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• Wednesday, January 14, 2009 05:10 AM

  Now now maureen

  You know what's been said about posting in French.

  "[D]anse macabre" won't cut it, little Miss. Either use the Queen's English or shift to Yiddish or Arabic, à la Derbig and Omoo... oops, I did it again.

  As far as indecipherable languages go, I tried to learn the native tongue of the Irish once, but gave up in a snit because of the idiotic spelling on the face of God's Green Earth. What is wrong with you people? "Bh" is pronounced like "v"? And what's with the thirteen or fourteen extra vowels per syllable, none of them pronounced at all? And the ones that are prounced are not even in the word but are assumed to be there because the consonants -- that also aren't pronounced -- are always accompanied by the vowels that aren't there either.

  What a stupid language.

  It's Arabic or Yiddish or nothing!

  As for your complaint, that no one here is "serious" about the appalling situation of the captives and we all just want to offload it onto Europe, um... you have read ondelette's extensive, detailed, heavily researched, and deeply passionate posts here and at his own site (humanityagainstcrimes.blogspot.com) and elsewhere have you not? Oh. That's right. He did post some Sartre which set off a whole literary divertimento (damn! I did it again) which the scolds decided was just showing off. And we can't have that. The fact that some of the posers here -- I mean "posters"! Sorry, I've been dropping words in my posts, too, words that I am certain are there when I compose the piece but which vanish when I hit "publish"; medical science claims I'm suffering from hypertension and possibly a series of mini-strokes but I insist I'm fine, just fine, leave me alone! -- actually went to school and learned some things that many have forgotten over the years or just haven't had any reason to access in the press of daily affairs and catastrophe, and others became intrigued and wanted to know more and do their own research, was simply irrelevant, yes? This is not a discussion forum, it's an Activist Motivational Seminar!

  Got it.

  Offloading the issue of what to do with those captives onto Europe? Hell yes. Why not? Europe has suffered a hell of a lot more from terrorism than the USA has, and has many more social, cultural, and legal resources to deal with accused terrorists than the USA does.

  And there's one more thing: I argue that the United States Government, through its twisting, discarding, and denial of the rule of law in connection with the captives it currently holds, and due to its repeated and abominable resort to torture and abuse in its treatment of those captives has simply and utterly forfeited any right to hold, try, convict or punish any of those it has captured or rendered in the course of its Global War on Terror... the forfeit is complete. The United States Government has no moral or ethical leg to stand on, and its outrageous dismissal of "law" under the circumstances has completely undermined any legal authortity it may care to assert.

  What do you do? This question has been asked and ruminated over in this thread repeatedly. Sterling legal minds have put their noggins to the chore, and the general consensus is you either release them or try them in Federal Court like any other accused, and if they're acquitted tant pis -- I'm sorry, "oh well!"

  I take another position, based on my concept of "forfeit" -- which the Legal Minds will say does not exist in law -- which leads me to say that the only way to fairly adjudicate these cases, come what may, is for it to be done by an outside, foreign or international, court or tribunal. I've even proposed Ireland as a likely -- and appropriate -- candidate for this tribunal, either as host or implementing authority.

  The United States, I maintain, is incapable of rendering fair justice in these cases. That justice, by the way, must include appropriate justice rendered against the torturers and those who ordered and condoned it.

  I realize "Europe" does not want to take on this responsibily, on the theory of "you broke it, you bought it," but I maintain the United States has no authority -- has forfeited its authority -- in these cases and Europe is as good a place to adjudicate them as anywhere else. If Europe refuses, the way it likes to do, then another international venue must be found.

  It simply cannot be done fairly by and in the United States.

  —Ché Pasa Read Ché Pasa's other letters
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