The Gitmo lawyers: maybe Lynne Stewart wasn’t such an anomaly after all
Remember Lynne Stewart? She was the defense attorney convicted of helping her terrorist client Abdel Rahman send messages to his supporters. Stewart acted in violation of an agreement that “she would not “use…meetings, correspondence, or phone calls with Abdel Rahman to pass messages between third parties (including, but not limited to, the media) and Abdel Rahman”.
As Andy McCarthy points out, Stewart’s conduct began in 1999, but she wasn’t tried until 2004 and sentenced till 2006, after which she was free on bail until November of 2009, when she finally entered prison to begin serving her remarkably short 28-month sentence. Andy McCarthy, of course, was Abdel Rahman’s prosecutor, and has tirelessly written about legal issues involving terrorism for the last decade or so.
Now McCarthy takes up the latest revelation of travesties on the part of lawyers for terrorists, based on this longer piece by Burlingame and Joscelyn in the WSJ (a must-read). The facts are, quite simply, shocking—if we retained our power to be shocked any more.
Like Lynn Stewart, the attorneys for the Gitmo defendants agreed—as a condition of their being allowed access to their clients—not to give them any “information relating to military operations, intelligence, arrests, political news and current events, and the names of U.S. government personnel.” Apparently these oaths were regularly violated, and when the Bush Department of Justice tried to get these lawyers dismissed, it was inundated with filings in their defense and ultimately gave up the battle:
The Gitmo bar had grown to include some 400 lawyers from as many as 50 law firms that were subsidized by the millions of dollars earned from their paying corporate clients. They had the legal talent, the support of the international press and the judicial wind at their backs. They could bury the DOJ in paper. If one lawyer was taken out, she could be replaced by another.
McCarthy summarizes the actions of some of the lawyers who defended the Gitmo detainees (parenthetical comment mine):
The Gitmo Bar…provided al Qaeda detainees with a propaganda brochure that instructed them on how falsely to claim that they had been tortured and abused…fomented a detainee hunger strike that disrupted security at the camp and set the stage for fabricated reports that the detainees were being tortured and force-fed…provided the detainees with virulently anti-American rhetoric that compared military physicians to Nazi Josef Mengele, labeled DOJ lawyers “desk torturers,” and informed the detainees about the Abu Ghraib abuses and the potential for framing President Bush as a war criminal…provided the enemy combatant terrorists with a hand-drawn map of the detention camp’s lay-out, including guard towers…incited the detainees against the military guards…posted photos of Guantanamo security badges on the Internet in a transparent effort to identify U.S. security personnel…facilitated enemy combatants in communicating messages and interviews to their confederates and the outside world [sound familiar?]…provided a detainee with a list identifying all the other detainees in custody…provided the detainees with news accounts about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, including reports that U.S. forces were sustaining devastating casualities from IED attacks.
Our system of justice is an adversarial one which depends on even the most vile of defendants receiving counsel. Defense attorneys perform this task, which is essential for the functioning of justice. But these attorneys have obviously gone above and beyond the call of duty.
Most of America would be rightly outraged at this. But will most of America know about it? The WSJ is one of the few relatively mainstream newspapers in this country that still writes about such matters. Here’s a sample of how the left treats the story. As for the rest, it’s either crickets chirping, or cries of McCarthyism (of the olden-day variety).
It appears that the long Gramscian march has not only taken over some churches, the press, and our educational system, but much of the legal system as well. Or maybe lawyers were actually the early shock troops.
Socialize the Lawyers … Socialize them NOW!
Put them in a pen: Call out randomly.
Fixed fees.
Have them wear gray lab coats with a shade of green. Government issued round straw hats.
Every two years: bar exam … compulsory continuing education.
Illegal immigrants and Religious Zealot Foreign terrorists should have automatic free Legal assistance.
Nobody should be bankrupted by legal fees. Legal services for all is a birth right!
U.S. Americans UNITE! Free Legal Services for all!
