Fair Tribunals at Guantanamo? (Was: YANK CHILD ABUSERS :: another reason to kill americans abroad ???)

"ian maclure" wrote:

:In article , "Jim Watt"
wrote:
:
: The fact that America retains a base on Cuba given your Governments
: unreasonable persecution of that country is in itself an crime.
:
: When Cuba decides to become a democracy we'll talk about that. Until
: then Gitmo remains a US base and with any luck a thorn in Fidels' body
: politic.

And obviously, the fact that we have a lease, we pay it every year,
and part of the original leasehold that we no longer needed was turned
back long ago, makes no difference to Mr Watt's thinking. But then,
why cloud a good tirade with facts?

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 20:52:06 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

And obviously, the fact that we have a lease, we pay it every year,

If its a lease, when does it expire? Why occupy someone elses
country against the wishes of its inhabitants ?

Dunno whether is because I've been complaining about your
Government, but they are now making if difficult to impossible
to visit your fair land by withdrawing the visa waiver scheme
as from October

No problem in visiting Cuba though.

why cloud a good tirade with facts?

The tirade is factual, maybe not what you want to hear, but
thats life.

--
Jim Watt http://www.gibnet.com

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 18:28:48 +0100, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:

Notice the US freezing the US-based assets of the Real IRA... presumably
they're such a regional problem they prefer to bank in the USA.

Would those have been IRAs that the IRA put their money in?

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

:In message , Fred J. McCall
writes
:"Paul J. Adam" wrote:
::Fred, you're the one showing signs
:
:Nope, because I'm going to once again decline to be dragged down into
:yet another pointless discussion with you of the whichness of the why
:on this issue.
:
:Translation - Fred's been caught in a mistake (again).

Translation - Paul's elected to start lying (again).

::If "regional" includes operations across Europe, in North Africa and in
::both Americas, then yes.
:
:'Operations'? Sorry, but acquisition of funds and material and hiring
:out as trainers are not 'operations'.
:
:Killing people and blowing stuff up counts as "operations".

Yes, but this is something of a non sequitur to what I said above.

::Which terrorist organisations _don't_ fit this model of "regional"?
:
:Al Qaeda, for one.
:
:So, there's only one "international terrorist group"?

Now, where did I say that?

:You're saying the _PLO_ weren't international, and they've had a seat at
:the UN for thirty years!

Another bit of gorilla dust you like to throw ... 'political wing' is
not 'terrorist wing'. Having an observer seat at the UN means bugger
all. If that makes an organization 'international', I guess we'd all
better be very worried about Tong a....

::Oh, so now we're accepting that PIRA _do_ have "international reach",
::just not _enough_ of it to meet your definition?
:
:Paul, anyone who can afford an airplane ticket potentially has 'global
:reach' for one-off ops. That hardly makes them a global organization.
:
:PIRA trained, based, raised funds, and killed in many countries. Seems
:sufficient to call them "international".

Fine, Paul. The Irish are evil incarnate. Why, they are the very
Devil reborn. They should be wiped from the face of the Earth, since
they are worse than any other possible evil extant or potential on the
planet.

Happy now?

::Yep,
:
:Well, pleased to see you're at least finally admitting that reason
:indeed deserts you on this issue.
:
:Oh, stop being so idiotic, Fred.

Very well, I'll stop taking you at your word and simply pretend you're
saying other words entirely. After all, that's your preferred tactic
with me.

:Recognizing you have the problem is
:the first step toward doing something about it.
:
:My only problem is finding you so funny when you get on your high horse
:in defiance of facts. Usually in preparation to ride off into the sunset
:when you show you've not only grabbed the wrong end of the stick, but
:beaten yourself senseless with it.

You mean when you foam sufficiently prolifically to be a dead loss of
time, which is where you've been headed for a while in this thread.

:Remember when you claimed that nobody used PGMs for CAS, and that dumb
:iron was preferred? That you spoke for the aviation community with one
:voice? Whoops. (Of course you fled the debate at that point, perhaps
:because you realised what you'd said)

I disagreed with your contention that JAMS from B-52s at 30,000 feet
constituted 'close air support'. Given a choice between those and
'dumb iron', the Marines, at least, will use 'dumb iron' (if the
questions we've been getting from them are any indicator).

[We are now about to enter the famous Paul Adam "winning through
extraneous volume on an unrelated issue" tactic ... nab, it's not
worth bothering with.]

::but I'm not the one ignoring the facts and making up definitions on
::the fly.
:
:No, you're just the one foaming and blotting, as usual, while
:substituting snide remarks for logic.
:
:I'm the one with the facts, Fred, you're the one claiming black is
:white. Again.

