Perhaps you should rename this thread, "World Politics by Americans (Bigotry and Propaganda)"

My sentiments exactly... ;)

How sad that you aren't even intelligent enough to realize you were just called a name......

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[sarcasm]
It is obvious that the United States is at fault whenever an innocent civilian is caught up in a dragnet intended for al Qaeda, Taliban or Batthists. This is because everyone knows that al Qaeda, Taliban and Baathists all wear military uniforms and carry military identification cards as required by the Geneva Conventions. This makes differentiating a terrorist from a civilian extremely simple.
[/sarcasm]

And don't forget to blame Misfit.

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me@rescam.org

[sarcasm]
It is obvious that the United States is at fault whenever an innocent civilian is caught up in a dragnet intended for al Qaeda, Taliban or Batthists. This is because everyone knows that al Qaeda, Taliban and Baathists all wear military uniforms and carry military identification cards as required by the Geneva Conventions. This makes differentiating a terrorist from a civilian extremely simple.
[/sarcasm]

And don't forget to blame Misfit.

OK! It's All Your Fault Misfit!

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[sarcasm]
It is obvious that the United States is at fault whenever an innocent civilian is caught up in a dragnet intended for al Qaeda, Taliban or Batthists. This is because everyone knows that al Qaeda, Taliban and Baathists all wear military uniforms and carry military identification cards as required by the Geneva Conventions. This makes differentiating a terrorist from a civilian extremely simple.
[/sarcasm]

And don't forget to blame Misfit.

OK! It's All Your Fault Misfit!

And if a moderator says it, it must be true.

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me@rescam.org

[sarcasm]
It is obvious that the United States is at fault whenever an innocent civilian is caught up in a dragnet intended for al Qaeda, Taliban or Batthists. This is because everyone knows that al Qaeda, Taliban and Baathists all wear military uniforms and carry military identification cards as required by the Geneva Conventions. This makes differentiating a terrorist from a civilian extremely simple.
[/sarcasm]

And don't forget to blame Misfit.

OK! It's All Your Fault Misfit!

And if a moderator says it, it must be true.

Thats Right and Dont forget it...:-) I say with a smile

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And don't forget to blame Misfit.

OK! It's All Your Fault Misfit!

And if a moderator says it, it must be true.

Thats Right and Dont forget it...:-) I say with a smile

Nuclear package has good, bad parts, Iran says
Tehran offers first reply to proposal

By Ali Akbar Dareini
ASSOCIATED PRESS

June 12, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran said yesterday that it accepted some parts of a Western offer aimed at getting Tehran to drop its nuclear program, but it rejected others while calling the central point ambiguous.

Iran said the key issue of uranium enrichment, a process that can make nuclear fuel for a power plant or fissile material for an atomic bomb, needed clarification.

Although the government did not give specifics, the comments were the first time Iran has said directly that it rejects or accepts parts of the package.

Top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Iran would reject the package outright if Western powers threatened the nation with sanctions in the standoff.

The comments came as the United States and Europe lobbied other nations to join them this week in urging Iran to accept the offer and warning of U.N. Security Council action if it does not, according to documents shared with The Associated Press in Vienna, Austria.

The package – presented by permanent Security Council members the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain, plus Germany – contains a series of incentives for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, which would allow negotiations over its nuclear ambitions.

The incentives include promises that the United States and Europe will provide Iran nuclear technology and that Washington will join direct talks with Tehran.

Iran has not responded to the offer, and it underlined yesterday that it would not be rushed. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi insisted Iran was not stalling over the package and would take “as long as is necessary” to study it.

Asefi told a news conference that the package includes “points which are acceptable. There are points which are ambiguous. There are points that should be strengthened, and points that we believe should not exist.” He did not give specifics.

Larijani said the offer of nuclear technology was a “positive point” but that “there are also points that are unclear, such as the uranium enrichment program.”

“This has not been made clear yet to Iran, so these are things where the finishing touches must be made,” he said in Cairo, Egypt, after talks with President Hosni Mubarak and Arab League chief Amr Moussa.

Egypt is one of the members of the U.N. watchdog nuclear agency's board of directors, which the United States and Europe are lobbying to pressure Iran to accept the deal.

Larijani sharply denounced any threats of sanctions against Iran in connection with the package.

“We will not accept negotiations under pressure,” he said, adding that the package, as presented to Iran, did not contain any threats of penalties.