Having spent nearly two decades as a police officer, perhaps I can provide a bit of perspective. There are essentially two kinds of lawyers involved in criminal justice practice: The defense bar, and all others. The others tend to be lawyers who are essentially on the local rotation. They are called upon, from time to time, to defend indigent criminal defendants and generally take on this task with at least a nod to the idea that by so doing they are upholding a worthy constitutional function. As such, they generally don’t have any anti-poice, anti-government, anti-American baggage that informs their actions. They are essentially professionals doing their jobs. The best of them will speak with the police and admit that their clients are something less than angelic. They are realistic and work within the rules of the system.
The defense bar is another matter entirely. These lawyers have made a career of defending criminals, and while not all suffer from the delusion that their clients are innocent victims of a corrupt, oppressive, fascist system, many do. Many not only hate the police, objective judges, our entire justice system, and America itself, they tend to profess stunningly leftist, even communist policies and ideas and see themselves as the vanguard of a noble people’s movement against American oppression. Not only do they identify with common criminals, they will do virtually anything to secure their release and vindication. Most of them, over time, “go native,” in other words, completely identify with those they represent. None of the stunts McCarthy noted are surprising. In fact, I’d be surprised if they behaved otherwise.
What is worthwhile to remember is that none of these lawyers or their firms was in the local defense rotation. They chose to defend, not common criminals, citizens of the US, but enemy combatants in time of war. That these enemy combatants would be more than delighted, given the opportunity, to rape, torture and murder them or their families, matters not a bit to them. And while most of these lawyers don’t share every aspect of the jihadist’s belief book, on several meaningful issues, they are surely fellow travelers.
What do they share? Hatred of America and American values, hatred of our military, hatred of conservatives, hatred of our intelligence services, hatred of western civilization, hatred of the American system of justice, and a variety of left-wing pathologies. And like all leftists, they believe themselves immune to the consequences of their actions and beliefs, for theory always takes precedence over reality
I have send a number of articles and blog posts by Andrew McCarthy to my brother, a liberal in San Francisco. I sent today’s blog post listing the salient points in the Burlingame/Jocelyn piece. I suggested that he link to the piece itself after reading McCarthy’s post.
He immediately responded with the words. “Thank you Ms. Cheney”
I replied that this was the sort of wisecrack I’d expect from Michael Moore, and that I figured that the items listed below in the McCarty post would be of concern to him. His response:
” ‘..the items below…’ are taken from a yellow tabloid sheet that takes its editorial direction from an organization whose stated aim is to bring down the constitutionally elected government. Sorry for alluding to the Constitution, I know how much that document is despised by the management at NewsCorp. WSJ is a NewsCorp organ now. It used to be a business-friendly, but honest outfit.
The ‘enemy combatant’ label is used throughout. The general tone of outrage is classic NewsCorp.”
The expression “business-friendly, but honest” is revealing.
In all of this, he didn’t read either the blog post or the op-ed.
He gets his news from the Daily Show.
Here is a good example of whatt prisoner prepping results in. This story and the book got lots of coverage in Germany, with no skepticism from reporters. Kurnaz even pulled out the old saw on Koran abuse. I should also point out that he has Turkish roots, yet he went to Pakistan to study Islam. He was pretty much a low-level wannabe jihadi, so I suspect that interrogators didn’t waste much time on him.
http://www.amazon.com/Five-Years-My-Life-Guantanamo/dp/0230614418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268680430&sr=8-1
Please note the reviewers and read some of the comments.
I almost forgot, Kurnaz left for Pakistan in Oct. of 2001. Strange timing!
@mikemcdaniel @1:20 PM: informative comment
An anomaly that includes some of the US military lawyers assigned to Guantanamo detainess. Lt Col Yvonne Bradley, US military lawyer has said:
Bill West, it’s probably a waste of time to try to convince your brother through reasoned argument.
I’ve found it more effective to use a little psychological ju-jitsu on such liberals. In your brother’s case, something along the lines of “Well, they should go easy on those jihadis, maybe even turn them loose in the US. After all, they were just innocent goatherders turned in for a bounty. I saw that on MSNBC. Besides, even if they were terrorists, why would Muslim fundamentalists ever want to attack SF? We need to be more accepting of other cultures, and resist the fear-mongerers.”
