New Mars Forums

Michael Lind writes in the Financial Times:

Can someone summarize the pressing national interest for our being in Iraq, besides Saddam has WMD and Saddam was actively working with bin Laden?

Under color of law. . .

My loose understanding is that this refers to a distinction between a wrongful action done by a criminal (for example) and the same wrongful action done supposedly in the name of the State or the law.

One possible example on the moral issues that can arise:

Let us assume a rape occurs. Typical nasty scumbug drags a woman into an alley. The criminal perpetrator deserves the punishment set forth in the law.

Second case. Police officer stops a woman for speeding. Decides to rape her.

Related, a criminal uses a fake police light to pull women over.

If I were the judge, I believe the second & third cases deserves a more serious punishment than the first. Because there are TWO crimes. The rape and the false use of official power to commit the crime.

Undre color of law can mean that someone does something asserting that the law permits, condones or directs the action. To persuade a woman driver to stop her car in a deserted region using a police light use "color of law" to effecuate the stop, a necessary step to the subsequent criminal conduct.

= = =

The "color of law" issues concernkng Gitmo and Abu Ghraib involve the assertion that the extreme conduct is legal. To beat someone is battery and is criminal. To beat someone and assert it was done consistent with law (under color of law) is really two crimes, the battery and the false use of legality.

One of the purposes of the Gonzalez legal memos on torture is to give the officers at Gitmo a "colorable" defense - - perhaps a future judge will rule the conduct was torture but with the memos the officers can say, I was just following the opinion of the future Attorney General of the United States, don't blame me.

= = =

"Color of law" issues happen to be a large part of what enrages me about the Bush administration - - behind the scenes, long standing doctrines on torture, privacy, search and seizure and so on are being re-written without disclosure or public debate and then asserted as law.

= = =

As for spanking, to assert a Biblical basis to beat your children seeks to clothe conduct under a Biblical basis "under the color" of moral law.

Cobra, you are also a reasonable guy.

Surely you understand that Bush can foster American unity by moving to the center. Attack the more extreme elements of the Right and admit that the more extreme assertions of his foreign policy were in error.

A "Sister Soljah" moment.  :;):

= = =

Remember Condi Rice and Saddam's aluminum tubes?

Senator Dick Durbin (from Illinois) pointed out yesterday that before the Iraq authorization vote Rice insisted that those tubes had only one use - - to enrich nuclear bomb grade material. She was wrong.

By failing to admit and clarify errors like these to the Democratic Senators, she undermines any prospect of bi-partisan unity.

You want bi-partisanship? Start showing some.

Edited By BWhite on 1106757513

Before the invasion, German intelligence said there were no WMD. Our response?

Rumsfeld openly snubbed Schroeder.

Well, they were right and we were wrong.

Our next move? Apologize.

Come on, Cobra. Cheney pounded this drum for months, and still does. Only a few months ago Cheney said we can never know the true extent of cooperation between Saddam and bin Laden.

It also done using standard "Swift Boat" operating procedure.

Pay (with GOP money) dozens/hundreds of shills in the press to beat the drum about (#1) WMD and (#2) Saddam = bin Laden. Then Bush can mumble something ambiguous and inarticulate that can be interpreted a variety of ways.

Large percentages of people come to believe #1 and #2 are true and the President retains plausible deniability. Very clever. But very dangerous when it backfires.

= = =

Ronald Reagan started this.

Go to Selma, Alabama and talk about "states rights" - - it's code for offering up "race bait" to those whites still smarting about the civil rights fights of the 1960s. When called on it, smile and say "that's not what I mean" then wink at the KKK members standing nearby.

Cheney and Rove are masters at that game. And they did it masterfully with Saddam WMD and Saddam = bin Laden.

Want unity?

'Fess up to stuff like this, first.

= = =

Attending prayer services where Billy Graham says God selected GWB and then playing it both ways. To the evangelicals, distribute a DVD (using GOP money) that portrays Bush as a genuine saint annointed by God.

Then to the secularists, say "stop being so paranoid" - - that's not what I really stand for.

Edited By BWhite on 1106749786

Shaun, it would be easier to agree with you =IF= Karl Rove had not been crowing about how he would use the Iraq War to crush the Democratic party.

Starting a foreign war to distract people from domestic troubles has been the tool of tyrants for centuries. Calling Dubya on that is the essence of patriotism.

