Update no.277

Update from the Heartland

No.277

26.3.07 – 1.4.07

Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,
On Monday, 26.March.2007, the sale and transfer of Raytheon Aircraft Company – the former Beech Aircraft Company and Corporate Jets, plc – was completed and closed. The new company, Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC), is now a private company, owned by Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Onex Corporation. A new chapter begins.

Elizabeth and John Edwards made a public announcement of her cancer relapse that is now metastasized, apparently inoperable and thus terminal – a sad moment in any family’s life. The news comes at comparable moment in the history of our extended family. For those who criticize the Edwards family decision to continue his presidential campaign, the urge to issue forth a lengthy, profane admonishment is almost unbearable. Their decision is just that – their decision – and I say, may God bless them for the courage to do what they believe is correct for them in the face of this charged and divisive political environment. It seems these times are about cancer as White House Press Secretary Tony Snow confirmed the relapse and metastasis of his cancer. Also, brain cancer claimed the life of Jeanne’s first husband, Ron -- a good friend and active contributor to this forum; he will be missed. May God watch over them all and grant them the peace they deserve.

A quote provided by the daily Patriot gives us another pearl of wisdom:
“America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.”
-- James Madison
We have citations by citizens of moral degeneration and depravity as the cause of the failure of the Roman Empire. While I would be foolish to discount immorality entirely, I think the physical evidence indicates that societal fragmentation, complacency, and a lack of will to defend themselves were the real causal factors.

The Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act has been re-titled as the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act of 2007, providing $123 billion in supplemental war funding plus the usual earmark pork and other garbage that congressmen cannot find a way to resist. The bill moved closer to passage when the Senate passed their version [S 965] on Thursday by a vote of 51-47-2. The House version [HR 1591] passed a week ago by a vote of 218-212-15. The bill goes to a joint conference committee to reconcile the differences between the two versions and will have to go back to both chambers for final passage. The President has stated emphatically his intention to veto the bill, if it retains any dictation of a deadline or timetable for withdrawal. In his weekly radio address, the President focused his ire on the bevy of political pork earmarks woven into this important legislation; I had a good chuckle with his "I love peanuts as much as the next guy . . ." quip. Congress appears not to have the votes to override the President's threatened veto. The salient question seems to be, what next? The machinations of Congress play much better as pabulum for the disgruntled masses rather than as serious legislation. If Congress truly had the security of the People in mind as they seek to supercede the Commander-in-Chief, they would have done their business in secret . . . to get the message to the President as their executor, rather than encourage our enemies and seek political gain. Sadly, such is not the case.

The European Union celebrated 50 years of existence on the 25th of March, well, at least in a form. France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community -- the first form of the confederation that exists today.

I thought I would add another little piece of history here. After a series of attacks on American embassies, citizens, and other interests, President Reagan signed into law the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Anti-terrorism Act [H.R. 4151; PL 99-399; 22 U.S.C. 4852] on 27.August.1986. The comprehensive bill created the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) and established the means for the Secretary of State to protect American diplomatic missions around the world. The attacks of the 1990's offered tangible evidence of only limited success. The mission continues.

The Washington Post's Josh White and Ann Scott Tyson reported in their article "Detainee Alleges Abuse in CIA Prison -- Torture Coerced Confession, He Says" that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri filed a 36 page complaint with the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. According to the White-Tyson article, the public version has portions redacted that appear to detail the locations and nature of the alleged abuse. Now, we face the dichotomy of war and civil justice. Replacing the specifics of al-Nashiri's allegations with black bars hardly contributes to faith and confidence in the judicial process involving the detainees. Conversely, public scrutiny of methods and means during a time of war verges on self-flagellating insanity. The allegations of al-Nashiri are a prime example of why wars must be fought by warriors and NOT by politicians, accountants and lawyers. Lastly, in my opinion, the al-Nashiri complaint document should not have been released to the public, and he should not be given access to the public domain or the civil justice system.

Australian David M. Hicks, captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, pled guilty to one charge of providing material support to terrorists. A lengthy exchange on the question of detained battlefield combatants is offered below.