Then slap him on the back and walk away. Let that baby soak in…
The logic here is that liberal positions often seem driven by adolescent rebellion, so that whatever an authority figure says is automatically wrong. Removing the psychic payoff of wilful contrariness leaves the larval adult to reflect on the wisdom of his original position, knowing that a) no one particularly cares what he decides, b) he will be the one to bear the consequences of whatever decision he makes, and c) if it turns out badly for him, no one will particularly care about that either, nor do anything to ameliorate it. He’s on his own.
I used to use this “reality therapy” approach constantly when I was in academia. It works wonders, and into the bargain it is entertaining to watch the Wile E. Coyote-like facial expressions it induces!
Read the op-ed and it’s absolutely disgusting how these leftists attorney’s broke the law and were rewarded for it. It depresses me that Bush era DOJ lawyers could be beaten like this while Holder’s Leftist DOJ seems invulnerable.
Lynne Stewart was loose when I lived in NYC, there are a couple of others in town, such as Ron Kuby who have no problem with defending terrorist types. It was awful, particularly for those who lost friend and family in the 9/11 attacks. One would think they’d want no part of the horror perpetuated on the city they reside in, but that’s not the case. Now this latest outrage…
“The social conservative bloc is pressing for the standards to turn Joseph McCarthy into an American hero”
The conservative effort to turn public opinion in McCarthy’s favor began way back in 1954 — while the Wisconsin senator was still in office — with the publication of William F. Buckley’s McCarthy And His Enemies.
its interesting, as in above, to read what the left is saying… and how they are going about it. washington monthly shows how hard they are now tacking to the far left.
Revisionaries
How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids’ textbooks.
now its interesting to note, that the left accuses the right of what THEY do, regardless of whether the right actually does it (or rather, the opposition, they dont care about left or right). you can see this CLEARLY in neos reference to the article on romania after the communism. that the leader of the country thougth macys was a fake set up, a potemkin store… which is what he had in his country.
THIS is the kind of view that obama has of merit. there is no merit, there is only better scam artists. and a store like macys where everyone and anyone (you should see the flood of welfare after check day), can buy.
so now this article is trying to oppose the adding of TRUTH to textbooks… why? because they define truth arbitrarily and no one is allowed to do that other than they… and they took a great long time to put their truths in over the other truths since truth is arbitrary.
do note that the article ABOUT HISTORY… http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1001.blake.html ….starts off by the old FALSE trope as to Darwin and evolution is not valid… (which is funny since the opposing side says nothing is valid at the core of their ideas). however the point as ot the textbooks is not about validity of theories, but about HISTORY… and as such, the history of the arguments and discussions DOES have a place. would the author like everyone to erase the history of socialism and communism because its invalid?
so you can see that the argument is a false one right out of post modern junk…just take some time to note how its constructed. first put him in the tin hat club (a point that was invented in the 60s… before that, they werent cranks!) then tell us the real argument… in a way that isnt the real argument
Views like these are relatively common in East Texas, a region that prides itself on being the buckle of the Bible Belt. But McLeroy is no ordinary citizen. The jovial creationist sits on the Texas State Board of Education, where he is one of the leaders of an activist bloc that holds enormous sway over the body’s decisions. As the state goes through the once-in-a-decade process of rewriting the standards for its textbooks, the faction is using its clout to infuse them with ultraconservative ideals. Among other things, they aim to rehabilitate Joseph McCarthy, bring global-warming denial into science class, and downplay the contributions of the civil rights movement.
so they want the truth as to Venona to be taught… [she doenst like truth, since the truth will set people on a similar course to my attitude towards these things] that the SCAM of global warming, should continue… why?
James Lovelock in 2007
Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic.
In 2009, Lovelock admitted: Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam.
