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The hating of the other party.  I mean, it's people on both sides.  The Far Left hates the Far Right and vice versa.  And they both hate the moderates...and vice versa.  C'mon where's the love?

But seriously, the rhetoric has gotten somewhat out of control.  At some point you hope it's ratcheted down, but that's hard to see given the cable news networks ever growing hunger for the soundbite.  

doesn't mean you have to give him one.

At some point you hope it's ratcheted down, but that's hard to see given the cable news networks ever growing hunger for the soundbite.  

If it's the wrong thing to say, then don't say it. Adults--especially ones in a leadership position--are accountable for what they say.

Forgive me, but I find your "The Devil Cable Network Made Me Do It" excuse for Dick Durbin (if that's what you indeed intended) a bit lame.

I know that is hard to fathom after the right spent eight years spending so much time and effort investing in visceral personal hatred of Bill Clinton, but we don't hate George Bush.

As a person, he reminds me of too many people I knew in college, a spoiled rich kid who was outgoing and everybody's friend because he threw daddy's money around and knew how to party.  But you knew that even though he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box he was basically an okay guy and he was going to do well because he had connections and was good at b.s.'ing his way out of trouble.  

No, what we hate is what he has done to this country's standing in the world and its status as a champion of human rights.  No matter how much he talks about the rule of law and promoting democracy it is hard to take him seriously when he also claims the right to ignore the Geneva Conventions; apprehend anyone, anywhere in the world and hold them incommunicado in secret locations without any access to any legal process at all; hold American citizens arrested in this country for three years without charges and almost no access to a lawyer; approves memos, later withdrawn but never replaced with a new definition, that define torture so narrowly as to be almost meaningless; and render people to countries where you know, or should know, they are going to be tortured.

I posited that this is not a case of "the public gets what the Democrat public wants," as in Durbin and the others are feeding the public what they want to hear.

Rather,the Democrat public has been trained to want this.  They were taught that such rhetoric is what makes them right, proves that they are greater than the other side.

The public wants what the public gets.

It is a powerful and dangerous dynamic.

"The Far Left hates the Far Right and vice versa."  True.  My main worry is now seeing the head of the DNC and the #2 Democratic Senator joining the "far left" in its hatred.  When Bush or Mehlman starts saying that all Dems are evil and braindead, we can really bemoan the bipartisan decline.  Until then, it is now the far left, the far right, and the Democratic leadership who espouse hatred.  That company should wake them up, but it doesn't look likely.

"We", I'm talking about. Clearly at least some of your leading lights do, in fact, hate George Bush.

Perhaps you meant to say "I".

during the recent outrage over his remarks

Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Presbyterians called Bush Hitler?

Dick Durbin didn't compare Gitmo to a concentration camp, call Bush a Nazi or any of the other bovine excrement currently flying around.  He said that the actions he heard described were the sort of evil behavior from Nazis or Communists, and that he expected better from the US.  

And he's right.  If, five years ago, you heard that description you would never have expected that it would have been a description of actions taken by the US.  You would have thought the description was one of the lesser evils that were brought about by the Nazis or Stalanists.  That's the point.

You are parsing this stuff far beyond what the average person out there is going to do. The headline on the paper this morning is Gitmo called death camp. The subhead is Durbin draws parallels to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot.

Let me buy you a vowel. This is not what people in the United States think about their military, George Bush, or anyone in the chain of command. On the face of it, this rhetoric is so over-the-top that it suggests whoever said it is nuts.

Americans do not want their soldiers compared to Nazis. They do not think the President is Pol Pot. Increasingly what they think is that the Democrats are going crazy right in front of our eyes.

One day it's Republicans don't make honest livings, the next day Bush is Hitler, the day after that the Marines are all a bunch of Nazis.

I'm sorry, it's just not believeable. Maybe you believe it. But I guarantee you that the average Joe and Mary out there are absolutely disgusted that American lawmakers and politicians are saying stuff like this in public.

Let the Kossacks and the MoveOns cheer that Democrats are finally getting tough, but my take is that I'm watching a political party consume itself in its own flames.

Maybe I'm nuts and you're right. We'll see. It'll all be over soon enough. They've already used Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Who's left? Mao? Vlad the Impaler? Then what? Once you've ratcheted your rhetoric up to this level, where do you go from here?

You guys are telling the American people that their kids are Nazis, and that they just voted to re-elect Stalin. And this after telling half of them that they're brain dead and and don't make honest livings.

This is not how you win friends and influence people. I'm all for Democrats losing elections, but we do need two viable political parties. Even I do not want to see the Democratic Party disappear. But I don't see how else this can end. The American people do not want a political party that trashes the country, its military, its President, its people, and the Christian religion. But that's what we have.

I don't think we'll have it much longer.

The headline on the paper this morning is Gitmo called death camp

Yes.  And that paper would be the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's conservative rag, the Washington Times.

That headline is a lie.  And, it is only one of the many reasons why I find the claim that misleading, vitriolic, partisan hyperbole is vended only by the Democrats to be a laughable steaming pile of dung.  You can sell that line here on RS, but out in the big world folks know better.

Regarding the parsing skills of ordinary Americans, I feel fairly confident that, in the end, they will be able to discern the wheat from the chaff.

Cheers -

As Amos already pointed out the "Gitmo called Death Camp" headline is, in fact, a lie from the conservative media.  I can't help it if your own side chooses to portray a sane and reasonable statement as insanity.  Your side is trying to feed the American people the lie that the Democrats are insane and calling soldiers Nazis.  At this point I don't think its possible for any Democrat to say anything that will not be lied about by the conservative media.

As for "The American people do not want a political party that trashes the country, its military, its President" your side didn't seem to think that way when Clinton was in office, so all your "oh those horrible people irrationally hate Bush" stuff sounds pretty hollow.  The Republicans were busy trashing our country, its military, and its President for eight solid years.  By comparison the Democrats of today are total whimps.

When we have several hundred radio stations dedicated to Limbaughish and Coulteresque anti-Bush vitriol, when Bush has been impeached for no reason, when slimey "religious figures" have made money selling videos claiming that Bush has his political opponents killed, when Democrats get to spend $70+ million on a fishing expidition to find anti-Bush dirt, when all that has happend we'll be even.  Until then you have no cause to complain at all.

As for your specifics, I do not see the pattern you see because the pattern you see does not exist.  No Democratic politician has called Bush Hitler, no Democratic politician has called US soldiers Nazis.  The conservative media has made these claims, but those claims are lies.