My criticism of Bush arises 100% from my PRIDE in being an American. As Mark Twain wrote, I will support my nation always - - Its leaders? Only when they deserve my support.

I agree with this 100% - - in theory - - but is this really what we are doing?

Is enough money being spent to genuinely re-build Iraqi infrastructure or is just enough money being spent to create the illusion we are re-building Iraqi infastructure.

A CYA re-building project? Or a genuine re-building project.

Press releases from the same people who said Saddam having WMD is "a slam dunk" are not necessarily reassuring.  :;):

= = =

A formal "mea culpa" on the idea that Iraqi oil revenues will be sufficient to fund reconstruction and a public acknowledgement that US tax revenues MUST to used would be a valuable step forward.

Frankly, if Bush (or America) would learn from history and copy the King Henry / Thomas Beckett affair and thereafter support genuine democracy I do believe we can emerge from this not too badly off.

Sistani does wanta  stable Iraq and eevn the Bush-bashing Juan Cole does not favor immediate withdrawl of troops.

But, a pubic renunciation of the Paul Bremer Ameri-forming plan and a public acceptance of an Islamic Iraq would give our occupation a much more friendly face to the Iraqi people.

= = =

Allowing the Iraqis to eventually kick us out (including those newly built airbases) may be the price we must pay to leave a stable Iraq behind us.

= = =

Edit: Just saw a media report that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson today told the US Senate that since it was "impossible to foresee" that we would face guerilla tactics during the occuaption of Iraq it was pointless to review and discuss all the mistakes we have made. . .

Bwa! Ha! Ha!

= = =

Senator Byrd:

The cost of the Iraq war has spiralled to $149 for every minute since Christ was born. . .

Edited By BWhite on 1106684602

Shaun, did you scroll through the BBC photos linked above?

Shooting the parents of 7 children is how future terrorists are bred.

Not because they are Islamic monsters or they "hate our freedoms" but because some corporal from Wisconsin sprayed the family car with bullets and mommy's and daddy's blood got doused all over the backseat. Seven children suffered this and passers-by witnessed it.

The reaction of one potential passer-by was explained like this:

Tommorow he will ask for a gun or a suicide bomb belt and bin Laden's men will answer that request and we in the West will brand him a "terrorist" and it will all continue. . .

Unless our strategy takes this into account and we stop shrugging our shoulders at such incidents as "mere" collateral damage - - too bad, so sad - - we will LOSE! this adventure in Iraq.

My children are doing just fine, 11 and 4, and neither my wife or I have ever struck either one. Not once.

When I observe other parents use physical punishment, it seems to me to be intended as a time-saver, its easier to just whack 'em one so the dad can get back to watching football that much quicker.

Not always, but often.

Saying "Tell me why you did that" will usually get my older one to acknowledge "Yes daddy, I shouldn't have done that."

Fortunately both children are genuinely kind and have empathy for others and a desire to be "good" so maybe we have it easier than most parents - - maybe its the genes! 

Edited By BWhite on 1106662657

Yup, we are winning http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/p … stm]hearts and minds.

We can make excuses, but the psychic toll on those poor soldiers - - in the decades to come - - will be horrific. I have great sympathy for the soldiers as it is a kill or risk being killed situation. I probably would have shot up the car myself.

I am reasonably certain the "rules of engagement" were followed and no legally culpable military misconduct occurred. However, if those US solders fail to have nightmares for decades to come, they are not human.

Had we sent in enough troops, in the beginning, to secure those weapons depots where hundreds of tons of explosives were looted, to become roadside bombs and car bombs, events like these would be far, far fewer. If hundreds of tons of bomb making material had not been left unguarded in the weeks after regime change, a speeding car would be seen as much less of a threat.

But no!

Rumsfeld had an academic thesis to prove about a leaner, lighter, cheaper military. And the Right circles up and plays Dr. Pangloss.  ???

Jose Padilla - - an American citizen - - is imprisoned in the United States without any formal charges having been filed.

- - -

PS - - Over the next 20 years, those US soldiers who have served in  Iraq will be re-integrated into US society as FedEx drivers, toll booth collectors and postal employees.

Someone who shot up a speeding car occupied by a terrified Iraqi family may end up living in Las Cruces.

Edited By BWhite on 1106453879