17 thoughts on “Quote of the Day”

  1. I subscribe to the Inqy, but I’m not sure I want to continue doing so. My wife would probably veto cancellation anyway. It would be so sweet to tell to shove their Yoo-infested paper up their collective keester.

  4. Yoo has not, to my knowledge, defended Nazi war criminals. (As opposed to emulating them.)

  6. Okay then, smart guy. Which is worse, defending Nazi emulators or emulating Nazi defenders?

  8. Is it just me or does Obama’s announcement that he’s going ahead with these military commissions show trials seem incredibly dangerous in a way that wasn’t when the Bush Administration tried to go ahead with them?
    That is to say, during the Bush Administration we could hold out hope that, should a Democrat win back control of the Presidency, he/she could put an end to this madness. But now Presidents from both major political parties in the United States have decided that a “special” class of accused persons may be taken out of the normal American justice system and placed at the mercy of the executive branch, and only the executive branch, based on that accusation alone
    I mean, when he affirmed the Bush Administration’s position on the state secrets doctrine and habeas for people held in the war on terror overseas outside of Gitmo, at least he had to justify his position to a duly constituted Article III court, which is an independent branch of the government that he would (presumbly) obey should it order him to do something. Even his decision not to release the prisoner abuse photos will be reviewed by an Article III judge.
    Here he’s making up the rules on his own. He’s agreed with the Bush Administration and decided that a completely separate system of justice needs to be set up for “certain people”, and that such a system must be wholly within the control of the executive branch. What is it about these people that requires such a system of “justice”? What safeguards are in place so that my family, friends, and neighbors are not subject to this new system? How are we to ensure that this system does not grow to encompass certain “other people” that we just can’t try in the regular justice system for nebulous reasons?
    Sure his system sounds like it will be better than the completely kangaroo courts set up by the Bush Administration, but it still takes the fundamental step of changing the rules when the government decides it can’t win a case. And by doing so, by stamping this separate system with a “D” seal of approval, that once both parties have decided that this is an acceptable practice, I worry that there’s no going back, and that this thing will ultimately grow to pervert the American justice system that will make the perversions wrought by the War on Drugs look like nothing.
    I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I fear something terrible has happened.

  9. Good Lord, do we have to quite be so rigorous in our snark?
    Anyway, here‘s a recent Buchanan column comparing Demjanjuk to Dreyfus and his accusers to the Jews who killed Jesus.

  11. Also note that apparently the decision to set up a special system of justice for accused terrorists, all of whom happen to be muslim, will apparently not inflame the muslim world and endanger the troops. Feh.

  12. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I fear something terrible has happened.
    sounds to me like Obama either got a look at something that made him crap his pants and now he’s too afraid to do what he said he was going to do, or he drank a lot of National Security Koolaid and can’t tell right from wrong anymore.
    or, worst of all, maybe, he really was as much of a fake as his critics said he was.
    i gave him as much leeway as i could, but this week he’s walked right up to the line, and looks like he’s going to put a foot on the wrong side of it.
    not that HRC or McCain would’ve been any better. HRC would’ve started where Obama is now, and McCain .. bah.

  13. If I understand the situation correctly, military tribunals are appropriate for trials of enemy soldiers who have violated a law of war.
    Does that apply to these guys?
    What army are they part of?
    Is engaging in acts of terror against civilians a violation of the “laws of war”, or is it criminal activity?
    I think the issue with the Guantanamo folks is that they have been so abused and generally screwed with, for so long, that there is likely little to no evidence that could be presented against them in a US court of law.
    Everything has been tainted by the torture regime.
    I think the decision to go with military tribunals sucks, and my guess is that it’s the best Obama could do without either violating rules of evidence, or just letting guys like KSM walk.

  14. If I understand the situation correctly, military tribunals are appropriate for trials of enemy soldiers who have violated a law of war.
    I think it makes more sense on ever level to try these guys under the UCMJ rather than going with show-trials. No special trials or procedures, just use exactly what we use for our own soldiers and what we’d use for enemy soldiers captured in war. The fact that Obama didn’t go with that option suggests that there is just no serious evidence against some of the prisoners — if you can’t get a bunch of US military officers to convict “terrorists” when presented with prosecution-friendly UCMJ rules of evidence, than your case must really really suck.

  15. That is to say, during the Bush Administration we could hold out hope that, should a Democrat win back control of the Presidency, he/she could put an end to this madness.
    That was always pretty clearly a mistaken hope. A majority of Senate Democrats voted for the Iraq War. All but one of them voted for the USA PATRIOT Act. They refused to filibuster the Military Commissions Act, and a quarter of the caucus actually voted for it. Upon retaking Congress in 2006, Democrats neither defunded the war nor impeached the president.
    All signs indicated that Bush’s policies would be amended, not reversed.
    Perhaps now progressives will finally realize that voting for the lesser evil (and I should emphasize that I voted for Obama last November because he quite clearly was the lesser evil) is unlikely to produce progressive policies.

  16. Anyway, here’s a recent Buchanan column comparing Demjanjuk to Dreyfus and his accusers to the Jews who killed Jesus.
    Well, but in all fairness, there is considerable doubt about whether Demjanjuk is actually guilty of the charges. On the other hand, no one disputes that Yoo actually wrote those memos . . .

  17. I have enough trust in (most) German courts to believe that, if there is insufficient evidence, Mr.Demjanjuk will walk free. The same, if he really is too infirm to participate in the trial.

Comments are closed.