The five permanent Security Council members and Germany are said to have worked out a set of possible sanctions if Iran rejects the proposal, but, to maintain a positive atmosphere, these were not mentioned when EU envoy Javier Solana presented the package to Iran last week.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the accusation, saying its program seeks only to develop energy.

The package drops demands for an all-out scrapping of enrichment, and instead asks Iran to suspend such activity during the duration of any negotiations.

The 35-country board of the International Atomic Energy Agency is to meet this week in Vienna. Though no major initiative on Iran is planned, Iran's nuclear program is certain to be discussed, the New York Times News Service said.

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me@rescam.org

Neglected fraud - State too lax about child-care cheaters

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

June 12, 2006

With the welfare-to-work reforms of the '90s came subsidized child care for welfare recipients. Removing child care as a barrier for mothers going to work makes sense.

More than 13,000 children are in California's child-care program, and the agencies say they're always short of money to serve more. Here's one reason why: Just one parent who fabricated a job and a child-care provider in Los Angeles County split $345,719 in fraudulent payments because nobody checked that the job or the provider existed.

That's theft, both from taxpayers and from mothers genuinely trying to move from welfare to work. And it's not just in Los Angeles.

In a recent random check, the state Department of Education, which disburses most of the $2 billion to $3 billion in child-care subsidies through county welfare departments, could verify only 36 percent of jobs and providers claimed by recipients. Other officials put the fraud rate at 40 percent to 50 percent. Yet the department designates no funds specifically to investigation of fraud at the state or the county level. Only months ago did it hire its first fraud investigators – all five of them, and all based in Northern California

The Los Angeles County district attorney is prosecuting more than 800 cases of child-care cheating. With the subsidy ranging between $500 and $1,000 a month per child, five siblings can mean a $5,000-a-month payout for provider and parent to split – five times the usual workfare payment. A family of four and two friends in Antelope Valley set up a phony child-care business and were paid even though one family member was in jail and another lived in Nevada. A mere 16 cheaters defrauded the state of nearly $1.2 million.

“Child care,” said a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles, “pays big money.”

That's why Supervisor Dianne Jacob has brought to the attention of the San Diego County board the rampant fraud and marked unconcern in state agencies, along with a state law that prevents counties from stopping child-care payments despite known fraud.

The argument for keeping the subsidy coming is that the kids might be left alone. And what's a little fraud when children's welfare is at stake? But who knows that the kids won't be left alone even with the fraudulent checks coming? And the sums involved amount to major fraud, not minor.

San Diego County has addressed the problem on its own. It requires parent and provider to document the child care, under penalty of perjury. It verifies the existence and address of licensed providers and verifies their rates. Not fool-proof, but far ahead of the dilatory state. Goosing the state on this fraud is now rightly on the supervisors' legislative wish list.

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me@rescam.org

What a charmer.

Perhaps you should rename this thread, "World Politics by Americans (Bigotry and Propaganda)"

One things for sure politics is not DISCUSSED here....

You guys should get your own radio station! Perhaps TomK can DJ.

...LOL...

Please direct comments about specific posters to those posters; don't paint all Americans with a broad brush. So long as your comments about whoever specifically annoyed you are issue-based or structure-of-argument-based (not personal attacks) then it is a useful addition to discourse.

Are you suggesting that this pitiful excuse for a discussion thread is representative of 'most Americans'?

I sincerely hope not. (for the good of all mankind)

You managed to miss the context of my response which is

-->> Limited to the participants of this thread on this website.

Hardly representative of the American population.

A new thread name was suggested so that people coming in here would see the thread for what it is, not what it is 'advertised to be'.

As for Tom, well he and his retorts are as predictable as planetary motion and about as upsetting as being insulted by plant-life. Not that i would lower myself into the gutter by reading them.

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Belief gets in the way of learning

Der Spiegel, June 12, 2006

GUANTÁNAMO SUICIDES

Fresh Calls to Close the Prison

Three suicides at Guantánamo Bay over the weekend have increased pressure on Washington to close the military prison. Some officials have tried to brush off the deaths as "a good PR move," but critics in Germany and elsewhere say the jail is indefensible.

As if the international pressure on the United States to close the detention facility at Guantanamo wasn't great enough, three inmate suicides over the weekend promise to ratchet it up.

