Even though this piece of treason will never get past Bush’s pen, it is still important for individuals to make their voices heard. The Center for Individual Freedom will do the work for you. They are requesting a donation to cover expenses but it’s money well-spent.The message came via a Town Hall email this morning and here’s their concern:
| The GOP-controlled Senate added an amendment to the $440-billion military spending bill that would extend to spies, terrorists, and Islamic jihadists the same rights U.S. citizens enjoy under the Constitution.In other words, our military interrogators can no longer question suspected suicide bombers and murderers of women and children without the ACLU looking over their shoulder -- ready to haul some poor enlisted man into court just because he yelled at a terrorist or hurt a terrorist’s feelings. | |
| If the Senate had done such a despicable thing during World War II, the American people would have stormed the Capitol, tarred and feathered all who voted for such treachery, and ridden them out of town on a rail. | |
| This evil, suicidal bill – if implemented – would expose Americans to the greatest danger in the history of our nation: The planting of explosives on our subways. Suicide bombers killing American women and children. Airline hijackings. Assassinations. |
Go here and have them send the faxes for you.
Meanwhile, we need to dig up our own Senators and politely ask them the same thing: are you planning to let this atrocity slide??
Sure do wish we could return to the days of Congressional sessions of only four months’ duration. Not that our public servants should be left to their own devices. The rest of the time they could go back to their states and serve, say, in soup kitchens. God only knows those churches could use a few more hands, even manicured senatorial mandarin hands.
This is disgusting.
9 comments:
I'm sorry but this story is simply not true. The amendment would certainly not "extend to spies, terrorists, and Islamic jihadists the same rights U.S. citizens enjoy under the Constitution"
If you are going to react to something please be accurate about it. Read about the legislation and not just on Townhall. You may still disagree with it (As I do), but it is not nearly as egregious as it appears in the Townhall misrepresentation. There are links on The Center for Individual Freedom website which give a much less hysterical view of this legislation; you can also try Googlenews.
It would actually be a lot more accurate to say it would give the prisoners the same protections (not rights) as POWs, although not formally (in other words, mandate that their treatment to be similar to that specified for POWs without legitimizing their status with respect to the Geneva Convention).
On this subject (and maybe only on this subject) I would not criticise McCain unduly. As a long-time POW who was treated as a criminal terrorist by his captors, he may be justifiably hyper-sensitive on the subject.
Of course McCaine was treated like a criminal by Vietnam because that's the way POWs are treated in their culture. He is starting from the misguided assumption that the terrorists (who don't belong to any nation) would actually treat our folks better because we treat their people better. Given how there is no respect for non-muslim minorities in Muslim countries, I see it likely they will still continue to treat our people they capture badly no matter what we do.
We cannot treat the detainees in the WoT a certain way simply because "they" treat us that way. We are better than that, and better than they are.
That being said, there are legitimate ways of getting information which may be uncomfortable, irritating, or whatever, but which DO NOT HARM THE PERSON. And these methods generally tend to work better, anyway.
For instance, the "infamous" picture of the man in the black hood standing on a box with wires attached to him. Now, time and time again it has been said that the wires really were not hooked to something. But it looks awful so there is an outcry.
I've got to say, making someone stand up for hours is uncomfortable, to say the least, but how can you call it inhumane when tens of thousands of people strike that pose for hours on a subway every day?
Is it awful because he had a hood on? How does disorienting someone violate their rights? There is no permanent harm. And this is not done to any guy just off the street - these are nasty, foul murderers and baby killing terrorists they need information from in order to stop the next wholesale slaughter of children trying to get candy!
In the end, endless restrictions on what can be done (and now female interrogators can't dress in a sexual manner, apparently because we can't even offend the eyes of detainees) in excess of an unfortunately legally vague Geneva only serve to make it that much harder to get the job done. Eventually we will be reduced to saying "Please" and when info is refused threatening to deny the banana split being served for dessert. Except that then the ACLU will step in and accuse us of depriving the detainee of his necessary caloric sustenance.
As long as Bush vetoes it, fine. I don't mind being reactive and wrong. Being wrong is less a problem for me than being unsafe.
I don't want terrorists to be treated as qualitatively the same as the rest of us. And that includes American citizen terrorists. They used to be called traitors.
As far as I'm concerned we're on a war footing. McCain's supersensitivity doesn't interest me here. The safety of our country does. If his past impairs his ability to put his country first, then he needs to be taking it easy somewhere, not making decisions on Capitol Hill.
I have no need to be above the fray. When all is said and done, I want to be safe. McCains' amendment to the military appropriations bill doesn't make me feel safe.
And Google News is biased in what it cuts out. Not as bad as the MSM, but definitely they've got a blue streak. When I want Muslim news, I go to the Arab and Indian sources, not Google.
____________
Bill, I disagree with you re Bush. I don't like his domestic spending, but re the Bush Doctrine, it'll be around for a long time to come.
There is a point in complaining about what you don't like, but it is vitiated if you take no action on your complaints.
You could start with joining the Club for Growth if you don't like your current legislators. They're taking effective action.
As for America becoming Islamic, I disagree. The multi-cultis don't have the grip here that they do in Europe.
Will we have problems? Yes.
Will we resolve them? The record so far says it's a good bet.
Your sarcasm and disrespect ("All talk, no balls") and dyspeptic negativity ("there is no hope for this government") are merely your flat declarations. They don't add information or expand the discussion.
Please back up your assertions with specific facts.
Gotta agree with Dymphna here. I don't believe the US will 'become Islamic'.
