June 17, 2005
They deserve it!
I pilfered this little graphic from John Hawkins.
You need only watch the current antics of Senate Democrats, to say, "They deserve it!" Obsessing endlessly over the "rights" of captured terrorists and caring not at all that any of our guys captured by the terrorists are likely to have their heads sawed off. (Or that prisoners in their own local jails are treated much worse than prisoners at Gitmo.)
The current crop of Dems have nothing positive to offer our country, Only obstruction, only the blocking of all reform, and the preservation of perks and power for themselves. And moral preening. Seizing on any American mistake, real or imaginary, to put themselves in some position of "moral superiority," "Bush lied, so I am a superior being, because I would gladly see a million Iraqis tortured and murdered, just to keep my hands clean of any of the contamination that comes from actually trying to do something." Despicable frauds. How I loathe them.
And notice on the chart when the big drops occur. Johnson, Carter, Clinton.... To know them is to reject them.
And I predict that the trend will continue. A lot of people got into the habit of voting Dem back when there were many decent patriotic conservative Democrat leaders. Those days are gone. It takes time for people to change; they are like a giant ship that takes an hour to turn around. But every year a few hundred-thousand more Americans notice that what they are getting from their party is is trendy lefty rubbish. "Support Our Troops: Surrender to Terrorists." "The Party of Civil Rights: We Love Poor Ignorant Welfare-Dependent Minorities So Much, We Want to Keep Them That Way Forever."
Obsessing endlessly over the "rights" of captured terrorists
keep in mind most of the prisoners in Gitmo haven't been charged, so calling them terrorists is incorrect.
due process is a freedom we should be spreading, not abusing, IMHO.
"He's dead, Jim!"
Posted by: Luciferous at June 17, 2005 02:36 PMCharles:
They may not be "terrorists" per se, but they are enemy combatants.
Which is not the same as POWs.
POWs refers to those who are captured while abiding by the Geneva Conventions. They are in uniform or otherwise identifiable, under a chain of command, and are not violating the laws of war (e.g., shooting from a mosque or from behind civilians).
If you violate the laws of war, then you are not a POW and not subject to being treated as such.
Similarly, you are not necessarily availed "due process" if you are not, for example, an American citizen. Nor are POWs (normal POWs, that is), given "due process"---for example, during WWII, German POWs were not given attorneys. They were simply held for the duration of the war.
The SCOTUS has made clear that American citizens that are captured in the service of al-Qaeda are to be afforded due process. However, like Mr. Padilla, they are not at Gitmo.
Is this a reasonable POV? Consider the case of Luis Pepe, a prison guard, and his encounter w/ an al-Qaeda leader, in NY. I'll leave it to you to google the background.
Posted by: Lurking Observer at June 17, 2005 02:59 PMAnother thing to bear in mind, Charles, is that the Geneva Convention, so reverently invoked by the leftists in their condemnation of the camp at Guantanamo, permits the capturing power (in this case, the United States) to summarily execute (for example, by putting a bullet in the back of the head) unlawful combatants (in this case, the prisoners kept at Guantanamo).
But never do we hear from the leftists how merciful the United States is for NOT summarily executing these unlawful combatants. Never do we hear from the leftists how the United States is generously giving these unlawful combatants some of the benefits of POW status.
Nope, the United States is the new Nazi Germany, and Guantanamo is a new gulag. (An odd pairing, that-- Naziism and gulags-- coming from leftists, being such fans of Soviet totalitarianism....)
And you wonder why sensible people, who actually have, you know, READ the Geneva Convention, and who actually have some knowledge of history, and who actually have a sense of proportion, sometimes lose patience with poorly-read, ignorant, hysterical leftists?
Jeez.
Posted by: Hale Adams at June 17, 2005 03:53 PMDemocrats in Washington and the media seem hellbent on re-enacting their glorious 'victory' in the Vietnam War, when they destroyed US morale, gutted the military, and abandoned our allies to misery and slaughter.
As Hawkins' graph shows, those days of shame initiated the Democrat Party's decline. Their attempt to restage the War on Terror as Vietnam will hasten their rendezvous with political disaster. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Posted by: lyle at June 17, 2005 05:15 PM