[when capitalism didnt collapse from the inside like it was supposed to… they then claimed that we exported it to the imperial colonies… when this didnt hold up, we exported the misery of capitalism to others to suffer while we enjoy. now that that is not working, they are back to collapsing it by force so they can say… see… its broken, like some snotty 5 year old that gets a hold of your new birthday toy]
i will guarantee that she does not know the full history of slavery and the full history of hayes tilden and such… though she goes on at length trying to make the whole process of stalinization of history, normal, and the return or desire to be truthful, a big negative.
They also began stirring up other social conservatives, and eventually came to wield breathtaking influence. By the 1980s, the board was demanding that publishers make hundreds of the Gablers’ changes each cycle. These ranged from rewriting entire passages to simple fixes, such as pulling the New Deal from a timeline of significant historical events (the Gablers thought it smacked of socialism) and describing the Reagan administration’s 1983 military intervention in Grenada as a “rescue” rather than an “invasion.”
you can see how far she tacks left… NEW DEAL was socialist (she implies it isnt and should be included, otherwise why use it as an example), and that Grenada is an invasion. if so, then why dont we have the island, and why dont we drill for the oil that they are now arguing for? thats bcause she got history from Zinn… a PEOPLES history… IE A communists history of the united states… (simple code…)
Barton’s goal is to pack textbooks with early American documents that blend government and religion, and paint them as building blocks of our Constitution. In so doing, he aims to blur the fact that the Constitution itself cements a wall of separation between church and state. But his agenda does not stop there. He and the other conservative experts also want to scrub U.S. history of its inconvenient blemishes–if they get their way, textbooks will paint slavery as a relic of British colonialism that America struggled to cast off from day one and refer to our economic system as “ethical capitalism.” They also aim to redeem Communist hunter Joseph McCarthy, a project McLeroy endorses. As he put it in a memo to one of the writing teams, “Read the latest on McCarthy–He was basically vindicated.”
is she aware that lattimore who wrote a book as to his travails with mccarthy and coined the term mccarthyism, was found to in fact be a spy? how about the others? turns out that he DID know and was trying to clean out the progressives from the government…when you want to know why we have so many communists and maoists and leninists, and stalinists, you can thank the ostracize of mccarthy for being right and that scaring the people from opposing such force.
they are mobilizing (but last i heard they lost)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_03/022823.php
LOOKING LONGINGLY TO JOE MCCARTHY…. For the American mainstream, former Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) was a dangerous demagogue. His name is synonymous with witch hunts, smears, guilt by association, and the practice of destroying the lives of one’s political rivals.
his name is synonymous with witch hunts… that is he was hunting something that didnt exist.. however, spies and subversives in state violating their office oaths and working to end the US as a constitutional nation… is a far cry from witches…
and on guilt with association… if we had that, would we be in the mess currently? and the last part basically says that he did it, to win… which by the way is what the left has done with EVERY person before mccarthy and up to mccarthy (mccarthyism, reganism, etc), and beyond…
In Texas, for example, far-right activists are trying to rewrite the state’s school curriculum standards, part of which includes an effort to rehabilitate Joe McCarthy. In Congress, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) described McCarthy as “a great American hero” a few years back.
FAR RIGHT… so its the FASCISTS Again… its just two worlds to them.. totalitarian fascists and totalitarian communists… notice how they use the word “rehabilitate”… like he was a drug addict… how about “set the record straight”? then the author tries to lump glenn beck and make silly about his historical facts as to FDR and the communists in his presidency!!!
but again… what are the facts?
look how they FALSELY paint beck to their followers. do you think their followers would EVER dare to pick up a history book and then have such directed at them?
“It was Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy, who shined the spotlight on the Communist Party again,” Beck said rhapsodically.
but catch the last line..
“McCarthy later led a Senate committee investigation into inefficiencies in the government. Critics accused him of falsely identifying Communists, and smearing their names.” Those pesky critics! Beck then brought up, for some reason, the Cold War “domino theory,” that if one nation went Communist, so would its neighbors. “Kind of feels like that now, doesn’t it?” he asked.
