Patrick, you don’t mind giving up a few rights? Good. Each of us, including you (when you were still an American) assumes the right to “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Glad to know you’re willing to sacrifice. I get to pick which one of yours I’ll eliminate.

Move to Russia while you still can you worthless little toady.

You slimey puke trolls can all go f*ck yourselves.

You also said: “Come on libs, what are a few civil liberties when lives are at stake? If we can save one American life by being inconvenienced it’s worth it.” Ben Frankiln said “Those who would sacrifice a little essential liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither. My god, what ever happened to “Give me liberty of give me death!” Has the land of the free and the home of the brave become the “country of cowards??!!”

My God, nanlichi, you would rather live in a dictatorship than bravely face the inherent risks of freedom. Not me! Not my country!

Comment by nanlichi — May 16, 2007 @ 1:42 pm

My apologies. I neglected to read the last sentence in your original post.

Yes Exley, selective + dishonest indeed.
Pot. Kettle. Nice selective (and dishonest) editing of intelligence to support the invasion of Iraq. Once again exley, you nitpick and fuss about every
detail of articles on a liberal BLOG yet dont seem to hold the people you support to those same standards when it comes to starting WARS. Its a question of magnitude, something you dont seem to grasp. Somehow, in your mind, liberals who use vaugely missleading headlines in thier blogs have no right to criticize people who go to war based on grossly misleading (to the point of falsity, I would argue) intelligence.

Personally, I say fight fire with fire. Tell you what, when your side stops manipulating and twisting words and trying to hide and redact documents and stops experiencing grossly selective memory loss, we’ll start having some sympathy for your nitpicking. Your like someone rooting for a guy who pulls out a gun during a boxing match, who then complains because his opponent later pulls out a knife. Once you get some people in office who start playing fair, we will too.….

Exley, while I congratulate you on having a functioning central nervous system, which is something most of your fellow flaghumpers here lack, I really suggest you get some sort of hobby that doesnt revolve around being a nitpicking, absurdly literal apologist for DUmbya. Fact is, it doesnt matter whether some certain law allows for the indefinite detention of american citizens or not. Bush is going to make some crap up and do it anyway, just like he did with Padilla. Bush has been asked point blank “do you think theres anything the president can’t do if he thinks its necessary” and he didnt have an answer. The implication: “a president can do whatever he wants as long as this secret war which has no cognizable end is going on”

By the way, the only reason Padilla ISNT currently being held as an enemy combatant is because the administrations plan to get Supreme Court precedent on thier side regarding the issue of indefinite detention of American citizens backfired on them in Hamdi. Padilla was a handpicked test case, something the government has a unique ability to do for criminal statutes. He was supposed to be an anti-rosa parks… the sleazy, scary looking guy with a sordid murderous history whose alleged “facts” and “background” would pave the way for precedent that allowed decidedly less scary (and non-violent) american troublemakers to be jailed.

But thank heavens, it didnt work, the judicial branch actually called them out on this BS, so theres no reason you should be using Padillas’ current lack of “enemy combatant” status as an argument for ANYTHING your asserting. If it was up to the bush administration, he’d still be held without trial and there would be supreme court precedent justifying not only that detention, but also any future detention of ANY american citizen based on the word of the allegedly infallible fact finder known as the president.

> You have lost the right to plot with people to commit mass murder.

ok Patrick, I’m going to go out on a limb here. Now I know in your mind this administration is the pinnacle of honestly and forthrightness, but you dont think, somewhere down the line, that perphaps some president less moral than this one will come along and use his powers to spy on non-violent political opponents? Its never been done before, has it?

> If you’re not plotting to bomb someone, you’ve got nothing to fear.

Right, Martin Luther King Jr had nothing to fear right? Except that domestic surveillence of his extramarital affair would be used to blackmail and embarass him…

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/liberties/2006/0228domesticspying.htm

“FBI agents even went so far as to send King a letter, complete with audiotapes of an alleged extramarital affair taken from a bugged hotel room, suggesting that he kill himself in order to avoid public embarrassment. In light of Congressional investigations that uncovered an FBI plan to promote somebody “to assume the role of leadership of the Negro people when King has been completely discredited,” one must wonder how much the bureau’s impatience with King’s continued popularity might have contributed to his untimely death. The man responsible for “neutralizing” King summed up his experience: “No holds were barred. We have used (similar) techniques against Soviet agents. (The same methods were) brought home against any organization against which we were targeted. We did not differentiate. This is a rough, tough business.” ”

This whole “war on terror” thing will never end, theres no way you can prevent more terrorists from being created, there is no possible way you can be 100 sure nothing like 9-11 will never happen again. Never. This is crap straight from Orwell, and heres me and all us lefties giving the finger to all you double plus good m@therfucking reichstag brownshirts who want to surrender our privacy just because some brown people might, maybe, possibly be plotting against you somewhere. 9-11 was the best thing that ever happened to you and the people you support. frankly, 3000 isnt that many people compared to the yearly death toll in america, and i am horribly frightened that someday, some other fascists will come to power and “accidentally” let another attack slip by on their watch, making things like Patriot II a reality. I used to think things like 1984 were fantasy, but the past 7 years has sadly shown it is not.

Barfly is incorrect that Quirin has not been cited anytime between FDR and Bush II. I have now provided two such cases.

“And we have held in the Quirin and Yamashita cases, that the Military Commission is a lawful tribunal to adjudge enemy offenses against the laws of war.”

I’d gladly discuss this later, but alas, now a steady fax of prescriptions are upon me.

Ciao

Not one.

I am really not sure how often I can repeat this and what additional documentation I can provide. The MCA expressly states that only alien unlawful enemy combatants are subject to military commission trials under that chapter.

You really should read those opinions, Barfly.

Comment by Exley — May 16, 2007

As I amended, Bush is the only other one to use Quirin as justification.

Could you cite another instance (pre-Bush2, post-FDR) of an American president using Quirin as precedent?

Just one will do.

I’m sure during Vietnam there must have been a case that cited Quirin, right? We held thousands of prisoners during that war, so Quirin must have been cited, over and over again, correct?

Completely incorrect, Barfly. Quirin has been and continues to be cited by the courts, including the Supreme Court, as good law. It is cited with approval in Hamdan and Hamdi.

You really should read those opinions, Barfly.

Comment by barfly — May 16, 2007 @ 2:21 pm

Thank you. That’s kinda what I thought. And it appears to me that, yes, a United States citizen can be tried under the MCA of 2006:

established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense that a person is an unlawful enemy combatant is dispositive for purposes of jurisdiction for trial by military commission

Dispositive – involving or affecting disposition or settlement: a dispositive clue in a case of embezzlement.

So it would be, a “finding” (one that involves or affects disposition), whereby a person is an unlawful enemy combatant is [held to be] “dispositive” for purposes of jurisdiction for trial by military commission under this chapter.

“Dispositive” modifies “finding.” Or, a finding that actively decides the issue, one way or the other, to properly establish jurisdiction.

I think it means a test case, to establish jurisdictional issues?

Because that’s how long it took for the Commander-In-Chief to tire of the duties…

“Prezdentin’s hard work…heheh…keeps me busy…heheh…got lots a brush to clear, gotta go…”