OT : Australian intervention in Solomon Islands

[Q]

I am talking e.g. about the prisoners that are held captive since months without trial and without beeing accepted as prisoners of war at Guantanamo.
This is against the constitution of the US (at least as far as I know). And as I said if you start to make exceptions of the constituation and the basic human rights that are declared in it for certain people you are on the road to tyranny and police state.
Are you in the US not concerned about the plans to survey every e-mail, every credit card transaction?? Where will this end?

[Thermodyne]

Originally posted by Q:
I am talking e.g. about the prisoners that are held captive since months without trial and without beeing accepted as prisoners of war at Guantanamo.
This is against the constitution of the US (at least as far as I know). And as I said if you start to make exceptions of the constituation and the basic human rights that are declared in it for certain people you are on the road to tyranny and police state.
Are you in the US not concerned about the plans to survey every e-mail, every credit card transaction?? Where will this end?

The situation of the Gitmo_Afgans is not clear. In the end I think they will be returned to the Afgan government. But it will have to work it's way across the many court dockets that pave the way to the high courts.

As to the tracking of email and electronic fund transfers, I'm all for it. I abide by the law and have no fears on this point. Lets get real, you will have to trip a filter to get looked at. If you do drug sales or contract murder by email, then it sucks. For me it makes no differance what so ever.

[Loser]

Originally posted by Q:
This is against the constitution of the US (at least as far as I know).

The Constitution itself is not all that big on Civil Rights. You'll find that material in the Bill of Rights, the first handful of amendments. And those only apply to U.S. citizens. To find the laws governing treatment of non-citizens you'd need to look more into U.S. Law itself (messy) or into our treaties with other nations: Geneva Convention, etc.

[sachmo]

Originally posted by Q:
I am a citizen of the country the Geneva convention comes from, which the US government not longer obeys when it comes to the war against terrorism.
But my compassion for the victims of the terrorism is absolutely independent of their passport and I sincerely hope that my reason would still govern my emotions when a relative would be under the victims.
But no matter how much I share the cry for justice, no matter how much I understand your concern for safety: the basic human rights must never never never be canceled for a human beeing, even if this human has commited the most horrible crimes. If you go over this line you will end up in tyranny and become inhuman yourself.[/QB]

I see your point...I really do. In fact, a big part of me still feels that way. But when I close my eyes and see a car bomb exploding and killing my family, the rights of terrorists pale in comparison.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the US didn't stir up this hornet's nest by themselves. However, if we are fighting an enemy who targets obviously innocent civilians and who's only purpose is to destroy as many of my people as possible, then how can I give pause or quarter to them in return? If a man were to break into my house and try to harm my family, I would kill him, or die trying. Unfortunately for me, I can't see the distinction in this case, except my government is doing the figting for me.

In response to this quote:

Posted by Dogscoff
If it's so complicated, why do the US, UK and other governments think that such a simple 'solution' (kill loads of random foreigners) can be applied?

All that I can say is that I believe that the policy my government is following is the one that they believe to be the most effective. If there were an alternative to the fighting, I believe that they would persue it. I know the US isn't popular with many people, but our government isn't out to take over the world. Nor do we revel in the deaths of foreign nationals. But we will protect ourselves, and that's where things get ugly. I am an American, and I want my children to grow up and be safe. Whatever it takes.

[oleg]

Originally posted by sachmo:
...But we will protect ourselves, and that's where things get ugly. I am an American, and I want my children to grow up and be safe. Whatever it takes.

So how many Iraqi children want you trade for one American? All of them ?

And why do you belive what US goverment is doing is actually protecting your chieldren ? I have a feeling US became less secure after this colonial war. Saddam was no danger for US as we can see now. He had no WMD and was keeping religious fanatics in check.

[ July 10, 2003, 16:37: Message edited by: oleg ]

[Loser]

Originally posted by oleg:
So how many Iraqi children want you trade for one American? All of them ?

Were the Iraqi children safe before? Will they be safe five years from now?

While it is U.S. National security that truely motivated that incusrsion (see some of my more hawkish rants in the Iraq thread), these are things that should be taken into account when one wishes to consider 'right' or 'wrong'.

[dogscoff]

If a man were to break into my house and try to harm my family, I would kill him, or die trying. Unfortunately for me, I can't see the distinction in this case, except my government is doing the figting for me.

And that's where your metaphor falls over. If you were on one of the 9/11 flights, with a chance to rush the hijackers- that would be analogous to fighting off an intruder in your home to protect your family. In those cases you would be justified in taking some fairly extreme measures of self defence.

However, waginbg war on Afghanistan/ Iraq is analogous to going out of your home, finding someone who might be an potential intruder (or a friend of a potential intruder, or someone who is rumoured to be prepared to sell burglary equipment to a potential intruder, or maybe just someone you don't like the look of), breaking into their home, killing a few of hisfamily members and smashing up their possessions.

Then, when your target has fled out the back door, you award the contract for the repairs to his home to your best buddy (with the target's surviving family selling off their remaining assets to pay the bill), build a few airbases in his back garden and start threatening the neighbours.