Liberal Lunatic of the Day (6/2/2005) Tom Friedman

Tom Friedman implores, "Shut it down. Just shut it down."

Friedman explains, "I am talking about the war-on-terrorism P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay. Just shut it down and then plow it under. It has become worse than an embarrassment. I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the Gitmo prison open than if we shut it down. So, please, Mr. President, just shut it down."

Friedman continues, "I believe the stories emerging from Guantánamo are having a similar toxic effect on us - inflaming sentiments against the U.S. all over the world and providing recruitment energy on the Internet for those who would do us ill.

Friedman insists, "It's not because I am queasy about the war on terrorism. It is because I want to win the war on terrorism. And it is now obvious from reports in my own paper and others that the abuse at Guantánamo and within the whole U.S. military prison system dealing with terrorism is out of control. Tell me, how is it that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody so far? Heart attacks? This is not just deeply immoral, it is strategically dangerous."

Friedman confuses war with law and order issues, writing, "Guantánamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty. If we have a case to be made against any of the 500 or so inmates still in Guantánamo, then it is high time we put them on trial, convict as many possible (which will not be easy because of bungled interrogations) and then simply let the rest go home or to a third country. Sure, a few may come back to haunt us. But at least they won't be able to take advantage of Guantánamo as an engine of recruitment to enlist thousands more. I would rather have a few more bad guys roaming the world than a whole new generation."

Friedman concludes with a quote from bleeding-heart liberal Michael Posner, the executive director of Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), "This is not about being for or against the war. It is about doing it right. If we are going to transform the Middle East, we have to be law-abiding and uphold the values we want them to embrace - otherwise it is not going to work."

link: Just Shut It Down

I only have one suggestion to add to Friedman's moonbat notion of shutting down Camp Delta. If we do shut it down, ship all the al Qaeda fanatics to Tom's house.

Friedman, a big-shot journalist for the "newspaper of record," refers to the occupants of Camp Delta as Prisoners of War and makes reference to a liberal lawyer who implores the US to be law-abiding.

Tom, those terrorists are not prisoners of war. They are illegal combatants. Foreign terrorists and American traitors have no legal standing in America. Both are members of a world-wide organization that has, in word and deed, declared war on the United States and vowed to kill Americans. That classifies every one of them collectively as a "hostile combatant force."

Friedman, if he is half as smart as he thinks he is, and his buddy, Posner know, or should know, that foreign terrorists have no legal rights in this country because the organization they belong to, the hostile combatant force, has declared war or Jihad on the United States and they are, by definition, combatants out of uniform and owe allegiance to no country. Only countries are signatories to the Geneva Conventions.

Therefore, under the Geneva Conventions, they can be treated as spies, incarcerated, interrogated, tried by a military tribunal, and hanged. The American traitors can also be treated as spies because they are engaging in acts of hostilities on behalf of the Al Qaeda organization.

It is Friedman's own New York Times that is the primary messenger of al Qaeda's bogus abuse tales. It is the New York Times that is adding credibility to the unsubstantiated allegations coming from the al Qaeda detainees. So the Times prints the stories that outrage the world and a Times writer then says we should let them go because the world is outraged. There is a perfect example of this sleight of hand within this article.

Buried in Friedman's article about Guantanamo is the statement, "over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody." Although he makes brief reference to the system, is Friedman alleging that more than 100 Guantanamo detainees have died? How else should one interpret that statement? Friedman isn't writing about Iraq. He's not commenting on Afghanistan. He is commenting specifically on Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So are we to be led to believe that over 100 detainees have died at Camp Delta and then make the short leap that US military personnel are murdering Guantanamo detainees hand over fist?

As of today, there are 249 Google references to this article and Friedman's allegation that, "over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody." So Tom Friedman makes an allegation without offering any proof or source and in three days there are hundreds of newspapers and blogs repeating this statement with no proof or source. Within the week, this unsourced statement will be repeated hundreds of times, maybe thousands. And if the allegation, "that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody" turns out to be true, does that mean they were murdered by US soldiers? That's the implication.

General Richard Myers has said, "The U.S. military has had about 68,000 detainees in custody in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been 325 investigations of alleged mistreatment, 100 of which have been documented. Some investigations are still pending." Has the 100 cases of alleged mistreatment morphed into 100 deaths?

Read the original article at the link. Do you see Friedman quoting a source, even and anonymous source? Where did he get that statistic? And if it is a real number, what are the facts behind it?

He may not be 100% moonbat, from another thread:

This morning I was watching Tom Friedman of the New York Times being interviewed on BBC World. The BBC interviewer kept pestering him on how all the world hated America, dested American culture, yadayadayda.
Friedman's reply almost made me stand up an cheer. I paraphrase:
- Well some people hate us. So what? There are a lot of them that are not so charming characters themselves. Quite a lot of viscious deluded people out there. They should be worried about what we think of them, and it ain't looking too good at the moment.
It finally shut the BBC guy up for a moment. Good on ya, Tom.
Cheers.
1 posted on 06/02/2005 6:40:26 AM CDT by Eurotwit

What is truly amazing is that the 9/11 report (read the attempt to blame Bush for 9/11) in general criticized our approach to handling terrorism as not being aggressive enough. Especially when it came to interrogation and information gathering. The left beat Bush over the head with that report.

Well, here we are three years plus away from 9/11 and what is the left saying now? They are saying, in effect, that we return to handling terrorism exactly like we did pre 9/11. The close Gitmo and give the terrorists lawyers is a perfect example of that approach.

The enraging part is that if Camp Delta were closed today and two weeks from now one of the terrorists there flew a plane into the Capital, Tom Friedman would be the first one to shout "Why did we let these known terrorists go!?!?! Its Bush's fault!!! See, we told you dumb voters to vote for Kerry, he had a plan."

Its all part of the cutesy little conundrum of the left. They cry out of one side of their mouths for Bush to do something to protect the country. Then out of the other side of their mouths they cry about what is being done and seek to undermine it. They pat themselves on the back for being such elite political minds figuring that as long as it makes political hay for them, it is good. Of course, it leaves us all at risk, but what do they care if hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, hell even millions of us die, the dead can't vote (Republican) anyway.

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