War crimes. Get it?

I know people who can't imagine the United States committing war crimes. Some of them just don't want to know, so they stay away from any venue that might bring up evidence. Others are more resilient, viewing evidence and ignoring it.

In one conversation, I had someone demand that a major news network have covered it, because after all you can't trust anything you read online. You want CNN? You've got it. 

But suddenly news networks couldn't be trusted. After all, they're secretly controlled by the liberal Jewish Illuminati, so we'd better ask soldiers who're actually on the ground. They'll know. Often the discussion stops after this link, because then we have to believe that American soldiers are just like any other soldiers. Decent humans sometimes do terrible things they wouldn't do in peacetime. We know this. It's just hard for some people to apply that to our own soldiers, to treat them like humans in addition to heroes.

But sometimes they can get past that, and then you'll hear, "Well, it wasn't ordered by the government. They wouldn't do that. It's unethical and illegal." And then you link them a few more things. 

How about the fact that the US camps hid detainees (can we call them POWs yet?) from the Red Cross.

CIA's Counterterrorism Center, disclosed that detainees were moved routinely to avoid the scrutiny of the ICRC, which keeps tabs on prisoners in conflicts around the world.

"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD (Defense Department) has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman said, according to the minutes.

(snip)

The administration overrode or ignored objections from all four military services and from criminal investigators, who warned that the practices would imperil their ability to prosecute the suspects. In one prophetic e-mail on Oct. 28, 2002, Mark Fallon, then the deputy commander of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, wrote a colleague: "This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of. ... Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this." The objections from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines prompted Navy Capt. Jane Dalton, legal adviser to the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to begin a review of the proposed techniques.

But Dalton, who's now retired, told the hearing Tuesday that the review was aborted quickly. Myers, she said, took her aside and told her that then-Defense Department general counsel William Haynes "does not want this ... to proceed."

(snip)

Regarding the ICRC, the United States long has complained that other countries such as China or the old Soviet Union prevented independent access to prisoners or made their conditions look better when outsiders were inspecting.

Whoops. Do I even have to say it. I probably do. What the hell were they hiding?

Your answer is here. Retired General: Bush Administration Committed War Crimes.

A new report put out by Physicians for Human Rights documents multiple instances of torture and abuse of prisoners by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq and in other prisons on military bases around the world. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Pentagon's investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, minces no words in the introduction to the report:

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Once again, this is not coming from someone that can be dismissed by Bush apologists as some wild-eyed liberal ACLU type. This is the man that the Pentagon picked to investigate a major incident of abuse. And there is more, both in Taguba's introduction to the report and in the report itself.

Uh oh! Looks like they're in trouble now. Believe what you want, but these war criminals know that trouble's coming. Wonder what they're gonna do to save their asses... Oh, I know!

US asks to rewrite evidence against Guantanamo detainees ahead of court review.

The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Military review boards relied on it to justify holding hundreds of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Justice Department attorneys said it was thoroughly and fairly reviewed.

Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes.

The decision follows last week's Supreme Court ruling, which held that detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian court, not just before secret military panels.

Accountability is a bitch, innit? Wouldn't it just be awful if the government had to demonstrate their actual reasons for doing any of these things? I remain convinced that if the United States is forced to comply with its own human rights standards and pay some modicum of respect to international law... well, the terrorists will win. Right?

Right?

War crimes.

Get it?

War crimes. Get it?

I know people who can't imagine the United States committing war crimes. Some of them just don't want to know, so they stay away from any venue that might bring up evidence. Others are more resilient, viewing evidence and ignoring it.

In one conversation, I had someone demand that a major news network have covered it, because after all you can't trust anything you read online. You want CNN? You've got it. 

But suddenly news networks couldn't be trusted. After all, they're secretly controlled by the liberal Jewish Illuminati, so we'd better ask soldiers who're actually on the ground. They'll know. Often the discussion stops after this link, because then we have to believe that American soldiers are just like any other soldiers. Decent humans sometimes do terrible things they wouldn't do in peacetime. We know this. It's just hard for some people to apply that to our own soldiers, to treat them like humans in addition to heroes.

