| To: Michael Watkins who wrote (148837) | 10/24/2004 11:57:17 AM | | From: Neocon | | | | The point of bringing up his assets from over twenty years ago is to demonstrate that he was not from "money" at all, although he did have pedigree.
You are right, he was the Director of the CIA by the time Dubya married Laura. But when Dubya was growing up, he was mostly a minor businessman and politico. Dubya lived in a modest house and went to public schools, until he was old enough to "prep". In other words, Dubya was not raised in a particularly privileged manner. |
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| To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (148836) | 10/24/2004 12:08:22 PM | | From: Michael Watkins | | | | Personally, after the way France and Germany have been conducting their foreign policy (purely for cash, it seems), I don't think they are in any position to appoint themselves moral arbiters.
Substitute the USA for France and Germany and repeat that same sentence.
Lets not be so arrogant to assume that the wealthiest nation on the planet is not motivated by money from time to time. |
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| To: jttmab who wrote (148809) | 10/24/2004 12:10:07 PM | | From: Michael Watkins | | | | The attacks from the three heavyweights of the Thatcher and Major administrations go beyond the official position of Michael Howard's current Conservative front bench. All three opposed the decision to go to war last year.
Nadine seems to forget that fellow conservatives in Britain opposed going to war with Iraq. |
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| To: Michael Watkins who wrote (148843) | 10/24/2004 12:13:14 PM | | From: Nadine Carroll | | | | Lets not be so arrogant to assume that the wealthiest nation on the planet is not motivated by money from time to time.
From time to time, sure. But France runs its foreign policy purely for cash. Who sold Saddam his nuclear reactors? Whose government was on the take from Saddam's Oil-for-Food scam and stood to gain billions the day Iraqi sanctions were lifted?
Coaltion troops have found French missiles in Iraq. With a datestamp of 2002 on them. |
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| To: Michael Watkins who wrote (148843) | 10/24/2004 12:20:44 PM | | From: Neocon | | | | | I would hope that the United States is motivated by financial considerations from time to time, for example, in pursuing the long term benefits of free trade. But it is demonstrable that we are not purely motivated by cash, or we would not still be subsidizing the defense of Europe through NATO, or threatening to defend Taiwan if the PRC tries to invade. |
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| To: jttmab who wrote (148815) | 10/24/2004 12:23:41 PM | | From: Michael Watkins | | | | I don't expect any pro-Bush folks to reply to your post because they see nothing wrong with contravening Geneva conventions.
Apparently setting up any ol' arbitrary system of justice is just fine when we do it, but abhorrent when someone else does.
Adding to the Washington Post article:
nytimes.com
After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law
October 24, 2004
By TIM GOLDEN
New York Times
WASHINGTON - In early November 2001, with Americans still staggered by the Sept. 11 attacks, a small group of White House officials worked in great secrecy to devise a new system of justice for the new war they had declared on terrorism.
Determined to deal aggressively with the terrorists they expected to capture, the officials bypassed the federal courts and their constitutional guarantees, giving the military the authority to detain foreign suspects indefinitely and prosecute them in tribunals not used since World War II.
White House officials said their use of extraordinary powers would allow the Pentagon to collect crucial intelligence and mete out swift, unmerciful justice. "We think it guarantees that we'll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve," said Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a driving force behind the policy.
MW: Many people will exclaim "damn straight! stick it to em!" but bear with the article and read it in full.
But three years later, not a single terrorist has been prosecuted. Of the roughly 560 men being held at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, only 4 have been formally charged.
"We've cleared whole forests of paper developing procedures for these tribunals, and no one has been tried yet," said Richard L. Shiffrin, who worked on the issue as the Pentagon's deputy general counsel for intelligence matters. "They just ended up in this Kafkaesque sort of purgatory."
The strategy became a source of sharp conflict within the Bush administration, eventually pitting the highest-profile cabinet secretaries - including Ms. Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld - against one another over issues of due process, intelligence-gathering and international law.
Military lawyers were largely excluded from that process in the days after Sept. 11. They have since waged a long struggle to ensure that terrorist prosecutions meet what they say are basic standards of fairness. Uniformed lawyers now assigned to defend Guantánamo detainees have become among the most forceful critics of the Pentagon's own system.
Full story:
nytimes.com |
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| To: Bill who wrote (148848) | 10/24/2004 12:32:17 PM | | From: Neocon | | | | | You are talking at cross purposes. Tom C. and Watkins were referring to his father, who was Director of the CIA when they were married. |
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