<strong>Thats ridiculous. We are the worlds' policemen and have been since the end of WWII. An insular country wouldn't be getting involved in everyones problems. Of course, then Europeans would complain that we didn't care about anyone but ourselves........</strong><hr></blockquote>
What rubbish. Our government is hiding behind the guise of "the worlds' police" when it enters situations overseas to meet its own political ends.
The US as a nation is hugely ignorant of what goes on overseas. Did you know what was going on in Somalia until our government sent troops in? Did you know anything about the situation in Afghanistan before September 11? If you did, then well done. Try asking some of your friends.
Would our government have done anything about the Taleban if members of al-Qaeda hadn't hijacked four planes and used them to kill US citizens? Did CNN often report the atrocities taking place in Afghanistan for the last several years before September 11?
The US doesn't "care" about these places. It only enters into these situations for political reasons.
<What rubbish. Our government is hiding behind the guise of "the worlds' police" when it enters situations overseas to meet its own political ends.
The US as a nation is hugely ignorant of what goes on overseas. Did you know what was going on in Somalia until our government sent troops in? Did you know anything about the situation in Afghanistan before September 11? If you did, then well done. Try asking some of your friends.<
Yes, I knew about all of that-I read the paper every day, Newsweek every week, and the news everyday. Are you saying that some people don't follow the news and don't know whats going on? Of course-I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who don't follow the news either. Our government knows darn well whats going on.
>Would our government have done anything about the Taleban if members of al-Qaeda hadn't hijacked four planes and used them to kill US citizens? Did CNN often report the atrocities taking place in Afghanistan for the last several years before September 11?<
If the US went into Afghanistan and wiped out the Taliban and Al Qaeda before the attacks can you imagine the outcry? Most countries don't believe in preemptive action. We do, but we allow world opinion to sway our decisions even though we may be right and the rest of the world wrong. I'm sure Israel would support our actions and maybe Australia and possibly Britain. Hell, there are liberal pussies right now whining that the terrorists aren't lodging in a Ramada Inn.
>The US doesn't "care" about these places. It only enters into these situations for political reasons.<
We do what we have to do when we need to and when it serves our purposes. Pretty much like every other country on earth except we actually follow through on our words with action. When Europe can extract its collective head out of the sand we would welcome the help. I'm not holding my breath...........
<strong>Yes, I knew about all of that-I read the paper every day, Newsweek every week, and the news everyday. Are you saying that some people don't follow the news and don't know whats going on? Of course-I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who don't follow the news either. Our government knows darn well whats going on.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, I'm saying that the media doesn't report a lot of what's going on internationally because there's little interest amongst the population, or at least that was the case before September 11. Unless you were a regular news channel viewer, you wouldn't pick up any of the reports about these places on news broadcasts unless by that time the US military had landed on foreign soil. Glad to hear you read the papers, though. Makes these discussions much more interesting.
I never argued that the government doesn't know what's going on.
[quote]<strong>If the US went into Afghanistan and wiped out the Taliban and Al Qaeda before the attacks can you imagine the outcry? Most countries don't believe in preemptive action. We do, but we allow world opinion to sway our decisions even though we may be right and the rest of the world wrong. I'm sure Israel would support our actions and maybe Australia and possibly Britain. Hell, there are liberal pussies right now whining that the terrorists aren't lodging in a Ramada Inn.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Woah there! I never suggested for one second that the US should have taken preemptive action, or any military action whatsoever. I was thinking more along the lines of political measures, and perhaps aid. The Taleban were committing awful atrocities in Afghanistan, people in some areas were homeless and starving, and yet for the six years before September 11 the US government did *nothing*.
Then all of a sudden we need access to Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden, so we say "Hey, let us come in, and while we're there we'll rid you of that awful Taleban government because they're evil scum". Meanwhile we're also thinking "This makes us look good. We're helping these poor Afghanis". And I'm sure the Afghanis are thrilled, but they'd have been more thrilled if we'd helped a few years ago.
So why didn't we help earlier? Because we don't "care". We're only helping now because we're looking for Osama.
[quote]<strong>We do what we have to do when we need to and when it serves our purposes. Pretty much like every other country on earth except we actually follow through on our words with action. When Europe can extract its collective head out of the sand we would welcome the help. I'm not holding my breath...........</strong><hr></blockquote>
The first bit - absolutely correct.
The second bit - I think you'll find that the rest of the world is perfectly capable of following through words with action. The United Nations isn't just the USA, you know. Ask the French, British, and German troops who are still in the Balkans.
The third bit - So you buy the newspapers every day, but do you read them? Or is it perhaps the US media doesn't report most of what's going on in the rest of the world. Every time I'm in Europe, I'm amazed just how clued up the majority of people there are about what's going on compared to people back home.
Exactly what do you want the Europeans to "help" with?