But sometimes they can get past that, and then you'll hear, "Well, it wasn't ordered by the government. They wouldn't do that. It's unethical and illegal." And then you link them a few more things. 

How about the fact that the US camps hid detainees (can we call them POWs yet?) from the Red Cross.

CIA's Counterterrorism Center, disclosed that detainees were moved routinely to avoid the scrutiny of the ICRC, which keeps tabs on prisoners in conflicts around the world.

"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD (Defense Department) has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman said, according to the minutes.

(snip)

The administration overrode or ignored objections from all four military services and from criminal investigators, who warned that the practices would imperil their ability to prosecute the suspects. In one prophetic e-mail on Oct. 28, 2002, Mark Fallon, then the deputy commander of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, wrote a colleague: "This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of. ... Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this." The objections from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines prompted Navy Capt. Jane Dalton, legal adviser to the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to begin a review of the proposed techniques.

But Dalton, who's now retired, told the hearing Tuesday that the review was aborted quickly. Myers, she said, took her aside and told her that then-Defense Department general counsel William Haynes "does not want this ... to proceed."

(snip)

Regarding the ICRC, the United States long has complained that other countries such as China or the old Soviet Union prevented independent access to prisoners or made their conditions look better when outsiders were inspecting.

Whoops. Do I even have to say it. I probably do. What the hell were they hiding?

Your answer is here. Retired General: Bush Administration Committed War Crimes.

A new report put out by Physicians for Human Rights documents multiple instances of torture and abuse of prisoners by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq and in other prisons on military bases around the world. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Pentagon's investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, minces no words in the introduction to the report:

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Once again, this is not coming from someone that can be dismissed by Bush apologists as some wild-eyed liberal ACLU type. This is the man that the Pentagon picked to investigate a major incident of abuse. And there is more, both in Taguba's introduction to the report and in the report itself.

Uh oh! Looks like they're in trouble now. Believe what you want, but these war criminals know that trouble's coming. Wonder what they're gonna do to save their asses... Oh, I know!

US asks to rewrite evidence against Guantanamo detainees ahead of court review.

The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Military review boards relied on it to justify holding hundreds of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Justice Department attorneys said it was thoroughly and fairly reviewed.

Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes.

The decision follows last week's Supreme Court ruling, which held that detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian court, not just before secret military panels.

Accountability is a bitch, innit? Wouldn't it just be awful if the government had to demonstrate their actual reasons for doing any of these things? I remain convinced that if the United States is forced to comply with its own human rights standards and pay some modicum of respect to international law... well, the terrorists will win. Right?

Right?

War crimes.

Get it?

War crimes. Get it?

I know people who can't imagine the United States committing war crimes. Some of them just don't want to know, so they stay away from any venue that might bring up evidence. Others are more resilient, viewing evidence and ignoring it.

In one conversation, I had someone demand that a major news network have covered it, because after all you can't trust anything you read online. You want CNN? You've got it. 

But suddenly news networks couldn't be trusted. After all, they're secretly controlled by the liberal Jewish Illuminati, so we'd better ask soldiers who're actually on the ground. They'll know. Often the discussion stops after this link, because then we have to believe that American soldiers are just like any other soldiers. Decent humans sometimes do terrible things they wouldn't do in peacetime. We know this. It's just hard for some people to apply that to our own soldiers, to treat them like humans in addition to heroes.

But sometimes they can get past that, and then you'll hear, "Well, it wasn't ordered by the government. They wouldn't do that. It's unethical and illegal." And then you link them a few more things. 

How about the fact that the US camps hid detainees (can we call them POWs yet?) from the Red Cross.

CIA's Counterterrorism Center, disclosed that detainees were moved routinely to avoid the scrutiny of the ICRC, which keeps tabs on prisoners in conflicts around the world.

"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD (Defense Department) has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman said, according to the minutes.

(snip)

The administration overrode or ignored objections from all four military services and from criminal investigators, who warned that the practices would imperil their ability to prosecute the suspects. In one prophetic e-mail on Oct. 28, 2002, Mark Fallon, then the deputy commander of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, wrote a colleague: "This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of. ... Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this." The objections from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines prompted Navy Capt. Jane Dalton, legal adviser to the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to begin a review of the proposed techniques.