Now, we have the continuing debate over the location of the Royal Marines and Royal Navy sailors taken hostage by the Islamic Republic of Iran -- shades of 4.Novermber.1979. I do not know the precise location where they were taken captive, and I’m not sure it really matters. My point: if they were in Iranian waters, they should have been asked to leave; if they were in Iraqi waters as the British government claims or in international waters, then it was an act of war. The Iranians know quite well what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the United Nations. Ships near Iraqi waters have been subject to search for many years, thus this is not some random incident. The Iranians seek provocation; they shall have it. I am reminded of 1805 in American history – the Barbary pirates, Navy Captain Stephen Decatur, and Marine Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon. The Iranians are looking for leverage -- bargaining chips, but they have a hold on the lanyard on a cannon aimed at them. The culprits will meet their fate in time. The players today are quite different than those in that despicable incident 27 years ago. I just hope the Iranians do not tug on that lanyard too hard.

In the realm of another article/opinion for your rumination and cogitative meanderings, I suggest:
"Anger is All the Rage" [also titled "The Politics of Anger" in other journals]
by George F. Will
Sunday, March 25, 2007; Page B07
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301589.html

For reasons I know not, my little pea-brain cogitates the ramifications of our litigious society from time to time, often when I am presented with another "here's your sign" contender. Inevitably, I always return to the granddaddy (or perhaps in this case I should say grandma) of them all -- the mother of all examples -- Liebeck v. McDonald's (AKA the McDonald's coffee case). On 27.February.1992, Ms. Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman at the time, bought a 49 cent cup of hot coffee at a McDonald's drive-through window in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I often quoted press reports of the day that suggested she took the top off, placed the cup between her legs, and drove into traffic. The popular rendition was in error according to court documents. Stella did indeed place the hot cup of coffee between her legs to remove the top, so she could add sugar and creamer. During the process of removing the top, the reported entire contents of the cup spilled in her lap, causing serious third-degree burns to her thighs, buttocks and groin. Stella sought compensation for her medical expenses, and when McDonald's refused, she filed suit and won a US$2.9 million jury judgment for compensation and punitive damages. The judge reduced the award to US$480,000. While the popular version makes the story better, the bottom line is the same. So many in American society believe that anything adverse happening to them, must be somebody else's fault. We blame everyone else but ourselves for bad decisions we make or events that happen to us. I am sorry Stella got burned, but it was her decisions that directly caused the injury. Odd how this infamous case of litigation always reminds me of the gun control debate.

