Steve Bell

I don't know who this guy thinks he is - but you can write to him at this address.

steve.bell@guardian.co.uk

The Flag Burning Amendment

Reading the title, if you haven't already screamed "It's not a 'Flag Burning' Amendment," then you have a lot of homework to do - and I'd recommend cancelling your talking points subscriptions.


Catch the rest at - The Red Voice

See also: Les Enfants Terrible - Mark in Mexico

Club Gitmo Prisoner Treatment

The inordinate and calculated shock, disdain and horror over the "gulag-esque" conditions at Gitmo are little more than irresponsible partisanship resulting in the mockery of the real travesties of soviet gulags, Nazi death camps, and Pol Pot's near-decimation of his own people.

Having already lost their credibility, the broken-wing of the überleft isn't going to like this little bit either. Granted, polls can be tooled to say anything one wants - but the überleft doesn't get to cry about this since their only President in the past 22-plus years made most of his public policy decisions from the polls - and his private policy decisions from his pants.

But I digress.

So, back to the poll.

A Rasmussen Reports poll of 1,000 likely voters (conducted on June 20-21, 2005 with a +/- 3% sampling error and 95% level of confidence) showed that 20% of Americans believe that Gitmo prisoners have been treated unfairly.

I side with that 20%. Gitmo prisoners have been treated unfairly... too-fairly... to orange-glazed chicken, rice pilaf, prayer rugs and free religious materials (at U.S. taxpayer expense), honey and dates to break their fasting, etc... You name it. If you were treated this well on your last flight across the country, then let me know!

Meanwhile, 7 of 10 Americans believe these prisoners are being treated "better than they deserve" (34%) or "about right" (34%). Come to think of it, throw me in that "better than they deserve" crowd.

Only 7% of Republican respondents believe prisoners were being treated unfairly, while 30% of Democrats and 22% of Independents believed the same. Someone lookup disparity in Websters, then let's compare notes about how our American prisoners are being treated by the same people our prisoners represent.

Better yet, let's send Amnesty International to visit American prisoners in the Middle East.

Good luck talking to a lopped-off head or a woman who was so brutally gang raped, that the government simply will not tell you the extent of her physical and emotional damages because Americans can't handle that little truth. Then compare that to honey and dates - and then tell me who's got their perspective F'd up beyond all recognition.



Backtrack to: Three Bad Fingers § The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler

Michael Crook, Anti-American

Michael Crook of forsakethetroops.info is an anti-American piece of shit.

See his interview with Hannity, here.

Durbin Apologizes

"More than most people, a senator lives by his words ... occasionally words fail us, occasionally we will fail words"

"I am sorry if anything I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy."

"I am also sorry if anything I said cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military ... I never ever intended any disrespect for them. Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line to them I extend my heartfelt apology."

"After reading the horrible details in that memo which characterized the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, I then, on my own, my own words, made some characterizations about that memo ... I have come to understand that was a very poor choice of words." (FNC)



I'm not accepting any apologies from a guy who compares me and my comrades to Soviets in their gulags, Nazis, or Pol Pot - but at least he has the courage to apologize, which is more than I can say for those that jumped on his bandwagon.

Maybe some of that courage will rub-off on his subversive band of "patriotic" anti-military hate merchants who neither appreciate nor understand who paid for their Freedoms.



Backtrack to: Wizbang! § Captain's Quarters

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Turning Red States Blue

During an off-election year, grassroots "Progressives" recently met in Austin, Texas with 900-some other Democrat activists from 36 states, D.C., Japan and - well, France to discuss how to make themselves more electable. They called their meeting Democracy Fest 2005. They delivered Democrat Fest 2005.

Galveston County Democrat, Sandra Brown insists "We've got to establish the message of the Democrat(ic) Party: that we're not against America, that we're not immoral people," and "We've been relying on Republicans to define us."

Buttons with a striken-out DeLay were seen far and wide.

The article implies Screamin' Howie was slated to address the festival at Stubb's BBQ.

A Precinct Chair, Carolyn Moon kicks in with "We've got to quit having such good manners." And, right in the middle of Texas, she says "If it wasn't for those damn Yankees, this state is Democratic."

She clarifies that anyone North of the Nueces River is a Yankee.


Them's mighty Progressive words if y'ask me...

"We're not against America" or "immoral people." Is this the message "Progressives" want to get out? Really? Wouldn't it behoove the Party to simply let their actions speak louder than their words - and is that the extent of their message? Or is it so important to regain power, that doing the right thing is secondary to gaining political prowess - at any cost?

