March 10, 2013
"On the upside, they’re politically immune from getting the John Yoo treatment."
Perhaps. But isn't it amusing to picture them — somewhere in the secret passageways of power — flop-sweating and frantic over the realization Oh, my God, we're John Yoo!?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
44 comments:
I think the purpose of that article was to assure them, and everyone else, they are not John Yoo.
They don't care if they are John Yoo, in fact they know they are John Yoo and they are gleeful they are getting away with it. These are soulless bastards.
More like getting the Althouse treatment.
Not even. To be John Yoo, they would need to state their argument forthrightly and stand by it when questioned.
But isn't it amusing to picture them — somewhere in the secret passageways of power — flop-sweating and frantic over the realization...
Oh, my God, we're John Yoo!?
Good point, Maguro. Their entire reasoning was, it may be illegal to kill an American citizen, but not if the President wants it done.
& Yoo, Brute?
The flop sweat comes when the gen pop realizes they are John Yoo.
But isn't it amusing to picture them — somewhere in the secret passageways of power — flop-sweating and frantic over the realization Oh, my God, we're John Yoo!?
You'd have to imagine a world without hypocracy or a double standard. Not in this country. Not with this media.
Calling them John Yoo would be a compliment. They're just a couple of lawyers trying to write a policy after the fact to cover the president's behind in case he wasn't re-elected.
These guys deserve nothing but disgust.
And Cindy Sheehan was always going to have the respect of the left.
Illegal to kill an American Citizen without a trial and all that?
Since when?
John Dillenger was a US citizen...but they said he pulled a gun in a blind alley where nobody could see him but the guys who shot him.
Let's make a list.
Now, should we talk about Ruby Ridge? Any collateral damages there?
Aridog: The difference is, in all those cases, the government at least had a patina of an excuse: They were, allegedly, actively doing something dangerous. Not just sitting in a cafe as a potential threat.
Is Ruby Ridge supposed to be an example of something the government did right?
This post reminds me of that scene when Woody Allen on the way to a firing squad reminds his would-be executioners "you do know of course that this means an angry letter to The Times."
How many times & how many ways can it be said. These guys didn't believe what they wrote then and they don't believe what they wrote now. They believe in one thing - the acquisition of power.
Mission accomplished.
Another example of this story coddling these lawyers and Obama:
". In April 2011, the United States captured Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali man who worked closely with the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He was held aboard a naval vessel for more than two months and spoke freely to interrogators, including about his encounters with the former North Carolina man now editing the group’s magazine, Samir Khan. "
Speaking freely! No John Yoos here!
Compared to: "Well, Weaver -might- be dangerous, and he has -talked- to other people who are dangerous. Let's drop a drone and call it a day," Ruby Ridge was an exemplar of government efficiency and efforts to go above and beyond.
How about the death and destruction at Waco? No wait, that doesn't count. Clinton/Reno were in charge. Does it count if the people that were killed are children?
Currently, if they're close enough to enemy militants overseas, even children are counted as enemy combatants and not collateral damage. So, no. It doesn't matter if they were children.
The government has gallons of patina, and professionals to apply it if needed. Besides, if they make a mistake, who's gonna bitch, the Press?
The Press will if you simply elect Non-Democrats. That's all there is to it. It may be unfair to Democrat politicians, but there simply is no other way to get them to care if the President is breaking the law. This alone is enough decide a vote. What you are voting for is an American government with a free press. If you vote for a Democrat, you are voting for something less. I think that's irresponsible.
Yahoo link to NYT piece about redefining militant/enemy combatant.
".Then, on Oct. 14, a missile apparently intended for an Egyptian Qaeda operative, Ibrahim al-Banna, hit a modest outdoor eating place in Shabwa. The intelligence was bad: Mr. Banna was not there, and among about a dozen men killed was the young Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who had no connection to terrorism and would never have been deliberately targeted. "
Credulous reporting. This is incident demands further scrutiny. I couldn't care less about his father, but this and the administration's reaction to it was and are.....questionable. (But not to this reporter!)
Surely, bagoh, there is a happy medium between turning everything into a crime as they did under Bush (SWIFT, Katrina) and excusing everything as they do for Obama.
Since we're talking Lefty propaganda, this isn't 100% OT, but, since Ann and Insta buy the whole thing that Lena Dunham is the new Sandra Dee (and Francoise Sagan), consider that O'Really's reruns are more popular than "Girls".
Hypocrisy, and the lack of accountability thereof, are the sustaining norms for liberal Democrats.
Their voters will NEVER hold them accountable, as long as the checks keep coming.
They will NEVER hold themselves accountable, as long as they continue to win elections.
Their hypocrisy is nothing more than a tool levered to gain power.
They have, and will, continue to say anything, do anything, to secure power.
And those who believe giving them power (e.g., Althouse's '08 vote for Obama) so they might, on the very slightest of chances, take responsibility, are deluded.
... frantic over the realization Oh, my God, we're John Yoo!?
So you think they're sufficiently introspective and non-hypocritical to believe that, Professor? Why on earth would you believe that?
... frantic over the realization Oh, my God, we're John Yoo!?
So you think they're sufficiently introspective and non-hypocritical to believe that, Professor? Why on earth would you believe that?
"Surely, bagoh, there is a happy medium between turning everything into a crime as they did under Bush (SWIFT, Katrina) and excusing everything as they do for Obama."
That would be nice, but we have to work with the Press we actually have, which is overwhelmingly left wing, so those two choices are about it. Therefore the the only safe thing to do is elect Non-Democrats, and ones with a spine, so they will still do what's needed, but will at least have to justify it, answer questions, and the American people will be informed about what is happening. Then we get the important things done and the unimportant, or purely political, restrained.
