Gonzales praises new U.S. military law (prisoners now have more rights)

[sabra]

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061023-...

Gonzales praises new U.S. military law

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla., Oct. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday praised the new Military Commissions Act, saying prisoners now have more rights than they did before.

Gonzales was speaking to a leadership convention of U.S. Judge Advocates General in Lake Buena Vista Fla., and echoed U.S. President George Bush's call for better tools to combat terrorists, whose cause, he said "is nothing less than a return to the Dark Ages."

He said the act, signed into law this month by Bush, gives individuals detained as enemy combatants at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "greater legal rights than are provided to lawful prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

"Although our enemy shows nothing but contempt for the law of war and the standards of civilized nations, we provide him with these protections because they are consistent with the values of the United States. These values are among the many hallmarks of civilization that separate us from them," Gonzales said.

[bearfan454]

1. That's repuke double speak.

They have NO rights.

[Lindsay]

2. And chocolate rations

have increased.

[AzDar]

3. Renfield is delusional. n/t

[bullimiami]

4. wow. thats some evil forked tounge bullshit.

[denverbill]

5. Get a clue Alberto. The laws aren't to protect our enemies.

They are to protect those we accuse of being our enemies, who in fact, were wrongly accused.

Retard.

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. Is there something in the water at the White House

or do these people honestly think we are all stupid?

[LynnTheDem]

7. Gee, that's one hell of a total absolute LIE.

I'm actually quite over that one.

[The Count]

8. "Terraists want return to Dark Ages" - but we got there first! We're#1!!!!

As for Geneva convention prisoners - stop asking for your torture rights! Only OUR prisoners get them, so there.

[twilight_sailing]

9. "prisoners now have more rights than they did before"?

How could that possibly be true?

I am going to go outside in the sunshine. These bastards are making me crazy.

[noonwitch]

14. They now have a choice-waterboarding or naked human pyramid

I hope you enjoy the sunshine. We haven't seen the sun much in Detroit in several days.

[susanna]

22. Off topic: Detroit weather

...tell me about it. I took vacation last week to clear my garden and spent 95% of it inside due to massive cloud cover and cold front. Since when does MI have 40-50ish degrees for MOST of October?! Back in MY day (sarcasm intended), it was 50-60ish until early November, mostly, with a couple of "off" days.

Thankfully, my garden is small and I've managed to clear most of it, a little at a time. That said, I am NOT looking forward to pruning my lilac next month once it goes truly dormant. Brrrrrr....

on edit: typo

[Moochy]

10. The AG is Contractually Obligated to Lie

It's in his contract. He's got to catapult The Propaganda!

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
-President George W Bush, Greece, NY, May 24, 2005

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. up is down, Black is White. Left is Right. In is out.

what a screwed up world

[acmavm]

12. This dumb bastard must have bought his law degree. He sure

didn't earn it.

[VegasWolf]

13. They now have the right to be face down or face up on the waterboard. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

15. Let's see . . .

Habeas Corpus is eliminated, torture is legalized, the accused before a military commission cannot review the evidence against him and Gonzo says they have more rights?

Than who? A slave on a plantation in the old South?

Occupation is Liberation
Repression is Democracy
Chaos is Order
Big Brother is Watching You

[teryang]

16. The JAGS must have been choking on puke...

...they did not support the legislation, their input was disregarded.

Actually, by my recall the phrase "separates us from the Dark Ages" appeared in a scathing critique of the legislation, so this little post op is psy op.

[LetsThink]

23. Mil psy op becoming politicized?

I have wondered about this.......

[Pastiche423]

17. What law school did bert go to?

The University of Propaganda?

[Charlie Brown]

18. probably the George Orwell School of Law nt

[goforit]

19. The signing of more torture will turn more voters off bozo! Remind them!

[IndianaGreen]

20. I am certain that AG Gonzales was a Nazi judge in his past life

Judges Judging Judges—Judgment at Nuremberg

By Michael Asimow, UCLA Law School (August 1998)

Stanley Kramer’s masterpiece Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) stands alone as the finest film about judges ever made. In the film, four Nazi judges are placed on trial at Nuremberg before a panel of three American judges. Three of the German judges are Nazi thugs but one of them, Ernst Janning (played by Burt Lancaster), was quite different. Janning had been a famous and aristocratic legal scholar, a drafter of the Weimar constitution, and a man who detested Hitler and the Nazis. Yet he remained on the bench under the Third Reich. All defendants are convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The chief American judge, Dan Haywood (played memorably by Spencer Tracy), brushes aside the various excuses offered by defense counsel Rolfe (a role for which Maximilian Schell won an Oscar).

The Nuremberg war crime trials presented many thorny jurisprudential issues, such as the problem of ex post facto criminal law and the issue of how the court obtained jurisdiction over the defendants. In particular, what justification is there for an international (rather than a German) tribunal to try a case in which the offenses were committed by Germans against other Germans?

But the trial of the Nazi judges presented additional dilemmas. What of Rolfe’s argument that Janning remained on the bench in order to make the system of justice more merciful than it otherwise would have been? Certainly if Janning had resigned he would have been replaced by a more brutal official. Should this be a defense against charges that in some cases Janning had acted in a brutal and lawless manner? And what of positivism—is it not the responsibility of the judge to carry out the laws of his country adopted by competent authorities, even if he disagrees with them? And what of independence—can a person serve as a judge when he is subject to the control or influence of non-judicial officials? And how about selective prosecution—there were thousands of German judges. Why are these four being picked on?

<snip>

The questions raised by Judgment at Nuremberg go to the core of what we do and what we are. What does it mean to be a lawyer, professor, or judge? Do we believe in positivism, natural law, legal realism? What do those philosophies require when one is a participant in the Nazi legal system? What if many judges had resisted the Nazis instead of pandering to them? Could the Holocaust have been prevented?

http://www.usfca.edu/pj/articles/Nuremberg.htm

[susanna]

21. Whaaaa...nevermind. n/t

[LetsThink]

24. Call it PR, Psy Op..... It's Pure B.S.......

...... discouraging, too. It's like our constitution is just being shredded.....

Also, I have been worried lately that we are becoming as extreme in our religious form of government as the middle eastern countries are in theirs... Now this law. What other traditional freedoms will be suspended next ?

[Disturbed]

25. Does anyone believe this blatant Bullshit by Gonzales?

I believe this: He should be indicted for Crimes Against America.

[Supersedeas]

26. After four plus years of detention with NO rights, Al Gonzo waives the rights

flag for that who have a right to be 'water boarded'

Before it wasn't right, now it is.
Al Gonzo calls it civilization

[Vinca]

27. Did Gonzo go to a mail order law school? nt