So, yeah, if we take the Moonie Times, the Wordnet Daily, and Fox News as accurately depicting reality then the Democratic party has jumped the shark.  But they aren't accurate depictions of reality, they are spewing forth constant and unwavering lies.  Durbin did not call Gitmo a death camp, he did not call US soldiers Nazis, and he did not call Bush Hitler.  Welcome to the real world; its somewhat different from what Fox News shows.  I think that most Americans are smart enough to realize that the conservative media is lying to them, and the poll numbers seem to validate me on that.  

Also, you still haven't addressed the central point: If, five years ago, you had read the same description that Durbin read would you have thought it was a description of actions taken by the USA, or would you have thought it was one of the lesser evils of Hitler, Stalin, etc?  I hope you have the moral courage to give an honest answer to that question.

Yeah.  Wake me up when the anti-Bush rhetoric reaches even half of the level the anti-Clinton rhetoric did.  Until then all you're doing is proving that Republicans are whimps who can dish it out, but they can't take it.

When, exactly, has any of the upper level Democrats said that all Republicans are evil or braindead?

Dean said, accurately, that the Republicans were a white Christian party.  Horrors.  Of course, Dean's statement is completely and utterly true.  The fact that a large segment of the Republican party kowtows to Dobson and other dominationists is pretty hard to ignore.

As for hatred, I haven't seen anything comperable to the Republican hatred of the Clintons.  I see, on one side Ann Coulter calling Democrats traitors, Rush Limbaugh calling liberals Nazis, and on the other side I see Michal Moore saying "Bush lied to get the US into Iraq."  And what do you know, the Downing Street Transcript prooves that yes Bush did lie to get the US into Iraq.  

Yup, that's horrible viscrial hatred that's worse than the hatred that came from the Right during the Clinton years.  On whatever planet the Wordnet Daily people live on anyway, on planet Earth it isn't.

I'm sorry, Nick, but this is a straw man.  If you read Durbin's comments (rather than a headline in a newspaper -- sometimes they get things wrong, y'know), you'll see that Durbin did not equate Gitmo with a death camp or our soldiers with Nazis.  Nor did he, per Amnesty International, call Gitmo the "gulag of our times."  What he did do is read from the following first-hand account of an FBI agent:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report: On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold.... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

He then made this remark:

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Now, this last paragraph isn't what I would have said.  (Indeed, I probably would have turned to the weirdness of having endless discussions on today's Gitmo menu, rather than the first hand report of an FBI agent regarding the actual treatment of detainees.)   But it is well within the range of legitimate rhetoric, and it does not deserve the firestorm it provoked.

I have just read the FBI report that Durbin was referring to and I think that his statement was an over-reach of rather serious stature.  What was the extent of the torture employed: being chained to the floor with either too much air conditioning or too little?  Urinating oneself?  Loud rap music being blared?

Keep in mind that we are talking about terrorists here.  Do you honestly think that this is comparable to Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot?  Do you think gas chambers, Siberia, and the death of millions is comparable to rough treatment in a detention camp?  Do you think the victims of the Gulags think these two systems are comparable?  Is this the stuff of Lubyanka, treblinka, and the killing fields?

You can parse semantics all you want, Durbin was clearly using those terms for rhetorical effect just like Amnesty International.  The larger accusation was implcit.  The problem is that this waters down the true meaning of those events.  It insults the victims of those terrors.  And that is offensive.

Read that last paragraph again. What riled me up was the lack of historical perspective, here. In point of fact, the reality that the prisoners of Gitmo were forced to suffer some discomfort is really not something that you would expect would be done in Auschwitz, or the Gulags. Pol Pot really doesn't belong in the list, since he didn't bother to intern his own people so much as to just mass murder them, but I digress.

What you would expect to find in Auschwitz, or in the Gulags, was people being tortured literally to death - being gassed, burned alive, forced marches in sub-zero temperatures with little or no clothes, subjected to electric shock to the genitals, starvation and emaciation (rather than gaining an average of 18 pounds). The fact that the prisoners are getting hot and/or cold, and soiling themselves is positively laughable in comparison to the horrors of the three regimes that he mentioned.

Now, where this does insult those who are guarding the prisoners, is that most American people who are not Dick Durbin remember what the holocaust camps and gulags wre supposed to be like. And for him to say that "we" are treating our prisoners that way is a slap in the face to all those who are doing the guarding.

Come on kholtsberry, answer the question: if you'd read that description 5 years ago would you have thought it was describing actions taken by the USA, or some of the lesser actions taken by one of the various evil regimes?  Its an easy question so why are you so afraid to answer it?

I would have thought so. Then again, I would have thought it happened in all sorts of countries, in all sorts of times, including our own.

Had you told me that it was happening at an incarceration camp for terrorists, I would have regarded it as kinda mild, really -- terrorists are like pirates under international law. We historically, as a world, do really nasty things to them. If you told me that the Nazis or the Soviets had only done this to suspected terrorists, I would have believed it was pro-tyrant agitprop.

This is not torture. It is assuredly not remotely on the level of what the Soviets and Nazis did, even when they were playing nice.

We can argue about what Durbin said.  No problem with that.  But this trivializing of SOME of the offenses that have been brought upon these detainees is JUST AS UNREASONABLE.

Would it be better if he said Pinochet's Chile? He could compare the torture ships to Gitmo being a legal island.

Durbin used the Gulags and Nazis because they are EFFECTIVE rhetoric.  People know about them.  

What you would expect to find in Auschwitz, or in the Gulags, was people being tortured literally to death

First off Auschwitz was an prisoner of war camp.  Second of all some detainees HAVE BEEN TORTURED LITERALLY TO DEATH.  Last I check there are about 30 cases of inmates deaths that cannot be attributed to natural causes or accident.

Instead of complaining about rhetoric how bout we complain about forfeiting our own STANDARDS OF DECENCY for the sake of POSSIBLE intelligence information?  

And say that, if everything the FBI agent said was factually true, I'm perfectly fine with all of it. I think it's probably a large step up in accomodations from many of our state prisons 20 or 30 years ago. Add in the fact that these individuals are not U. S. Citizens and therefore not afforded Constitutional protection, and I'd say they're getting off pretty light.

Let's go over it again. These people are gaining weight like Kirstie Alley - they are given free copies of the Qur'an and prayer mats, and the greatest deference is paid to their religious freedom. Some of them, who we think might have information, are subjected to (the horror!) high or low temperatures, being chained for 18 to 24 hours, and Christina Aguilera.

What, exactly, is the problem here?

The problem is that Durbin's rhetoric is defaming our soldiers by comparing them to regimes that really did perform actual torture - on their own citizens, no less! - and further is making our job in the world more difficult - as I've already noted on RedHot, Al-Jazeera has happily picked up Durbin's banner and is broadcasting it to the Muslim Street within minutes.