But Dalton, who's now retired, told the hearing Tuesday that the review was aborted quickly. Myers, she said, took her aside and told her that then-Defense Department general counsel William Haynes "does not want this ... to proceed."

(snip)

Regarding the ICRC, the United States long has complained that other countries such as China or the old Soviet Union prevented independent access to prisoners or made their conditions look better when outsiders were inspecting.

Whoops. Do I even have to say it. I probably do. What the hell were they hiding?

Your answer is here. Retired General: Bush Administration Committed War Crimes.

A new report put out by Physicians for Human Rights documents multiple instances of torture and abuse of prisoners by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq and in other prisons on military bases around the world. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Pentagon's investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, minces no words in the introduction to the report:

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Once again, this is not coming from someone that can be dismissed by Bush apologists as some wild-eyed liberal ACLU type. This is the man that the Pentagon picked to investigate a major incident of abuse. And there is more, both in Taguba's introduction to the report and in the report itself.

Uh oh! Looks like they're in trouble now. Believe what you want, but these war criminals know that trouble's coming. Wonder what they're gonna do to save their asses... Oh, I know!

US asks to rewrite evidence against Guantanamo detainees ahead of court review.

The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Military review boards relied on it to justify holding hundreds of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Justice Department attorneys said it was thoroughly and fairly reviewed.

Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes.

The decision follows last week's Supreme Court ruling, which held that detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian court, not just before secret military panels.

Accountability is a bitch, innit? Wouldn't it just be awful if the government had to demonstrate their actual reasons for doing any of these things? I remain convinced that if the United States is forced to comply with its own human rights standards and pay some modicum of respect to international law... well, the terrorists will win. Right?

Right?

War crimes.

Get it?

Rape and Capital Punishment

I was linked this article today.

The gist of this recent Supreme Court decision is that the death penalty in America shouldn't be resorted to unless the crime involves espionage or treason, or the crime results in the death of the victim. The context is whether or not people who sexually abuse children should be faced with capital punishment as an option.

Now, on the one hand... if someone raped anybody that I know, I don't know that I'll be responsible for my actions in the matter. That counts both for a child and a grown adult. In that sense, I can understand why many people have a problem with this ruling. After all, it's natural to want to hurt and even eliminate someone who hurts us badly enough, and the rape of a child is not just an offense to the whole community, but downright damaging to the whole community.

But the rape of an adult woman is, too. The UN Security Council just equated it to a war crime. It happens in war because, as the article states, "rape is a deliberate war tactic meant to intimidate and destroy communities." This is coloring my reception of this ruling. As the article I first linked states, "The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case in which the victim was an adult woman."

If we executed people who rape children but not people who rape adult women... I feel that would create a harmful double standard. To say that raping kids is morally more reprehensible than raping adult women kind of smacks of the old view that raping virgins was a grievous evil, but raping adult women (who might have had sex before) was merely rude.

Now, granted, I think raping children is weirder than raping an adult woman, but that doesn't make it worse. Just weirder. To say that an adult woman is morally more rapeable than a child really is a throwback to days that I don't think anyone wants to see us repeat. Sexual violence should be treated the same way across the board, no matter what stage of life the victim is in.

Personally I have my reservations about capital punishment in practice, but that's a topic for another day. Right now I'm concentrating on the fact that rape of adults and children is being treated the same way by our legal system, and I think that's a good thing.

Rape and Capital Punishment

I was linked this article today.

The gist of this recent Supreme Court decision is that the death penalty in America shouldn't be resorted to unless the crime involves espionage or treason, or the crime results in the death of the victim. The context is whether or not people who sexually abuse children should be faced with capital punishment as an option.

Now, on the one hand... if someone raped anybody that I know, I don't know that I'll be responsible for my actions in the matter. That counts both for a child and a grown adult. In that sense, I can understand why many people have a problem with this ruling. After all, it's natural to want to hurt and even eliminate someone who hurts us badly enough, and the rape of a child is not just an offense to the whole community, but downright damaging to the whole community.

