Now that's just cheeky...

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Cuba or Hardin, they'd still be illegally detained.

Not if they are charged and awaiting trial, or convicted of a crime.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Not if they are charged and awaiting trial, or convicted of a crime.

POWs, darling. Nobody except North Vietnam tries charging POWs with crimes, and we all know this was evidence of how bad North Vietnam sucked. These people practiced war against us, and were captured. End of story, really. Nothing illegal about caging prisoners of war, and it doesn't need to be Congressionally declared to be a perfectly satisfactory war from the lawbook point of view.

Seriously, the notion of criminalizing "practicing foreign policy while Republican" blends stupidity with insanity, frosted with a large dose of totalitarian-sympathizing, which is the abiding characteristic of the moronic. The smart people want the Taliban and other Islamofascists extinct and sterile. And they don't think we'd ever compromise our national virtue getting 'em that way.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

POWs, darling. Nobody except North Vietnam tries charging POWs with crimes, and we all know this was evidence of how bad North Vietnam sucked. These people practiced war against us, and were captured. End of story, really. Nothing illegal about caging prisoners of war, and it doesn't need to be Congressionally declared to be a perfectly satisfactory war from the lawbook point of view.

Seriously, the notion of criminalizing "practicing foreign policy while Republican" blends stupidity with insanity, frosted with a large dose of totalitarian-sympathizing, which is the abiding characteristic of the moronic. The smart people want the Taliban and other Islamofascists extinct and sterile. And they don't think we'd ever compromise our national virtue getting 'em that way.

If they are guilty of a crime, then they should be charged and tried. Otherwise they need to be let go.

And ftr, I want the Taliban and al qaeda extinct and/or sterile too. I want to do it the right way though, and not make even MORE enemies while doing it. After 911, we had most of the world behind us. We fucked that up by attacking Iraq, which btw, took our eyes OFF of the Taliban and al qaeda, and allowed them to become even more strong, and now they are a bigger threat than ever. All because of our own stupidity (well, our leaders anyway).

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

If they are guilty of a crime, then they should be charged and tried. Otherwise they need to be let go.

That's got nothing to do with the condition of being captured in a war and made a POW. It's a much more humane sort of thing to do than some old-time alternative practices, viz., "taken to the rear, and piked." The Left refuses to understand this very simple thing, which in turn suggests their minds are too vestigial to understand anything rightly. With such imbeciles I have nothing to do, and recommend the same to you. The Left is always so fucking hostile to the idea that Democracy might win out over Tyranny.

And ftr, I want the Taliban and al qaeda extinct and/or sterile too. I want to do it the right way though, and not make even MORE enemies while doing it.

Oh, do you really? Why don't you sound very much like me then? And what is "the right way?" Might it not be the very strategy we are pursuing at present, and which the Democrats, after years of footdragging, now own and have a responsibility to do well at, for the sake of both America and all of mankind? (If we win, the world will prosper. Not so if they do, as you can tell from their manifestoes, which they've been very public with.) Study up on the right way to fight an insurgency. The darn things always take quite a while to dry up, as they require causing a systemic shift in public opinion in the affected sector away from the insurgents. I've never heard of something like that happening overnight.

"Even more enemies?" I'd advise not worrying about that, for the simple reason that it won't make any visible difference to us how much more annoyed our enemies get at us -- just for being us, all dynamic, successful, rich, inventive and generally just plain happier. We've got such a good thing going we can spread it around. They profess to think that'll kill off their culture. They don't yet know that cultures are a lot tougher than that. The only big cultural sea-change I expect is that tribal-only consciousness will fade and national consciousness will take its place, as it had to with us.

There is also the point that our enemies are not growing more numerous. The well informed, those enjoying greater global connectivity than our active foes do, aren't getting killing mad at America for getting involved cleaning up some witches' brews in a couple parts of the Muslim world... which were giving trouble to other parts of the Muslim world.

After 911, we had most of the world behind us. We fucked that up by attacking Iraq, which btw, took our eyes OFF of the Taliban and al qaeda, and allowed them to become even more strong, and now they are a bigger threat than ever. All because of our own stupidity (well, our leaders anyway).

Are they indeed "even more strong?" Watching the fight, I don't see that. I do see we are keeping them having to fight for their lives week in and week out -- and losing often enough. The practitioners of antiglobalism and anti-Americanism aren't getting a lot of traction. Oh, they'll give trouble. Then we kill them. That's the way it is, and I don't see them undeserving of such a fate, do you?

No one in opposition to the Bush Administration's campaign against the fascistic antiglobalist abusers of women EVER came up with the scintilla of a strategy of how to win the GWOT better than Bush could. Not one single word of strategy or effort, nothing whatsoever to extend democracy into places that lacked it and suffered perennially. Clearly, these people have zero interest in democracy and don't want ever to have any. I oppose them, as any person of humanity would. They are wannabe tyrants, brainless wisdomless monsters. They are the Left.

We certainly didn't take our eyes off the Taliban, though they did manage to find a hidey hole and regroup some. Are they any nearer to taking Afghanistan back than they were? I don't see them managing that, either. And continuing to kill al-Q men doesn't sound like ignoring them either, does it?

There are people who would like you to believe what you wrote, sugarpop -- that America and globalism may be defeated, and poverty and oppression both preserved and increased. These people are of the Left, and they are the most racist, unenlightened bastards you ever saw under their surface appearance. I am not one of those people. The conservatives, like me, want the prosperity and the not-overweening government to be the global norm, and want it to be spread around.