And what's with the striken-out DeLay buttons? Are they planning, again, on winning elections by really really hating the other guy... but just more than they did the last time around?

Meanwhile, who invited Howie? If the party wants to reestablish credibility, shouldn't they rely on those who are credible? Why no Obama?! :: stomp, stomp ::

Then there's "good manners." She must have meant "start" ... they've got to start having good manners. Start, not stop. I refer back to my question about Obama. Right, Wrong or Indifferent - Obama takes Dean and his ilk any day, simply on the account of his Dignity, Integrity and Character. :: stomp, stomp, stomp ::

Nah. I guess I was wrong... Moon knew exactly what she meant. Drawing on selectively ignorant generalizations, she blames the fact that Texas isn't "Democratic" ... she meant "Democrat," not "Democratic" ... on "those damn Yankees."

Certainly, there's room for Yankees in a Democratic state... perhaps not a Democrat sate... but is Moon's goal truly to turn Texas blue by outcasting those damn Yankees?! Like I've been saying all along, it would be better to include a slightly-to-much larger percentage of those damned moderate-Yankees, at least, thus increasing the "Progressive's" fold... as opposed to focusing on bitching about the success of the other party and hoping that does the trick.

These are your average grass roots Blue-staters, and it seems the wrong ideas have trickled way down to their roots...



Now, someone tell me why Barack Obama isn't head-lining for the Democrat Party... all the way into 2008? He at least hasn't lept off the cliff yet... has he?

Geneva Convention

Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
- Adopted on 12 August 1949 by the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of
International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva
from 21 April to 12 August, 1949; entry into force 21 October 1950


PART I... Article 4

Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.

Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are.

The provisions of Part II are, however, wider in application, as defined in Article 13.

Persons protected by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of August 12, 1949, or by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of August 12, 1949, or by the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August 12, 1949, shall not be considered as protected persons within the meaning of the present Convention.

__________

As you might imagine, Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi national who would like to cut your head off on international television, is NOT covered by the Geneva Conventions. For those of you who have tried to make that point with me - and promised to bring your evidence, I'm still waiting...

If Dick Durbin wants to put terrorists on the same level as law-abiding citizens, then why doesn't he simply come out and say it? He has already put me and my comrades on the same level as Nazis, gulag guards, and Pol Pot followers.

I suspect the only way the Democrat's #2 Senator could possibly be more subversive would be to go after the President, himself, instead of the troops!

What's Durbin waiting for... a poll from Air America or the word from Screamin' Howie to authorize the move?

Don't Be A Dick

See Dick Durbin.

See Dick say,

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

See Dick resort to extremely irresponsible hyperbole in a partisan effort to embarass the administration.

See Dick throw his integrity under the bus.

See Dick make it exponentially more-difficult for the military to do our job.

See Dick virtually call us Nazis.


Don't be a Dick.

Perspective on Prisoner Treatment

Some people want to pretend that the handful of abuses, including having to suffer through eating the same Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) that we soldiers have the opportunity to enjoy, in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are somehow on the scale of Saddam's rape rooms - and that, somehow, these abuses were ordered from on-high.

This, while they ignore the fact that - if these abuses were ordered from on high, we would have a 99-plus percent majority of service members disregarding those imaginary orders.

People who "think" like this clearly have no concept of the Chain of Command.

For their perspective, and yours, I offer this AFP story from Jakarta -

Pakistani sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking
14 June 2005

JAKARTA - An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced a Pakistani to death
for drug trafficking, the latest in a series of death sentences against
foreigners.

Judges at a district court in Tangerang, southwest of Jakarta, ruled
that Zulfikar Ali was guilty of trafficking 300 grams (10.5 ounces) of
heroin.

Ali was arrested along with his Indonesian girlfriend last
August.

Indonesian courts have passed death sentences on at least 32 people,
mostly foreigners, for drug offences since the year 2000. None of those death
sentences have been carried out so far.
Two Thai nationals and an Indian
convicted for drug trafficking in 1994 were executed by firing squads last
year.

Indonesia has pledged to get tough on a growing drug abuse
problem.

Last month a court in the resort island of Bali jailed an Australian
woman for 20 years for smuggling 4.1 kilograms (nine pounds) of marijuana.

The conviction triggered an uproar in Australia, where many believe she
is innocent.

I don't suppose Amnesty International has time for this one... not that I think death, or at least banishment to Boston for drug smugglers is such a bad idea.