Second, I would love to see any source of information that would substantiate this claim:

Second of all some detainees HAVE BEEN TORTURED LITERALLY TO DEATH.  Last I check there are about 30 cases of inmates deaths that cannot be attributed to natural causes or accident.

No, the FBI report didn't make me think of Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot, nor would I have made that analogy had I heard this report five years ago.  I thought the rhetorical questions in my comment made that clear.  This is nowhere in the neighborhood of Lubyanka, treblinka, and the killing fields.

The actions in question make me think more of over-the-top prison punishment than gulags.  Again, the context is important here.  Rough treatment of captured terrorists, even treatment that violates the standards set by the US military, doesn't equate with the systematized mass torture and killing of millions of innocent people.  As I noted before, the moral accusation is implicit in the reference: we are on par with the Nazis, Soviets, etc.  It is that moral equivalence, and the history of such that is the burden of the left, that people are upset about.  There is plenty of over-heated rhetoric involved but the statement remains offensive.  Not huge in the grand scheme of things but still ridiculous.

Thanks for your answer.  I still await that of kholtsberry.

As for your comment about terrorists, I have little sympathy for terrorists myself.  However, the people held at Gitmo, in Abu Gharib, etc are not necessarially terrorists.  They are terrorist suspects.  Until they've had a fair and open trial we have no way of knowing if they are really terrorists or not.  Some reports have indicated that many of the people at Gitmo were handed over to US forces for a bounty by local people.  Some might be terrorists, some might just be someone who annoyed a powerful person and got handed over to the US for $10,000 or so.  That's the whole point.  That's why we have trials, juries, etc.  Not to be nice to criminals and/or terrorists, but to make sure that we really do have criminals and/or terrorists and not just some unlucky schmuck off the street.

That some of the people at Gitmo are not terrorists should be evident from the fact that the US has released a few.  This raises the question: how many others who are not terrorists are there?  And that's why their treatment, and mistreatment, is such an important fact.

Second, I would love to see any source of information that would substantiate this claim:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/03/16/national/w11160
7S94.DTL

Of the prisoner deaths:

_ At least 26 have been investigated as criminal homicides involving possible abuse.

Well, let's not get into name calling.

From YOUR OWN LINK:

Grey said Army investigators have looked into 79 deaths in 68 incidents. Most were in Iraq. No prisoners have died at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the third major site for prisoners since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Is Dick Durbin and the left's ridiculous use of hyperbole -- showing either blind partisanship or inexcusable historical amnesia.

As to your points: I'm just really, really not convinced that this qualifies as mistreatment. American prisons did worse a few decades ago to Americans. Even taking everything here as true, it's a freaking joke compared to what the world as a whole would and does do to suspected terrorists.

That we let them go at all indicates we're acting with the angels here, however imperfectly.

We don't have juries for non-citizens outside our borders unless we choose to. I see no reason to add juries here.

a different definition of "humane".

The president has persistently and repeatedly stated that all the detainees at Guantanamo, in fact all detainees being held by the U.S., are being treated "humanely" and are not being tortured.  Now chaining someone to a floor for 18 to 24 hours without food or water in a cold or unventilated hot room while blaring loud music may not be torture, but, I for one, would certainly not consider it "humane" treatment.

More important than what I think, it would be interesting if someone would ask the President if such treatment would fall under his definition of "humane", and if it does, then what on earth would he consider "inhumane".

Missed that.

What riled me up was the lack of historical perspective, here. In point of fact, the reality that the prisoners of Gitmo were forced to suffer some discomfort is really not something that you would expect would be done in Auschwitz, or the Gulags.

Yes, it's absolutely wrong to call Gitmo a "gulag" or to compare it with Auschwitz.  But Durbin's point was that if all we had was the FBI report, we would not think that the actors in this drama were American jailors or interrogators.  We would think that they were from some other, darker regime.  (Or, at least, I hope we would.)

By the way, re-read the FBI's description of our treatment of detainees at Gitmo again.  "Chained hand and foot in a fetal position" for up to (and more than) 24 hours; deprived of food and water for that entire span; left in their own stink, piss, and sh_t.  Maybe it never happened, and maybe you think it's justified, but this is unequivocally torture.  

As for prisoner deaths, it's true that no prisoners have been reported to have been killed at Gitmo.  This does not address, however, the number of other alleged homicides (by guards or interrogators) that occurred at other detention sites -- including the relatively infamous report of a innocent* cabdriver who was picked up in a sweep and then tortured to death.

von

*The troops who discovered his body in our custody had reportedly determined that he had done nothing wrong, and had no known intelligence value.  He had "slipped through the cracks."

Hey, it's your political party... do what you like with it. If you think this is how to make America a better place, have at it.

I'm not a Democrat.  Nor am I a Democrat-leaning independent.*  (When the Democrats start supporting free trade, school vouchers, Social Security privatization, lower taxes, smaller government, etc., let me know.  I'll reconsider.)

*That said, I did vote a split ticket last time 'round.

We disagree that being chained to the floor (as I recall, he was found in a fetal position, not chained into one. I can't even imagine how you could be chained into a fetal position) constitutes torture.

Let me ask you to participate in a thought exercise. Suppose that you are one of the five people in the world who know where the "football" that controls our nukes is. Now suppose that you are captured by a foreign power that we are at war with. Knowing that the enemy desperately wants the information that you have, you steel yourself for the worst as they...

Turn the heat up and down? Play rap music for 18 hours? Make you urinate yourself? How would you react to that?

I'd have a hard time not laughing in their face.

I'd further be convinced, if I had access to that nation's news networks, that if I saw the leaders of their country publicly berating my prison guards for the way I was being treated, that the country we were fighting was filled with a bunch of weak-kneed wimps who could be defeated by their own lack of political will. The fact that the leaders of the opposition party were so ready to participate in this destruction of political will would only make me wish that they would "torture" me some more, to give them some red meat.

It is on this basis that I believe that Durbin should be censured for these remarks.

That you see such things in the Bush Administration, in America where they do not exist shows that you have been trained to look at things a certain way.

Can hatred be blind?

We disagree that being chained to the floor (as I recall, he was found in a fetal position, not chained into one. I can't even imagine how you could be chained into a fetal position) constitutes torture.

There's no reason to rest on your recollection.  This is what the report says (as read by Durban):

I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water.

Incidentally, I can imagine how one would chain a detainee to the floor in a fetal position:  (1) there's a single metal "half loop" in the floor; (2) cuffs are placed on the prisoner's hand and feet; (3) a chain of about four feet is strung between the cuffs, and looped through the half loop in the floor.  A prisoner of taller than 5 1/2 feet subjected to such treatment would be "chained to the floor in a fetal position."  (By the bye, this can be a legitimate detention method in some circumstances.  It's the aggregation of it with other uncomfortable/painful/unhealthy/etc. effects.)