Nor do I agree with bill's assertions regarding Bush. His record of supporting his associates even when under slanderous and baseless attack from the other side of the fence speaks volumes otherwise, and that's not even considering the monumental determination necessary to take this nation to war in the face of international dissent/weakness.
Even if cato's response is correct, this ammendment will likely widen the lattitude lawyers have to declare illegal that treatment of prisoners such as those in Guantanamo Bay. After all, "degrading treatment" is pretty darn vague, and is just the sort of opening lawyers love using to tear down institutions.
Bill has his facts right and his fears are not unfounded or farfetched.
Mexicans are coming over the border already converted to Islam. They have a high birth rate just as muslims do. Texas
is already a Mexican Majority State.
Bush is not going to veto this ammendment.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
I guess the prerequisite for having balls is committing the mass extermination of a religion then? Or maybe we're just advocating the sequestering of a whole group of people to backwater nations. Lock them away in 3rd world nations to fester. Or perhaps we should instead somehow block their right in our country to preach the virtues of their religion while allowing that same right to other religions.
"To have balls, this president would declare Islam illegal and shut down every single mosque and religious center in this country."
Right. Let's just tear our Constitution to shreds. Let's burn our Bill of Rights. That's what a President with 'balls' should do. Freedom of religion? Yeah, it's great! But since we consider every religion that doesn't please us to be a cult, we can disregard that right for them. That's the moral and ethical thing to do all right. We'll definitely be able to stand on the moral high ground then, right?? What a sick joke.
From the sound of your 'specifics', that's what it all comes down to. No matter what percentage of Muslims are not involved in violent attacks or actions, all followers of the religion should be considered violent.
A few citizens of an Islamic nation kill a few thousand Americans. A (largely) Christian nation responds by killing a few tens of thousands of Muslims. Which is worse? And arguing motivations in that regard is irrelevant, the basic facts remain the same. Over the course of the conflict in Isreal, many times as many Muslims have been killed as have Jews. Over the more recent fighting between certain Islamic groups and our nation, FAR more Muslims have been killed than Christians. That's the bottom line when looked at objectively.
bill, just as you think me blinded by delusions, I think you are blinded by paranoia. Does the fact that there are an estimated 6 million Jews in America mean that they have some sinister Zionist plan to rule our country? I mean, Jewish families are having babies EVERY DAY!!! Good Lord!
This sort of thing is why I rarely participate in the comments section of this board. I'm far more frightened of a person who can write off an entire religion, believing it irredeemable, than I am of an Islamic takeover of this nation. But then, to me, one formal religion is little better or worse than another. Each has its positive and negative sub-groups.
There are only two ways Islam can 'take over' the United States. Either they must wildly out-reproduce us, or their religion must have a stronger appeal to the citizens of this nation than other religions. For the former, only our own weakness and unwillingness to reproduce will allow that to occur. For the latter, if it should come to pass, then more power to Islam. After all, we have freedom of religion in this country. If our citizens deside Islam is the religion they want, then they have every right to make that choice.
Christians were persecuted for centuries, and it only resulted in a stronger, more determined Christian faith. It's arrogant and foolish to imagine for a moment that it would be any different for Islam.
As I have for the last few months, I now take my leave of you again. I hope one day I'll take a look back in here, and the core readership will have ideas for solving this problem that don't require the dissolution of our nation's founding principles to accomplish.
Papa ray said--
"Bill has his facts right and his fears are not unfounded or farfetched.
Mexicans are coming over the border already converted to Islam. They have a high birth rate just as muslims do. Texas
is already a Mexican Majority State."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Although somewhat OT, I would like to add my two cents worth here. We lived in Arizona for several years, including September, 2001.
Very soon after 9/11, our local news coverage went to the capital of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. Sonora Mexico runs along the Arizona/New Mexico border. Large numbers of muslims in Hermosillo were interviewed about the attack on 9/11.
Hermosillo isn't a large city and I wondered why there were so many Muslims in such an unlikely place as Hermosillo.
If you have read Steve Emerson's "American Jihad" you know that there was/is a large presence of terrorists groups and supporters, such as Hamas and Al Qaeda in Arizona, many in Tucson.(60 miles from the US/Mexico border). This goes back to the 1980's.
The Tucson, Arizona sector has the largest number of illegal alien border crossers in the nation, with thousands crossing there weekly.
There is currently a large movement of Latinos (Mexicans/Mexican Ameicans) who think the southwestern US belongs to Mexico. The brown berets of the 70's has been revitalized and radicalized to demand the United States return to Mexico the southwestern US that they feel is rightfully theirs.
You can readily see how radical Islam could/has fueled this idea and the hatred for America stemming from it.
Combine that with the steady stream of thousands of illegal border crossers, many of them from Middle-eastern countries, and you begin to understand the problem.
Does anyone see a pattern here? Or am I just paranoid? To paraphrase Kurt Cobain, "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you."
****Hermosillo Sonora Mexico had a population of just under 690,000 people as of 2004.
Interesting links about US/terrorist border issues:
Arizona: a 'Terrorist Corridor?
Desert Invasion - U.S
Post a Comment
All comments are subject to pre-approval by blog admins.
Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. For more information, click here.
Users are asked to limit each comment to about 500 words. If you need to say more, leave a link to your own blog.
Also: long or off-topic comments may be posted on news feed threads.
To add a link in a comment, use this format:
<a href="http://mywebsite.com">My Title</a>
Please do not paste long URLs!
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.