Comments and contributions from Update no.276:
"Most of the detainees were handed over to us by paid mercenaries and were not battlefield captives. In many cases they were just people somebody suspected of something. The Hicks case is especially galling and that you would defend the gulag we created down there is a little disappointing."
My response:
I am not sure where your information comes from. My impression comes from numerous diverse sources, so validity is certainly an appropriate question. Nonetheless, I suspect the use of the adjective ‘most’ is not appropriate, but I cannot prove it. And, nonetheless, what does it matter? ‘Paid mercenaries’ has a bad connotation, but regardless, if they were acting as agents of the United States, then they are so empowered. Next, the battlefield of this war in not Tora Bora, or Fallujah, or some damn street in Baghdad – the battlefield of this war is the whole bloody planet, thanks to our enemy. I shall chalk up your comparison of the Guantanamo facility to a Soviet Siberian gulag labor camp as an emotional excess; I cannot imagine you actually think so. So, let us set all the politics aside . . . what would you propose we do with the detainees? Turn ‘em loose? Put each one on criminal trial? What exactly do you propose we do?
. . . the follow-up response:
"We are all victims of our sources of information, for better or worse. Mine comes from CSPAN, NPR and an article in the current Esquire by Military Attorney Charles Swift who represented Bin Laden's driver before the Supreme Court. Hamdan vs Rumsfeld. I am sure you are aware of the court's ruling and maybe even the confusion added to the decision by Senators Kyl and Graham. Wikipedia covers this pretty well, for an overview. The bottom line is the Bush admin has thrown away 250 years of American jurisprudence, according to Swift, and we will be years, probably, trying to get back to the justice system we are supposed to be fighting to protect. Hicks case is symptomatic or rather symbolic of the problem. Torture, no due process, illegality by the admin and military in disregarding habeas corpus, rendition- it is all disgusting. None of the guilty pleas and confessions would be admissible in any court in the free world. I read a lot of Solshynitzen and think he would agree that Gitmo and Siberian gulags indeed have some commonalities. The fact that they can be even remotely comparable is in itself an indictment of the creators of such a system.
"We overreacted to a criminal mass murder and invaded two countries, one which had nothing to do with the mass murder. The other didn't either, but there were strong indications that radical Muslims who we created during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan were possibly connected to the attacks on 911. I say possibly because none of this has been proven. There is strong evidence as mentioned by scholars like David Ray Griffin, Steven Jones, Peter Dale Scott, Jim Hoffman and others (NOT James Fetzer) that the towers could have been brought down by demolition explosives of some sort. If this is so then the whole conspiracy theory that some radical Muslims executed 911 by themselves is poppycock. Many mainstream pundits are quick to disregard people like Griffin and Jones as seen when Tucker Carlson and others denigrate them on air claiming they are speaking blasphemy by suggesting by their questions that 911 was an inside job. Nevertheless, the evidence that I have seen suggests there was a controlled demolition involved in Building 7 and possibly the other two as well. If so then our whole 'War on Terrorism" that we are fighting all over the world is a fabrication by people who have larger and less democratic agendas. So far this war has created untold more "terrorists" than ever existed before 911.
"Do you think Hicks was treated properly, as you would want to be treated? Just curious.
"As I said we are subject to our sources- here is something from Wikipedia about Hicks. Apparently he got involved in Pakitan's fight with India and that led him wanting to help protect Kabul from the Northern Alliance- and that got him sold to the Americans for $1000 in Dec 01 by the Northern Alliance while riding in the back of a truck unarmed- not on a battlefield as noted by his father. We should discuss the larger issues that have split this country- seeming to create one side that is willing to throw law and justice away in order to kill/stop/contain "terrorists" and the other which does not want to put aside any well established laws and constitutional principles. In short, a reconsideration of the Patriot Act is an interesting place to start.
"Professor of History Alfred W. McCoy writes that:
"Initially held onboard USS Pelelieu in the Arabian Sea, Hicks was 'flown to a nearby land base for ten-hour torture sessions, shackled and blindfolded, which were marked by kicking, beatings with rifle butts, punching about the head and torso, death threats at gunpoint and anal penetration with objects – all by Americans.
'"On July 9, 2003, Hicks was placed in a closet-sized, self-contained cell designed to deny its occupant all stimuli; this CIA sensory-deprivation torture technique continued for eight months (244 days). Hicks 'experienced 'extreme mood swings' almost hourly' and began to consider suicide. By early 2004, American attorney Joshua Dratel, 'found Hicks at the brink of despair, obsessed with the minutiae of his surroundings, almost unable to comprehend the reality of his trial and the larger issues at stake."
My response:
I read the entire Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [548 U.S. ___ (2006)] [No. 05-184] ruling and offered my opinion on the ruling in Update no.238 and subsequent. I would urge everyone interested in this topic to read this ruling as well as several other germane court rulings. The essence of Hamdan was an admonition of the Legislative for not authorizing military commissions as a tool to deal with battlefield captives. Congress responded and passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PL 109-366]. [251, 254] I do not agree with your assertion that the Bush administration has thrown away 250 years of American jurisprudence. Conversely, I have not agreed with the actions of the administration, and predominantly feel the Executive made a grave mistake in allowing the detainees access to the criminal justice system. As such, the Military Commissions Act is a feeble and barely acceptable effort to remedy a seemingly inept handling of the detainee’s status. Where we disagree seems to hinge upon the assumption of status for someone captured as a combatant or agent of the enemy in the War on Islamic Fascism. I believe these people should be held without habeas corpus and should not have accept to American jurisprudence; they have NO legal status. I interpret from your choice of words that you may think the detainees should simply be released . . . it that correct?
You continue to claim that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. First, the 9/11 attacks were not criminal; they were an act of war. That aside, if we define our actions as a simple legal response to the 9/11 attacks, I suppose I can see your perspective. The difficulty in such an assumption is the larger context. To ignore Iraq, or Iran, or Syria, or the Wahabists in Saudi Arabia, is to pretend that all this nastiness started on the morning of Tuesday, 11.September.2001. If any of us view the world in that context, then the Battle of Iraq looks like a whim . . . rather than a battle in the much larger war. So, no, I do not see the Battle for Iraq as illegal or even an aberration; I see it as a well chosen battleground to materialize the terrorists, jihadistanis, and other fundamentalist Islamic fanatics -- close with and engage.
The supposition that the World Trade Center Twin Towers were brought down by explosives is hard for me to grasp . . . I don’t care how many scholars suggest it.
1.) I witnessed the events that day on multiple channels; no one had to interpret them for me.
2.) The physics involved that morning are straightforward; I was amazed the towers did not collapse immediately and lasted as long as they did.
3.) Getting sufficient explosives to the site of the impacts without teleportation, to mask the detonations is beyond my ability to comprehend.
4.) The probability of making all these various events play out in such proximity and sequence is so far beyond infinitesimal to be determinant.
I cannot support or even embrace the notion of a conspiracy by anyone other than the Islamofascists who murdered nearly 4,000 innocent people that day. To do so is to ignore 23+ years of repeated attacks on the United States by radical fundamentalist Muslims and five successive administrations who did virtually nothing. I cannot de-rationalize the history of their assaults on the interests of the United States. As a warrior and especially as an aviator, I have been extensively trained to endure capture, if it ever happened. Many of my brothers-in-arms can attest to similar training. I think all of us would say that we were treated far worse than those detainees during our training, and that our training was most likely a fraction of what we would probably face if actually captured. Thus, I doubt very much whether we will find a sympathetic audience among my brethren, for the notion that Hicks, Padilla, or any of the other traitors held at Guantanamo or elsewhere were or are being mistreated. Quite frankly and bluntly, I think they are being treated far too well for what they have done. I am not suggesting, and I doubt anyone else is suggesting, that we ignore the law. In fact, I think I have been and remain a consistent critic of the President and this administration for their arrogance and stretching the law. Their cavalier attitude toward Executive Power and the law debases and degrades the foundations of this Grand Republic. I do not let George or any other of these hacks off the hook. However, we are at War! As has been discussed repeated in the Update forum, one of my biggest criticisms and perhaps the greatest misstep of this administration rests in their failure to request a full declaration of war against the Islamofascists and other terrorists. My youngest son tried to convince me that the USA Patriot Act was bad legislation. I refused to accept that notion for several years. But, today, I must say he was right, and I was wrong. The arrogance of this administration's abuse of the extraordinary powers given them by the USA Patriot Act demonstrates contempt for the American People, and makes the defense of those extraordinary tools as essential weapons in the War on Islamic Fascism far harder to justify.

