Monday, June 20, 2005
Impeachment
Shouldn't we be thinking of impeaching this president? Isn't an unjustifiable war enough?
The evidence is out there. Why is the media so slow to call for this when former presidents have been under scrutiny for much less. Not only the Downing Street Memo indicates that he was planning to invade without any link to 9/11, but if you check other sources, they say the same. David Nyhan of the Boston Globe in December of 1999 asked about Bush's response to Saddam and whether he thought he had weapons, and Bush said, "I take them out - take out weapons of mass destruction."This is before he became president. Mickey Hersckowitz, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, and who has written, or ghost written, many biographys, including one on the President's grandfather, was first hired to write one President Bush. He said many things in the numerous interviews about Iraq and war, and some of them include that to be a great president one must go to war. Or that one should use war to advance domestic political ends. President Bush also said that a key to being a leader is to never admit you made a mistake.
Isn't going to war to promote your glory worthy of impeachment? There are too many horrible leaders committing horrible acts for me to believe that is the reason we went to war. There were others committing more horrible acts in 2002, according to Human Rights Watch than Saddam Hussein.
The evidence is out there. Why is the media so slow to call for this when former presidents have been under scrutiny for much less. Not only the Downing Street Memo indicates that he was planning to invade without any link to 9/11, but if you check other sources, they say the same. David Nyhan of the Boston Globe in December of 1999 asked about Bush's response to Saddam and whether he thought he had weapons, and Bush said, "I take them out - take out weapons of mass destruction."This is before he became president. Mickey Hersckowitz, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, and who has written, or ghost written, many biographys, including one on the President's grandfather, was first hired to write one President Bush. He said many things in the numerous interviews about Iraq and war, and some of them include that to be a great president one must go to war. Or that one should use war to advance domestic political ends. President Bush also said that a key to being a leader is to never admit you made a mistake.
Isn't going to war to promote your glory worthy of impeachment? There are too many horrible leaders committing horrible acts for me to believe that is the reason we went to war. There were others committing more horrible acts in 2002, according to Human Rights Watch than Saddam Hussein.
Monday, June 06, 2005
American Gulag?
How would you define a gulag? I think of a gulag as a place where prisoners are held without being able to communicate with the outside world. Where the people held there do not always know what they are charged with, nor how long their sentence is. Often, in the stories I've read, people are sent to a gulag where they are tortured to some extent and often they may be innocent. Of course some of the stories I've read are fiction, or the person was helping the Jews in WW2. When you look at Guantanamo, I agree with Amnesty International in that Guantanamo is a modern day gulag. Although the Department of Defense does not use that term, they do seem to say that (and this information is gotten off their web pages) the president delares who is unlawful combatant (didn't it used to say enemy combatant?) and that because these prisoners from forty nations are not prisoners of war, but unlawful combatants, then the Geneva convention rules do not apply. As Mancuso (special assistant to the general council of the DoD) said. ÂUnlawful enemy combatants donÂt abide by those conventions; they violate the laws of war. And extending this kind of privileged status to them as well perverts the incentives of the Geneva Conventions" (see News article from March 4, 2005).
What I also don't understand is how the Supreme Court could ruling last June (2004) that found the detainees are entitled to protection from U.S. courts even though they are not U.S. citizens and are physically being held outside the United States. The majority opinion in that case, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, said that Guantanamo Bay is under the Âcomplete jurisdiction and control of the United States according to the 1903 lease from Cuba (taken of the DoD news article March 7, 2005). The article also states that 558 unlawcombatantsents were broughtcombatanttent Status Review Tribunals (800 were initially brought to Guantanamo) and 22 were found not tocombatantsents. However since thcombatantsents did not have a lawyer, nor knew the evidence against them because it was considered classified, how did the joint forces carry out the Supreme Court Ruling that says they are entitled to protection in UU.S. courts. Doesn't this sound like a gulag to you?
The last point I want to make is how can we call someone an enemy combatant when we are not at war with their country? Marcus said they violated the laws of war, but I didn't know that America was at war with forty countries. Declaring a global war on terrorism seems like anyone could be named an unlawful combatanant. Hundreds of these prisoners, including two twelve-year-olds, were detained for years without charge or counsel. Yes, hundreds went home, but before they did, won't you call Guantanamo an American Gulag. Soon it could be me or you.
What I also don't understand is how the Supreme Court could ruling last June (2004) that found the detainees are entitled to protection from U.S. courts even though they are not U.S. citizens and are physically being held outside the United States. The majority opinion in that case, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, said that Guantanamo Bay is under the Âcomplete jurisdiction and control of the United States according to the 1903 lease from Cuba (taken of the DoD news article March 7, 2005). The article also states that 558 unlawcombatantsents were broughtcombatanttent Status Review Tribunals (800 were initially brought to Guantanamo) and 22 were found not tocombatantsents. However since thcombatantsents did not have a lawyer, nor knew the evidence against them because it was considered classified, how did the joint forces carry out the Supreme Court Ruling that says they are entitled to protection in UU.S. courts. Doesn't this sound like a gulag to you?
The last point I want to make is how can we call someone an enemy combatant when we are not at war with their country? Marcus said they violated the laws of war, but I didn't know that America was at war with forty countries. Declaring a global war on terrorism seems like anyone could be named an unlawful combatanant. Hundreds of these prisoners, including two twelve-year-olds, were detained for years without charge or counsel. Yes, hundreds went home, but before they did, won't you call Guantanamo an American Gulag. Soon it could be me or you.