[quote]Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
<strong>I sure as hell hope so. Go see "Blackhawk Down" for a painful lesson in what happens when we get into situations for the wrong reasons.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And Vietnam. This is the point I've been trying to make. This nonsense about the US "policing the world". The US government has agendas that would make even the most corrupt cop take early retirement. I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be that way, just that people shouldn't fool themselves into believing the US is sending troops overseas to "fight for the greater good".
<strong>So why didn't we help earlier? Because we don't "care". We're only helping now because we're looking for Osama.</strong><hr></blockquote>
We didn't help before because they didn't want help on our terms only theirs. That is "give us money and don't tell us not to shoot women for getting raped". Don't forget that we did help. We gave money and aid to NGOs for famine relief.
The only "real" way to help would have been to squash the Taliban which before 9-11 the pussies of the world would not have supported. After 9-11 the pussies of the world kept just quiet enough.
[quote]... In fairness... the always elegant Matthew Parris at least attempted to expand Guantanamo into a general thesis. 'We seek to project the message that there are rules to which all nations are subject,' he wrote in the Times. 'America has a simpler message: kill Americans, and you're dead meat.'
This caused endless amusement over here. As the Internet wag Steven den Beste commented, 'By George, I think he's got it!'
Mr Parris is right to the extent that there are varying approaches to terrorism. You can take the dead-meat approach, or you can do the British thing: hunker down, fight a defensive war, inconvenience your citizens by shrinking the slots on pillar boxes and eliminating the rubbish bins at railway stations, insulate your political leadership so that the terrorists have nothing to do but blow the legs off grannies and schoolkids, and then after three decades pack it in, give the blood-drenched thugs the red-carpet treatment at the Palace of Westminster, and make them ministers of a Crown they don't even deign to recognise. That playbook wouldn't sell here. If Omagh had happened in, say, Wisconsin, the government would not allow Martin McGuinness to keep his secrets about the perpetrators merely because they had such a high regard for his talents as education minister.
'My difficulty is not with America as America, but with Washington as a hoped-for coalition partner,' Parris continues. 'Partnership in foreign policy is not in their nature.' There's a very good reason for that. Partnership implies the burden is shared more or less equally. If I bought twenty quid's worth of shares in The Spectator and started swanning about bitching that Conrad Black didn't treat me as a partner, he'd rightly think I'd gone nuts...
'America has simple gods and likes to keep her Satan simple, too,' declared Matthew Parris. 'In Salem it was once witches. In Senator Joe McCarthy's heyday it was Commies. Now it is al-Qa'eda.'
Just for the record, the Salem witch trials were conducted not by citizens of the United States but by British subjects. As for Senator McCarthy's heyday; well, there were a lot of Commies around: in short order, they'd seized half of Europe, neutered much of what was left, and had become the dominant influence on the Third World's political class. Suppose America had followed the rest of the West and elected a détente sophisticate like Helmut Schmidt or Pierre Trudeau, whose first act upon retirement from office was to take his young sons to see Siberia because 'that was where the future was being made' - in 1984! The world would be very different today, and not to my liking. The West won't work if every country's Canada and every leader's Trudeau. The only thing that enables Belgium to be Belgium and Norway to be Norway and Britain to be Britain is the fact that America's America - for all the reasons my Spectator colleagues deplore.<hr></blockquote>
Guantanamo is hopping and the jackals are howling. Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands -- stalwart allies who held America's coat during the war in Afghanistan -- are complaining that the Guantanamo prisoners are not accorded POW rights under the Geneva Convention.
Amnesty International is shocked that we are using shackles. The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson, is disturbed that the United States might be violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. (Yes, the same Mary Robinson who, in the name of famine relief, made the idiotic demand for a cessation of U.S. bombing five days after it began -- a demand that would have resulted in untold Afghan deaths in a famine now ended by the American victory.) The British tabloids are apoplectic, achieving full-throated silliness when the Mail on Sunday managed an allusion to slavery: "Each man is handcuffed and wears leg irons, a term that survives from slave-trading days."
Thanks for the etymology. No thanks for the advice. We should treat these complaints with the contempt they deserve.
The critical issue in the treatment of these captured fighters is whether, under international law, they are prisoners of war or "unlawful combatants."
An Iraqi soldier captured in Kuwait is a prisoner of war entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. An al Qaeda fighter captured anywhere is not. By self-definition, al Qaeda members are unlawful combatants, meaning people who fight outside the recognized rules of war.
Among the distinguishing characteristics of unlawful combatants are these: They deliberately attack civilians, and they deliberately infiltrate among civilians by not wearing an insignia or uniform.
Al Qaeda openly practices both. In 1996, Osama bin Laden issued "A Declaration of War Against the Americans." Note: not "against the United States." Unlike, say, Nazi Germany and Japan, al Qaeda declared war not on the state but on the people. In 1998, bin Laden declared that "to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim."
Osama said it. And on Sept. 11, al Qaeda did it. And they did it the way terrorists do: out of uniform, by means of infiltration and concealment.