The US Defense Department released details of the three men who hanged themselves in custody at Guantánamo Bay on Saturday, and the BBC reported that one of the men didn't know he was about to be sent home for trial in Saudi Arabia. German government officials on Sunday renewed calls for the prison to be closed.

Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi, 30, was a Saudi Arabian belonging to a "second-tier militant group" with links to Al-Qaida, according to Navy Commander Robert Durand, the prison's spokesman. Al-Utaybi was due to be transferred to detention in Saudi Arabia, but none of the 141 prisoners cleared for release from Guantánamo had been informed of their status.

The other two suicides were identified as Yassar Talal Al-Zahrani, a 21-year-old Taliban fighter who would have been a juvenile when he was captured; and Ali Abdullah Ahmed, a Yemeni who had "key links to principal Al-Qaida facilitators and senior membership," according to Durand.

All three men were found dead on Saturday morning in their metal mesh cells, hanging from nooses fashioned from bedsheets or cotton prison clothes. There were suicide notes, officials have said, but the contents weren't released.

"These developments support doubts about the prison's right to exist," Peter Struck told Germany's Bild Zeitung over the weekend. Struck is the parliamentary leader of Germany's Social Democrats, but the feeling is bipartisan: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a conservative Christian Democrat, called for the prison to close last January.

"A good PR move"

Some US officials deflected the rising chorus of criticism. Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the camp's commander, said the prisoners had "no regard to life, neither ours nor their own. And I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against the US."

Colleen Graffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, said the suicides were "a good PR move to draw attention" to the plight of Guantánamo prisoners.

Last Friday President Bush said he would like to empty the prison -- which in most cases would mean sending inmates to the US or to their home countries to face trial -- but he worried that letting prisoners go would let them "create grave harm." Washington officially calls the inmates "enemy combatants," not protected by the Geneva Convention which governs the treatment of prisoners of war.

The Bush Administration has long been under pressure to close the four-and-a-half-year-old detention center. Some of the remaining 460 inmates are still being detained on the "flimsiest of hearsay," said Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican who says the contravention of basic legal rights at Guantánamo has become a liability. "Where we have evidence, they ought to be tried," Specter told CNN, "and if convicted they ought to be sentenced."

The suicides brought fresh criticism this weekend from England and Denmark -- both allies of the US in the Iraq war -- as well as Sweden and Saudi Arabia. "Each Saudi has to be brought home where he can face up to charges he is accused of based on our laws and regulations," a Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman told Reuters.

"If it is perfectly legal and there is nothing going wrong there, why don't they have (the camp) in America?" Harriet Harman, Britain's Minister for Constitutional Affairs, said to the Telegraph in the UK.

A total of 759 prisoners have been held at Guantánamo since it opened in early 2002, but the number has declined to 465. Only 10 inmates have been charged of any crime. A British citizen who spent two years there and has since lodged a lawsuit against the US Defense Department for "torture" during his incarceration said the suicides were no surprise.

"Killing yourself is not something that is looked at lightly in Islam," said Shafiq Rasul, "but if you're told day after day by the Americans that you're never going to go home or you're put into isolation, these acts are committed simply out of desperation and loss of hope."

The US Supreme Court is scheduled to rule this month on the legality of military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to try some of the inmates.

msm/ap/latimes/cnn/spiegel

Are you suggesting that this pitiful excuse for a discussion thread is representative of 'most Americans'?

Your suggested thread name was 'World Politics by Americans' so I wasn't the one who broadened the representativeness.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

Are you suggesting that this pitiful excuse for a discussion thread is representative of 'most Americans'?

Your suggested thread name was 'World Politics by Americans' so I wasn't the one who broadened the representativeness.

LAF

You didn't really expect him to keep track of ALL of his lies and half-truths, did you?

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I find it interesting that the tactics of those prisoners in Guantanomo Bay are condemned in Afghanistan or Iraq or Israel yet when they use suicide tactics on themselves without extraneous victims (read:innocent people) and they use it upon themselves it is suspect...

Suicide is par and course for their methodology. There is no such thing as an 'innocent suicide bomber'. There should be no consideration to those that suicide themselves sans innocent victims inside their cells. They do this in protest for the killing of one of their terrorist top leaders. So what? In this respect, I appreciate everyone's 'right' to protest.

My only admonition to the rest of those criminal and murderous detainees is 'Keep it up'....'Keep up protesting by suicide'.

