Thursday, July 24, 2008
World politics turning upside down, for the better
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
In the past few weeks politics have seen 180 degree turns, nationally and internationally. To begin at Topic A, Sen. Barak Obama has surprised if not angered his left-wing supporters with his stand for death penalty for child abusers, expressing objection against a Supreme Court decision. Further, he has voted to protect the telephone companies against potential major fines for letting the government use their files in monitoring the phone traffic of probable terrorists and their supporters,, another civil liberties heavy-duty cause. Also, he is not a gun control standard bearer. It is therefore understandable that some conservatives might find him to their liking, and some National Review editors have formed an Obama support organization.
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On the telecom company issue, talking to people I find that even ACLU supporters, well aware of the terrorist threat, do not want to overly burden the government’s capacity to track terrorists and their money by blocking the capacity of monitoring their phone call history. As a compromise,for the future, a 24/7 system of judges to produce instant authorizations is the answer. The thinking here takes us back to quoting Justice Jackson to the effect that we must not let the enforcement of the Bill of Rights become a tool for destroying our nation. This also goes to the question of protecting the due process rights of purported terrorist detainees. Bad governmnt decisions regarding military rules of conduct, including those from the Department of Justice and the President’s and Vice President’s legal advisors have been used to justify torture. On the other hand, there isthe question whether the Geneva Convention that rules the treatment of prisoners of war should explicitly be the book of rules considered in determining our treatment od detained terrorists and suspects. The Convention is applicable against illegal acts of governments that live by law, and it protects legitimate prisoners of war, but the terrorist organizations live outside of law and blow up civilians, use human bombs against innocent targets and murder their prisoners and political opponents. The legal systems, which exist to protect our rights against tyrannical government and other criminals, are not yet ready for the terrorist subcultures, which are using the hallmark institutions of democratic governance and the same laws which they are determined to destroy, to claim illegal detention. Lawyers for terrorists warn us of transgressing international law and endangering our hallowed civil rights, and the Supremes are wavering this way and that way in their decisions. We need to find clearer paths, sometime soon.
That brings out the twists of conduct of official Washington. Apparently following the concern of Iran’s Shia government about American withdrawal in 16 months after the January 2009 US government change, premier al-Maliki has demanded a withdrawal schedule, as of now. The Bush people are paying attention to the request, and there is a distinct indication that they will change their Iran strategy in the next six months, and use troop withdrawals from Bagdad to reinforce our presence in Kabul. The re-emergence of the Taliban as a coherent power in Afghanistan is daunting. First of all, they have occupied regions and specific villages in Northeast Pakistan that were never governed, neither by the British in the 19th and 20th cnnturies, nor by their successors, the independent Pakistani governments in power since 1947. The Taliban/alQuaida leaders have used the areas as training camps, too independent for the Pakistani army to reach and not accessible to the US air and ground forces for national souvereignity reasons. Pakistan has been our ally since 9/11/2001, its friendship paid for by billions of dollars to President Pervez Musharraf, who used us to stay in power and deter the radicals from taking over a country that has nuclear power. Despite the turnaround in government and his fall, we are still holding, but so are the Talibans, occupying more villages, and organizing the local economies by managing the neglected marble quarries.
Another turnaround was prompted by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, organizing the Mediterranean countries and inviting the Syrian President Bashir Assad, despite the fact that Syriasn terrorists have killed French troops in its pawn country, Lebanon, since the 1980s. Both the Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas were photographed together, reminiscent of President Clinton’s efforts at Camp David in 1999. Opening talks with Syria was a main thrust of Secretary Powell’s Undersecretary Richard Armitage in the mid 2000s, not accepted by the Bushites.
Finally, the administration has found that talking to Iran should start and Secretary Rice has sent an undersecretary to work towards strenthening an American interests office in Teheran. This shoud quieten our nerves vis-à-vis the potential that US air power might be used to destroy the recalcitrant Iranians’ nuclear power development facilities, which the Revolutionary Guard has countered by flexing its muscles and exhibiting some rockets, capable of reaching Tel Aviv. The Israeli radicals in the government coalition, who ostensibly threatened the US that they will do their own bombing unless the Americans did something, may also have relented, as exhibited in the exchange of Hezbollah prisoners for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, whose capture prompted the 2006 Lebanon war.
Things look better in politics. Now we have to worry about the economy, here and abroad.