You join al Qaeda, you join an outlaw army. You explicitly violate -- and thus forfeit the protection of -- the Geneva Convention. Indeed, denying such murderers POW rights vindicates the Geneva Convention and encourages others to adhere to it, by reserving its protections for those who observe its strictures. (I am willing to concede that low-level Taliban fighters -- if there are any at Guantanamo -- might be entitled to more protection. Senior Taliban, however, having expressly joined their cause to al Qaeda's, should share in its fate.)
The jackals are wrong on the law. They also deeply misunderstand the purpose of the capture of these prisoners. It is not to "bring them to justice" as we would domestic bank robbers, but to prosecute an ongoing war by finding out what they know about how al Qaeda works and what future massacres it is planning.
We need information, or more innocent civilians will die. Information obtained as a result of the Afghan war has already thwarted planned attacks on Americans in Singapore and Yemen and exposed sleeper agents throughout the world.
POWs are required to give only their name, rank, serial number and date of birth. Granting the Guantanamo prisoners POW status is thus militarily ridiculous. If they have information, we need to get it. There is a war on.
This fact, too, seems to have escaped the critics. They deem the prisoners POWs of the Afghan war. But then, the Taliban having fallen and the war winding down, these men would have to be released, as are POWs at the end of "active hostilities," as ordinary Iraqi soldiers were released with the end of the Gulf War.
This is lunacy. The war is not against Afghanistan. It is against al Qaeda. And the war is ongoing until al Qaeda either recants or surrenders or disbands or is destroyed. Until then, these prisoners are not the detritus of a leftover war. They are active combatants, and unlawful ones. We should do whatever it takes to get from them whatever information we need to win that war.
Chris Patten, the European Union external affairs commissioner, is concerned that by doing so the United States is "losing the moral high ground."
Too bad. Right now, what is of supreme importance to Americans is not the moral high ground of salon opinion but the strategic high ground of military intelligence -- the advantage we gain in combating terror with the knowledge we glean from these prisoners.
The world loves us, bleeding and suffering nobly, at the moral high ground of Ground Zero. To which we say: no thank you. Our paramount national duty today is to prevent another Sept. 11, not to glory in the moral high ground -- the moral vanity -- of the victimhood we suffered last Sept. 11.
[quote] the pussies of the world <hr></blockquote>
...by the way... the kind of thinking exhibited by this kind of phrase is truly truly idiotic. Stupid morons who think that they are always right and are "real" men.
Besides... Im a liberal and could probably wipe the floor with the both of you and smile while doing it.
>Then all of a sudden we need access to Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden, so we say "Hey, let us come in, and while we're there we'll rid you of that awful Taleban government because they're evil scum". Meanwhile we're also thinking "This makes us look good. We're helping these poor Afghanis". And I'm sure the Afghanis are thrilled, but they'd have been more thrilled if we'd helped a few years ago.
So why didn't we help earlier? Because we don't "care". We're only helping now because we're looking for Osama.>
ScottH took care of my rebuttal for me.
>The third bit - So you buy the newspapers every day, but do you read them? Or is it perhaps the US media doesn't report most of what's going on in the rest of the world. Every time I'm in Europe, I'm amazed just how clued up the majority of people there are about what's going on compared to people back home.<
You mean they read and believe everything their press tells them? So now people think that the terrorists in Guantanamo are being tortured even though they're not? Europeans are NOT more clued in on whats going on in the world because the European press is even far more biased towards the liberal agenda than the US press if thats even possible. Europeans protest in the streets because we execute a mass murderer. Europeans think everything we do is incorrect even though we are the first place they go to in a crisis. Europeans as a whole are jealous of our power even though they know we are the country the world trusts most to try and do the right thing. I don't believe Europeans know a damn thing more than Americans do-they just have a different slant....................
<strong>The critical issue in the treatment of these captured fighters is whether, under international law, they are prisoners of war or "unlawful combatants."</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's a great article, full of all the "I'm American, screw you, you Euro-trash" stuff we all love. One problem is that even though he says "they're wrong," in fact, he is wrong. The al Qaeda are supposed to be initially treated as lawful combatants before a final judgment as unlawful can be made. Oops.
<strong>We didn't help before because they didn't want help on our terms only theirs. That is "give us money and don't tell us not to shoot women for getting raped". Don't forget that we did help. We gave money and aid to NGOs for famine relief.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Very good, we gave them famine relief. We also armed them. We also imposed sanctions on them.
Exactly whose terms do you mean? As far as I'm aware, and correct me if I'm wrong, the only people who had an international voice in Afghanistan until its "liberation" were the Taleban, the Northern Alliance, and the exiled monarchy. So who said (I assume this is an approximation ) "give us money and don't tell us not to shoot women for getting raped"?
<strong>You mean they read and believe everything their press tells them? So now people think that the terrorists in Guantanamo are being tortured even though they're not?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Other than the usual editorial pieces expressing support or horror, for the most part the TV news and newspapers contain factual pieces that leave you to make your own decision. They present no opinion.
And the vast majority of people don't believe the prisoners are being mistreated. Clearly the media in the US is incorrectly reporting the situation in Europe, or you're forming confused opinions. You'll note that the vitriolic piece Scott H posted didn't provide evidence of Germany, Sweden et al speaking out against the situation. I'd like to know who exactly is objecting.
Europe has its liberal do-gooders, just as the US has.
The rest of the article - and most newspaper and TV news pieces - covering "objections" to the US actions at Camp X-Ray quotes international bodies such as Amnesty and the UN.
[quote]<strong>Europeans are NOT more clued in on whats going on in the world because the European press is even far more biased towards the liberal agenda than the US press if thats even possible. Europeans protest in the streets because we execute a mass murderer. Europeans think everything we do is incorrect even though we are the first place they go to in a crisis. Europeans as a whole are jealous of our power even though they know we are the country the world trusts most to try and do the right thing. I don't believe Europeans know a damn thing more than Americans do-they just have a different slant....................</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think this paragraph shows that you have fallen foul of the accusation you threw at me earlier. You clearly believe what the media tells you about Europe. I can't believe what an inflated opinion you have of our country, or rather believe that the rest of the world sees something wondrous when it looks at the US.
And you know the reason Europeans protest in the streets when there are executions in the US? 1. Because as I said, Europe has its do-gooders, just like the US. And 2. Because they take an interest in what's happening in the rest of the world.
<strong>When did we arm the Taliban?</strong><hr></blockquote>
When the Taleban entered Afghanistan as protectors of a convoy from Pakistan in 1994, they decided they quite liked the place and decided to stay. And rule over it. They took Kandahar not long after, then Kabul in 1996. At this point they armed themselves with thousands of weapons and tons of ammunition provided by the kind people of the USA to help the people of Afghanistan defend themselves against the Russian army some years previously.
On an unrelated matter, would someone tell the Pentagon it's cheaper to drop bombs on your enemy than helicopters?
When the Taleban entered Afghanistan as protectors of a convoy from Pakistan in 1994, they decided they quite liked the place and decided to stay. And rule over it. They took Kandahar not long after, then Kabul in 1996. At this point they armed themselves with thousands of weapons and tons of ammunition provided by the kind people of the USA to help the people of Afghanistan defend themselves against the Russian army some years previously.
On an unrelated matter, would someone tell the Pentagon it's cheaper to drop bombs on your enemy than helicopters?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where did you get that info from? Indymedia?
Everything I've read tells me the Taliban grew into power AFTER the soviets pulled out with funding from PAKISTAN and SAUDI ARABIA. You're Blame America First doctrine is clouding your view.
I'm sure there are others I've missed.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is kind of the point I was trying to make. These are the opinions of journalists, human rights activists, and politicians, all of whom have reasons for objecting, and objecting publicly. And yet the impression you'd get from some posters here is that they have this idea the whole of the rest of the world is objecting to the treatment of the prisoners in Camp X-Ray. And it's not just that, many of those voicing some kind of objection are just asking that the US ensures the prisoners are kept in an appropriate manner, not suggesting that the manner in which they have been kept is objectionable.
[quote]Originally posted by Scott H.:
<strong>Where did you get that info from? Indymedia?
Everything I've read tells me the Taliban grew into power AFTER the soviets pulled out with funding from PAKISTAN and SAUDI ARABIA. You're Blame America First doctrine is clouding your view.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not "blaming America first", just pointing out that many Americans have a very insular point of view. Read my first contribution to this thread... and now I'm defending those same people I want shipped to Afghanistan...
The Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, while the Taleban first entered in 1994. One of their first moves was to take the stockpiles of weapons and ammunition stored in Kandahar and Kabul, much of which was provided by the US.
Admittedly, the connection is a generation removed, but my point, and the issue I've been arguing is that to genuinely believe that the US is the "police force for the world" and acting out of good intentions is incredibly näive. The US acts in its own best interests (Not a bad thing at all) and if some people are helped along the way, fine, it's great publicity.
This is kind of the point I was trying to make. These are the opinions of journalists, human rights activists, and politicians, all of whom have reasons for objecting, and objecting publicly. And yet the impression you'd get from some posters here is that they have this idea the whole of the rest of the world is objecting to the treatment of the prisoners in Camp X-Ray...</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree that worldwide public opinion on the whole still seems to be pretty much with us. As for the reasons those various activists and politicians and ambulance chasers have for their objections, well, some are probably well-intentioned. I think most of the problem stems from those photos. They were awful.
Comments
<strong>Thats ridiculous. We are the worlds' policemen and have been since the end of WWII. An insular country wouldn't be getting involved in everyones problems. Of course, then Europeans would complain that we didn't care about anyone but ourselves........</strong><hr></blockquote>
What rubbish. Our government is hiding behind the guise of "the worlds' police" when it enters situations overseas to meet its own political ends.
The US as a nation is hugely ignorant of what goes on overseas. Did you know what was going on in Somalia until our government sent troops in? Did you know anything about the situation in Afghanistan before September 11? If you did, then well done. Try asking some of your friends.
Would our government have done anything about the Taleban if members of al-Qaeda hadn't hijacked four planes and used them to kill US citizens? Did CNN often report the atrocities taking place in Afghanistan for the last several years before September 11?
The US doesn't "care" about these places. It only enters into these situations for political reasons.
The US as a nation is hugely ignorant of what goes on overseas. Did you know what was going on in Somalia until our government sent troops in? Did you know anything about the situation in Afghanistan before September 11? If you did, then well done. Try asking some of your friends.<
Yes, I knew about all of that-I read the paper every day, Newsweek every week, and the news everyday. Are you saying that some people don't follow the news and don't know whats going on? Of course-I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who don't follow the news either. Our government knows darn well whats going on.
>Would our government have done anything about the Taleban if members of al-Qaeda hadn't hijacked four planes and used them to kill US citizens? Did CNN often report the atrocities taking place in Afghanistan for the last several years before September 11?<
If the US went into Afghanistan and wiped out the Taliban and Al Qaeda before the attacks can you imagine the outcry? Most countries don't believe in preemptive action. We do, but we allow world opinion to sway our decisions even though we may be right and the rest of the world wrong. I'm sure Israel would support our actions and maybe Australia and possibly Britain. Hell, there are liberal pussies right now whining that the terrorists aren't lodging in a Ramada Inn.
>The US doesn't "care" about these places. It only enters into these situations for political reasons.<
We do what we have to do when we need to and when it serves our purposes. Pretty much like every other country on earth except we actually follow through on our words with action. When Europe can extract its collective head out of the sand we would welcome the help. I'm not holding my breath...........
<strong>The US doesn't "care" about these places. It only enters into these situations for political reasons.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I sure as hell hope so. Go see "Blackhawk Down" for a painful lesson in what happens when we get into situations for the wrong reasons.
<strong>Yes, I knew about all of that-I read the paper every day, Newsweek every week, and the news everyday. Are you saying that some people don't follow the news and don't know whats going on? Of course-I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who don't follow the news either. Our government knows darn well whats going on.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, I'm saying that the media doesn't report a lot of what's going on internationally because there's little interest amongst the population, or at least that was the case before September 11. Unless you were a regular news channel viewer, you wouldn't pick up any of the reports about these places on news broadcasts unless by that time the US military had landed on foreign soil. Glad to hear you read the papers, though. Makes these discussions much more interesting.
I never argued that the government doesn't know what's going on.
[quote]<strong>If the US went into Afghanistan and wiped out the Taliban and Al Qaeda before the attacks can you imagine the outcry? Most countries don't believe in preemptive action. We do, but we allow world opinion to sway our decisions even though we may be right and the rest of the world wrong. I'm sure Israel would support our actions and maybe Australia and possibly Britain. Hell, there are liberal pussies right now whining that the terrorists aren't lodging in a Ramada Inn.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Woah there! I never suggested for one second that the US should have taken preemptive action, or any military action whatsoever. I was thinking more along the lines of political measures, and perhaps aid. The Taleban were committing awful atrocities in Afghanistan, people in some areas were homeless and starving, and yet for the six years before September 11 the US government did *nothing*.
Then all of a sudden we need access to Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden, so we say "Hey, let us come in, and while we're there we'll rid you of that awful Taleban government because they're evil scum". Meanwhile we're also thinking "This makes us look good. We're helping these poor Afghanis". And I'm sure the Afghanis are thrilled, but they'd have been more thrilled if we'd helped a few years ago.
So why didn't we help earlier? Because we don't "care". We're only helping now because we're looking for Osama.
[quote]<strong>We do what we have to do when we need to and when it serves our purposes. Pretty much like every other country on earth except we actually follow through on our words with action. When Europe can extract its collective head out of the sand we would welcome the help. I'm not holding my breath...........</strong><hr></blockquote>
The first bit - absolutely correct.
The second bit - I think you'll find that the rest of the world is perfectly capable of following through words with action. The United Nations isn't just the USA, you know. Ask the French, British, and German troops who are still in the Balkans.
The third bit - So you buy the newspapers every day, but do you read them? Or is it perhaps the US media doesn't report most of what's going on in the rest of the world. Every time I'm in Europe, I'm amazed just how clued up the majority of people there are about what's going on compared to people back home.
Exactly what do you want the Europeans to "help" with?
[quote]Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
<strong>I sure as hell hope so. Go see "Blackhawk Down" for a painful lesson in what happens when we get into situations for the wrong reasons.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And Vietnam. This is the point I've been trying to make. This nonsense about the US "policing the world". The US government has agendas that would make even the most corrupt cop take early retirement. I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be that way, just that people shouldn't fool themselves into believing the US is sending troops overseas to "fight for the greater good".
<strong>So why didn't we help earlier? Because we don't "care". We're only helping now because we're looking for Osama.</strong><hr></blockquote>
We didn't help before because they didn't want help on our terms only theirs. That is "give us money and don't tell us not to shoot women for getting raped". Don't forget that we did help. We gave money and aid to NGOs for famine relief.