Bashing FDR is, like it or not, becoming second-nature to conservatives. But you don’t often hear people willing to offer praise for McCarthy, who — as even Beck had to admit — was censured by the Senate in 1954 for his feverish pursuit of Reds, little of which he was able to substantiate.
who, mccarthy? or Beck?
and as far as substantiate, well, THATS the whole point… just as we dont know what a prosecutor knows in a case covering AQ, we would not be openly transparent about what and whom we knew in state was spying and so forth.
from wiki
The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; the Hollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities;
mccarthy didnt have anything to do with those things in the list… but sounds like he did…
[edited for length by n-n]
Makes me think I should be printing some of this stuff I read into hard copy. Might it disappear on the .net?
Artfldgr didn’t go far enough.
“Lt Col Yvonne Bradley, US military lawyer has said:
“I took on the role of military lawyer to Guanté¡namo detainees firmly believing that justice would be pursued and a full and fair trial would be had for all. This illusion quickly fell apart. “ Martyn from the land of dhimmi’s
It certainly did “fall apart quickly”, it took about 5 minutes: “She remembers meeting a “baby-faced” young man who seemed quiet and shy.
“I was thinking, ‘This guy’s supposed to be the worst of the worst; we’re going to try him as one of the first 10 cases? What the hell are we doing down here in Guantanamo?’ ” She said she left Mohamed’s cell feeling “upset and confused.”
An Air Force lawyer fights to free a Guantanamo inmate
Another leftist lawyer without the intellectual honesty to admit to her biases; her whole career has been defending death row inmates (all of whom are innocent) as a public defender.
Her story is all over the left-wing blogs and the primary source of information about her is the McClatchy newspapers, who state: “An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.” no bias there…
These lawyers are guilty of treason. As they are aiding and abetting a mortal enemy of the US. They should be summarily placed against a wall and shot.
Failing that, it’s time for the legal profession to be nationalized. Pay them all public prosecutors salaries, its a win/win…lowers the debt, cleans out the deadwood by greatly reducing the number of lawyers and dramatically reduces frivolous lawsuits.
Hey, the US Army had Major Traitor Hasan. The AF has LTC Yvonne Bradley….
The AF always is less of a ‘hands on’ branch and prefers violence at a distance.
I doesn’t mean the detainees are innocent, it means LTC Bradley has a racial chip on her shoulder and wants to get porked (in a halal fashion) by one of them.
Compare Bradley’s client with Kurnaz. Both went to Pakistan in 2001 to study their faith. I wonder which page of AI’s script that is from. It is obvious that Bradley understands nothing of the psychology of the cannonfodder AQ. She is a member of the victimology sect and she seems to think we should concern ourselves only with the Bin Ladens and ignore the foot soldiers who will take bombs onto the London subways or shopping malls.
Good and useful post mikemcdaniel.
US Senate’s top climate sceptic accused of waging ‘McCarthyite witch-hunt’
James Inhofe calls for criminal investigation of climate scientists as senators prepare proposal that would ditch cap and trade
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/01/inhofe-climate-mccarthyite
See how much a problem the correction of history to its factual record would be? they would lose a smear, a weapon that they beat on people that disagree with them (especially when they are right and have no defense against such truth or merit)
The US Congress’s most ardent global warming sceptic is being accused of turning the row over climate science into a McCarthyite witch-hunt by calling for a criminal investigation of scientists.
Climate scientists say Senator James Inhofe’s call for a criminal investigation into American as well as British scientists who worked on the UN climate body’s report or had communications with East Anglia’s climate research unit represents an attempt to silence debate on the eve of new proposals for a climate change law. Inhofe’s document ends by naming 17 “key players” in the controversy about CRU’s stolen emails, including the Britons Phil Jones and Keith Briffa.
