"Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers"

[Guest Crankshaft]

<font color ="midnightblue"> Interesting Prospect!

 

Apparently some liberal wrote a letter to the White House bitching about our treatment of captive terrorists (they somehow manage to overlook their treatment of our prisoners. But I guess that's ok because we're America and we're assholes). Here's their response. graemlins/thumb.gif

 

 

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, D.C.

 

Dear Concerned Citizen:

Thank you for your recent letter criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib, Iraq. The administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear here

in Washington.

You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like you, we are creating the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for

Killers" program, or LARK for short.

 

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist

under your personal care. Your detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation

to your residence next Monday. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud is to be cared for pursuant

to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you

so strongly recommended in your letter.

 

Although Ahmed is sociopathic and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome this character flaw. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless you feel that this might offend him.

 

Ahmed will not wish to interact wiith your wife or daughters since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him. He has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the dress code

that he considers apppropriate, but I'm sure that over time they will come to enjoy the

anonymity offered by the bhurka. Just remind them that it is all part of respecting his culture and his religious beliefs.

 

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you inform us of the proper way to do our job.

 

Take good care of Ahmed and good luck!

Cordially,

Don Rumsfeld

[iwishiwascool]

The letter forgot to mention that the "Terrorist" is not convicted of any crime and not had an opportunity to present his case in any court of law.

 

But who cares about silly details like the constitution.

[Alex1647545498]

They're not protected by the U.S. Constitution. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't be, just that they're not citizens so they're not covered.

[Total Sign]

Originally posted by Mr. 2:

They're not protected by the U.S. Constitution. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't be, just that they're not citizens so they're not covered.

I do have a question about all of this...

 

Saddam was president of Iraq. He did what he wanted. He did not make rules against what he did.

 

So how can they try him for these crimes?

[Alex1647545498]

International Law.

 

http://www.un.org/law/

[Guest Crankshaft]

Originally posted by iwishiwascool:

The letter forgot to mention that the "Terrorist" is not convicted of any crime and not had an opportunity to present his case in any court of law.

 

But who cares about silly details like the constitution.

<font color ="midnightblue"> Why should we play fair when they don't? The rest of the world seems to hate us anyways, no matter what we do, so we might as well play by their rules (or lack thereof).

 

I'm sick of people holding us accountable for all the shit that happens, then ignoring anything good we do or attributing it to someone else, while all the problems in their own countries mysteriously get set aside or swept under the carpet. If we're nice, they call us weak. If we're forceful, they call us tyrants. If we're wealthy, they call us indulgent. If we're poor they tell us our economy sucks. When we pursue terrorists, they call us over-zealous right-wing religious fanatics. When a terrorist somehow elludes us, they call us incompetent. Nice guys finish last, and I'm fed up with being nice. Fuck the world. If they have a problem, "bring it".

[iwishiwascool]

17th ammendment

 

"nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

 

Rummy has skirted around it by holding "Terrorists" in Cuba. Had they been transported to the USofA they would be subject to a proper Arraignment.

 

Also with the patriot act... the ammmendment is null and void if you are labeled a "terrorist".

 

Saddam is being tried for INTERNATIONAL war crimes against humanity.

[iwishiwascool]

Originally posted by Folkvang:

<font color ="midnightblue"> Why should we play fair when they don't? The rest of the world seems to hate us anyways, no matter what we do, so we might as well play by their rules (or lack thereof).

What is the point of enlightening them with our superior society if we are going to resort the the inhumanity that make us cringe?

 

Originally posted by Folkvang:

<font color ="midnightblue">

I'm sick of people holding us accountable for all the shit that happens.

Welcome to the real world.

[Guest Crankshaft]

Originally posted by iwishiwascool:

17th ammendment

 

"nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

 

Rummy has skirted around it by holding "Terrorists" in Cuba. Had they been transported to the USofA they would be subject to a proper Arraignment.

 

Also with the patriot act... the ammmendment is null and void if you are labeled a "terrorist".

 

Saddam is being tried for INTERNATIONAL war crimes against humanity.

<font color ="midnightblue"> ...if you perpetrate crimes of, or act in an otherwise inhuman fashion, you will be treated inhumanly. Seems fair to me.

 

And there is no point in enlightening them. Positions have been firmly established on both sides of the agenda, and it isn't apparent that anyone will be switching soon. We need to take matters into our own hands without the ninny, apologetic tendencies which have characterized portions of this administration, and dominated the previous one (as well as defining those such as the Carter administration).

