3. The US left Somalia in large measure because Clinton was unwilling (arguably unable) to committ larger forces to the region for purposes of pacifying the militias. The embarrassment of "Black Hawk Down" more or less solidified public attitudes against just operations or expansions. If anyone "chased" us out of the Solmalia, it was the US public.

While we have maintained our "moral dignity" millions have died after we have lost or drawn every war for the last fifty years. In reality those with "will" win, while dilletantes lose.

Millions also died in the fifty years prior to that, and the century prior to that. Perhaps you'd like to first clarify what it is you think we should "win" with such firm, resolute, and utterly amoral 'will'.

The current controversy is over similar stresses faced daily by new parents. There is no beating, no killing, no pulling of fingernails, nothing remotely like the tortures imposed by our opponents. And yet it is still too much for the delicate sensibilities of the left.

Its too much for anyone with simple moral decency, something you evidentially lack.

I hope that being a "princpled" loser satisfies your soul.

At least we know we still have you. You sold yours, cheap.

And yet this set of "principles" allows for the thought that perhaps a brutal dictator should have been left in power to do what we will not.

As it is with dictators across the planet. Had a look at what's happening in Uzbekistan lately, or is that too much for your delicate nerves?
yankeependragon | 09.19.06 - 10:00 am | #

Continued from above:

Shooter242 says:
Our hands are clean while Darfur grinds humans by the thousand into hamburger. Is that a good principle for us?

It is a tragedy, one I personally weep over as much for the loss of lives as my own helplessness.

I'm sorry but it boggles my mind that millions can die while we debate the cruelty of loud music, or sleep deprivation. Where is the moral superiority in that arithmetic?

Apples to charcoal. Perhaps you should ask your President and his handlers why 'gay marriage' is more important a legislative priority than Dafur.

Looks more like moral vanity to me.

Which save you from having to look in the mirror, I suppose. But then you've repeatedly proven yourself the coward.
yankeependragon | 09.19.06 - 10:00 am | #

Shooter is a fucking idiot. You won't hear that on CNN or CBS with Katie Couric but then, that's free speech, which neither of them do, and it's totally, factually correct. They don't do that either.
Anonymous | 09.19.06 - 11:25 am | #

yankeependragon | 09.19.06 - 10:00 am
Someone was sleeping through his various history classes:
Mea Culpa to all the historians here. I generally address the wars from the aspect of us losing rather than someone else winning.

Shooter-I'm sorry but it boggles my mind that millions can die while we debate the cruelty of loud music, or sleep deprivation. Where is the moral superiority in that arithmetic?

Apples to charcoal. Perhaps you should ask your President and his handlers why 'gay marriage' is more important a legislative priority than Dafur.

And that is non-responsive. This is the heart of the argument and you are evading the question.
shooter242 | 09.19.06 - 12:05 pm | #

Good response, moses 8:19

Don't forget there was a notable false alarm on explosives at an airport here - a swab test tested positive on some poor schmuck's powerbook (a "titanium" i believe).
GlennB | 09.19.06 - 12:11 pm | #

From shooter242 at 12:05pm:

Dafur vs 'gay marriage':
And that is non-responsive. This is the heart of the argument and you are evading the question.

As are you and the Bush Administration.

The reality is no-one here is in any position to do anything immediately about the genocide in Darfu, whereas the Bush Administration is! Yet, rather than make even the most modest committment to assist there, they find it more important to forward measures and force votes on matters appealing only to their lunatic and fringe supporters.

Color me unsurprised.
yankeependragon | 09.19.06 - 12:16 pm | #

Millions also died in the fifty years prior to that, and the century prior to that. Perhaps you'd like to first clarify what it is you think we should "win" with such firm, resolute, and utterly amoral 'will'.

Lebensraum, most likely. It's the usual prize for genocide. Are the Republicans still outsourcing their foreign policy to the Green Lantern Corps?


