SAVE GITMO - RELEASE TERRORISTS - JAIL DEMOCRATS
Posted on 06/13/2005 7:24:30 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
I first wrote about the Gitmo prison, four years ago. I laid out facts the MSM have yet to discover. Here’s another dose:
1. If Gitmo is closed, the prisoners, AND the complaints, will go elsewhere. (Is Senator Mel Martinez really that clueless?)
2. The Geneva Conventions do NOT apply to anyone captured in plain clothes, behind the lines, hiding among civilians (and also killing civilians). Anyone can read the Geneva Conventions for themselves. Fighters/soldiers must meet four conditions to be covered. Terrorists fail to meet at least three of those.
These are not “insurgents.” Insurgents are people who disagree with their group. Senators Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee are insurgents. If you don’t want to say “terrorists,” use “assassins.” Google the word assassin and note its origins in Indian history. “Religious fanatics who murder civilians.” Sounds like a fit, to me.
What treatment do assassins/terrorists warrant, bare minimum? A drumhead trial, and prompt execution. Google Nathan Hale, or Major John Andre, to see why they got such trials and executions during the America Revolution.
3. Even if the prisoners at Gitmo WERE subject to the Geneva Convention, how long could they be held, and under what conditions?
Does the phrase “for the duration” mean anything to the press? Or to any Members of Congress, currently mouthing off on this subject? In every war ever fought – once most nations outgrew the idea of slaughtering all prisoners – the captured fighters were held until the war ended (unless ransomed out, like Chaucer, among others).
During World War II we had camps for prisoners many places, as needed. There was even a German POW camp in Arkansas. Don’t believe me? Google it. And NONE of those prisoners were entitled to lawyers, trials, etc.
The Americans who hit the beach at Iwo Jima, or Normandy, or anywhere else, did not go in with arrest warrants, and printed cards to read captured Japanese or Germans their Miranda rights. They went in with rifles and hand grenades. Their task was to kill as many of the enemy as possible, while preserving their own lives.
I repeat the words of General George Patton, that entirely too few Americans apparently have heard, or understood. “You do not win a war by dying for your country. You win by making some other b*stard die for his country.” While we are quoting famous generals for statements that any fool, even a reporter or a Congressman, should know, add this from William Tecumseh Sherman, “War is hell.”
4. What about the “lack of an exit plan?” Anyone who even asks this question is demonstrating a thundering ignorance of history. As World War II makes very clear, our exit strategy then was: Win the war. Take over the country. Destroy the war culture. Turn the nation into a stable, democratic one with a free market economy. That new nation, unlike the defeated one, will then become an ally of the US.
We never announced, in advance, when we would withdraw troops from Germany, nor how many troops we would take out. If we had done that, the Werewolves who were set up by the Nazis to continue fighting after the surrender, would have run to ground. They would have come out to fight after the date we had announced it would become easier.
Let me shorten that, so even the dumbest Congressman or the most biased reporter for the New York Times can understand it. A competent exit plan means: Win. Straighten things out. Come home.
Anyone who thinks he/she can predict exactly when the US military will be able to win and then come home, should practice by predicting next month’s stock prices. That way, if they are wrong, they will not be betting with the lives of Americans.
5. What is the cost of this war in our blood?
I’ve written about this before, so I’ll be brief here. Of the eleven major wars the US has fought including our Revolution, this is the LEAST bloody war measured by deaths per month. Don’t believe me? Google the statistics. Look it up. Then quit writing and/or believing cr*p about how costly this war is.
While you are at it, look up the statistics on how many young American men die, per thousand, in auto accidents, shootings, and other causes here in the US, as opposed to in Iraq. Use deaths per thousand. Try comparing Baghdad to Detroit, to use an example not entirely at random.
To press and politicians, I say: Research the facts. Tell the truth. Quit being dumb as a brick. Is that so d*mned difficult?
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
IMO, your article is so "right on", and even more timely today with all the latest Time PR, that you should re-post it to the "front page"!
I'd love to read this in my local newspaper...
Sent this to John after receiving the article in the email -
Dear John,
Way to go!!!!!! Sock it to them - hard! You should send a copy of this to every single person in the country! Oh, wait that won't work, most of them may be able to read but they can't comprehend "research", "truth", "history". The worst part is that it isn't just the liberal media, it is also the conservative media.