 

Welcome to the real world? No kidding- but who the hell says that we as Americans should tolerate such belligerent sentiments as those which make claims that we are responsible for all the world's woes?! We need to grow a pair and stop feeling bad when we make a decision and stick with it. The pussies in the UN have clogged Europe with a bureaucratic and non-commital doctrine of epidemic proportions (which is self-defeating in light of such issues as the spread of radical muslim fundamentalists in their countries). Wake up man. The world isn't a nice place, but it seems like you and many others believe the US should be the only one to play like it is.

[iwishiwascool]

The eye for an eye mentality is so 17th century (BC ). I like to think that we are not as hypocritical as to preach that we are blessed by the grace of God, as Bush often does, and then resort to the disgusting tactics that we have come to despise.

 

PS. The Babylonian Empire too was eventually eclipsed.

[Guest Crankshaft]

Originally posted by iwishiwascool:

The eye for an eye mentality is so 17th century (BC ). I like to think that we are not as hypocritical as to preach that we are blessed by the grace of God, as Bush often does, and then resort to the disgusting tactics that we have come to despise.

<font color ="midnightblue"> The way I see it, what you just said sounds an awful lot like a muslim/terrorist agenda to me.

 

Originally posted by iwishiwascool:

PS. The Babylonian Empire too was eventually eclipsed.

<font color ="midnightblue"> ....as was the Roman Empire, as was the Imperialist British empire, as was the Otto-Hungarian empire, as was the Byzantine empire, as has every previous 'empire' (if that is what you are implying the US has become) to ever exist (save the Chinese Empire, though what exactly an empire constitutes and if this falls under the definition is debatable). So, what point were you trying to make with that? That nations rise and fall? I believe this is already evident. It is my hope, however, that this nation--the United States--the greatest nation to ever have existed--should last a little longer than 200-sum-odd years. I know that most great powers fall from within, but I was hoping that we'd hold the limelight just a little longer before acquiesing to the strangling whims of mediocre minds.

[Dr. Pomade]

This is actually a dialogue worth reading. Kudos to both of you.

 

P.S. I thought the letter was hilarious.

[Devils Advocate]

We watched a video in my polysci class today, detailing the arrests and treatment of muslim families directly after 9/11. They had a family and a single guy on there, and both of them spoke at length (dramatically in tears) about how they were detained unjustly and were treated poorly based on the circumstances. Sounda ll gooey and liberal and solid, right? Oh shit, there's a little snag there called.... wait for it... reality.

 

Let's break this down. A gigantic, pre-meditated terrorist attack occurs on U.S soil, which hasn't happened since Pearl Harbor. People all across the nation (including, sadly, politicians) are freaking out and extremely paranoid (and for chrit's sake, rightly so!) that another terrorist attack is about to happen. In response to this, the Government starts detaining people who may be potential terrorists. Now sure, a vast majority of the people detained had nothing to do with the attacks or any ones that were planned for the immideate future, but I'm sure that all of you have heard the saying "better safe than sorry"... I know it sucks, but I would rather have a social injustice happen to a thousand people than see 20,000 killed because we didn't want to offend anybody.

 

The kicker is that both of the people highlighted for being detained unjustly had A) Criminal records, and B' recently had just returned from a trip to the middle east. If the Governemnt is in a situation like they were and is doing a search for fucking terrorists, I'd say that those two things in conjunction with each other would be reason enough to detain someone for questioning.

 

One of the guys had been in a gang since he was aboput nine years old, had been to prison several times, and had recently become a muslim. He took a month long trip to syria, and then returned to the U.S where, according to the video, had lived "without legal incident for one to one and a half years".... Sorry charlie, your ass is still going to be questioned.

 

the other man had been a pilot in Syria for their air force. During a flight, he apparently had to land a plane that contained their vice president somewhere other than an air strip, and was charged with attempted assasination, so he fled to the U.S. He appliued for citizenship but was denied, and appealed his case so that he could put off being deported. He too was detained, and the bvideo made a huge crying soggy deal about when he was returned to his family and how unjustly he was treated.

 

Checklist time: Pilot? Check. (Planes are now bombs, thanks to radicals)

Muslim? Check. (all of the 9/11 terrorists were Muslims)

Criminal Record, valid or not? Check.

Citizen? No check, and he should have been deported by the time any of this happened anyway.

 

 

What I'm getting at is that out of the two thousand or so people detained directly after 9/11, I'd say that the government had decent cause to act like they did. Spare a few to save the Masses.

[Orion]

if i wanted to perpetrate a huge terrorist attack on us soil, id claim to be from a country allied to us, like israel. not like the isrealis dont know anything about terrorism.

[Guest Crankshaft]

Originally posted by Orion:

if i wanted to perpetrate a huge terrorist attack on us soil, id claim to be from a country allied to us, like israel. not like the isrealis dont know anything about terrorism.

<font color ="midnightblue"> Considering they're neighbors to Palestinian terrorists, you're absolutely right.

[Guest jpurdy2003]

Originally posted by Folkvang:

[QB] Why should we play fair when they don't? QB]

Because we're better than places like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. How the fuck do you expect us to spread democracy and freedom if we refuse to practice it? graemlins/nonono.gif

[Guest Crankshaft]

Originally posted by (Insert screen name here):

Because we're better than places like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. How the fuck do you expect us to spread democracy and freedom if we refuse to practice it? graemlins/nonono.gif

<font color ="midnightblue"> Because, quite frankly, unless it directly implicates or involves us in some way, I don't think we should get into 'spreading democracy and freedom' in the first place. Let the world solve it's own problems. That's Europe's stance, at least. And sure, we may be better than those places you've listed, but does it get us any more slack or leverage in international affairs? No. We are expected to uphold the ideals of the world, but we receive no credit when we do. People around the world call us power-hungry tyrants. We may be power-hungry, but let's at least earn the tyrant part.

[recklessOP]

Originally posted by Folkvang:

And sure, we may be better than those places you've listed, but does it get us any more slack or leverage in international affairs? No. We are expected to uphold the ideals of the world, but we receive no credit when we do. People around the world call us power-hungry tyrants.

Originally posted by iwishiwascool:

Welcome to the real world.

[Guest Crankshaft]

Originally posted by recklessOP:

<font color ="midnightblue"> So you're saying that because this is 'the real world', and that's how things are here in the 'real world', that we should just let it go? 'Get used to it'? That's a submissive and self-deprecating stance that I'm not willing to adopt. The fact may be that this is the 'real world' and that the odds are against us; that in spite of everything we might do, we will still be hated and reviled by other first world nations who, in accordance to their passive and non-commital policies have abandoned their titles as super-powers. But that doesn't mean we have to bend over and take it in the ass from such hypcritical nations as Germany and France.

 

People keep refering to 'this is the real world', as if that's the bottom line. It's not. The fact is that we're citizens of the greatest nation the world has known; and when someone belittles us, or bad-mouths us, or presents a reputation at our feet that we're undeserving of, we should be indignant to accept it so peaceably. We're the Rodney Dangerfield of nations. No matter what we do, we just 'can't get no respect.'

[recklessOP]

Originally posted by Folkvang:

The fact may be that this is the 'real world' and that the odds are against us; that in spite of everything we might do, we will still be hated and reviled by other first world nations who, in accordance to their passive and non-commital policies have abandoned their titles as super-powers. But that doesn't mean we have to bend over and take it in the ass from such hypcritical nations as Germany and France.

'doing the right thing' is what makes this country the greatest nation on earth. letting everyone else drag us down to their level will only destroy this country, not save it. is it fair? of course not...

[iwishiwascool]

Originally posted by recklessOP:

'doing the right thing' is what makes this country the greatest nation on earth. letting everyone else drag us down to their level will only destroy this country, not save it. is it fair, of course not...

Saved my fingers some excercise.

[Guest Crankshaft]

Originally posted by recklessOP:

'doing the right thing' is what makes this country the greatest nation on earth. letting everyone else drag us down to their level will only destroy this country, not save it. is it fair? of course not...

<font color ="midnightblue"> As far as I'm concerned, it's not about stooping down to 'their level' at all, it's about doing what's right and not being sorry for it. If prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, were deprived of a little of their dignity, so beit. Did they deserve it? That's debatable. Was it right? Probably not. But I think a better question is, was it appropriate? It seems like the United States has been guilty of doing alot of the 'right thing' as of late, yet not a great deal of the 'appropriate thing'.

 

So, instead of 'doing the right thing' and taking undue criticism for it, it seems that we would be better of doing what's 'appropriate' acheiving our intended goals under fire, so to speak.

