best post on this thread. i personally think that there is way too much afterThefactWisdom around. i would think as US president right now you have at least two dozen groups that could play a vital role in a terrorist attack five years from now. and probably this was the case during teh last twenty or thirty years. blaming someone six years after the end of his presidential term is pure propaganda. this is politics and fox news is a political instrument. unfortunately other media jumps on the same wagon by choosing the opposite side. i think especially Olberman is not using journalistic code in a much better way than the FOX' guys. while i personally can understand where he is coming from, it is only second best answer to become so emotional so frequently. a return to facts and much more distant reporting style would serve matter better ... i liked bill clinton in the interview. he went too far but to me it was okay, since it felt like he brought up what happened around all this. i am not american and as many others i cannot help asking myself what happened to the americans that they have such a strange government. it is really a shame. they are so obviously narrow minded and overconfident. and Guantanamo Bay is like the white house having black slaves to serve dinner ... a setback by centuries ...
I agree man, and I believe that it stems from the demise of "one man, one vote". Corporations run the political environment and governmental policy. Hell, corporations and special interest groups are even drafting our friggin' laws. Until we can possibly have public campaign financing laws and restrict lobby privileges, thats the way it's gonna be. Democracy in America is a bit of a sham these days and getting worse imho.
it is so strange. from outside it seems so obvious that big business and the current government move in perfect synch. and while it is really not fair to judge a person by a couple of mistakes he made in public statements i can hardly believe that george w. bush is a capable man. his mistakes seem soo strange, yet he abviously attracts so many followers, and i assume there are a hell of capable men among them. on the other hand it might be unfair to judge bill clinton on his media or communication-wise performance either. the man simply has tons of "it". i mean, even when his opponents, like now, are all over him because of supposed misconduct within an interview, he still was sovereign, present, well-spoken. compare his fauxpas to those of george bush's ... . so one might tend to give the leader clinton too much credit due to the performance of the communicator clinton. yet i can't help it. i saw an interview he gave BBC when his book came at a while back. the man was the man to have for president. it was so evident ... finally, after this long post, the real "mistake" was that they could not make Arafat and Rabin sign at camp david in the nineties ... whoever was responsible for THAT ...
tell you what we'll do....we'll send all the detainees to your country, complete with ammo and explosives....How on earth can you compare the plight of black slaves who were minding their own farms and taken, to prisoners of war?
oh, i think i can, because both cases are a fist into the very concept of the US constitution. the pure fact that the US government in all seriousness discusses whether or not to leviate the agreements of the geneve convention regarding torture is ... AMAZING. and this government dares to criticise other countries regarding human rights? i am afraid that the american public is already used to so much craziness, that they forgot where they came from.
oK Quick history lesson....the original constitution recognized and accepted slavery. ...and only applies to americans not foreign fighters 2) the geneva convention has nothing to do with the constitution. it is agreements between nations.....that has not been followed. You cannot compare active enemy combatants with regular people stolen from their farms....they weren't exactly raising cattle over there...
yet i dare to compare the legacy of keeping slaves and the discussion of denying basic human rights to other human beings. i do not see why you do not understand that my comparison did not refer to what slaves and combatants were doing but to the moral concept behind the way they were treated. it is like i was saying apples and oranges are both round and you insisting they have different color. i mean the US government claims the right to capture people, keep them in prison under ... hard? ... circumstances for years, denying them the right to have a process or any form of being heard. they keep people in prison in foreign countries and openly dicuss whether to leviate the common rules (this little, ignored treaty between nations) regarding torture. you know what? if it was not the US government, these people would by accused in Den Haag. ah, and thanks for the lesson.
No doubt some of the detainees were in the wrong place at the wrong time....sort of like Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. They become the victims of circumstance with a government who wants blood...
well, like i said....what country should i send them too? Who wants em boys? But to compare their plight with that of the american slaves is an insult to their history and heritage.
cannot help an additional note. it is a sign of civilisation to treat people at least with a basic level of "fairness". and it is the difference between civilisation and barbaric states that these rules are applicable no matter who is in power. and actually this is the whole point about it. that people of different conviction share a common view regarding basic humanity. this is what unites them and consequently the nation ... over time. now, using power to deny a group of people these basic human rights shakens the overall concept of nation, constitution and so forth. and this is what is happening to america. and this is what is shakin america. and this is what makes america lose tons of respect throughout the world ... and this is not a small loss, though it might seem so in the first place.