“I think this is like a drag net, just to try and catch everyone whose name happens to be on this list. It’s guilt by association and I thought those days were over 50 years ago,” said Michael Oppenheimer, of Princeton University, who is on the list of 17 scientists.
if i had the money i would send him a copy of lattimores book, and a copy of the venona transcripts… I wonder if he has any relationship to ANOTHER pseudo spy from the manhattan project? (he didnt spy, but he also didnt care who they placed in his office to do the job). is it any wonder that a man who, like lattimore was and is complicit in this SCAM (in which every answer leads to the same conclusion)
“It looks like a McCarthyite tactic: pull in anyone who had anything to do with anyone because they happened to converse with some by email, and threaten them with criminal activity.”
and lets see… is micheal a progressive/communist/socialist… (i know the answer, but here it is)
here, let his employer tell you
http://www.princeton.edu/step/people/faculty/michael-oppenheimer/
they tell you what he is with and involved in, and tiny amount of digging gets this
wws.princeton.edu/wws-news-magazine/winter02.pdf
After a morning of panels discussing issues of race, class, gender, and sexual identity; working in communities of color; and legitimacy and issues of leadership, the weekend closed on Sunday with a luncheon speech from Robert Yasui MPA/JD-MPA/URP ’87, an attorney in Los Angeles. Yasui contrasted the experience of his immigrant Japanese grandfather who was interned by the U.S. government during the Second World War with the events of September 11 and the need for people of color to represent and serve in the public sphere in order to continue the spirit of progressive change, to challenge the status quo, and to
ensure civil liberties in the present and for future generations. Yasui said, “Be courageous and have vision. Stick to your values. Don’t be a moral coward. The bottom line is that you will reshape government, and in so doing you will reshape society. By your presence, you are effecting social change.”
so again.. the ‘code’ words are there. progressive change. civil rights. reshape society. social change. so guess what? this is more like mccarthy than the person probably knows… as he is, like lattimore, a progressive/communist who works for a progressive organization, which has the name of one of americas most despotic presidents (who they dont teach about)
Rick Piltz, a former official in the US government climate science programme who now runs the Climate Science Watch website, said Inhofe and others were getting in the way of scientific work. “Scientists who are working in federal labs are being subjected to inquisitions coming from Congress,” he said. “There is no question that this is an orchestrated campaign to intimidate scientists.”
once again… its a grand conspiracy against them, and an inquisition..
how many scientist have we broken on the wheel today?
A university investigation largely cleared Mann of misconduct for his connection to the East Anglia controversy. However, a rightwing group in Pennsylvania are demanding further action.
anyone know about university investigations?
they are show trials and games.. mean NOTHING as the people at the university all know the way the vote should go before they vote. let a real grand jury do it… after all, they and mann did break the law… and i am getting tired of this, on the left, break the law, and get a freebie.
Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at Nasa’s Goddard Institute who is also on the list of 17, said he had seen an increase in freedom of information act requests. “In my previous six years I dealt with one FoIA request. In the last three months, we have had to deal with I think eight,” he said. “These FoIAs are fishing expeditions for potentially embarrassing content but they are not FoIA requests for scientific information.”
what a screwed up argument.. first of all… foia is not just set up to get science information… but ANY information. and the point of it is to be able to ahve the employer of state entities (the people) be able to review the work of the people who take their tax money for such. and if you follow all of this, you would know that if they requested scientific information, they would not get it. IT WAS DESTROYED…
that is, they took all that money, and they then threw away what the money was spent on… and when they were requested to turn over the data, they destroyed it. so now people want to know the actions of those who were in the employ. they forget that they are in the employ of the people! if they worked for a company using its own money, no one could request anything. so the man is an idiot with a degree that has no idea of the relationships that creates his whole world.
He said Inhofe’s call for a criminal investigation created an atmosphere of intimidation. “The idea very clearly is to let it be known that should you be a scientist who speaks out in public then you will be intimidated, you will be harassed, and you will be threatened,” he said. “The idea very clearly is to put a chilling effect on scientists speaking out in public and to tell others to keep their heads down. That kind of intimidation is very reminiscent of other periods in US history where people abused their position.”
no… destroying data, lying, ad homenim attacks and things created that environment… and he was complicit in that… he has the attitude that he shouldnt get a ticket when everyone else was speeding too. and his point ASSUMES the premise that he is correct, honest, and such… he ISNT… the very political ideology he subscribes to requires such dishonesty.
