Are we taking terrorism seriously?

[Warron]

Way to many differences in our opinions for me to address in one post, so I will just start with one that particularly caught my attention.

"American citizens have nothing to worry about unless they decide to engage in terrorism against the United States."

I'm sure Japanese Americans thought they had nothing to worry about after pearl harbor unless they engaged in some illegal activity against the US, but that unfortunately isn't the way it turned out.

I'm also sure that non violent communist and non communists alike in the US during Senator Joseph McCarthy's reign of terror though they had nothing to worry about since they were not violating any laws, but that didn't stop careers from being ruined by simple unsubstantiated accusations or association with an accused person.

These are only two of many, many examples that show people do have something to worry about when mass fear and unproven accusations are the only evidence of a crime. The single, biggest concern that I have over the current treatment of accused terrorists is the unwillingness of our executive branch to come forward and prove their accusations and submit them to judicial review. Your mention of military tribunals even starts to loose meaning considering the Bush administration’s current statement that they have no interest in ever trying some of the detainees. I would like to believe that the government does have overwhelming evidence against every person they currently have in custody, but until they come out and prove it, I am not willing to accept their claims.

Personally, I am very glad that heads are starting to cool over the 9/11 attack. Actions taken in the heat of the moment only cause more problems down the road.

[BudoPo]

Good points, and I agree totally. If you allow things to happen to one group of people, then it won't be long before it happens to your group.

What I found very troubling was a news conference about Jose Padillo, the latest U.S. citizen suspected of treason. They said that they had no plans yet to charge him with a crime, which I found silly, since then they'd have to release him within 48 hours. But they apparently decided to circumvent the constitution, and he's still being held without having been charged with a crime.

Granted the guy is scum, but an executive branch that ignores the Constitution is pretty scary.

[trevor]

Arguments to my opinion are not totally without merit, but both of the last responses are implicit slippery slope arguments. The idea that all Americans will eventually suffer because we're holding an American suspected of terrorist activity is unfounded.

Terrorists, whether American or otherwise, are much more like spies or military infiltrators out of uniform, whom other countries have summarily executed for centuries. "Rights" are not something to be plucked out of thin air -- they apply to those who play by the rules outlined under particular conventions. Enemy combatants, i.e. terrorists, have no intention of playing by any rules established by those who intend for others to follow them.

The Bush Administration is setting a precedent that could become dangerous only inasmuch that an administration lacking Bush's ethical and moral servitude could look at this confusing method of detention and apply it in immoral ways to otherwise innocent civilians...in this regard, I agree with you both that these decisions must be agreed to and implemented at the end of the day by Congress. We need new laws that would allow us to clearly indentify what we will do when dealing with terrorists in the coming decades. But for now, there is no sense pretending that there are any easy decisions being arrived at by the present administration when dealing with this new threat.

A couple points: in reference to the Japanese Americans that were detained during WWII. Not only was this roundup done by FDR, a Democratic president, but it has since not accounted for any reduction in rights afforded any American since. If ever there were an event that could threaten universal rights, it was this. Further, while all this was going on, Japanese Americans were coming forward in droves to volunteer in the fight agains the Axis powers ... they were not doing what the five Arab Americans today are doing who are showing no American pride whatsoever and suing airlines for supposed "profiling".

At the heart of the issue seems to be your fear that the US will slide right down the slippery slope to tyranny because we've detained "suspected" terrorists. That sheer assumption alone is ridiculous. The American people would never stand to live under totalitarian rule. Do you know any American who would ever allow himself to be dictated to? (!)

If Bush or anyone else were ever to start implementing martial law, the American system would snap them in two. Senators would start resigning and officials would refuse to cooperate. With all the commotion last week over the anniversary of the "massive" abuses of power Nixon claimed, people still refuse to discuss the fact that he RESIGNED. And ours is the country that even impeached Clinton!! As Jonah Goldberg has stated, it is sheer folly to believe that Americans would just fall over for a Hilter in a heartbeat.

