Hope and Change Administration: Detainees have “no constitutional rights”

Johan Klaus on February 21, 2009 at 7:08 PM

Quite correct.

Have been googling the net for the past almost two hours, since lexhamfox made this assertion, trying to find even one treaty that permits non-uniformed non-state brigands, saboteurs, bandits and terrorists operating outside the accepted rules of land warfare and Geneva “habeus corpus” rights.

So far, nothing. Based on this and my having had to operate for many years in compliance with Geneva, and a slew of multi- and bi-lateral treaties…frankly, non-uniformed, non-state bandits et al., who willingly violate all aspects of Geneva, and are non-signatories to Geneva, have but one right…the right to die with assistance.

I’ve heard this sort of argument before. It was invalid back in the 1980-90′s. It is invalid today.

Nations, communities of Law, recognize that there are those who threaten the very existence of communities of Law as outlaws…and such should be dealt with harshly and immediately, lest by their efforts they establish legitimacy and turn the rule of Law into the rule of the gun.

When the world community caved in and granted legitimacy to Fatah and the PLO, it opened a Pandora’s box that will never be fully closed again. We are dealing with the effects of that opening (based on feelings, not common sense or the rule of law) today.

coldwarrior on February 21, 2009 at 7:25 PM

Dresden…a morale target more than a strategic target, with the conventional wisdom at the time of driving the civilian population of Germany to rise up and take care of Hitler on their own.

Terribly misunderestimated, so to speak. The Hamburg raids as well, same idea, same tactics.

The other factor which led to the decision to use incendiaries on Dresden and Hamburg, was that despite all the hush-hush and care over protecting the Norden bombsight, it was lousy. Better than guesstimating, but in actuality, the Norden proivided a CEP of about a mile or so, on a good day.

Conducting a nightime raid on a major German city…conventional bombs may or may not hit the city center. Could just as well have hit the suburbs, or adjacent farmland.

The other item that made Dresden the firestorm it became is that there were two opposite axes of attack, making a cross with the center of the city as its center point. Thus two distinct fire alleys laid across the city from north to south, west to east…then thermodynamics took over, like a Boy Scout starts a camp fire, only much much bigger. {of course, we’d never had had “Slaughterhouse Five” had we not hit Dresden. The whacky yet always a gentleman author, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the finest writers and real persons I’ve ever met.]

Proportionality? This can be argued, from both positions.

But the goal of Dresden and Hamburg, was, according to conventional wisdom at the time, that such a terrible raid would achieve a desired effect…the revolt of the German people against the regime. Thanks in no small part to the fairly poor understanding of the German psyche, Dresden was in the long run, a failure, a brutal deadly failure. It did nothing to shorten the war. Actually emboldened the regime and created not a sympathetic populace, but a populace who steeled themselves against the coming onslaught. Frankly, the Germans, and the regime, knew the war was lost when we moved out of the hedgerows in Normandy and closed the Falaise-Argentan Gap and then moved eastward closing on the Seigfried Line and the Rhine River. Between wanting to fight to the last man or suing for peace after Hitler was removed, the Germans as a whole wanted to make it costly for the allies to cross the Rhine and move into Germany proper.

In hindsight, with the benefit of access to allied documents, oral and written histories, and German documents and oral and written histories, we can sit back, 50 years later and see the folly of Dresden and Hamburg.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were indeed an animal of a different sort. The planning for Olympic and Coronet envisioned the war in the Pacific lasting until 1947-48 at the earliest, and the Kwangtung Army was still being fully fleshed out and combat capable after July 1945. Nearly 1 million in strength.

Now, given that we had expended what would be nearly $1trillion in today’s money on the overall Manhattan Project and related programs, and we anticipated casualties if we landed in strength on Honshu [Coronet] in the 30-35% range, with a possibility planned for above that, and our experience at Iwo Jima (part of the Tokyo Prefecture) and on Okinawa, a protracted deadly war on the Japanese home islands appeared to be the sole alternative to defeat Japan.