The only "real" way to help would have been to squash the Taliban which before 9-11 the pussies of the world would not have supported. After 9-11 the pussies of the world kept just quiet enough.
[ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: Scott H. ]</p>
<a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2002-01-26&id=1517"; target="_blank">How ridiculous can you guys get</a>
[quote]... In fairness... the always elegant Matthew Parris at least attempted to expand Guantanamo into a general thesis. 'We seek to project the message that there are rules to which all nations are subject,' he wrote in the Times. 'America has a simpler message: kill Americans, and you're dead meat.'
This caused endless amusement over here. As the Internet wag Steven den Beste commented, 'By George, I think he's got it!'
Mr Parris is right to the extent that there are varying approaches to terrorism. You can take the dead-meat approach, or you can do the British thing: hunker down, fight a defensive war, inconvenience your citizens by shrinking the slots on pillar boxes and eliminating the rubbish bins at railway stations, insulate your political leadership so that the terrorists have nothing to do but blow the legs off grannies and schoolkids, and then after three decades pack it in, give the blood-drenched thugs the red-carpet treatment at the Palace of Westminster, and make them ministers of a Crown they don't even deign to recognise. That playbook wouldn't sell here. If Omagh had happened in, say, Wisconsin, the government would not allow Martin McGuinness to keep his secrets about the perpetrators merely because they had such a high regard for his talents as education minister.
'My difficulty is not with America as America, but with Washington as a hoped-for coalition partner,' Parris continues. 'Partnership in foreign policy is not in their nature.' There's a very good reason for that. Partnership implies the burden is shared more or less equally. If I bought twenty quid's worth of shares in The Spectator and started swanning about bitching that Conrad Black didn't treat me as a partner, he'd rightly think I'd gone nuts...
'America has simple gods and likes to keep her Satan simple, too,' declared Matthew Parris. 'In Salem it was once witches. In Senator Joe McCarthy's heyday it was Commies. Now it is al-Qa'eda.'
Just for the record, the Salem witch trials were conducted not by citizens of the United States but by British subjects. As for Senator McCarthy's heyday; well, there were a lot of Commies around: in short order, they'd seized half of Europe, neutered much of what was left, and had become the dominant influence on the Third World's political class. Suppose America had followed the rest of the West and elected a détente sophisticate like Helmut Schmidt or Pierre Trudeau, whose first act upon retirement from office was to take his young sons to see Siberia because 'that was where the future was being made' - in 1984! The world would be very different today, and not to my liking. The West won't work if every country's Canada and every leader's Trudeau. The only thing that enables Belgium to be Belgium and Norway to be Norway and Britain to be Britain is the fact that America's America - for all the reasons my Spectator colleagues deplore.<hr></blockquote>
By Charles Krauthammer
Guantanamo is hopping and the jackals are howling. Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands -- stalwart allies who held America's coat during the war in Afghanistan -- are complaining that the Guantanamo prisoners are not accorded POW rights under the Geneva Convention.
Amnesty International is shocked that we are using shackles. The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson, is disturbed that the United States might be violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. (Yes, the same Mary Robinson who, in the name of famine relief, made the idiotic demand for a cessation of U.S. bombing five days after it began -- a demand that would have resulted in untold Afghan deaths in a famine now ended by the American victory.) The British tabloids are apoplectic, achieving full-throated silliness when the Mail on Sunday managed an allusion to slavery: "Each man is handcuffed and wears leg irons, a term that survives from slave-trading days."
Thanks for the etymology. No thanks for the advice. We should treat these complaints with the contempt they deserve.
The critical issue in the treatment of these captured fighters is whether, under international law, they are prisoners of war or "unlawful combatants."
An Iraqi soldier captured in Kuwait is a prisoner of war entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. An al Qaeda fighter captured anywhere is not. By self-definition, al Qaeda members are unlawful combatants, meaning people who fight outside the recognized rules of war.
Among the distinguishing characteristics of unlawful combatants are these: They deliberately attack civilians, and they deliberately infiltrate among civilians by not wearing an insignia or uniform.
Al Qaeda openly practices both. In 1996, Osama bin Laden issued "A Declaration of War Against the Americans." Note: not "against the United States." Unlike, say, Nazi Germany and Japan, al Qaeda declared war not on the state but on the people. In 1998, bin Laden declared that "to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim."
Osama said it. And on Sept. 11, al Qaeda did it. And they did it the way terrorists do: out of uniform, by means of infiltration and concealment.
You join al Qaeda, you join an outlaw army. You explicitly violate -- and thus forfeit the protection of -- the Geneva Convention. Indeed, denying such murderers POW rights vindicates the Geneva Convention and encourages others to adhere to it, by reserving its protections for those who observe its strictures. (I am willing to concede that low-level Taliban fighters -- if there are any at Guantanamo -- might be entitled to more protection. Senior Taliban, however, having expressly joined their cause to al Qaeda's, should share in its fate.)
