Oh, the inhumanity!
Will the torture never cease?
Detainees in Multi-National Forces-Iraq Theater Internment Facilities were allowed to vote!
Are we beasts, to treat prisoners so?
Detainees in Multi-National Forces-Iraq Theater Internment Facilities were allowed to vote!
Are we beasts, to treat prisoners so?
Nearly 90 percent of all eligible security detainees in Multi-National Forces-Iraq Theater Internment Facilities participated in today’s democratic vote on the Iraqi National Ballot.
MNF-I took special care to ensure that every eligible detainee who wanted to vote was afforded the opportunity. Balloting opened early this morning and continued until all eligible detainee’s passed through the polling stations.
Voting took place at Camp Bucca, Abu Ghraib and Fort Suse TIFs. Extending the vote to all eligible Iraqis is another example of how the rule of law is helping to strengthen the Iraqi society. The right to shape a free and representative democracy is not a privilege for few, but a right of all Iraqis.
8 Comments:
At Tue Dec 13, 01:41:00 PM, Karlo said…
Does this have anything to do with the fact that we're holding so many people who haven't been convicted of a crime?
At Tue Dec 13, 03:24:00 PM, US Marine Dad said…
Gee, I think in all the other wars we fought we held many many prisoners that had not been convicted of crimes. Why should this war be any different?
At Tue Dec 13, 03:56:00 PM, Jeff said…
Well, I admire your pluck, Karlo, if not your reasoning. As the previous comment points out, since when do combatants in a war have to charge prisoners from the other side with crimes?
I am hardly an expert on the Geneva Convention, but I don't believe even that requires a prisoner to be charged with a crime.
And the detainees weren't picked up at random off the street because US soldiers or Marines were bored.
Also, many more have been released after being questioned. It's not like absolutely everyone picked up disappears into a black hole.
At Tue Dec 13, 05:25:00 PM, Karlo said…
What do you mean by "war"? Are you referring to the "war on terror" that's supposed to go on pretty much everywhere for an indefinite period?
At Tue Dec 13, 08:57:00 PM, Jeff said…
Clausewitz's classic definitions are a good place to start.
"War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will" and "War is a mere continuation of policy by other means".
The terrorist have, and do, use violence to force us to do their will. (whatever that is, get out of Saudi Arabia, abandon Israel, etc...)
They use violence to achieve an end. (The domination of their ideology)
It is not the kind of war that Caesar or Napolean would have known, where armies march out to some empty field, in uniform, bash each other for a bit, and then retire.
There are no classic front lines in this war.
The enemy plans to kill people. Bombs on trains, planes flying into buildings, those are not accidents. They are conscious acts to murder civilians. They saw people's heads off with knives. They would do far worse if they could. They have said in no uncertain terms they want us dead. They cannot be reasoned with. Violence is the only thing they understand.
If this isn't war, I don't know what it is.
At Tue Dec 13, 11:10:00 PM, Leo Pusateri said…
Karlo definitely has liberal kumbaya syndrome. If only we speak nice to the nice Islamofascists and show them that we mean them no harm, they will live in harmony and peace with all of us.
About as credible as the term, "socialist uptopia".
At Wed Dec 14, 02:46:00 PM, Karlo said…
"Gee, I think in all the other wars we fought we held many many prisoners that had not been convicted of crimes. Why should this war be any different?"
This "war" is different in that the government has no clear objective or time-frame. (Your assinine kumbaya comments aside, ridding the world of evil and terror is something that sounds better in a Joan Baez song that it does from coming from our cynical commander in chief.)
You keep bringing up grand campaigns of the past for comparison, But during most wars, the U.S. wasn't picking people up from all over the globe and holding them indefinitely. One thing that the pro-war crowd loses sight of is that war is a two-edged sword that always results in an inevitable loss of freedoms. The question is to create a balance between the real threats we face and the actions required to deal with those threats. You're all so willing to toss your freedoms into the wind because you're so confident that the "straight-talkin' Texan cowboy Bush" (what a crock) and his crowd could never turn on you. Basically, you're looking for a benevolent king to protect you. Myself, I don't think we need a decades-long conflict in which we send the world's most advanced army through every thirdworld ghettto in the name of democracy simply to deal with a handful of idiots armed with mace and box-cutters.
At Wed Dec 14, 08:36:00 PM, Jeff said…
Prisoners in other wars, e.g. WWII, were held to the end of the war. I would not view this war as over. (And Russia continued to hold German prisoners well after that war ended.)
We seem to have different views on what the terrorists would do if, say, we left Iraq. If we left tomorrow, would you say we would never be troubled by terrorists again? Would they stop blowing up trains in London and Madrid? Would they stop taking children hostage in Beslan? Would they stop blowing up people in Bangladesh and Indonesia?
I think we face a threat far worse than a few people with mace and boxcutters.
I certainly don't think we need a decades-long conflict either, I just don't think we have the only say on that.
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