http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…../184837/05

Long ago, far away … but right on point.

Once you assume that you have combatants (and not human trafficking victims sold to Bush or protected persons or bipolar chefs) and

once you assume they are not protected persons but rather US enemy combatants (and not factions fighting each other in Afghanistan or civilians defending their homes from attack, etc.) and

once you assume that as enemy combatants they would have been entitled to POW treatment and

once you assume that they were given a procedure to enforce their rights to POW treatment (the ONLY argument – at least prior to the MCA – for suspension of POW treatment was being an unlawful enemy combatant, not an “enemy combatant” although now with the Democratic assistance in enshrining the MCA that is a bit different)and

once you assume that their status hearings (combatant status review tribunals – CSRTs)to determine that they were actually battlefield captures and not civilians sold to US were promptly initiated (and not held years later and AFTER the commission of what would be a war crime and severe breach of Article 49 IF they were not combatants such that everyone involved with their detention would be susceptible to being charged as a war criminal IF the tribunal did anything but rubber stamps “enemy combatant” status) and

once you assume that the CSRTs allowed some baseline standards for someone – like a Kurnaz – with a file full of exculpatory “evidence” all “classified” to actually get at that evidence and obtain release through the CSRT system rather than having to get a judge to intervene via the now suspended habeas venue and

once you assume that there were people of truth, crediblity and integrity involved in the process and

once you assume that continuing to hold “enemy combatants” for years after formal invasion was ended and a new government in place and subject to some indeterminate conceptualization of when the “war” of ideas will be put to rest and

once you assume that a sustained and uninterrupted course of brutality, torture, depravity, humiliation that will be forever applied on whim and with no constraint or oversight has been de riguer and authorized by torture memos at numerous points in the past so this is “just like” then

well, golly, the argument gets easier.

Add in an unblinking willingness to either* a) fib directly and outright to the Court, or b) deliberately keep his client’s information segregated and insulated from him so he can pretend he doesn’t know it – - and the arguments are so easy they might as well be wearing shiney thigh boots and crotchless underwear.

*As with torture in the Padilla and Hamdan cases – not only with the ‘rogue’ elements of Abu Ghraib about to be exposed but also with the direct US DOJ involvement in Arar described in a then pending lawsuit naming Aschcroft and Thompson specifically and later quashed by Comey, and the torture based arrest warrants for Padilla which have now become acceptable for the arrest of any US citizen thanks to the Padilla court, and all kinds of FBI and military and intel reports filtering in on abuse at GITMO, abuse by MI and not just MP at Abu Ghraib and all detention facilities, etc.) – all this and much more of which swaths of DOJ and the Executive Branch had direct knowledge but Clement either “did not know anything about” (which would mean he performed zero due diligence in connection with his argument) or misrepresented.

biff diggerence @ 15

LYNNE CHENEY: (Smiles.) You know, Joe, we have a saying in Wyoming, where I grew up: “A dog never barks at a parked car.” After 9/11, things had to change in America. And my husband has always been an active advocate for that change.

(even prior to 9/11, eh, Lynne?)

Lynn Cheney is making the rounds promoting her book. She is crafty and articulate. Though Jon Stewart breached the subject of gay rights – hinting at the Cheney’s apparent hypocrisy, he was mostly ineffectual at winning the point. Lynn got the better of him. Stewart seemed ill-prepared to counter Lynn’s 911 talking points and effectively call attention to her factual errors. He was too worried about offending the offensive woman.

Lynn will get copious kidd glove treatment from the MSM. I hope others will be better prepared for her.

I saw that show and thought Jon was brilliant. The intro before the commercial break had me rotfl.

When Lon…um…I mean Lynn Cheney went for the obvious applause line, ‘Bush should be commended for there being no attacks since 911,’ there was dead silence instead of applause.

Then she literally fell into the compost heap when Jon mentioned Spain and England being attacked, and she said with all sincerity, “But not American interests.”

And Jon gently said “I think the safety of our allies is an American interest.”

Point. Match. She said that we aren’t interested in the safety of our allies. It’s not an American interest.

Good morning Christy!

I forget who said that dictatorship is not incompatible with democracy, it is a consequence of democracy. It occurs when people decide that deliberative government isn’t working, so they have to give into a strong man who will simply “decide”, end of discussion. I agree the parallels with Weimar Germany are disturbingly apparent.

.

Hannah Arendt said it in Origins of Totalitarianism.

Let’s keep this thread from going into that territory, shall we?
Thank you.

What direction would that be?

For anyone who’d like a little more ‘prayerful misdirection’ – C-SPAN’s schedule is listing an upcoming live press conference with Nancy Pelosi airing on their C-SPAN 3 site, starting in 10 minutes, at 11:15 a.m.:

http://c-span.org/watch/cs_csp…..p;Code=CS3

Maybe she will re-iterate her “let them eat cake, the dirty hippies” comment about how she bemoans the fact that she can’t have protesters against the war or for impeachment arrested but would be able to if they were “merely poor”.

Please read pages 8, 9, and 10 of the following PDF of Operation Northwoods actual document:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/n…..0/doc1.pdf

Aside from the turgid prose, you were thinking maybe of Iran? Makes me wonder whether the U.S. has ever fought a war it didn’t want started, back to and including our entry into WWII.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney as a “disaster” for the country and a “militant” who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy.

Cheney has been on the wrong side of the debate on many issues, including an internal White House discussion over Syria in which the vice president is thought to be pushing a tough approach, Carter said.

“He’s a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world,” Carter told the BBC World News America in an interview to air later on Wednesday.

“You know he’s been a disaster for our country,” Carter said. “I think he’s been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he’s prevailed.”

Hurrah!