In sum, I'm glad to know that the current administration isn't "cooling their heads" after 9-11. What an absurd statement... will you think the same thing after your guts are blown around Union Station next month by some of the same murderers that are presently romping around Israel? We face a danger unbeknownst to manking previously, at least here at home, and it's only going to get worse. You said it yourselves...Padilla and his buddies are scumbags. They deserve to be treated as such. Theories about unlawfulness and corruption are great -- it just seems we never get to experience the theory b/c reality takes over for it. And right now, the reality in this country is what matters...I'm not worried about some grand theoretical predictions in a term paper suffocating me quite as much as a nuclear attack on DC -- and neither should you.

TB

I too find it absurd that Jose Padillo is being held without being charged with a crime. He should have had a bullet in his head long before now.

My solution for terrorism: Rebuild the twin towers, march convicted terrorists up the stairs to the 110th floor and throw them off the building, after of course covering them in pig blood or whatever else their religion says will cause them to go to hell.

It may not be constitutional, but we would probably only have to do it a few times before the terrorism stopped. Problem solved.

[Tonio]

in reference to the Japanese Americans that were detained during WWII. Not only was this roundup done by FDR, a Democratic president, but it has since not accounted for any reduction in rights afforded any American since. If ever there were an event that could threaten universal rights, it was this. Further, while all this was going on, Japanese Americans were coming forward in droves to volunteer in the fight agains the Axis powers

I thought the justification for the camps was the fear that Japanese Americans would rise up and attack America from within. I never understood why the government thought the Japanese would do this and not the Germans and Italians. Anyway, since Japanese Americans volunteered in droves to defend this country, didn't that disprove the government's argument?

[Warron]

Here's a good article on this subject I came across.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,56116,00.html

I think the last paragraph says it all.

"Personal liberties in a free society are rarely diminished overnight. Rather, they are lost gradually, by the acts of well-meaning people, with good intentions, amid public approval. But the subtle loss of freedom is never recognized until the crisis is over and we look back in horror. And then it is too late."

[trevor]

I respect the opinions of everyone who takes the time to read my articles, especially considering the severity of the crisis we're facing. And let me also be the first to say that it is refreshing to engage in intelligent debate and discourse on a topic rather than having to read the all-too-prevalent statements we often read in these forums such as, "You're just stupid".

What is interesting to me is that so many people are worried about our rights being eliminated over time, as Warron's last comment pointed out. But where are all the people complaining about the much more severe everyday issues such as our schools not being able to celebrate American holidays such as Christmas and Mother's Day -- or saying the Pledge of Allegiance in schools? Or communities that make latent laws progressively lowering drinking ages or even allowing neighbors to sue one another if they smell cigarette smoke waft over a fence? Or enforcing gun control to the point that the only people who will be protected by guns are the criminals themselves? How about the world of academia that is so far left that a known fundraiser for the Hamas movement was the keynote commencement speaker at Harvard two weeks ago? Or the so-called "feminists", the graying bra-burners of the 60's, who are so hypocritical in their "fights" that they demonize the working women of today who are independent enough to actually choose to forgo a career to go back into their home and raise their children (the same ones who refused to take the side of a Monica Lewinsky or Linda Tripp, women who have actually been taken advantage of by men on power trips in this country)?

Everything today is about supporting "the cause", regardless of how many we have to scapegoat or undermine to do so. Rarely do we find groups that fight for the rights of everyone; indeed, those who get the most respect among many bureaucrats and those in academia are the very groups that exploit their own bigotry in their efforts to condemn those they disagree with.

I said yesterday that instead of raking over the coals of the past we should revisit our laws and decide how to more appropriately deal with this new terrorism. And while any abuse of power can be detrimental to society, I can assure you the decisions the Bush administration are making with regard to alleged terrorists will be much less damaging than all the PC garbage that has continued even after such a devastating (supposed) reality check as 9-11.