In the past few weeks politics have seen 180 degree turns, nationally and internationally. To begin at Topic A, Sen. Barak Obama has surprised if not angered his left-wing supporters with his stand for death penalty for child abusers, expressing objection against a Supreme Court decision. Further, he has voted to protect the telephone companies against potential major fines for letting the government use their files in monitoring the phone traffic of probable terrorists and their supporters,, another civil liberties heavy-duty cause. Also, he is not a gun control standard bearer. It is therefore understandable that some conservatives might find him to their liking, and some National Review editors have formed an Obama support organization.
t
On the telecom company issue, talking to people I find that even ACLU supporters, well aware of the terrorist threat, do not want to overly burden the government’s capacity to track terrorists and their money by blocking the capacity of monitoring their phone call history. As a compromise,for the future, a 24/7 system of judges to produce instant authorizations is the answer. The thinking here takes us back to quoting Justice Jackson to the effect that we must not let the enforcement of the Bill of Rights become a tool for destroying our nation. This also goes to the question of protecting the due process rights of purported terrorist detainees. Bad governmnt decisions regarding military rules of conduct, including those from the Department of Justice and the President’s and Vice President’s legal advisors have been used to justify torture. On the other hand, there isthe question whether the Geneva Convention that rules the treatment of prisoners of war should explicitly be the book of rules considered in determining our treatment od detained terrorists and suspects. The Convention is applicable against illegal acts of governments that live by law, and it protects legitimate prisoners of war, but the terrorist organizations live outside of law and blow up civilians, use human bombs against innocent targets and murder their prisoners and political opponents. The legal systems, which exist to protect our rights against tyrannical government and other criminals, are not yet ready for the terrorist subcultures, which are using the hallmark institutions of democratic governance and the same laws which they are determined to destroy, to claim illegal detention. Lawyers for terrorists warn us of transgressing international law and endangering our hallowed civil rights, and the Supremes are wavering this way and that way in their decisions. We need to find clearer paths, sometime soon.
That brings out the twists of conduct of official Washington. Apparently following the concern of Iran’s Shia government about American withdrawal in 16 months after the January 2009 US government change, premier al-Maliki has demanded a withdrawal schedule, as of now. The Bush people are paying attention to the request, and there is a distinct indication that they will change their Iran strategy in the next six months, and use troop withdrawals from Bagdad to reinforce our presence in Kabul. The re-emergence of the Taliban as a coherent power in Afghanistan is daunting. First of all, they have occupied regions and specific villages in Northeast Pakistan that were never governed, neither by the British in the 19th and 20th cnnturies, nor by their successors, the independent Pakistani governments in power since 1947. The Taliban/alQuaida leaders have used the areas as training camps, too independent for the Pakistani army to reach and not accessible to the US air and ground forces for national souvereignity reasons. Pakistan has been our ally since 9/11/2001, its friendship paid for by billions of dollars to President Pervez Musharraf, who used us to stay in power and deter the radicals from taking over a country that has nuclear power. Despite the turnaround in government and his fall, we are still holding, but so are the Talibans, occupying more villages, and organizing the local economies by managing the neglected marble quarries.
Another turnaround was prompted by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, organizing the Mediterranean countries and inviting the Syrian President Bashir Assad, despite the fact that Syriasn terrorists have killed French troops in its pawn country, Lebanon, since the 1980s. Both the Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas were photographed together, reminiscent of President Clinton’s efforts at Camp David in 1999. Opening talks with Syria was a main thrust of Secretary Powell’s Undersecretary Richard Armitage in the mid 2000s, not accepted by the Bushites.
Finally, the administration has found that talking to Iran should start and Secretary Rice has sent an undersecretary to work towards strenthening an American interests office in Teheran. This shoud quieten our nerves vis-à-vis the potential that US air power might be used to destroy the recalcitrant Iranians’ nuclear power development facilities, which the Revolutionary Guard has countered by flexing its muscles and exhibiting some rockets, capable of reaching Tel Aviv. The Israeli radicals in the government coalition, who ostensibly threatened the US that they will do their own bombing unless the Americans did something, may also have relented, as exhibited in the exchange of Hezbollah prisoners for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, whose capture prompted the 2006 Lebanon war.
Things look better in politics. Now we have to worry about the economy, here and abroad.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 3:11 PM 