I get so tired of the "touch-feely" politically correct crowd that I just want to scream!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe I should sic my dog on them. Think thats a good idea!
Dixie
PS - you have FReepmail
That's funny......
Thank you so much for putting these "ducks" in a row. It is always good ammo for liberal (friends or not) when they try to pull that same crap. I hope you don't mind if I copy and paste this to another document. I am trying to compile a list of FACTS to use when needed. Knowing that the best way to deflate a liberal is with facts!
But the Geneva Convention also says that there must be a "competent tribunal" to decide that threshhold issue of whether someone is a lawful or unlawful combatant.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
John Stuart Mill
(thanks for the article Congressman BB)
At any rate, yesterday's question was,
"Should the US close Guantanamo Bay?"
The results were 24% Yes we should, 76% No we shouldn't. I know that the Rats must have pulled out all stops trying to get that poll to show "overwhelming support" for closing down Gitmo, slamming that thing for all they could, but in the end they could only get 24% to say yes. Despite all the MSM hand-wringing about Gitmo, most people could care less how the terrorists there are being treated. This is as much a loser issue for them as their Abu Ghraib hyperventilating was.
No, I understand that a military court will suffice. But, except in the heat of battle, something a bit more than a "drumhead" court is called for. The Nazi saboteurs in Quirin had a trial before a military court with appointed counsel, cross-examination of witnesses, and a right to testify in their own defense. I don't believe the prisoners in Gitmo have received that.
You could also look up the fact that, in the Japanese War Crimes trials after WWII, we tried and executed some Japanese officers for the "war crime" of convicting American POWs of being "unlawful combatants" without affording them sufficient due process.
Those saboteurs were deemed "illegal combatants" and subject to trial and execution because of their plans to sabotage American plants, and because they had materials including maps and money, to carry those out. When you get into the relevant facts, Padilla is identical to Quirin.
Also, you are not up to speed on legal representation respectively for the 1942 saboteurs compared to Padilla, today. Padilla has already received more attention from lawyers (mostly military ones) and courts, than the saboteurs did all the way from their arrest to their executions.
Padilla is not a tough case at all. Unless the SCt is willing to throw out its own, prior, unanimous decision, Padilla loses. It's as simple as that.
Congressman Billybob
Just superb...
Taxman Bravo Zulu! Most excellent article deserving of widespread dissemination.
Send it as a LTE to Time, for starters!
I read the Time article earlier today, and I am still pissed!
The word "Traitor" in re: Time Magazine does not begin to capture my thinking!
What can they be thinking? That we are playing some sort of college Tiddlywinks game with these murdering Muslim Bastards?
DubYah got it right: "You are either with us, or. . . ."
Excellent commentary...this whole Gitmo thing really has me agitated!
I'm wonderin' how much does it cost/terrorist to provide such cushy lodgings in a prison camp/day?
Hey, Senator Durashbin, at least these vermin of hell have their heads still intact with their necks.
Where were the loud leftist democrat leaders voices during Viet Nam Era for our brave and courageous US POWS treatment at the hands of the Viet Cong?
The democrat leaders are padding the evil that surrounds the Islamo-terrrorists just as they perpetrated upon our nation and young men who fought for their country during the Viet Nam War.
Will we lose this vital and crucisl war on terror because of the lefts relentless unreasonable and insane attack on President Bush and our military's mission to combat Islamo-terorists? I cannot answer, but I can only surmise that bin Laden and his gang of bloodthirsty headcutters are very well pleased with the anti=Americanism that is frothing from the mouths of these leftist politicians and pundits.
I'll share one thought of my own:
What the Leftist press, politicians, academics and trust-fund protesters want is for these prisoners to be located on American soil so they will have focus points for non-stop demonstrations.
Gitmo is too far to swim to, although the sharks along the way would give them a pass as "professional courtesy."
Believe me, with the Left is all about the Drama.
One of your best. Bravo, Billybob.
You are right: They are not insurgents.
Another thing they are not: criminals.
They do not get a trial in US courts with all the benefits of the US constitution.
Bozo and Angry Liberaltarian to the contrary.
Thanks for bringing your knowledge and intelligence to bear on this problem, and for your clear writing.
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