We do not need to worry about corruption at the executive level of government nearly as much as we do as at the executive levels of our state and local governments. Everyday people in our communities are feeling the wrath of liberal bureaucrats every day as they seek to destroy many traditions we've held dear for years, desensitizing us all to any differences among us. That was also once a trait that our country held dear.

[Christy]

Ya'll are just stupid!!! ;) (sorry couldn't resist Trevor). But anyway....

I thought the justification for the camps was the fear that Japanese Americans would rise up and attack America from within. I never understood why the government thought the Japanese would do this and not the Germans and Italians.

Well it was Japan who had the nads to bomb Pearl Harbor, not the Germans or the Italians. It's very easy to look back in hindsight to find flaws in judgements that are/were made during War time. One of our bad moves was to park all of our aircraft in the middle of the airstrip wing tip to wing tip, wide open for Japanese bombs. The reason this was done was because there was more fear of sabotage than bombing. It was a more likely scenario. I mean, who'd have really expected to be bombed by the Japanese before it happened. Same goes for the twin towers.

What gets my panties in a bunch is everyone and their brother screaming that the Intelligence Agencies had information that could have alerted us all to what was going to happen. They had a couple of phone conversations that said "tomorrow is day zero". Yeah I'd have seen right then and there a bunch of terrorists were going to run a couple planes into our buildings. Jeesh!

What gets them in a bunch even more is members of Congress leaking intelligence information like a sieve! Whatever moron it was that leaked the exact translation of the above message just shut down a possibly valuable source of Intelligence collection. "Hey Mohammed, I think they may be tapping our phone line". Dorks!

Which brings me to my point on being all for holding these folks down in GITMO for the duration as unlawful comabatants. I don't think anyone has a clue of how much "sensitive information" was brought out during the trial of the first group of terrorists that bombed the World Trade Center. All the "overwhelming evidence" we had to produce to prosecute these folks revealed their leaks, which got closed quickly due to freedom of the press.

So then we're back to that vicious circle of pointing fingers at the Intelligence folks for not knowing what the terrorists are up to.

I'm finished (stepping off the soap box)

[Kyle (Premo)]

Originally posted by Christy
...What gets them in a bunch even more is members of Congress leaking intelligence information like a sieve! Whatever moron it was that leaked the exact translation of the above message just shut down a possibly valuable source of Intelligence collection. "Hey Mohammed, I think they may be tapping our phone line". Dorks!...

And what's priceless is Tom Daschle complaining continuously that the Bush administration isn't telling them anything!

Gee! I wonder why? Un-F---ing-believable!

[BudoPo]

Originally posted by trevor
And let me also be the first to say that it is refreshing to engage in intelligent debate and discourse on a topic rather than having to read the all-too-prevalent statements we often read in these forums such as, "You're just stupid".

I can't agree more! But, back to the point of this thread, if we allow some of our rights to be overlooked, then what's the use of having a bill of rights? The slippery slope argument is a doomsday type of view, but it does have merit. Courts are so concerned about citing precendence, that if someone (using this case as an example) was once held for a month without being charged with a crime, then a court may find it acceptable to do the same in some other completely unrelated case. True, it's not likely that rights will be violated on a large scale (it has happened on small scales), but the principle of rights must be upheld. If not, then the constitution is meaningless.

But where are all the people complaining about the much more severe everyday issues such as our schools not being able to celebrate American holidays such as Christmas and Mother's Day

Minor correction here, Trevor: Christmas is a Christian holiday, not an American one. And I agree that many people just go way overboard with these things. Like expelling a student for taking aspirin because there's a zero tolerance for drugs in the school, or suing McDonalds when the coffee you put between your legs as you drove away spilled and you got burned. It reminds me of a Far Side cartoon, where God was in his lab, making the Earth. He took a jar labeled "Jerks" and started sprinkling them on, saying "Just to make things interesting".