Glenn hit the nail right on the head with this one: the right wing has thrown away the American principle of innocent until proven guilty and replaced it with "If we say you're guilty, you're guilty. If we feel like providing some evidence, we might, but it's certainly not required. Patriots like us don't make mistakes. Now hold still while we crush your testicles to prove how much will we have."

I worry about the people who want to roll back the Enlightenment and the Renaissance and go back to the time when you trusted your superiors because God chose them to rule you, so they must be right. (In yet another case of truth out-bizarring parody, some Republican *candidate for elected office* has already said this, IIRC.)


I never really understood what "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" meant, before I saw this frenzy to destroy everything America stands for to stop "the terrorists". When Roosevelt saw our country, faced with one of the greatest threats in its history, in danger of turning on itself in mindless fear, he spoke out to stop it. (Or at least slow it down. No insult intended to internment camp survivors.)

I don't know whether I'm more angry that George W. Bush decided to encourage that terror to score political points, or that it seems to have worked. That's the problem with democracy: ultimately the buck doesn't stop in the Oval Office but in the ballot box.
Chris | 09.19.06 - 12:24 pm | #

Shooter:

I fail to see how the use of loud music or sleep deprivation against detainees in Iraq or Guantanamo will stop massacres in Dafur. Would you care to clarify this?
Enlightened Layperson | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 1:17 pm | #

druidbros:

Bart please enumerate for us your previous mistakes which you will now admit...

Here's my count:

1). He miscited a lower court case as a Supreme Court case (thanks to poor cut'n'pasting of the Watergate Committee minority report). He admits the miscite.

2). He claimed that there was a "holding" in N.Y. Times v. U.S. which in fact never existed. He grudingly admitted it was dicta, but still maintained falsely that a majority of the justices signed on to such.

Those are all that I know of.

Things he's never fessed up to:

He falsely claims a couple threads back that no one had produced any lies by Dubya about the reasons for the Iraq war.

He's miscited the requirements and standards for SJ motions.

He's miscited In re: Sealed Case (and exercised judicious "editing" of the cite) as a holding, when if fact it was dicta, and didn't say what he claims it says.

That's just off the top of my head....

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 1:34 pm | #

yankeependragon:

o Arne -

When you're detailing the dissembling stupidity that is Bart, do you do one misstatement/omission/straw man/outright lie at a time?

Depends on my wont, and on my time constraints. Some time I take the thing en masse, sometimes just as I read them down....

I've asked him to be considerate and to limit himself to one outrageous misstatement per post, so as to make my task a bit easier, but he hasn't obliged me as of yet.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 1:37 pm | #

Mea Culpa to all the historians here. I generally address the wars from the aspect of us losing rather than someone else winning.

You generally address wars from the aspect of whether we killed or enslaved all the funny-colored people. In the case of Korea, we did "win" as we met our original objective -- to prevent North Korea attacking and overtaking South Korea. And in the case of Vietnam we "won" in that we met our original objective -- to keep the French from becoming economic allies of the Soviet Union. We did so by taking over the burden of maintaining their colonial puppet, but it was too weak and corrupt to maintain. It was with our withdrawal from Vietnam that the killing stopped, and eventually we "won" by establishing trade relations with them. But we could have saved a lot of time, effort, trauma, and lives had we accepted Ho Chi Minh's request to oust the French and form a national government way back in 1920.

That your view is that we failed to defeat "Korea" -- and "Vietnam" -- with no mention of what it would have meant to win (your notion of winning seems to be based on seeing "Game over! You won!" flash on a video screen) -- is not just due to your appalling ignorance and stupidity, but also to your being an insane racist chauvinist fascist fuck. We won against Adolph "triumph of will" Hitler, and eventually we will win against putrid scum like you as well.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 4:45 pm | #

I fail to see how the use of loud music or sleep deprivation against detainees in Iraq or Guantanamo will stop massacres in Dafur. Would you care to clarify this?