The jackals are wrong on the law. They also deeply misunderstand the purpose of the capture of these prisoners. It is not to "bring them to justice" as we would domestic bank robbers, but to prosecute an ongoing war by finding out what they know about how al Qaeda works and what future massacres it is planning.
We need information, or more innocent civilians will die. Information obtained as a result of the Afghan war has already thwarted planned attacks on Americans in Singapore and Yemen and exposed sleeper agents throughout the world.
POWs are required to give only their name, rank, serial number and date of birth. Granting the Guantanamo prisoners POW status is thus militarily ridiculous. If they have information, we need to get it. There is a war on.
This fact, too, seems to have escaped the critics. They deem the prisoners POWs of the Afghan war. But then, the Taliban having fallen and the war winding down, these men would have to be released, as are POWs at the end of "active hostilities," as ordinary Iraqi soldiers were released with the end of the Gulf War.
This is lunacy. The war is not against Afghanistan. It is against al Qaeda. And the war is ongoing until al Qaeda either recants or surrenders or disbands or is destroyed. Until then, these prisoners are not the detritus of a leftover war. They are active combatants, and unlawful ones. We should do whatever it takes to get from them whatever information we need to win that war.
Chris Patten, the European Union external affairs commissioner, is concerned that by doing so the United States is "losing the moral high ground."
Too bad. Right now, what is of supreme importance to Americans is not the moral high ground of salon opinion but the strategic high ground of military intelligence -- the advantage we gain in combating terror with the knowledge we glean from these prisoners.
The world loves us, bleeding and suffering nobly, at the moral high ground of Ground Zero. To which we say: no thank you. Our paramount national duty today is to prevent another Sept. 11, not to glory in the moral high ground -- the moral vanity -- of the victimhood we suffered last Sept. 11.
...by the way... the kind of thinking exhibited by this kind of phrase is truly truly idiotic. Stupid morons who think that they are always right and are "real" men.
Besides... Im a liberal and could probably wipe the floor with the both of you and smile while doing it.
So why didn't we help earlier? Because we don't "care". We're only helping now because we're looking for Osama.>
ScottH took care of my rebuttal for me.
>The third bit - So you buy the newspapers every day, but do you read them? Or is it perhaps the US media doesn't report most of what's going on in the rest of the world. Every time I'm in Europe, I'm amazed just how clued up the majority of people there are about what's going on compared to people back home.<
You mean they read and believe everything their press tells them? So now people think that the terrorists in Guantanamo are being tortured even though they're not? Europeans are NOT more clued in on whats going on in the world because the European press is even far more biased towards the liberal agenda than the US press if thats even possible. Europeans protest in the streets because we execute a mass murderer. Europeans think everything we do is incorrect even though we are the first place they go to in a crisis. Europeans as a whole are jealous of our power even though they know we are the country the world trusts most to try and do the right thing. I don't believe Europeans know a damn thing more than Americans do-they just have a different slant....................
<strong>The critical issue in the treatment of these captured fighters is whether, under international law, they are prisoners of war or "unlawful combatants."</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's a great article, full of all the "I'm American, screw you, you Euro-trash" stuff we all love. One problem is that even though he says "they're wrong," in fact, he is wrong. The al Qaeda are supposed to be initially treated as lawful combatants before a final judgment as unlawful can be made. Oops.
<strong>We didn't help before because they didn't want help on our terms only theirs. That is "give us money and don't tell us not to shoot women for getting raped". Don't forget that we did help. We gave money and aid to NGOs for famine relief.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Very good, we gave them famine relief. We also armed them. We also imposed sanctions on them.
Exactly whose terms do you mean? As far as I'm aware, and correct me if I'm wrong, the only people who had an international voice in Afghanistan until its "liberation" were the Taleban, the Northern Alliance, and the exiled monarchy. So who said (I assume this is an approximation
<strong>You mean they read and believe everything their press tells them? So now people think that the terrorists in Guantanamo are being tortured even though they're not?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Other than the usual editorial pieces expressing support or horror, for the most part the TV news and newspapers contain factual pieces that leave you to make your own decision. They present no opinion.
And the vast majority of people don't believe the prisoners are being mistreated. Clearly the media in the US is incorrectly reporting the situation in Europe, or you're forming confused opinions. You'll note that the vitriolic piece Scott H posted didn't provide evidence of Germany, Sweden et al speaking out against the situation. I'd like to know who exactly is objecting.
Europe has its liberal do-gooders, just as the US has.
The rest of the article - and most newspaper and TV news pieces - covering "objections" to the US actions at Camp X-Ray quotes international bodies such as Amnesty and the UN.