I'd have a hard time not laughing in their face.

You overestimate your abilities, as well as the resourcefulness of the interrogator.  Whether you mix a number of lies in with the truth -- such that the truth is useless -- remains open to question.)

If you simply read a report of how these prisoners were treated, you would not think it was done by American hands.  That's really the point.  All this rhetorical equation with other, far viler regimes and practices is to be deplored (can I throw the abortion-holocaust analogy on that pile) but that's not the real issue here.

To say we are not torturing them much, or not nearly as bad as other people would, or even that we are causing discomfort (which reminds me eeriely of the Clintonian term of "genocidal acts") doesn't make it a right.  Just because Biden or Durbin or Amnesty or the Brits exaggerate the nature of our treatment doesn't excuse it if it is wrong.  

Regardless of how they would treat us (and do treat us) when the situation is reversed.  We do this because we are Americans, not because we are limp-wristed but because we are too proud of our civilization, our moral character, and our basic goodness to do otherwise.  We do it at possible expense to our intelligence gathering because we are not like them.

Wrongful acts do not excuse wrongful acts (or words).  So, for the record:

1.  Amnesty's claims were disgusting and wrongheaded.  It's a wrong to call Gitmo the "gulag of our times," even as a matter of rhetoric.  It's also wrong to focus seven paragraphs of the report's forward on US's detention policies, and pay only passing mention to the genocide committed by the Sudanese government in Sudan.
   
2.  Durbin's claims are different from Amnesty's, however, and thus I'm defending them to a limited extent.  But, as I noted, I do not approve of Durbin's rhetoric; I would not have said these things.
   
3.  Regardless of point 2, it's become apparent that Durbin's remarks were politically idiotic.

You overestimate your abilities, as well as the resourcefulness of the interrogator.  Whether you mix a number of lies in with the truth -- such that the truth is useless -- remains open to question.)

You forget that you're dealing with a person who's spent most of his life in either Alaska or Texas. Prolonged exposure to extreme cold and/or heat is a fact of life for me. And I certainly wouldn't divulge the deepest secrets of my country because I soiled myself.

Now, as to whether the interrogator is resourceful enough to get the truth out of me anyway is another matter entirely. But if the truth is interrogated out of me, then I really still fail to see from whence the clamoring cry of human rights violations comes.

Senator Durbin's comments are perhaps a very well publicized example of Godwin's law. The problem, of course, is not that these are lazy, useless, attention grabbing comments, but that many believe them and some defend them far beyond the basic recitation of facts. Grant the truth of the report recited, and try to justify the logic of the senator's comparisons and implications. It's unjustifiable and inexplicable ignorance. The comparison doesn't stand. Dick Durbin joins the company of Marge Schott, Jimmy the Greek, Al Campanis and countless lesser lights in trying to turn a grain of truth into a mountain of ignorance.

You may have misread me.  What I was trying to say about Amnesty is that even though they are wrong, that doesn't imply Gitmo is right.

Examples? Gladly.

Braindead:

One major reason his party lost the 2004 race to the "brain-dead" Republicans is that it has a "tendency to explain every issue in half an hour of detail," Dean told the semi-annual meeting of Democrats Abroad

Evil:

"Moderate Republicans can't stand these people (conservatives), because they're intolerant. They don't think tolerance is a virtue," Dean said, adding: "I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant."

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, he added: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."

Hatred:

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, but I admire their discipline and their organization," the failed presidential hopeful told the crowd at the Roosevelt Hotel, where he and six other candidates spoke at the final DNC forum before the Feb. 12 vote for chairman.

Oh, by the way, if you're looking for somewhere new to put those goalposts, most lefties move them to the general area of well, Howard Dean is only the Democratic National Committee chairman, not an "upper level Democrat" once his actual words have been cited.  You'll still need to carry them yourself, but at least you won't have to dig new holes for them.

Regnad Kcin:

Covered by a thin, thin, thin 16 millimeter shell, that's Arnie's whole beef halves, we deliver. In the city of Emphasyma.

Don't eat with your hands, son. Use your entrenching tool.

Betty-Joe Bialoski? Oh, you mean Nancy.

Er, sorry. Look, you just won't face up to the fact that the war, the prisons, the propaganda are all just flat out wrong, will you?

Well, you are certainly entitled to believe what you want, as am I. I believe, and a majority of Americans believe, that we'd be better off out of Iraq and that George Bush is an abject failure as a leader.

If you want to overparse Dick Durbin's words, please do so. Go on, enjoy, knock yourself out. Your interpretation smacks a wee bit of desperation, methinks. You may wish to make note of Thursday's date - it marks the beginning of the end of the republican hammerlock on the government of the United States.

A huge groundswell of public outrage at the current occupants of the executive branch's dishonesty, corruption, and arrogance is building. C'mon... you see it, I see it, the public opinion pollsters see it. It's a hard rain gonna fall.

See you at the polls.

Support our troops - bring them home!

From what I can tell, Senator Durbin wasn't quoting from any FBI report or as some have intimated testimony from an FBI agent but rather from a redacted email that was made public in December of 2004 via the Freedom of Information Act.  The ACLU has been requesting these documents and hyping the most inflammatory parts on their site for any who are interested.

Personally I find it a little incredible to believe the accuracy of the email in question which also claims that someone who was bound hand and foot in the fetal position would have the manual dexterity required to pull his own hair out.

But if your eyes are closed to the studies done showing the massive efforts the MSM has gone to bash the President, I guess it won't make a difference.

Take the FBI segment alone without what Durbin added around it.

Can you give a few sentences on how that 'true' part reflects on america?  What SHOULD Durbin have said in that context?

Support our troops - bring them home

This did not work in Vietnam, and it will not work now.  Our soldiers were mistreated when they returned.  Why?  Because they killed people in Vietnam.  What do we call killers?  To kill for the right reason (such as defending our freedom, as our soldiers are doing) is honorable.  To kill for the wrong reason (such as blowing up civilians) is murder.  That's why we respect our boys as heroes and dishonor terrorists, because they kill civilians, ie. murder.

During Vietnam, the public began to view our soldiers as killing needlessly, so they were disrespected when they returned.  You cannot support people who are taking other's lives if you believe the reason is unjust.

So if you are against the war just carry your little signs and write your snarky little comments, but don't rubber stamp your anti-Bush, anti-war ideology with any "support our troops bring them home" crap.

The only way to honor them is to honor the cause they dies for and finish the job.  Otherwise, whether anyone says it or not, they will think "he killed people for no reason" when they look at our Vets.

It's a hard rain gonna fall.

It is the same song, isn't it. Bring the troops home, the war's all wrong, our guys are committing atrocities.

