CAMP DAVID, Md. - President Bush on Saturday called for the release of 15 British sailors and marines being held by Iran, calling their capture by Tehran "inexcusable behavior."
"Iran must give back the hostages," Bush said. "They're innocent, they did nothing wrong, and they were summarily plucked out of waters."
Who exactly is bush to lecture anyone? The same man gathered farmers and laborers off the streets and tossed them into secret CIA prisons and Gitmo. Many have been there for years. They have been tortured, held without charges and now may face a military trial. At one point Gitmo housed over 700 inmates. Many were finally released, many more took their places.
We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture." - President Bush (Nov. 7, 2005).
A high percentage, perhaps the majority, of the 500-odd men now held at Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield, let alone on "the battlefield in Afghanistan" (as Bush asserted) while "trying to kill American forces" (as McClellan claimed).
Fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members.
Many scores, and perhaps hundreds, of the detainees were not even Taliban foot soldiers, let alone Qaeda terrorists. They were innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants with no intention of joining the Qaeda campaign to murder Americans.
The majority were not captured by U.S. forces but rather handed over by reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords and by villagers of highly doubtful reliability.
Now, think about Iran. Their neighbor is being occupied my military forces, which had no legal right to be there in the first place. They have watched as photos of humiliated detainees graced the internets. They have watched as their neighboring country was torn in two by a civil war, watched the carnage and the viciousness. Watched as hundreds of thousands fled their homeland for distant boarders. They have been called an "axis of evil" by the occupiers. The president of said occupiers refuses to talk to you, refuses to listen. Instead, he calls them names and accuses and plans to invade them next.
Imagine, Canada is the occupied country. What would bush do? What would you want him to do?
I'm not saying that the Iranian government is without sin. It is, however, an elected government. Isn't it democracy bush says he's spreading? Note "says" we have yet to see a single sign of this.
Mr. Bush has, IMHO, absolutely no right to cast stones. By the definition of a terrorist, the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion, he is one. By the terms layed out by the Nuremberg principles:
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War Crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
He has committed them.
So who is he to make demands on another country? Who is he to insist on spreading his version of morality? And who are we to stand by and allow it again?
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5 comments:
Bush is making me very nervous. I can't help but think that the capture of the Brits was arranged so he/Bush could have his war. Now his rants are his way of declaring his intent. Looking at his behavior in the past, certainly shows how he is going to handle this one.
There will be a day, ziem, when I tell you how wrong you are, but it isn't today! It is some what senseless to comment if all I can do is to always agree. However it never stopped me before and neither will it now.
The type of double standards that Bush&Co exhibits are based, in my opinion, on their uncanny ability to compartmentalize everything and on the feeling of supremacy over those whom are not inside of their inner circles.
Obviously, when they talk about their distaste of violence, they see it solely as acts against their own kind and it doesn't include those who are not the chosen ones. This is actually an ultra "racist" frame of mind where the acceptance of this sort of an myopic world view to them is given and, I am sure, they themselves can't understand why the others are fussing about the poor, the third world, the minorities or about any other bleeding heart nonsense.
One more thing and I promise to shut up! We tend to give these guys too much credit as being evil, mad geniuses. Their track record clearly shows that the evil part might not be an exageration but genius surely has been proven to be lacking a bit.
I think so too Mary. Neither Bush nor Blair are known for their honesty. In fact, they and the feared that follow them without question, scare the hell out of me.
There is almost no doubt in my mind we are facing war #3.
Pekka: Yes, the so-called moral majority seems to have no morals. Their hypocrisy has no bounds. They call abortion murder, then bomb innocent countries. They talk about supporting the troops, then give them little pay, crappy vet hospitals, no body armor, no plan, no concideration. The concern of this administration lays with their own special intrest groups, NOT the American people, NOT the troops, NOT the greater good.
ps: We need to get a couple of points straight here.
1. I love views, agreeing with mine or not.
2. If you ever stop commenting, I'll have to hunt you down! ;o)
3. They are evil, so are the puppet strings holding them in place.
I don't think that the Dems will let him go play war again. First, we don't have the money, or the manpower or the will. Americans are tired of fighting.
Battle fatigue is definitely setting in.
Peace is so much better, but peace also means less profits for Halliburton and that WHOLE cabal!
I hope they don't PTC. However, we have an arrogant ass for a dictator.. I mean president. He has blessed himself with more executive privilege than any prez in history. If he so desires to go off and bomb the shit out of more innocent people, I'm not sure congress can stop him. But it may be the death of the gop if he does.
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