When you vote Democrat, you are voting for a President mostly immune to the Press, and you are voting against having necessary checks and balances.
Well, the 82nd Abn. Div., wasn't there, G Joubert, but:
At dawn on Monday morning, April 19, 1993, the FBI phoned the compound to warn those inside about what was to occur. Three minutes after the initial call, two combat engineering vehicles approached the buildings, easily punched holes into the walls, and began to spray tear gas, pressurized by noncombustible carbon dioxide, through nozzles, into the compound. Davidians began to fire at the tanks, and other approaching agents, but no damage was done.
Nine Bradley vehicles, an Abrams tank, and a squad of choppers were positioned nearby for additional backup.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Remember when they went absolutely wild over warrantless wiretapping???
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Matthew Sablan said...
Aridog: The difference is, in all those cases, the government at least had a patina of an excuse: They were, allegedly, actively doing something dangerous. Not just sitting in a cafe as a potential threat.
====================
Sablan fails to understand that "enemy" refers to combatants and non-combatants deemed essential to enemy operations.
And taking action and targeting enemy with lethal force is not confined to "Oh, the enemy is now shooting at me on a battlefield, so now I can respond with force the ACLU would approve of....up unntil when they stop firing and I must as well.."
OR:
"Pity we cannot attack the bomb factory, it being full of innocent civilians just doing a job leaders gave them to do....or enemy taking a break from terrorist training at the local cafe...which may have 16 year old male Jihadis and women and children dining with them."
Isn't it funny that John Yoo stands before the public and when hecklers accuse him of war crimes he states and defends the principles.
Yet these yokels were trying to have one set of principles for Obama (which are essentially John Yoo's) but then were attempting to weaken the powers were Mitt Romney to take office?
Who's the moral monster again?
Matthew Sablan said...
Currently, if they're close enough to enemy militants overseas, even children are counted as enemy combatants and not collateral damage. So, no. It doesn't matter if they were children.
==========================
Nonsense -
Far too many people have been saturated in "law enforcement memes applied to warfare". The lawyers push it, the media pushes the meme too...
Meaning they try and divide conflict into (1)Guilty soldiers who may be killed as a variety of capital punishment (2)Innocent, pure as snow civilians. Especially the most innocent of all - the women and children. The children!!
(3)Only courts full of lawyers, most who have never served in the military or been within 4,000 miles of a war....can distinguish between the guilty and the innocent if the enemy guilty soldiers refuse to wear uniforms.
No one counts The Children!! as enemy combatants, Sablan, though some have killed US soldiers by suddenly morphing into a 12 year old grenade thrower. Or IED planters.
Or as a mortar spotter on walkie-talkie helping kill Americans in a city, with their Dad's jihadi crew firing the mortar. (While "pure as snow since she is a female not wearing a uniform"..Fatima lugs spare RPG mortar rounds to her husband along with freshly made goat meat and lentil stew for him and his men. And praises God on the blessed news that her young son spotted 5 Marines and helped kill them by directing the mortar shells.)
Collateral casualties in war are unavoidable unless both sides decide to wear uniforms and fight far away from civilian areas...and buildings used for military logistics, ordnace production, comms, command and control have them painted on the roof as such...and both sides agree that women and males under age 18 and all old farts will be "pure as snow non-combatants" and not work in IED factories, terorist camp restaurants, or transporting goods to the uniformed Jihadis on the front lines...
Note:
Early on we had the Head Taliban guy, Mullah Omar, right in the crosshairs of an F-16 as he fled Kandahar.
Taking him out was stopped by a zealous US JAG female lawyer who threatened commanders, if they struck with the F-16 bombload, with criminal charges because Omar was in a 3 vehicle convoy loaded with not just fighters, but the wives and children of fighters.
The F-16 was waived off and later, angry White House and senior Pentagon commanders declared the female lawyer, by her threats of charges if officers far senior to her acted, greatly exceeded her proper role, and intimidated the real soldiers ready to take out Mullah Omar, who then disappeared for several years.
But of course the shyster was not shitcanned or punished, it was (paraphrased) "just a lack of meaningful training immersion into her understanding acceptable ROE and her concern for the children. The children!".
But they don't think they are John Yoo. Yoo is a Republican, and, therefore, he did not operate in good faith. That is the presumption of the Left.
Recall when it looked like Obama could loose, and they looked for ways of ending prerogatives he has asserted.
Ricahrd nails it.
They will never have the thought cross their minds as being a liberal means knowing to your very core, you are a good person and hence anything you do is justified. As Coates finally found out...
It is particularly ironic that Marty Lederman is involved. He and his pals used his blog to systematically smear John Yoo. They were extremely disingenuous to turn around, then to build on Yoo's body of work. I don't agree with Yoo all the time but to act as if his arguments were trivial - then to build on them - then to return to academia and continue the crusade - abrades the conscience.
If it weren't for their double standards, the Left would have no standards at all.
Never underestimate those on the Liberal Left to justify NOT having to face the simple fact that they are hypocrites. They will do whatever mental contortions to justify thier current positions...because...well...they're important.
Besides, only a racist would criticize a policy of the Obama administration.
John Yoo was a serious guy. He thought things through. If you don't agree with him, you have to disagree at the start. Otherwise, his reasoning wears down any opposing argument until you end up right where he did.
The problem is that a long, worldwide, anti-terror campaign requires that the American executive branch does most of the work. By its nature, such a campaign must be done in secret. It also must kill the enemy, who doesn't belong to a nation-state and can't be treated like an enemy army. This isn't a war that can be fought by rules devised by Western powers to apply to wars confined in scope and duration amongst themselves.
Yoo just got there first. If you don't want to follow in his footsteps, then the war either cannot be fought at all, or must have radically different aims.
Post a Comment