But the rape of an adult woman is, too. The UN Security Council just equated it to a war crime. It happens in war because, as the article states, "rape is a deliberate war tactic meant to intimidate and destroy communities." This is coloring my reception of this ruling. As the article I first linked states, "The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case in which the victim was an adult woman."

If we executed people who rape children but not people who rape adult women... I feel that would create a harmful double standard. To say that raping kids is morally more reprehensible than raping adult women kind of smacks of the old view that raping virgins was a grievous evil, but raping adult women (who might have had sex before) was merely rude.

Now, granted, I think raping children is weirder than raping an adult woman, but that doesn't make it worse. Just weirder. To say that an adult woman is morally more rapeable than a child really is a throwback to days that I don't think anyone wants to see us repeat. Sexual violence should be treated the same way across the board, no matter what stage of life the victim is in.

Personally I have my reservations about capital punishment in practice, but that's a topic for another day. Right now I'm concentrating on the fact that rape of adults and children is being treated the same way by our legal system, and I think that's a good thing.

Rape and Capital Punishment

I was linked this article today.

The gist of this recent Supreme Court decision is that the death penalty in America shouldn't be resorted to unless the crime involves espionage or treason, or the crime results in the death of the victim. The context is whether or not people who sexually abuse children should be faced with capital punishment as an option.

Now, on the one hand... if someone raped anybody that I know, I don't know that I'll be responsible for my actions in the matter. That counts both for a child and a grown adult. In that sense, I can understand why many people have a problem with this ruling. After all, it's natural to want to hurt and even eliminate someone who hurts us badly enough, and the rape of a child is not just an offense to the whole community, but downright damaging to the whole community.

But the rape of an adult woman is, too. The UN Security Council just equated it to a war crime. It happens in war because, as the article states, "rape is a deliberate war tactic meant to intimidate and destroy communities." This is coloring my reception of this ruling. As the article I first linked states, "The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case in which the victim was an adult woman."

If we executed people who rape children but not people who rape adult women... I feel that would create a harmful double standard. To say that raping kids is morally more reprehensible than raping adult women kind of smacks of the old view that raping virgins was a grievous evil, but raping adult women (who might have had sex before) was merely rude.

Now, granted, I think raping children is weirder than raping an adult woman, but that doesn't make it worse. Just weirder. To say that an adult woman is morally more rapeable than a child really is a throwback to days that I don't think anyone wants to see us repeat. Sexual violence should be treated the same way across the board, no matter what stage of life the victim is in.

Personally I have my reservations about capital punishment in practice, but that's a topic for another day. Right now I'm concentrating on the fact that rape of adults and children is being treated the same way by our legal system, and I think that's a good thing.

Human Rights for Apes

Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.

(snip)

"We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening," Pozas said.

Keeping apes for circuses, television commercials or filming will also be forbidden and breaking the new laws will become an offence under Spain's penal code.

Keeping an estimated 315 apes in Spanish zoos will not be illegal, but supporters of the bill say conditions will need to improve drastically in 70 percent of establishments to comply with the new law.

This is so cool. There's another sort of creature on Earth that can think, that can reason, that can read. They do these things at least as well as human children, if not better. So it's good to see them getting some legal rights somewhere.

Human Rights for Apes

Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.

(snip)

"We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening," Pozas said.

Keeping apes for circuses, television commercials or filming will also be forbidden and breaking the new laws will become an offence under Spain's penal code.

Keeping an estimated 315 apes in Spanish zoos will not be illegal, but supporters of the bill say conditions will need to improve drastically in 70 percent of establishments to comply with the new law.

This is so cool. There's another sort of creature on Earth that can think, that can reason, that can read. They do these things at least as well as human children, if not better. So it's good to see them getting some legal rights somewhere.

Human Rights for Apes

Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.

(snip)

"We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening," Pozas said.

Keeping apes for circuses, television commercials or filming will also be forbidden and breaking the new laws will become an offence under Spain's penal code.

Keeping an estimated 315 apes in Spanish zoos will not be illegal, but supporters of the bill say conditions will need to improve drastically in 70 percent of establishments to comply with the new law.

This is so cool. There's another sort of creature on Earth that can think, that can reason, that can read. They do these things at least as well as human children, if not better. So it's good to see them getting some legal rights somewhere.