Another contribution:
"That quote about swords never being killers reminds me of a much more recent quote from a source I cannot place. It said something like: 'Guns don't kill people. People kill people.'"
My reply:
True 2,000 years ago . . . still true today. Unfortunately, too many of our citizens feel good about treating symptoms rather than the underlying causes.

Another contribution:
This thread began with the submittal of another article by Command Sergeant Major J.D. Pendry, USA (Ret.):
"Saving America"
by J.D. Pendry
posted: 11.February.2007
My response:
I also read a different article by Pendry [discussed in Update no.272]. This is a bit over-the-top for me. When I can glean an underlying message, I generally agree with him. But, this one is too far out to understand what he is really trying to say.
. . . installment two:
"Perhaps ... but I do have to agree with him that the media may very well be a big cause of the problems we have in our country, and how others view us ..."
. . . my reply to installment two:
Sure they are, but only to the degree we allow them to influence us. I subscribe to both Left and Right journals, of one form or another, so I get a dose of perspective from just about all sides of any particular issue. I try to think about what they say, and then make up my own mind. The Press is certainly coloring public opinion regarding the War, and if all anyone listens to is the baying of the uber-Left, then the impression we have is one of total failure. We listen to Rummie and the hacks in the administration and everything is peaches & cream. Reality is often somewhere in between.
. . . installment three:
“But also what the media says is often heard about by the ‘nazi terrorists’ ... they understand the information in the manner that best suits their continued hatred of America. It just fuels their ambitions to destroy us I think.”
. . . my reply to installment three:
One more thought . . . the openness & adversarial conduct of our Press is often seen as a prime demonstration of our weakness as a culture. It is good that they think that because it means they are seriously underestimating us as a people.
. . . installment four:
“Yeah ... I bet they never expected we would come over there and do what we have done so far ... and we probably WOULDN'T have if Bush wasn't in office (sad fact) ... I fear for our country's safety after next election ... and how so many want to rush our troops out of there so fast ... I just hope a plan is in place to keep a watchful eye on those countries after we leave ...”
. . . my reply to installment four:
The folks who are screaming for our withdrawal from Iraq are NOT as concerned with our security as they are focused on embarrassing the President and posturing for the next election. The reality is far more like the deterioration of the Roman Empire than the moral depravity mentioned earlier.
. . . installment five:
“Yeah, and it's not as if the President is running again ... but I guess they want to make sure another Republican doesn't get in right ??”
. . . and my reply to installment five:
As our British cousins say, spot on.

My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)