Letters to the Editor
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OT - Blog Report
Glenn,
First, let me say thank you for consistantly providing such useful analysis and information. I read you every day and always leave more informed than when I arrived.
Second, I'm wondering if you can help us with something. Salon has shut down the Blog Report. This feature is incredibly helpful and much beloved by many of us. I understand that Salon managment has the right to run their site as they see fit; however, they will not respond to any request for an explanation. Is there any chance you could politely ask the management to at least address the readers about this issue.
Thank you,
Chris
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Nuremburg
All international justice is victor's justice, since the only "international law" that matters is "international law" that is backed up by superior military force. The allies had the Nuremburg trials because they had won the war. Since victors define what constitute "war crimes," a victor can never commit a war crime, by definition.
Glenn, why is this so hard to understand? In the real world, Thrasymachus had it exactly right: might does make right.
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Freedom Bombs
he invokes the standard cliche of claiming that his war advocacy was so very good-hearted (he just wanted benevolently to drop Freedom Bombs on them) but he couldn't have possibly predicted that those incompetent Bush people would manage the war so badly and spoil his vision
Beautiful. Sickening, though.
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cestmoi123
Glenn, why is this so hard to understand? In the real world, Thrasymachus had it exactly right: might does make right.
Think that all you want. But then don't run around claiming that you favor war because you want to bring good, pretty things to the people you're bombing, or that Saddam Hussein had to be deposed because he was a moral monster who -- disgustingly -- believed that "might makes right."
People like you -- who come right out and admit that you think that the U.S., by virtue of its superior military force, shouldn't be subjected to any principles, including those we espouse and apply to others -- are at least being honest. And most people around the world, as all sorts of recent polling show, agree with your view of how the U.S. conducts itself.
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The things that have happened in the U.S. over the last seven years ...
"... haven't just magically emerged. They had actors behind them and ideas underlying them and acting as though it's all just a matter to leave politely in the past -- even though none of it has really changed -- is just a recipe for guaranteeing that it continues. ..." (GG)
Amen to that!
There are many things that one could point to and say, "this is the cause of it all" but I do think that the bipartisan foreign policy of empire is our biggest failure as a people.
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'Possibly' Philadelphia?? Yo,
What the crap is that? The birthplace of our nation isn't good enough for ya???
Ptshh. Whatever.
-The Illadelph Elf
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Albert Speer comes to mind
In his memoirs, Speer relates a conversation with some of his fellow inmates, fighting for their lives at Nuremburg. I forget if it was Speer, or someone else, who said, more-or-less "if we had won the war, we'd all be crowding to the front, claiming credit. Now, instead of honors, death-sentences are being handed out."
Something very close to that anyway.
Same thing is happening here. All these enablers and apologists are absolutely *frantic* to avoid responsibility for this disaster. Because they know that getting tagged could mean that they have to get off the gravy-train, their reputations ruined.
Personally, I think a few death-sentences are in order for war crimes and crimes against humanity...but, hey, I'm just a dirty fucking hippie.
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NOW they realize Bush is an idiot?
They voted for a guy with no foreign-policy experience, who was a failure at every "job" his parents arranged for him, who could barely form complete sentences in his native language, and who kept on leaving his tongue sticking out of his mouth at the end of every "sentence" until well after Inauguration Day. But only now they realize he wasn't up to the job of nation-building?
Do these people have any idea how pathetic they sound? Or do they shelter themselves from reality as effectively as their Dear Leader has done?
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I'll go back to read Paul Rosenberg's writ... etc.,
The April events are sure a lure. Especially the Firedog Lake, 'Drinking in Moderation' idea.
The 17th Street Cafe may be a fun "blunderbuss" good activity. This blog is tempting readers.
`
Somewhere I remember wondering if a freshman blogger,
learning honesty, and lawyers ideas... maybe expressed?
Or, once maybe thought a private thought, quietly, as this:
`The majority of attorneys seem smart and think in linear.
`The soliloquy conversation went into a thought? O my!
`Are some law professors smart or evil? a grunt. Thanks.
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Missing the point on Yoo
I've read all of the Megan comments I can bear. (My new law: you can judge a blog by the quality of its comments.)
There's one point that is being missed, one I don't think that Glenn made. The reason this minor functionary was the one who wrote the legal justification for the President's exemption from law and treaty during wartime was because he was the one willing to do it.
Just as Cheney put together a team of minor functionaries to dig through raw intelligence and cobble up the best case he could for a threat from Iraq, he and Addington found the DoJ lawyer willing to write this tripe. That is part of what makes this newsworthy--they circumvented normal DoJ practice, so they could get the opinion they wanted.
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Conflicted
I'm extremely conflicted about this Diaz matter. On the one hand, he's clearly a martyr (in the noblest sense of the word). On the other he did, indeed, break the law. I've been reading for months about the determination of the Bush administration to create an Executive that is free to break the law with impunity and the concurrent calls for the United States to adhere to the rule of law, not men.
How do we reconcile our calls for the Bush administration to obey the law with our celebration of Diaz' breaking of it? Are we going to resort to rationalizations and "self-justifications" to prove that when our side does it it's the moral high ground but when their side does it it's cynical powergrabbing?
Please note that I'm not criticizing Diaz. I think he's a champion of the human spirit, a paragon of moral courage and a shining example of true patriotism. But what criteria are we going to use to determine which laws should be upheld and which should be ignored? And why is our side allowed to decide when it's okay to break the law when theirs isn't?
These are honest questions I'm asking, and I'm fully aware that my knowledge of this affair is not encyclopedic. Perhaps there is an element of this that I don't understand that constitutes a major difference between Diaz' action and those of the Bush administration (aside from the obvious "Diaz = good, Bush = bad"). I genuinely want someone here to explain to me why this lawbreaking is okay and the familiar examples of the administration's lawbreaking are not. I want to have a clean conscience as I celebrate Diaz. Anyone?