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To: La Enchiladita
Actually I'm a bit Machiavellian when it comes to that sort of thing - if it serves our purpose fine, but if it works against us that needs to be weighed in policy decisions. If it wasn't clear, I do not think that bad PR is a valid reason to close the detention facility at Guantanamo, but I also fault the Bush administration for not fighting back sufficiently in the arena of propaganda.

Nations aren't, in my view, either moral or immoral, and "purity" is a term that applies to individuals, not to nations. Policy is not exempt from ethical standards but these aren't the same as for persons - Reinhold Niebuhr treated this subject in Moral Man And Immoral Society. Certainly one of those standards is that it acts against our nation's broad interests both to flout the law and to intern persons we consider innocent. I do not think that we are, in fact, flouting the law here. It may be, however, that our mechanisms for identifying those who are innocent there - we have found several in that status - need to be published and defended better. There is no use in giving our enemies propaganda points when we don't have to.

137 posted on 01/12/2006 3:10:58 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Billthedrill

Thank you for the clarity. In other words, our defensible stance vis a vis Guantanamo should be more loudly proclaimed.


142 posted on 01/12/2006 3:14:20 PM PST by La Enchiladita (God bless our Troops)
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