[quote]<strong>Europeans are NOT more clued in on whats going on in the world because the European press is even far more biased towards the liberal agenda than the US press if thats even possible. Europeans protest in the streets because we execute a mass murderer. Europeans think everything we do is incorrect even though we are the first place they go to in a crisis. Europeans as a whole are jealous of our power even though they know we are the country the world trusts most to try and do the right thing. I don't believe Europeans know a damn thing more than Americans do-they just have a different slant....................</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think this paragraph shows that you have fallen foul of the accusation you threw at me earlier. You clearly believe what the media tells you about Europe. I can't believe what an inflated opinion you have of our country, or rather believe that the rest of the world sees something wondrous when it looks at the US.
And you know the reason Europeans protest in the streets when there are executions in the US? 1. Because as I said, Europe has its do-gooders, just like the US. And 2. Because they take an interest in what's happening in the rest of the world.
<strong>
Very good, we gave them famine relief. We also armed them. We also imposed sanctions on them.</strong><hr></blockquote>
When did we arm the Taliban?
<strong>When did we arm the Taliban?</strong><hr></blockquote>
When the Taleban entered Afghanistan as protectors of a convoy from Pakistan in 1994, they decided they quite liked the place and decided to stay. And rule over it. They took Kandahar not long after, then Kabul in 1996. At this point they armed themselves with thousands of weapons and tons of ammunition provided by the kind people of the USA to help the people of Afghanistan defend themselves against the Russian army some years previously.
On an unrelated matter, would someone tell the Pentagon it's cheaper to drop bombs on your enemy than helicopters?
<strong>And the vast majority of people don't believe the prisoners are being mistreated...</strong><hr></blockquote>
True.
[quote]<strong>... I'd like to know who exactly is objecting.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001755"; target="_blank">Human Rights Watch</a>, Ramsey Clark (not a Eurpopean), <a href="http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=115680"; target="_blank">Robert Fisk</a>, <a href="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/news/top_story.html?in_review_id=490218&in_review_text_ id=447954" target="_blank">A.N. Wilson</a>, The Independent, apparently some Brit members of Parliament had a go at us, as did Brit Home Secretary <a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=114688"; target="_blank">Jack Straw</a>...
I'm sure there are others I've missed.
<strong>
When the Taleban entered Afghanistan as protectors of a convoy from Pakistan in 1994, they decided they quite liked the place and decided to stay. And rule over it. They took Kandahar not long after, then Kabul in 1996. At this point they armed themselves with thousands of weapons and tons of ammunition provided by the kind people of the USA to help the people of Afghanistan defend themselves against the Russian army some years previously.
On an unrelated matter, would someone tell the Pentagon it's cheaper to drop bombs on your enemy than helicopters?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where did you get that info from? Indymedia?
Everything I've read tells me the Taliban grew into power AFTER the soviets pulled out with funding from PAKISTAN and SAUDI ARABIA. You're Blame America First doctrine is clouding your view.
<strong>
<a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001755"; target="_blank">Human Rights Watch</a>, Ramsey Clark (not a Eurpopean), <a href="http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=115680"; target="_blank">Robert Fisk</a>, <a href="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/news/top_story.html?in_review_id=490218&in_review_text_ id=447954" target="_blank">A.N. Wilson</a>, The Independent, apparently some Brit members of Parliament had a go at us, as did Brit Home Secretary <a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=114688"; target="_blank">Jack Straw</a>...
I'm sure there are others I've missed.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is kind of the point I was trying to make. These are the opinions of journalists, human rights activists, and politicians, all of whom have reasons for objecting, and objecting publicly. And yet the impression you'd get from some posters here is that they have this idea the whole of the rest of the world is objecting to the treatment of the prisoners in Camp X-Ray. And it's not just that, many of those voicing some kind of objection are just asking that the US ensures the prisoners are kept in an appropriate manner, not suggesting that the manner in which they have been kept is objectionable.
[quote]Originally posted by Scott H.:
<strong>Where did you get that info from? Indymedia?
Everything I've read tells me the Taliban grew into power AFTER the soviets pulled out with funding from PAKISTAN and SAUDI ARABIA. You're Blame America First doctrine is clouding your view.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not "blaming America first", just pointing out that many Americans have a very insular point of view. Read my first contribution to this thread... and now I'm defending those same people I want shipped to Afghanistan...
The Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, while the Taleban first entered in 1994. One of their first moves was to take the stockpiles of weapons and ammunition stored in Kandahar and Kabul, much of which was provided by the US.
Admittedly, the connection is a generation removed, but my point, and the issue I've been arguing is that to genuinely believe that the US is the "police force for the world" and acting out of good intentions is incredibly näive. The US acts in its own best interests (Not a bad thing at all) and if some people are helped along the way, fine, it's great publicity.
<strong>
This is kind of the point I was trying to make. These are the opinions of journalists, human rights activists, and politicians, all of whom have reasons for objecting, and objecting publicly. And yet the impression you'd get from some posters here is that they have this idea the whole of the rest of the world is objecting to the treatment of the prisoners in Camp X-Ray...</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree that worldwide public opinion on the whole still seems to be pretty much with us. As for the reasons those various activists and politicians and ambulance chasers have for their objections, well, some are probably well-intentioned. I think most of the problem stems from those photos. They were awful.