Stick to torpedoes, Paul.

:Keep it up, it's funny.

To you, no doubt it is. This sort of game being 'amusing' for you is
one of the reasons you keep cycling into my killfile. Not worth the
time and bother once you start 'playing', and combatting your lies and
distortion is hardly either 'entertaining' or useful. You can
certainly lie bigger and faster than anyone I know can tell the truth.

plonk

--
You are
What you do
When it counts.

David Casey wrote:

:On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 07:05:40 -0700, TinCanMan wrote:
:
: I believe that invokes Godwins law.
:
: Just because some Americans speak a dialect English one assumes they
: are civilised. In practice this seems unjustified.
:
: Godwin's law is only invoked when the anology is not true. In this case, the
: NAZI card is a well documented fact and invocation of Godwin is admission of
: an inadequate arguement.
:
:Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer,
:the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
:There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is
ver, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever
:argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the
:existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there
:is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of
:Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be
:unsuccessful.
:
:http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms...win_s_Law.html

One has to wonder how Mr Godwin's name got attached to this, since it
was around long before he discovered the net.

On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 02:46:39 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

David Casey wrote:

:http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms...win_s_Law.html

One has to wonder how Mr Godwin's name got attached to this, since it
was around long before he discovered the net.

Are you sure you're thinking of the correct Mike Godwin? He, and his
law, were around in about 1989.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

Ya know that post-ww2 at the war crimes trials for the Nazi elite, the
prisoners there
got more freedoms and rights afforded to them than the folks at Guantanamo
have. Pretty
bad when the allies treated nazi's better than the USA treats
'non-combatants'. Canada's
external affairs department STILL hasn't been told the identities of the
canadians being held
their, nor allowed to see them/speak with them. Britain only recently was
allowed to contact
their citizens being held there.

Henrietta K Thomas wrote:

(newsgroups trimmed way down)

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 13:44:48 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote, in us.military.army:

"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

:What would _you_ consider a "fair trial", Fred, and would your opinion
:change if you were the defendant?

Paul, nobody wants a 'fair trial' when they're the defendant. They
just want to get off.

Sometimes 'getting off' IS a fair trial. :-)

This lot will get fairer trials than they've got coming. Why is it
none of your lot are willing to wait for the bad outcomes you keep
shrilling about to occur before tearing your hair out and wailing to
the skies?

Because, by that time, it may be too late. Under international law,
every accused person is entitled to be treated humanely, to be
properly advised of any charges against them, to be properly
advised of their right to defend themselves. Holding people at
Guantanamo doesn't excuse the US from obeying international
law. We get away with it only because we're the most powerful
nation on earth and no one dares to challenge us.

Hell, wait until the first trial happens and someone gets sentenced.
Then you MIGHT have something to complain about. However, I'd bet you
won't. The military, unlike a civilian court, is going to be pretty
scrupulous about things before they'll sentence someone to death.

My understanding is that there will be no appeals, or at best,
limited appeals. So if, by chance, something -does- go wrong,
all avenues of redress will be closed. I don't call that a 'fair'
anything.

You might want to look at just when the last time was that a military
court handed down a death penalty.

Irrelevant to the question at hand. Regardless of the outcome,
all trials must be fair if justice is to be served.

It would have been better, IMO, if we had asked the UN to
set up an international tribunal to deal with the situation.
But we did not, so we are stuck with the decision made
by our government to do everything in secret behind
closed doors. No offense intended to the US military
justice system, but I think it was a bad call.

YMMV.

Henrietta K. Thomas
Chicago, Illinois

In message , Fred J. McCall
writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:
:Translation - Fred's been caught in a mistake (again).

Translation - Paul's elected to start lying (again).

Easy accusation, Fred - though you can never back it up.

:Killing people and blowing stuff up counts as "operations".

Yes, but this is something of a non sequitur to what I said above.

You asked for operations on multiple continents, I provided, now you're
weaselling?

:You're saying the _PLO_ weren't international, and they've had a seat at
:the UN for thirty years!

Another bit of gorilla dust you like to throw ... 'political wing' is
not 'terrorist wing'. Having an observer seat at the UN means bugger
all. If that makes an organization 'international', I guess we'd all
better be very worried about Tong a....

How many people have been killed over Tongan independence in the last
forty years?

:PIRA trained, based, raised funds, and killed in many countries. Seems
:sufficient to call them "international".