[edited for length by n-n]
I have no problems with Joseph McCarthy. He destroyed Communist Party of America, which was openly stalinist and a formiddable force in 1950s. His alcoholism and paranoia are irrelevant to the fact, that he was factually right: there are times when only paranoics clearly see the situation, and everybody else are delusional.
there are times when only paranoics clearly see the situation, and everybody else are delusional.
Only the Paranoid Survive: Book Preface
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/grove/paranoid.htm
its also comforting to know that paranoia is not only a mental problem state!
that is, conditions can change ones outlook from one of unconcern to hyper-concern…
those with a bit of such in response to changes circumstances, are exactly the people who survive!!!
in books and studies about survivors, you find that they prepare… and why do they prepare… they are paranoid abotu waht can happen…
we call it cautious, but that is only context!!!
that is, what one persons action of caution, is often seen as paranoia and a waste but the reasonable.
this winter with the state benig so screwed up i gave thermal emergency blankets as a stocking stuffer. to be used in an emergency, which includes being stuck on a train for many hours with no heat, no way off, and not being dressed properly because you didnt anticipate a imperfect world. (or if someone has an accident, the blanket can keep them warm and help against shock)
the point is that they were $2… they probably will not be used ever.
but you can read a lot of stories (and watch them on the show about people that shold be dead), where the taking of an extra bottle of water, a pen knife, etc made all the differences.
if any of those blankets get used… even if just for shock at a car accident…
it went from paranoia to prepared.
my attitude with all this was to succeed, make my money, divide it amoung the world, and move around so that i am not home when things change.
everyone around me thought that i was being greedy. they had already planned out their lives and knew the future so they said i was greedy for wanting more that that imagined future would need.
now they are not so clear
and we are all going to suffer as i didnt do those things as they were too busy navel gazing, and playing with their Ids to do something.
NOW the reality of life is hitting them and they want to do something, and there is nothing that can be done.
there is no such thing as security
only opportunity
Martyn, it is a fair caution flag to raise. It is always possible that some less-guilty, or even not-guilty are mixed in, and care taken to treat decently even those who might not officially “deserve” such treatment by statute or treaty.
However, a closer examination suggests that the Grauniad’s spin is not quite as advertised either. This particular military lawyer has had quite an unusual career. As mikemcdaniel notes above, her activities put her more in danger of the temptation of “going native” rather than “selling out to The Man.” That’s not proof, but the possibility remains. Significantly, the other defense lawyers were suspicious of her because she was a Republican. That seems to say something about them as a class, then. Of further interest is what Lt. Col Bradley does not say. Her focus is entirely on the “but they can’t prove it” aspect. She disguises that with clever advocacy, but read closely, and that is the message. The chain of reasoning is: They told me he was dangerous but he doesn’t look it. There isn’t enough evidence to convict. They held on to him anyway, and this can only be because they are evil and unfair, not because he is dangerous. Dunno about that. People can indeed get carried away with power and authority, but I suspect if they really thought he was innocent and taking into custody mistakenly they would have been glad to send him on his way years ago. Ask yourself what interest they would have in holding on to a person they thought was a mistake.
As to the attorneys, both sides are using some sleight-of-hand in their PR. McCarthy’s reasoning is: I know these people, they are leftist ideologues. Some unspecified attorneys in their number have done treasonous things. Therefore we should regard them all as traitors. Well, that’s weak, even if he does know the breed.
But the defense of them is equally bad. It is possible to do this work for noble, civil liberties, precedent-setting reasons. Therefore we should assume that. That’s nice in terms of formal or criminal accusations, perhaps, but when the defense decides to wage a PR battle in addition to the legal one, they invite PR attacks upon themselves.
“Bashing FDR is, like it or not, becoming second-nature to conservatives”
Absolutely. It shouldn’t be second-nature. It should be first-nature. No one but a conservative would object to FDR’s incarceration of the Japanese.