Now, what US President would sit back and watch at least 250,000 – 300,000 US casualties and know that in a small isolated desert outpost in the American West there was a weapon available that could quite possibly lessen that figure to a tenth or less?

Proportionality?

This is one of the problems of the current war on Islamo-facism. As we work assiduously to keep our casualties down, which, having a son just re-enlisted in the Marines I am glad of, we are also not taking the fight to the enemy in a swift, violent or preponderant manner.

We are performing delicate eye surgery when something a bit more deep cutting is needed.

We are also failing to a great degree on the political and diplomatic front…being apologists for the enemy at the same time we are trying to convince them by violence or conversations that they need to stop. Calling it the War on Terror is where we made our first great departure from logic. Terror is a tactic. But, calling it a War on Islamo-facism is politically incorrect and presumes that Islam is our enemy…and we can’t have that hanging out there…we have to respect the Religion of Peace. /s

War sucks. War is an admission of failure of policy. It is costly in far more ways than money, which seems to be the focus of the Obama Administration after today’s radio pep talk.

When one goes to war as a nation, the best route is swift, violent, targeted and preponderant.

Or, one gets a drawn out version of British General Haig’s genius…the Somme which cost more than 400,000 casualties and the campaign in Passchendaele which claimed another 230,000 lives..each within a week or so.

Seems while the numbers are fortunately low thus far…this war on militant Islam could last for a decade more or longer…and there will be casualties.

In for a dime, might as well go in for the whole dollar. It’ll be cheaper all around in the long run.

coldwarrior on February 22, 2009 at 1:36 AM

hawkdriver on February 22, 2009 at 2:04 AM

Thank you. Still haven’t figured out why my youngest wanted to be a Marine…he made the decision just after 9-11, too, waiting till his 18th to raise his hand. We are an old-line Army family, too…guess the little guy had better fashion sense. /s

Another 9-11? Probable. Just a matter of when and where.

Was in DC a week ago, and spent some time with some former colleagues still on watch. The bad guys have gotten close, too close, a few times, some quite recently. Eternal vigilance is what is needed. We had it for eight years, after 9-11.

The system is now suffering from being top heavy, the operators and ops officers are being restrained by lack of trained capable experienced numbers and the ODNI (that 9-11 Commission creation) which has turned intelligence gathering, especially HUMINT, a fine art/science itself, into just another bloated federal bureaucracy.

But, yes, it’ll take another 9-11 to get this Nation focused on the real threat, maybe, and gains are being made by the bad guys in some of the least expected quarters. While we openly debate our strategy and our tactics, and every Tom, Dick, and Diane Feinstein in Washington is more than ready to tell the bad guys when and where we are coming, the bad guys have much better OPSEC. Their learning curve over the past year or so has vastly improved.

But what will happen when there is another deadly attack on US soil, or directed toward a major US overseas installation… a major military base, even a major US tourist hangout?

Sure, there’ll be an initial outcry, then the Night of the Long Knives will come crashing down as the usual suspects spend time and energy and a lot of MSM play pointing out facutlaly or presumed persons or oganizations that were at fault, failing completely to point the finger at the real enemy. Such is the state of affairs in America today.

But the normal folks? The passion will run high. But what will actually be done? Under this Administration? Not a pleasant thought.

How can we prosecute a war successfully when 75% or more of the population has no idea we are at war? We have short attention spans anymore. There is no “long haul” for most Americans. Immediate gratification is all most understand or desire. Buy a new plasma TV with your government bailout, buy some more bling, blame your failings on the rich and those nasty Conservatives…taking no responsibility for your actions, nor expecting your Chosen One to do likewise.

We have been at war with radical jihadist Islam for well over a decade or two…yet, we still are dealing with high-level, influential apologists who believe that Global Warming is a far greater threat than Jihad.

I am not at all sanguine as to the prospects of another attack on US soil, nor our ability to martial a unified response to an obvious enemy and engage in a serious defense of our nation and our way of life.

Hate to be a downer on this one…but maybe we have passed the tipping point, and it is just a matter of time when the America you and I once knew is no longer the America we thought we knew.

coldwarrior on February 22, 2009 at 2:35 AM