I decided to write a whole diary about it.

It doesn't reflect anything about America. Other than a selective description of a few aspects of treatment of prisoners at Gitmo which could plausibly describe almost any and every prison outside of fantasy literature. I'm waiting for an argument from any democrat on exactly what aspect of the treatment needs to be changed.

Forget the name calling (Godwin's law) and find anything the senator says suggesting any changes. I wouldn't change a thing currently in place, until and unless expertise is offered with a specific argument for more effective and humane treatment. More humane is likely not more effective, and more effective may not be more humane, but nobody seems to making that argument either. I recall Alan Dershowitz and Alberto Gonzalez struggling with the effectiveness of torture issues, but the senate hasn't seriously considered them, and this episode demonstrates the Democrats seem clueless about what could be their side of the argument, i.e. humaneness. Politcally, of course, they risk the "weak on defense/security" label again, but at least it is a respectable argument. Until they make it, the republicans should feel free to mock them mercilessly and ridicule them as dangerous ignoramuses.

Keep in mind that more American staff have died at Gitmo (at least 1, under mysterious and unresolved circumstances) than prisoners. This may be the ultimate proof of the humaneness of Gitmo - not that you'll hear anyone attack the issue from this angle.

Other than a selective description of a few aspects of treatment of prisoners at Gitmo which could plausibly describe almost any and every prison outside of fantasy literature.

I'd like to see evidence that every prison outside of fantasy literature has treatment that poor - especially US Military prisons - especially under conditions where the prison isn't under threat of attack and is well stocked, which is the exact case in Guantanamo.

Also, I'm not a flag carrier for the dems, they've certainly got their shortcomings, but as the out-of-power party, it doesn't really matter to me WHAT they do.  What matters is what the party with control does, and I'm not impressed on this topic.  It seems everyone is "ho hum, no big deal" no matter WHAT particular example of prisoner abuse is presented.  

Here's some suggestions.  Stop abusing prisoners to the extent that they cannot be tried in court.

http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/FBI_3977.pdf

These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization to date ... and techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee

(interestingly that link shows the DOD impersonating FBI personnel in order to lay the blame outside of the DOD.  Completely shameless behavior.)

In other words, harsh treatment of the detainees is WORSE than decent treatment because it removes the possibility of legitimately prosecuting them.  In addition, the harsh treatment results in NO useful intelligence.

We should show to the world that we are a country of law, that adheres to the principle of law, and upholds the law in spite of the fact that our enemies don't reciprocate.  In other words, lead by example rather than by hatred and fear.

You suggest that these guys are being treated as prisoners are always treated.  That's not true, these guys have not been officially charged with anything, they were held without legal counsel for a very long time (only because of court rulings are they even being given tribunals), and they're being treated far worse than anyone would ever want to know that our military treats prisoners.  In several cases, they are US citizens, one of which was apprehended on US soil.

I realize that we're at war, and a great many of these men are probably guilty.  However, if that's true we should be able to legitimately prosecute them in accordance with either US law or international law.  Currently, we're adhering really to none of those standards.   Its like we took every standard of decency written down for conduct and threw it all out the window.  Of COURSE abuses will happen under those kind of ill-defined conditions.

I'd like to see evidence that every prison outside of fantasy literature has treatment that poor - especially US Military prisons - especially under conditions where the prison isn't under threat of attack and is well stocked, which is the exact case in Guantanamo.

Sometime, if you're in the Memphis area, let's you and me take a drive down to Parchman State Prison and have a tour. While we're there, let's ask the inmates if they'd be interested in a transfer to Gitmo.

"I" hate him, but I'm not a party elite, nor a dem.  Historically, I've voted about 1/3- dem, 1/3- republican, and 1/3+ third party.  At heart I have very libertarian views on issues, although I think certain libertarian stances aren't very practical or good.

And its because of some of the reasons you post rotw.  But its not surprising, my whole life I've hated the type of rich, spoiled, 'daddy's-money is great so I can be a jerk' kind of guys in school too, even the ones that didn't become president.

My point isn't to troll with the hatred comment.  My point is that hatred of bush is not simply partisan 'hatred' the same way that the right-wing tried to 'hate' Clinton.  I've NEVER hated any President or even come close to it, although I was a bit young for Nixon.  Even Nixon, from what I know historically, I don't hate.  I just view him somewhat distastefully.  Bush is a completely different animal.

I'll try to avoid sweeping generalities, but knowing little or none of the facts, what is there left for us.

First, why the emphasis on trials, criminal and constitutional legal standards, etc....??? If anything, these are prisoners of war, non-nationals, engaged in crimes, but much more subjectto the laws of war that state or federal criminal code. This may expose the split in analysis of whether this is a "legal" issue or a matter or war, and I think that was well hashed out in the November election.

How many German or Japanese prisoners were tried DURING WWII? Or, to go the Civil war route, how could we "parole" these prisoners to their side of the conflict? Would we trust their "honor" to cease hostilities? Would they exchange or parole similar prisoners?

Now, one argument goes off on the Geneva Convention treatment requirements, and while the administration clearly hasn't conceded that they apply, I think they have acted as if they are the highest applicable standards, BUT not necessarily applicable in this case.

That said, Senator Durbin's comments take us way out beyond the other extreme - not even close to a rational argument to either apply the Geneva standards, or struggle to develop lesser applicable standards. The argument against the Geneva standards, explained excellently many other places, is that they are reserved for the benefit of combatants/soldiers - which these detainees are not.

Finally, others have noted other heinous situations (the Parchman post following) as well as Cook County situations and others about prisoner abuse, and that is what I was referring to when describing a variety of other prisons. Also, I don't know the context of the FBI report, but suspect it was taken singly for emphasis by the senator, and he's getting skewered for overreaching with it. I think justifiably so.

My benefit of the doubt remains with the administration, and not with Al-Jazeera, Amnesty International, and seemingly the democratic party hierarchy. While they are free to complain and attack, just doing that won't win the war. But if we're not at war, they don't have to.

If anything, these are prisoners of war

You would think so, wouldn't you?  Most people would.  But according to the bush administration they aren't prisoners of war.  That's one of the big contentions.  We're fighting the war on terror, yet apparently when we capture presumed terrorists, they aren't prisoners of war.

I agree, there is clear precedent for how to deal with POWs (the Geneva convention).  But these guys aren't POWs.  They're also apparently not criminals.   So what are they?  It was only through severe legal pressure that they were even granted military tribunals to determine whether they should be called 'enemy combatants' (required by the Geneva Conventions).  Before that, they were just nothing apparently.

The fact that some of these men are US citizens, and yet every known document and precedent for how to deal with prisoners, POWs, criminals, etc, does not apply is a rather scary proposition.  Its one of the first steps on the road to totalitarianism - the ability to imprison people when it suits the government to do so - with no public trial or charges or POW status being given for the imprisonment.

Which, of course, is exactly what we're fighting. There is a whole list of reasons why  they're not POW's under Geneva, but they are prisoners of war. I trust that the military captured them on the battlefield, or took custody under similar circumstances of hot pursuit/capture.

There are so few individuals held, comparatively, even including those held in country (Bagram) or elsewhere, that I don't think there is a systemic abuse of detention. We're not "concentrating" large populations for extended times, or other practices violating international conventions or displaced persons/refugee treatment standards. And we're largely avoiding "collective" justice or retribution.

This is where Durbin's comments go off the rails. We're arguing about such a small issue, and giving it such huge publicity, when the elephant-in-the-room issue is a culture war going back millenia. At least this seems to be Al Qaeda's stated view, and is reflected in various ways across the region if not throughout "muslim lands", whatever they are.

I'm not "ho-hum" or dismissive of the importance of prisoner treatment, I just think Durbin has the context and relative importance mostly wrong, and he cannot seem to find a quick way out of his predicament. The minority out of power party may not have any responsibilty here, but if they want it, this doesn't seem to indicate what they'd do with it.

...You would think so, wouldn't you?  Most people would.  But according to the bush administration they aren't prisoners of war...

And most people would be wrong. And it would be because the Geneva Convention says so, not the Bush administration.

They may be "prisoners taken in war" but they are most assuredly not "prisoners of war (POW)."

has the power and the right to hold a few hundred people without charge, trial, POW status, etc, including american citizens arrested on american soil, then why don't they have the power to do this to thousands?  tens of thousands?  hundreds of thousands?  millions?  Who's going to stop it if we don't stop it now?  What if they arrested your parents or your children or friends tomorrow and shipped them off to Guantanamo?  What would you do?  Would you feel its ok that they were being held under those conditions with that lack of adherence to law?  Its all fine and dandy when its nobody you know or care about.

What if we only imprisoned a few hundred suspected criminals without filing any charges or giving them any access to a trial.  Would that be bad?  What's the difference?  

Even though the numbers are small, the precedent it sets has horrible implications.  It runs against everything this country stands for --- a democratic country of laws.  If we become what we're fighting against in the process of fighting it, what's the point of fighting?

I missed that.  I thought Frist was a Presbyterian.  He can't be too happy with his church calling President Bush "Hitler".

It's supposed to land behind you like that.

Then you are truly a disturbed person.

The precedent at issue is what happened on 9/11. I think the tenor of your remarks extends the logic of the facts to the extreme. This is what I think the problem is with Senator Durbin's comments.

Of course the government has the power to do these things, and the senator rightly identifies the governments which have done just such things.

The problem is, that none of that makes sense to the situation we're facing, and insults us to contend that it does, and insults those most closely struggling with the issue.  That's the source of the concern/outrage/condemnation from the right. I'm trying to find something specifically constructive in the senator's remarks, and all the comments defending them.

The issue is only secondarily (if that) a legal issue. It is primarily a military/security issue. Does the senator agree or disagree with that? I cannot tell. Is there any benefit to holding these individuals in custody? Does the senator agree? I cannot tell. If so, how should they be treated? Does the senator have views on this? I cannot tell.

I'll grant he may have addressed some or all these questions at some point, but in the past few days he seems stuck in his position, and unwilling to explain or develop his views for all to see.

What is the most effective way to handle these prisoners to aid the war effort? Does the senator think that is the most important question? I do.

This is another of the left's typical reductio ad absurdum arguments; if the government can hold and question several hundred illegal combatants taken on the battlefield then they will come and take Grandma and spirit her away to a dungeon somewhere so they can beat her and force her to pee in her undies just because they want to. Oh those Nazi Bush administration Storm Troopers know no humanity.

This is comparable to the left's breastbeating to protect the sanctity of your library records under the Patriot Act. Never mind that no where in the Patriot Act did the phrase "library records" appear. Never mind that there is no recorded incidence of the FBI "grabbing" anyone's library records under the Patriot Act. Never mind that the FBI, or any other law enforcement agency or litigant in a lawsuit has always had the right to subpoena your library records long before anyone even conceived of the Patriot Act. Never let facts get in the way of good old 'hair-on-fire' leftist hysteria.

So this week the Congress made it illegal for the FBI to subpoena your library records as part of a terrorist investigation. If they're investigating you for illegal bookmaking they can get your library records but if they think you may be planning to set of a nuke in Chicago your records are off limits. If I sue you for something I can subpoena your library records but the FBI can't touch them if they suspect you of creating anthrax to kill everyone in Phoenix.

Once again the elephantine efforts of the left bring forth a mouse. And this Gitmo nonsense is their current non-issue issue.

And - I live in Chicago, within 15 miles of at least two brand spanking new mosques.

Anybody in Riyadh live near the new Methodist church?

Show me the evidence that the detainees were captured on the battlefield.  In many cases they were picked up on sweeps, in many cases they were handed over by afghans.  In some cases they were apprehended at airports.  Does your grandma travel through airports?

The patriot act is a completely different matter than what is happening in Gitmo.  And no, its not just "elephantine efforts by the left", there are plenty of people on the right and in the center who are also disturbed by the erosion of freedoms under the patriot act.

It is STILL possible, and always WAS possible law enforcement to obtain whatever library records they need, simply by getting a warrant, which requires approval of a judge.  The patriot act removed the judge from the equation, a severe reduction of our privacy.

Here's a link from By Bob Barr published in the Washtimes which should help to clarify what I think are misconceptions about the patriot act on your behalf:

http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050516-091558-3655r.htm

Have you heard the saying:

"He who would give up a little freedom for a little security will wind up with neither"  (attributed to Ben Franklin, although I'm not able to confirm).

I think the tenor of your remarks extends the logic of the facts to the extreme.

I have a background in math and science.  When given an equation, the easiest way to check if its valid (good) is to check the endpoints, usually zero and infinity.

What is happening at Gitmo doesn't look so good when you extend it to the endpoints (it doesn't even look good at the beginning point).  Governments have a history of taking powers and not giving them back.  Maybe we won't ever get to the endpoint, but I'd rather fight to make sure we don't get there than simply assume that the government will do what's best for us.

Does it really make you comfortable to know that the government is trying to set a precedent of imprisoning people indefinitely with no charges, with no legal status whatsoever?  That's not me exending the logic, that is what has happened for the last 3 years.

that makes me disturbed?

We're fighting a war against an enemy with zero soldiers?  

Then just who are those guys in Gitmo?  

I don't think "the government is trying to set a precedent of imprisoning people indefinitely with no charges, with no legal status whatsoever". I think they're struggling mightily to avoid just that. I don't recall any official making any statement or argument to that effect. They'll be held until the war is over or they are no threat. Keep in mind Lincoln's precedent of suspending (not eliminating) habeas corpus, and as bad as that was, it's specifically allowed right there in the Constitution. (FWIW, these folks could be held under that provision.)

The confusion starts by being hamstrung by the Geneva conventions - if they don't apply, and I accept the argument they don't, then what rules do apply? And worse yet, who makes those rules if not "the government"? It's why we have a government, and a vast bureacracy dedicated to addressing just these issues, and it may take time. Of course, enemy capitulation or negotiated peace would permit "legal" repatriation by ending the war, but there we go again with who is the enemy anyway?

I'm a lawyer by training, but with no practice experience in any of the areas under discussion (Military, criminal, international treaty law, etc..) and can see fairly clearly how stuck the pentagon and others are in dealing with this.

Also - do you realize how profoundly conservative it is to say "I'd rather fight to make sure we don't get there than simply assume that the government will do what's best for us"?

My disgust with senator Durbin's comments stems largely from the uselessness and extremity of such comparisons, not the degrees of truth or falseness of them (although reading a single, presumably confidential, unchallenged FBI background summary memo smacks of presenting the strongest evidence on one side of a case).

He's leveled a very specific charge, based on a single incident, with seemingly minimal exposition, and followed it with general explanation, a confusing apology or sweeping generality, all to accomplish what?

I think he has unnecessarily made these discussions partisan, while many of his colleagues don't agree (note the silence of many democrats, as well as quite a few senate republicans - good for them for not rising to the bait)

The final irony is that most of these detainees will likely be repatriated to far worse situations, far sooner than they could otherwise expect given the alternative of processing them through the federal justice system.

I haven't heard anyone argue, yet, that we should try them criminally here rather than return them to countries of origin. I suspect this is where the "rendition" discussions will soon head, especially if we decide to declare victory, sign treaties with Afghan and Iraq officials, and dump the lot of detainees in either locale.

Cheers!

we consider hating people you don't know and ascribing behaviors to them based on the circumstances of their birth a character flaw. The technical term is "bigotry".

I don't know if this helps you out or not.

This is a poor place to go fishing for ignoramuses. That style of argumentation works only in a persuadeable-rich environmet where most people lack sufficient information to tell who is making sense. This is not that place. Here it just comes off as time-wasting slop from a jerk.

This is more comparable to prison restraint gone a bit too far, than torture.  There are often good reasons prisoners are restrained, and in general restraints aren't removed until the safety of the prisoner and staff can be assured.

We don't even know the circumstances of what was going on, when this occurred.  Also, it is important to keep another point of context-there weren't prisoners all over the prison being restrained in this way (and if I remember right the man who was restrained this way was the supposed 20th highjacker-somebody who we can determine was dangerous).

Was it overboard?  Yes more than likely.

Was it torture?  Not really.

Go read the report of the hostages our Marines freed yesterday, and read about their torture experience, then come back to me to argue that this is torture.

the last few comments in the above post were addressed to the "This is torture and we are behaving like Nazi's, but aren't really comparing our soldiers to Nazi's crowd."

there is really no other way to take his statements than how they are being taken.

Why don't you go read this report:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/18/otsc.arraf/

Then get back to me on how this is just like the nazi's.

I think a simple "I read this FBI report (quote it here), and I am appalled at this treatment.  As a senator I will find out if prisoners are still being treated this way, and see what I can do to get it changed.  I don't think Americans should treat its prisoners in this fashion."

It criticizes what  bothers him, it doesn't paint our military as a bunch of Nazi's or as running communist death camps, and instead of all the hyperbole, he makes a promise to look into matters, rather than using it as an opportunity to get some media attention.

There were much better choices he could have made, and he chose to make one of the bad ones.

Gitmo prisoners have been released (and some recaptured on the field of battle) pretty much indicates we are limiting the scope of who we are holding and who we aren't holding in detention.

I have no problems or qualms about holding people captured attacking our soldiers during hostilities, and who are suspected to be terrorists or associated with them.

They would be illegal combatants who don't represent a country or a party to the Geneva Conventions, they have no uniform, they target citizens etc.

That's who they are.

You want us to relocate them next door to your house?

I don't hate him for how he was born.  In fact, until circa 2002 or so, I pretty much was neutral on bush.  The hatred has developed because of his policies in the last 3 years.

my whole life I've hated the type of rich, spoiled, 'daddy's-money is great so I can be a jerk' kind of guys in school too

I didn't assume he was this way, but his manner of administrating the presidency in recent years has demonstrated to me that he is in fact a spoiled rich jerk.  To say that "I don't know him" (personally I assume you mean) is rather irrelevant since you don't know him either.  His actions suggest the true character underneath.

For example, I don't hate Jeb.  I think of him distastefully because of some of the antics he has pulled in florida, but I don't hate him.  So its quite clear to me that I don't hate bush because of the circumstances of his birth.

Even more in contradiction to this, is I actually thought George Bush Sr. was a good president, I don't even view him with distaste.  I thought he was ok.

You already explained yourself. I understand what you said. I understand the meaning of each and every word you used. I understand the meaning of the word 'hate.' After reading your post I understand that you hate Bush.

I understand from the roughly 100 word or so that you wrote that you hate him without really knowing why you hate him, you just hate him because apparently you are supposed to hate him.

The 'two-minute hate' begins at 1 PM, be there or be square.

You are a disturbed person.

You're funnin' me, right Elmer?

It is not possible for someone to be that obtuse and still manage to find food in the morning.

Just so I have my facts right:

I've heard tens of thousands of words from bush, and dozens or hundreds of actions and policies which I'm completely opposed to on moral, ethical, and common sense grounds, and yet I'm apparently not able to know why I hate him other than I'm 'supposed to'.  

Meanwhile, you read 100 words from me and classify me as 'disturbed'.

I'm glad you're so consistent and rational in the way you decide things.

I think the real reason many republicans don't hate bush is they're too busy making excuses to cover for him and his destructive policies to think about it.  Excuses like "well 9/11 changed everything" or "bush's problem is he tries too hard to make the dems happy".   To a large extent, the excuses are failing, 6 out of 10 people do not approve of him at this point.  Since 35% or so of Americans are republicans, I'll assume that the vast majority of people who still approve of bush are the die-hard republicans who wouldn't even hate bush if he started executing old ladies and children on foodstamps.  I'm sure it would be the dems fault or terrorists fault somehow.