 

You are quite right that doing the right thing has made us the greatest nation on earth; but, owing to semantics, we now dive into the ethical dilema of a cultural relativist. What is "the right thing"? It depends on whose eye's you're looking through, and is largely governed by, at most, a vague preconception of apppeasement to a higher moral authority. Thus, if by doing 'the right thing', we are impleriling ourselves with the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" conundrum, then why should we suffer the inordinate caprices of a whimpering European republic when to do the 'appropriate thing' would place us under no less scrutiny, yet would accomplish our tasks in a more expedient manner?

[recklessOP]

Originally posted by Folkvang:

As far as I'm concerned, it's not about stooping down to 'their level' at all, it's about doing what's right and not being sorry for it.

looking back at some of your previous posts, it seems like you're more concerned with getting even. not that you don't have a right to be angry with the current situation...

 

Originally posted by Folkvang:

Thus, if by doing 'the right thing', we are impleriling ourselves with the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" conundrum, then why should we suffer the inordinate caprices of a whimpering European republic when to do the 'appropriate thing' would place us under no less scrutiny, yet would accomplish our tasks in a more expedient manner?

i didn't say doing 'the right thing' would be easy. of course we'll be criticized no matter what we do. that's no excuse not to try though...

[Guest Crankshaft]

Originally posted by recklessOP:

looking back at some of your previous posts, it seems like you're more concerned with getting even. not that you don't have a right to be angry with the current situation...

<font color ="midnightblue"> it seems that by doing the right thing, we will inadvertantly be 'getting even'.

 

 

Originally posted by recklessOP:

i didn't say doing 'the right thing' would be easy. of course we'll be criticized no matter what we do. that's no excuse not to try though...

<font color ="midnightblue"> I think that we should examine the possibility that in this case, the 'right thing' and the 'appropriate thing' are necessarily two varying measures towards a similar end. Under this possibility, we should consider that the 'right thing' equates to being politically correct, while the 'appropriate thing' is more overt and less diplomatic in nature, but nonetheless accomplishes the same goals.

 

Would it then not be plausible to suggest that we forgoe the formalities and embarassment of adhering to a laughable agenda of impotency confered upon us by always doing the 'right thing' (under this defintion), and allow ourselves the chance to exercise our strengths as a nation by doing the 'appopriate thing' and rectifying some wrongs through slightly dubious methods?

 

Let me give you an example. A while back, sometime during the 70's, I believe, hostages from the US and Russia were taken by a hostile Arab fundamentalist organization. While the US bartered and fought the matter from a pacifist's stand-point, the Russians captured some Arab fundamentalists of the same party, cut their ears off, and sent them to the Arab captors, with a message explaining that more would come if the Russian's weren't released. Long story short, the Russian prisoners were released without delay.

 

While I'm not suggesting we cut anyone's ears off (yet), I don't think what the Russians did was in any way uncalled for, and that our current political stance might be drastically improved if we were able to demonstrate some clout in the area of political and military ideologies. I do not seriously expect this sort of position to be adopted, but my point is that sometimes the 'right thing' isn't always the 'appropriate thing', nor is the 'appropriate' thing necessarily 'right'.

 

As Tony (Jukebox Hero) has just posted, this quote of John Adam's firmly sums up my previous statements.

 

"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice." -- John Adams

 

 

Oh, BTW: I haven't had a chance to say it before, so I'll take this opportunity: Matt your car is awesome. Congrats. I wish I had that beast in my garage.

[recklessOP]

Originally posted by Folkvang:

Let me give you an example. A while back, sometime during the 70's, I believe, hostages from the US and Russia were taken by a hostile Arab fundamentalist organization. While the US bartered and fought the matter from a pacifist's stand-point, the Russians captured some Arab fundamentalists of the same party, cut their ears off, and sent them to the Arab captors, with a message explaining that more would come if the Russian's weren't released. Long story short, the Russian prisoners were released without delay.

i'd say cutting off someone's ear and mailing it is a little over the top. effective? yes. the right thing to do? probably not... tongue.gif

 

that said, i'm not advocating that we sit on our hands and do nothing but talk. i wouldn't have a problem with police/special forces storming in and killing the bad guys to save a hostage. in that situation, a show of force is justified.

 

i agree, we need to show some resolve and stand up to these people. even a show of force when the situation calls for it. it's just some of the methods i disagree with.

 

my point is, we need to conduct ourselves in a professional and civilized manner when dealing with these situations.