=---'Nuff said

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

My only admonition to the rest of those criminal and murderous detainees is 'Keep it up'....'Keep up protesting by suicide'.

=---'Nuff said

So you still believe an administration, that went to war on blatant lies and absurd exaggerations of their own paranoia, where Colin Powell didn't say a single true word in front of the security council to make his case for war, where half of those "criminal and mourderous detainees" are already freed, because even the president could no longer deny their innocence?

That's not what I do. If Bush and ilk say something, I usually first doubt it, they've proven their untrustworthyness often enough. If the military "investigates" it's own faults, I don't trust it, especially if they make every far feched meove to strangle any really independant investigation (that's without military and government officials involved). They howl "national security" as soon as anything uncomfortable is deeming to surface.

All hostages @Gitmo are innocent 'til proven guilty. Full stop. And if even the republican Arlen Spector says that they are there at the "flimsiest of hearsay," it's enough for me not to belive any word from the keepers of this hostage dungeon.

So you still believe an administration, that went to war on blatant lies and absurd exaggerations of their own paranoia, where Colin Powell didn't say a single true word in front of the security council to make his case for war, where half of those "criminal and mourderous detainees" are already freed, because even the president could no longer deny their innocence?

Please read any of the dozens of painstaking explanations in previous Politics threads about the difference between a lie and a mistake.

[EDIT]Please also read how Iraq was in blatant violation of its cease-fire agreement. No WMDs were needed to prove this misconduct, and the stated penalty for non-compliance with the cease-fire was resumed military action.[/EDIT]

That's not what I do. If Bush and ilk say something, I usually first doubt it, they've proven their untrustworthyness often enough. If the military "investigates" it's own faults, I don't trust it, especially if they make every far feched meove to strangle any really independant investigation (that's without military and government officials involved). They howl "national security" as soon as anything uncomfortable is deeming to surface.

And who besides the military and the government is going to perform the investigation?

The UN? They've got lots of credibility...

All hostages @Gitmo are innocent 'til proven guilty. Full stop. And if even the republican Arlen Spector says that they are there at the "flimsiest of hearsay," it's enough for me not to belive any word from the keepers of this hostage dungeon.

The detainees at Gitmo are not criminal suspects. I know English is not your first language, but suffice to say that the terms 'illegal combatant' and 'suspected of illegal conduct' are not the same thing.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

So you still believe an administration, that went to war on blatant lies and absurd exaggerations of their own paranoia, where Colin Powell didn't say a single true word in front of the security council to make his case for war, where half of those "criminal and mourderous detainees" are already freed, because even the president could no longer deny their innocence?

That's not what I do. If Bush and ilk say something, I usually first doubt it, they've proven their untrustworthyness often enough. If the military "investigates" it's own faults, I don't trust it, especially if they make every far feched meove to strangle any really independant investigation (that's without military and government officials involved). They howl "national security" as soon as anything uncomfortable is deeming to surface.

All hostages @Gitmo are innocent 'til proven guilty. Full stop. And if even the republican Arlen Spector says that they are there at the "flimsiest of hearsay," it's enough for me not to belive any word from the keepers of this hostage dungeon.

There were no lies told. And you have never shown one.

You don't like Bush, but you have never been able to keep your hatred of him and anyone who agrees with him out of your discussion. So, your arguments are without merit.

Illegal combatants at Guantanamo are not civilian criminals and they do not get a trial. Once again you are absolutely wrong, Sgt. Schultz.

Der Spiegel, June 13, 2006

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,421098,00.html

A Global Web of Justice Is up and Running

By Luis Moreno-Ocampo in The Hague

The global impact of the International Criminal Court and its international justice network is finally becoming apparent.

Six children walked down a road in the region of Ituri, in Congo. They were on their way to school when a jeep packed with militiamen sped in front of them. Fighters bearing AK-47s ordered the terrified children into the jeep. They were transported to military training camps and forced to learn to fire machine guns. Three weeks later, the children were in the field, killing and being killed.

Thomas Lubanga, leader of one of Congo's most dangerous militias, allegedly orchestrated crimes like the one described above. In March, the judges of the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant charging Lubanga with conscripting children under 15 as soldiers. A few days later, Lubanga was transferred from Congo to a prison in The Hague.