Shitter doesn't give a flying fuck about anyone in Darfur; he only even knows about it because he once received wingnut marching orders to use Darfur as a justification for sending troops into other countries. Apparently he didn't get the update that he's supposed to stop talking about it because it embarasses the Bush administration, which has done virtually nothing to stop the genocide.

More basically, Shitter, like all these fascist fucks, justifies an evil with an irrelevant comparison to a greater evil -- not that they wouldn't be happy to slide down that slipperly slope to the greater evil -- or even worse, like nuking entire nations out of existence.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 5:03 pm | #

Not only do they not make a distinction between accused and guilty, Bush supporters suspect and fear anyone who DOES make the distinction between the accused and the guilty. The fear is out of the barn, at this point, and is spreading like the cancer that it is.
Todd | Homepage | 09.19.06 - 5:19 pm | #

it embarasses the Bush administration, which has done virtually nothing to stop the genocide.


How serendipitous that I came across this article, courtesy of TomPaine.com, shortly after writing that:

http://news.independent.co.uk/ wo...icle1619247.ece

"Bush blocks campaign to put pressure on Sudan over Darfur"

We can of course expect Shitter to immediately call the White House and protest the Bush administration's immoral behavior.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 6:06 pm | #

it embarasses the Bush administration, which has done virtually nothing to stop the genocide.


How serendipitous that I came across this article, courtesy of TomPaine.com, shortly after writing that:

http://news.independent.co.uk/ wo...icle1619247.ece

"Bush blocks campaign to put pressure on Sudan over Darfur"

We can of course expect Shitter to immediately call the White House and protest the Bush administration's immoral behavior.
truth machine | 09.19.06 - 7:27 pm | #

Enlightened Layperson 09.19.06 - 1:17 pm
I fail to see how the use of loud music or sleep deprivation against detainees in Iraq or Guantanamo will stop massacres in Dafur. Would you care to clarify this?

What I actually said is this....
"I'm sorry but it boggles my mind that millions can die while we debate the cruelty of loud music, or sleep deprivation. Where is the moral superiority in that arithmetic?"

The point restated is, that all the energy expended on the fight to ensure prisoners are not discomfited, pales beside the atrocities committed daily. Where is the sense of proportion? Why should I care about whether a prisoner turns blue, when information is available to save innocents.

You may not believe one can force information out, but if the only other option available is waiting for prisoners to volunteer what they know there is nothing to lose.

Where are the protests, marches, and indignations about people being killed by the thousands? That energy is being directed at Bush to make sure he doesn't acquire information commonly collected by marketing firms.

The reply by Yankee that "The reality is no-one here is in any position to do anything immediately about the genocide in Darfu, whereas the Bush Administration is! " is the laziest, most irresponsible, passing of the buck possible. He's quick to point out the foibles in others while shirking any failings of his own.

All of this goes back to "will". The left has little or none save the desire to power.
Massacres in Africa? It's a shame.
Women stoned in Saudi Arabia? How awful.
Israel attacked with rockets? I'm sure they did something to deserve it.
Bush wants to keep the light on when a prisoner is trying to sleep? Impeach the bastard, he deserves to hang!

What really bothers me is the Clinton-type attitude that as long as conflict is avoided all will be well. Chamberlain had the same philosophy.
shooter242 | 09.19.06 - 9:03 pm | #

"It's clear why Bush followers like Hinderaker can't process that distinction -- because the idea that the Bush administration might falsely accuse someone is something they can't consider"

Also, because Hinderaker is a feckless lickspittle without an honest bone in his body, unless you count the one that's apparently lodged in his prefrontal lobes. Although that one might not be honest either.
Steve Pordon | 09.20.06 - 8:47 am | #

The best part about this is that there is western nation that does have a judicial system based on "Guilty until proven innocent". Hinderaker must squirm in delight to be compared to the French.
Chris Beck | Homepage | 09.23.06 - 11:36 pm | #