Fine, Paul. The Irish are evil incarnate. Why, they are the very
Devil reborn. They should be wiped from the face of the Earth, since
they are worse than any other possible evil extant or potential on the
planet.

Happy now?

No. I _like_ most of the Irish I've met. They're generally as worried
about IRA activities as we are, because these aren't cuddly freedom
fighters: they're criminals using a political agenda to cover a
thoroughly ruthless racketeering operation.

You might want to check out who Michael McKevitt is, and where's he's
on trial, what he's tried with, and observe the total lack of protest
and demonstration at his persecution by the authorities (including MI5,
Gardai and FBI)

Don't let facts get in the way of a good rant, though.


And what did any of the above have to do with disproving international
activity by the IRA?

:Oh, stop being so idiotic, Fred.

Very well, I'll stop taking you at your word and simply pretend you're
saying other words entirely.

Can't hurt, given your demonstrated incomprehension.

:My only problem is finding you so funny when you get on your high horse
:in defiance of facts. Usually in preparation to ride off into the sunset
:when you show you've not only grabbed the wrong end of the stick, but
:beaten yourself senseless with it.

You mean when you foam sufficiently prolifically to be a dead loss of
time, which is where you've been headed for a while in this thread.

You're more than usually content-free, Fred.

:Remember when you claimed that nobody used PGMs for CAS, and that dumb
:iron was preferred? That you spoke for the aviation community with one
:voice? Whoops. (Of course you fled the debate at that point, perhaps
:because you realised what you'd said)

I disagreed with your contention that JAMS from B-52s at 30,000 feet
constituted 'close air support'.

You explicitly stated that CAS could not be done with guided weapons, or
from high altitude, and you stated that nobody who gave a damn about the
lives of the troops on the ground would use such methods.

"one does not do CAS with 'smart weapons' or ANYTHING dropped from
30,000 feet (if one truly gives a damn about the folks on the ground)."
Fred J. McCall, 23 June 2003

Your words, not mine. Unfortunately they're not correct.

Given a choice between those and
'dumb iron', the Marines, at least, will use 'dumb iron' (if the
questions we've been getting from them are any indicator).

Oh, so your sweeping statements are in fact specific to one service of
one nation? Strange how you were adamant that other services and other
NATO nations (and even the USMC's own doctrine) is irrelevant to you...

[We are now about to enter the famous Paul Adam "winning through
extraneous volume on an unrelated issue" tactic ... nab, it's not
worth bothering with.]

This is Fred's usual distraction tactic when it's pointed out that
actually _did_ make the incorrect statements attributed to him.

:I'm the one with the facts, Fred, you're the one claiming black is
:white. Again.

Stick to torpedoes, Paul.

You're out of date, Fred. Again, your confidence exceeds your grasp of
facts.

:Keep it up, it's funny.

To you, no doubt it is. This sort of game being 'amusing' for you is
one of the reasons you keep cycling into my killfile. Not worth the
time and bother once you start 'playing', and combatting your lies and
distortion is hardly either 'entertaining' or useful.

Show me one lie, Fred.

Oh, I forgot - you can't, can you?

You can
certainly lie bigger and faster than anyone I know can tell the truth.

Challenge Fred for proof, and he disappears in a puff of falsehood.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam

On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 02:45:49 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

Fine, Paul. The Irish are evil incarnate. Why, they are the very
Devil reborn. They should be wiped from the face of the Earth,

No you are mixing them up with America, aka the Great Satan.

The point being made was a simple one that the IRA is
an international terrorist organisation. Enough evidence
has been quoted, to convice all but the blind.

It was funded and supported by Americans, and since your
government has discovered that international terrorism is a
bad thing, that has been restricted and there is a chance that
peace may come to Ireland.

It may be slightly 'off topic' to discuss a naval matter but I
also read that the development of the submarine in the US
was funded by the Fenians who wanted to attack British
shipping.
--
Jim Watt http://www.gibnet.com

Mary Shafer wrote:

:On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 02:46:39 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:
:
: David Casey wrote:
:
: :http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms...win_s_Law.html
:
: One has to wonder how Mr Godwin's name got attached to this, since it
: was around long before he discovered the net.
:
:Are you sure you're thinking of the correct Mike Godwin? He, and his
:law, were around in about 1989.

Yes, but 'the law' was around before that. It was not at all uncommon
to see the first mention of Hitler or Nazis greeted with "Bzzzzt! I
win!" as early as 1985 or so. I couldn't put a date to it, but I
remember when Mike Godwin first posted. The whole "the first person
to mention the Nazis loses" thing was around before that.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw