It's mentioned, but not included?

Or is the German Chancellor's speech not important?

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/19/the-european-convention-on-human-rights-handcuffs-britain’s-armed-forces

I don't know if you've heard, or if you're too knowledgeable about the relevant British/European laws involved, but the Court of Appeal of England & Wales has recently ruled against the British Ministry of Defence on an issue pertaining to soldiers' rights. In a nutshell, the Court ruled that the MoD had violated a soldier's right to life, which is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights and given effect in British courts under the Human Rights Act 1998.

What I think you'd find interesting is two-fold: first, that the Heritage Foundation released the statement I've linked above making a hash of the judicial opinion; and second, by then ignorantly (lazily, perhaps even maliciously) linking the European Convention with the European Union. You see, the Convention is an instrument of the Council of Europe--which is NOT in any way related to the EU. But by some sleight of hand the Heritage Foundation manages to connect this case with the EU despite the factual idiocy of this link, and argues that the UK should exit the Convention (and presumably, the EU.) Because they're too pacifist, of course.

I'm just amazed by the cojones of these people--not only making a highly political point on a very sensitive case, but doing so in the face of the simplest of facts.

Who do these yahoos hire to get their research done?!

...exEcrable!

Camille, this piece was truly excrable. The Obama administration has made some mistakes--but your solutions (fire them all!) are ridiculous and disproportionate to the small-ish mistakes they've made so far.

And I've no truck with anyone who can praise Rush Limbaugh in the same breath as a suggestion of stupidity in the administration. The irony practically drips off my screen...

:)

and, likewise!

...right, mate, Churchill certainly did say that. He also, however, first advocated the use of chemical weapons against the civilian population of Iraq (in his words: 'I do not understand this sqeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.') and the first punitive air attacks against a civilian uprising--ever. A decent respect for human, non-European life wasn't his strong suit.

Needless to say I'm non-too-fussed by Churchill's exhortations where they didn't his prosecution of war against the Nazis. In short: Churchill's opinions on a variety of matters were far from sensible or humane--and so I take such idiocy with a grain of salt.

Most people grow out of it...Those who don't devolve into insane neofascist hate spewing delusional shitheads like Greenwald.

I love how deliciously odd this statement, and others from infinitely more sensible folk on this board, suggest any form of socialism is 'childish'--something to grow out of.

What nonsense. Plenty of 'socialist' policies have been and still are supported by vast tracts of the population in probably every industrialised states, including the US. The problem in America is that Americans tell themselves that social equality is a childish goal in itself, and with no explanation as to why that is so.

And yet the evidence of the substantial damage caused by income inequality continues to mount. I haven't yet read it, but a recent book, 'The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better', provides an overwhelming distillation of studies done in many fields on the effects of socially unequal societies. But we're supposed to believe that this is an acceptable price to pay for 'growing out' of socialism.

This is unacceptably daft.

As for that quote above...I'm not going to pick it apart, such is the stupidity of its thrust.

You're right--you are definitely relying on past impressions of Soviet power that are, frankly, outdated. It's not that the Russian military today couldn't take on, say, Germany and win; it could, perhaps. However, the costs against it for doing so--just in the response it would inflict from Britain and France, let alone the United states--would be too great. France and Britain are nuclear powers, small though their forces may be; their hardware is modern and efficient; and, again, though they may not have anywhere near the capacity they need to PROJECT power (as I said earlier) they DO have a generally-accepted military capability to wage trans-continental power against a foreign (read: Russian aggressor). Projecting power is irrelevant for European powers if all they wish to do is protect themselves from invasion by their nearest competitors.

NATO makes things easier for European governments, to be sure, but that doesn't mean (a) Europeans on their own couldn't wage war if necessary against an invader--and win; nor (b) that NATO is fit for purpose today in its old, Cold War guise. Why? Because Russia ain't what it used to be, and with its catastrophically-declining population won't be in the future.

NATO protected Europeans at a time when Russia could field 10,000 tanks, a massive, workable fleet of SLBM submarines, and could marshall millions of men in uniform. As it can muster only a fraction of those resources today--and its soldiers are ill-equipped to use them, and demoralised generally anyway--it's no wonder Western Europeans really (REALLY) aren't scared of Russia today. Believe me, I live in Europe today--and even analysts who care about these sorts of things tend to be rather dismissive of Russia as a military threat to Western Europe.

Now, that doesn't mean the same could be said for those states bordering Russia, but that's a whole different issue altogether...