10 Feb 2010

A Suicide Pact?

Doug on February 9, 2010 at 8:17 PM writes: Regarding those who say "Constitutional rights are not automatically granted to anyone who attempts to enter our nation,"..... A person who would make a statement like that obviously knows nothing about the Constitution.... The document plainly in clear and simple words that human rights apply to everyone, not just citizens.


Yes and no Doug. The US Constitution recognises, as does US settled law going back to 1776 (until the insane Boumedienne decision of 2008) only two forms of US justice. Full rights under civilian trial or lesser rights under military justice in times of war or great public distress.

US law never gave enemy combatants, let alone terrorist combatants who are prima facie planning or committing war crimes ( deliberate attacks on US civilians) full constituional rights - but it does give them to peaceful Jose who jumps the border from Mexico, or even criminal Franco who illegally comes from Italy and commits civilian murders in the USA.

The Constitution and the law make a distinction Doug and many others fail to make. War is war and peace is peace. Obama says we are at war with ALQ and the Underwear bomber was sent by ALQ to commit war crimes on US territory.

In WW2 when Hitler sent Nazis to land by sub and commit sabotage on US soil, Roosevelt had them all before a summary Military Commission and  ( save two) executed. When the Supreme Court made noises they might object, Roosevelt sent word he would execute them anyway as CIC.

In the Civil War, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus.

The Nuremburg Trial was a modified Military Comission from which there was no right of appeal, and limited but fair rights for the accused.

If you think your human rights are infinite, I suggest Doug you join the military and star abusing your CO in public. Get a few other to join you too. See how fast your infinite rights of free speech and freedom of assembly evaporate and don't ask for a civilian lawyer, either! You won't get one.

Doug, you perhaps do not know the difference between war and peace and between a jihadi on a war crime mission and the guy who just mugged granny in the park. But the US Consitution and all US courts, since 1776 have. The sad thing is that unremitting LAWFARE by the left and international anti-Americans have totally hamstrung us in this regard. Enemies of the US are now mainstreamed and given F. Lee Bailey, a civilian pulpit and we get info out of them by plea bargaining.

Here is a plea bargain coming your way soon: "OK, if we give you shorter time for the 763 Americans you just killed in the NYC subway, will you Mr. Abdul/Mohammed/Said (whatever) speak to your lawyer as you may escape a heavy sentence if you strike a deal and tell us where that suitcase nuke we know is in Boston has been placed."

Here is another: US forces capturing ALQ in Yemen or anywhere can't interrogate them, even if their own units might suffer further losses, until they are Mirandized and have a lawyer flown into base for them.

A Supreme Court justice once said the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But Doug and others, well meaning as they may be, are making it one.

7 Feb 2010

Hard of Political Hearing



To Randall Smith, Kenya Daily Nation US correspondent:

"Your Nation piece "Obama Easy Target" (Feb 5th 2010) sounds like a Democrat trying to be neutral and explain the collapse of Obama the way Obama tried to explain those who bitterly clung to "guns and bibles" when he addressed the bewilderati of San Francisco's Nob Hill in 2008: a form of primitive being to be condescended towards.

You describe the protests that emerged over summer as "orchestrated by conservatives or special interests". The "Tea Party" movement and angry town halls were essentially spontaneous, not orchestrated. You "get" this process about as well as Obama "got" the Scott Brown phenom when he said "Anyone can buy a pick-up truck, right?".

Obama thought Brown must have bought his battered truck as a political gimmick, because to a professional politician like him, why else? Brown had owned it for years.

You did not tell your Kenya readers America is a centre-right country, not a centre-left one. In voting for Obama, Americans expected to get a new face who was a centrist who would clean up Washington - not someone who would throw legislation to leftists Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to draft and also show himself, as many think, naive and weak in foreign affairs.

Obama inherited a mess from the Bush administration - indeed the accumulative messes of many previous admins coming home to roost, but the American people perceive his as having recklessly plunged into unprecedented spending sprees.

The question will eternally echo. Why did Obama, on a wave of immense personal goodwill and prestige, so squander his first year by not initiating his own reforms, but leaving it to the hyenas in Congress - whose ratings among the US people are far less than Bush ever plumbed?

Why did Obama play "double or quits" on health care when it became obvious the majority of Americans did not support it?

For what reasons did Obama insist on trying Kahlid Sheik Mohammed in New York and attempt to transfer Guantanamo detainees to US soil when both of which would infuriate most Americans?

If George W. Bush left most Americans angry at a 256 billion $ deficit, what made Obama imagine they would swallow one that will run as high as 10 trillion by the end of his second term?

As climate change", an increasingly debased science, ranks just dead last amongst most Americans concerns, why did Obama try to initiate costly "cap and trade" legislation?

Americans have shown over and again in their history that the really do not trust or want "Big Government" in their lives, starting with 1776. The American system is corrupted and bankrupted by both parties indeed - so why would Obama want to unleash massive government take-overs of huge sections of the US economy?

Obama is also suffering rebound from the almost complete abrogation of journalistic duty by swathes of the US media . They resolutely refused to examine the background of both Presidential candidates and gave Obama an unprecedented media free-ride, leaving the American people to discover they had voted "American Idol"-like for an unknown and inexperienced junior Senator whose major ability seems to be to speak well.

Alexis de Tocqueville said around 1823 that "the American Republic will endure until Congress devises a way to bribe the electorate with their own money". True words but the American people may be wiser than their rulers - it's just that nearly all Democrats and many Republicans simply refuse to believe this. "