Lubanga's transfer hints at the promise of a permanent international criminal court rooted in global cooperation. The Nuremberg war crimes trial and the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, paved the way, testing the viability of a criminal justice system without a state apparatus. But the ICC's predecessors were each limited in scope to a particular territory. The ICC's distinct challenge is to function within a worldwide criminal justice system without a world state.

The Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court created a remarkable innovation: an international justice network. The treaty has galvanized 100 countries, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and other partners committed to ending impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Countries have the primary responsibility to prevent and punish atrocities in their own territories and to cooperate with the ICC when it decides to take a case. Intervention by the ICC must be exceptional - it will only step in when states fail to genuinely act.

Supported by an evolving network of cooperation, the ICC is investigating three of the world's gravest situations. The Congo case is an early indication of the potential of the Rome system, while our other two pending cases, Uganda and Darfur, reveal emerging challenges.

Congo referred its own case to the ICC, demonstrating its commitment to cooperating with the court's activities. Lubanga's transfer was the direct result of coordination between the court, the Congolese government, international organizations and ICC member states.

Like Congo, the government of Uganda requested ICC intervention. With the cooperation of the people and government, our team investigated thousands of crimes in just nine months. We expect our evidence to show that Joseph Kony and four senior commanders of a militia, the Lord's Resistance Army, perpetrated horrific attacks against people of northern Uganda. For 20 years, the LRA has abducted children from their homes and schools, forcing boys to kill and compelling girls to kill and to serve as sex slaves.

The arrest warrants against the LRA leadership, which the ICC judges issued in July 2005, have already had an impact. Sudan, which had harbored the LRA in the past, has voluntarily agreed to execute the warrants. Because of escalating international and regional pressure, the LRA commanders have been forced to flee their safe havens. LRA attacks in northern Uganda have declined dramatically as a result.

But the LRA is now in northern Congo, endangering people in the region. Kony recently attempted to negotiate a political deal. In the past, he has used negotiations to buy time and regroup. To do justice and re-establish security in the region, the justice network has to arrest the LRA commanders.

Our third investigation, Darfur, was initiated as the direct result of the active support of international experts, NGOs and states. After the independent Commission of Inquiry submitted its report to the United Nations, the Security Council passed a resolution referring the Darfur situation to the ICC.

It is currently impossible to protect witnesses, so our investigators are compiling statements in almost a dozen countries other than Sudan. A network of cooperation enables this investigation to advance under the worst of operating conditions. But, ultimately, delivering justice in Darfur necessitates full cooperation by Sudan.

The global impact of the Rome Statute is becoming apparent. Already national armies are adjusting their procedures. Colombian paramilitaries have referred to the ICC as one reason to demobilize. Prosecutors in the Netherlands have indicted a Dutch businessman for fueling the conflict in Liberia, citing the ICC as the impetus. Lubanga's counterparts fear a fate similar to his.

Three years ago, 18 judges and I converged from the five continents and entered a nascent court in The Hague. Today the Rome system is in motion.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo is chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.


P.S. (from me, Saenger):
This is where they (the hostages @Gitmo) belong. But as the US is afraid it's own war crimes could be prosecuted here when they fail at home (like in My Lai), they oppose it.

[snip: completely different topic]
P.S. (from me, Saenger):
This is where they (the hostages @Gitmo) belong. But as the US is afraid it's own war crimes could be prosecuted here when they fail at home (like in My Lai), they oppose it.

You simply refuse to stay on topic, don't you? You continue to accuse the US government of lies and atrocities, then you intentionally shift the discussion citing a matter that has nothing to do with the US decision to resume military activities in Iraq or your personally added, intentional false claims. A "lie" is a statement that is both untrue and intended to decieve. Claims of WMD in Iraq, while they may be untrue, are not lies because they were believed to be true when stated. But your statements (calling terrorists "hostages", etc.), that your know are false, are by definition, lies.

You have pre-judged the actions of the United States, and your prejudice is a good argument why the US will not join the International Court--you and your kind would never, based the clear bias you continue to show, give Americans a fair trial. The American Military has its own system of investigating and prosecuting war crimes, and though no court is perfect, it does a fine job.

You have pre-judged the actions of the United States, and your prejudice is a good argument why the US will not join the International Court--you and your kind would never, based the clear bias you continue to show, give Americans a fair trial. The American Military has its own system of investigating and prosecuting war crimes, and though no court is perfect, it does a fine job.

Perhaps we should forget the trial and just declare you illegal combatants then?

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Reality Internet Personality