We don't have the evidence of your entire life's extensive analysis of George Bush, only the 100 or so words that you wrote. In them you said you hated him but didn't give much in the way of reasons. Hate used to be a very strong word and emotion and I was brought up to believe that it ought to be saved for people who have wronged you in a grave manner.

I do not personally know Osama bin Laden but I hate everything he stands for. I hate him because he and his adherents want to kill, or at the very least subjugate to Islam, my wife and childern and your wife and children and everyone's wife and children. I hate him because he has brought fear into the lives of your family and mine. I hate him because he threatens my country and everything I hold dear.

I do not know Bill Clinton but I dislike him because he stood before a TV camera and told me, with finger wagging and a tremble in his lips, that he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. He stood before that camera, looked me in the eye and lied to me. Personally that is worse than lying to a Grand Jury; there are lots and lots of lawyers in DC to deal with than issue. There is only me to deal with his lie to me. I dislike him but I do not hate him.

I do not know Richard Durbin but I dislike him because he dishonored the people whom we send out into the world to to our dirty work for us. I am proud to admit to taking a stary eyed view of our military because they risk everything everyday for me. They are not just entitled to a fair shake, they are entitled to more than the benefit of the doubt. And I dislike Richard Durbin because he dishonored my country. But I don't hate him.

Hate is a very strong word and emotion. I seriously doubt that George Bush has done anyhting to you or your family that justifies hate. But that's just me, what do I know.

A very rational answer.

Also, it probably would have gotten next to zero press, and its quite likely he would have very little chance of addressing the issue in the senate since the party in power pretty much dictates what can and can not enter the floor.

IMO, the press coverage is important, because only by letting americans be aware of what is happening will anything really change.  43 upset dems have less power than tens of millions of upset Americans.

What MIGHT have worked would be if he had phrased it the way you suggest, and ALSO suggested that such treatment is a step towards becoming like the Nazis.

Just a few points I'd like to touch on.

I probably shouldn't have said the government is 'trying' to set a precedent, because I don't think that's the motivation.  But they ARE setting a precedent regardless of whether the intent is to do so or not.

I'm aware of Lincoln suspending Habeus Corpus.  However, the country had already failed, so revoking that portion of the constitution was kind of a moot point.  Nevertheless, I would have been very disturbed by it had I lived in Lincoln's day.  Also, one must consider that it was suspended during the Civil War.  The civil war was something that was going to end, one way or the other.

This ties into the next point, the 'war on terror' will NEVER be over because its a philosophical war in a sense (like the war on drugs).  There will ALWAYS be people that seek violence to change the world, therefore there will always be 'terrorists'.

So suspending all legal rights of prisoners until 'the ware is over' is VERY different in this current war than it would have been in any normal war.  Any rights that are yanked away from us to help fight the war on terror are rights that we may very well never see again.  As on example, freedom from illegal search and seizure is something that the Patriot act essentially revokes.   Do we really want to give up that incredibly powerful and important right just to gain some miniscule amount of extra security?

I say miniscule because the feds had enough information to stop 9/11 had they just pieced it together.  Information wasn't the problem, knowing which library books the terrorists were checking out wasn't the problem.  The problem was streamlining the flow of information in the intelligence community so they could piece together the information that was already known.

If we make a policy of sending them back to their countries of origin, that would be fine with me.  We need SOME policy of SOME kind rather than just holding them indefinitely while we abuse them with no end to any of it in sight.  I'd even suggest that a military trial and military prison might be a better option than just holding guys forever with no formal charge of what they're being held for.  

Also - do you realize how profoundly conservative it is to say "I'd rather fight to make sure we don't get there than simply assume that the government will do what's best for us"?

Yes, I am aware of that. I'm not a liberal.  Or a conservative.  I have certain views compatible with both as well as many libertarian views.  But as you say, on that issue I'm very libertarian (and also conservative).

Unfortunately, the way that I've seen dialogue work among conservative internet posters is to immediately label someone as a liberal (or worse as a traitor, unamerican, america hater, etc) if they disagree with what the party does.  I'm not saying you did this at all above, but I think you fell into the 'trap' of assuming that I must be a liberal(?)  

So I agree with you, its a very conservative view, what is amazing (and disheartening) to me is that so few supposed 'conservatives' here actually display the same view on distrust of big, powerful government.   bush's policies have pretty much been to inflate the government to gargantuan proportions while simultaneously eroding personal rights and freedoms (ala patriot act and imprisoning US citizens in Guantanamo, etc).  And its not the conservatives screaming against those kind of actions, its typically the dems nowdays, which is a very strange role-reversal.

that I agreed with rotw's points:

No, what we hate is what he has done to this country's standing in the world and its status as a champion of human rights.  No matter how much he talks about the rule of law and promoting democracy it is hard to take him seriously when he also claims the right to ignore the Geneva Conventions; apprehend anyone, anywhere in the world and hold them incommunicado in secret locations without any access to any legal process at all; hold American citizens arrested in this country for three years without charges and almost no access to a lawyer; approves memos, later withdrawn but never replaced with a new definition, that define torture so narrowly as to be almost meaningless; and render people to countries where you know, or should know, they are going to be tortured.

And that's just for starters.  Then there's the whole Iraq issue, and how we were led down a path of cherry-picked intelligence to uneccessarily invade another country. (I was in favor of how he/we initially handled Afghanistan, btw ... until Iraq diverted his/our attention).  

There's also his pandering to the religious right in such a manner as to make attempts to write bigotry into the constitution (and I personally view the gay lifestyle very distastefully but the constitution is not something that should be toyed with lightly).

Then there's the way he stonewalls every single attempt to get many things done the right way.  For example, he tried to prevent the formation of the 9/11 commission.  He jumps through hoops to legalize torture, or to define away what we're doing to prisoners as not being torture, when by any rational subjective thought it is torture.

There's also his manner of selectively screening audiences so that he never has to see any dissent.  In combination with this, he ONLY appoints people who display highly remarkable loyalty, instead of those who are competent.  Colin Powell was one of the few who was competent (IMO) but whose primarily loyalty one could feel lay with the country and not with the president.  

Running the country is a tough job, and in my opinion appointing the most competent people for top jobs is the best way to get things done instead of appointing people whose main quality seems to be a 'yes-man' or 'yes-woman'.

Lastly, in many cases it really seems like he only intends to govern in the best interests of his base - in particular his appointments to the Judiciary.  The fact that 2/3rds or more of the country are NOT his base seems to not phase him at all.  IMO, a president should govern in a manner which best serves the interest of ALL americans, not just those americans who happened to vote for the winning candidate.  

Any one or any several of those things above probably wouldn't be enough to 'hate' bush.  But the list of things I dislike about him and his style of 'leadership' goes on and on and on and on.  

Karl Rove.

Perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war. Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban.