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New York Times issues 5 commandments for Jihadists
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arts and media |
other press
 Friday June 22, 2007 14:07 by Dante Algheiro @ the drive by motel with Virgil just outside - Barstow- fear loathing & redemption.
About two weeks a book review made its way into the New York Times & then by editorial selection (the universal vagaries and whimsical nature of which we all must agree) into the "best of review" by which the NYT increases newspaper sales by a few kilograms at the weekend. But the reader interest and plugmanship didn't stop there. Within a week the local language issues of the NYT had picked up on the story and translated it into the major European tongues. (but obviously not gaeilge, polish or chinese).
The story is now a pay for view - but it has excited certain interest in the Eastern seaboard US blogosphere & touches on areas of cognitive analysis which I first raised in 2003 - namely "are their rules or ritualised preparations for being a suicide bomber?" So I'm reproducing it here. Of course there are also the usual elements of propaganda & so on, that such attention be given to only one group of murderers. Yet the religious instruction program of Fort Hood which has long formulated an excuse for Christians to kill in service of their USA has not recently prompted a book.
Rules for Jihadist martydom
Rule No. 1: You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt.
Rule No. 2: You can kill children, too, without needing to feel distress.
Rule No. 3: Sometimes, you can single out civilians for killing; bankers are an example.
Rule No. 4: You cannot kill in the country where you reside unless you were born there.
Rule No. 5: You can lie or hide your religion if you do this for jihad.
New York Times
link :- http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30E11F...04482
By Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet
"We were in a small house in Zarqa, Jordan, trying to interview two heavily bearded Islamic militants about their distribution of recruitment videos when one of us asked one too many questions.
“He’s American?” one of the militants growled. “Let’s kidnap and kill him.”
The room fell silent. But before anyone could act on this impulse, the rules of jihadi etiquette kicked in. You can’t just slaughter a visitor, militants are taught by sympathetic Islamic scholars. You need permission from whoever arranges the meeting. And in this case, the arranger who helped us to meet this pair declined to sign off.
“He’s my guest,” Marwan Shehadeh, a Jordanian researcher, told the bearded men.
With Islamist violence brewing in various parts of the world, the set of rules that seek to guide and justify the killing that militants do is growing more complex.
This jihad etiquette is not written down, and for good reason. It varies as much in interpretation and practice as extremist groups vary in their goals. But the rules have some general themes that underlie actions ranging from the recent rash of suicide bombings in Algeria and Somalia, to the surge in beheadings and bombings by separatist Muslims in Thailand.
Some of these rules have deep roots in the Middle East, where, for example, the Egyptian Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi has argued it is fine to kill Israeli citizens because their compulsory military service means they are not truly civilians.
The war in Iraq is reshaping the etiquette, too. Suicide bombers from radical Sunni and Shiite Muslim groups have long been called martyrs, a locution that avoids the Koran’s ban on killing oneself in favor of the honor it accords death in battle against infidels. Now some Sunni militants are urging the killing of Shiites, alleging that they are not true Muslims. If there seems to be no published playbook, there are informal rules, and these were gathered by interviewing militants and their leaders, Islamic clerics and scholars in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and England, along with government intelligence officials in the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
Islamic militants who embrace violence may account for a minuscule fraction of Muslims in the world, but they lay claim to the breadth of Islamic teachings in their efforts to justify their actions. “No jihadi will do any action until he is certain this action is morally acceptable,” says Dr. Mohammad al-Massari, a Saudi dissident who runs a leading jihad Internet forum, Tajdeed.net, in London, where he now lives.
Here are six of the more striking jihadi tenets, as militant Islamists describe them:
Rule No. 1: You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt.
The Koran, as translated by the University of Southern California Muslim Student Association’s Compendium of Muslim Texts, generally prohibits the slaying of innocents, as in Verse 33 in Chapter 17 (Isra’, The Night Journey, Children of Israel): “Nor take life, which Allah has made sacred, except for just cause.”
But the Koran also orders Muslims to resist oppression, as verses 190 and 191 of Chapter 2 (The Cow) instruct: “Fight in the cause of Allah with those who fight with you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out, for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. ...”
In the typical car bombing, some Islamists say, God will identify those who deserve to die — for example, anyone helping the enemy — and send them to hell. The other victims will go to paradise. “The innocent who is hurt, he won’t suffer,” Dr. Massari says. “He becomes a martyr himself.”
There is one gray area. If you are a Muslim who has sinned, getting killed by a suicide bomber will clean some of your slate for Judgment Day, but precisely where God draws the line between those who go to heaven or hell is not spelled out.
Rule No. 2: You can kill children, too, without needing to feel distress.
True, Islamic texts say it is unlawful to kill children, women, the old and the infirm. In the Sahih Bukhari, a respected collection of sermons and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, verse 4:52:257 refers to Ghazawat, a battle in which Muhammad took part. “Narrated Abdullah: During some of the Ghazawat of the Prophet a woman was found killed. Allah’s Apostle disapproved the killing of women and children.”
But militant Islamists including extremists in Jordan who embrace Al Qaeda’s ideology teach recruits that children receive special consideration in death. They are not held accountable for any sins until puberty, and if they are killed in a jihad operation they will go straight to heaven. There, they will instantly age to their late 20s, and enjoy the same access to virgins and other benefits as martyrs receive.
Islamic militants are hardly alone in seeking to rationalize innocent deaths, says John O. Voll, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University. “Whether you are talking about leftist radicals here in the 1960s, or the apologies for civilian collateral damage in Iraq that you get from the Pentagon, the argument is that if the action is just, the collateral damage is justifiable,” he says.
Rule No. 3: Sometimes, you can single out civilians for killing; bankers are an example.
In principle, nonfighters cannot be targeted in a militant operation, Islamist scholars say. But the list of exceptions is long and growing.
Civilians can be killed in retribution for an enemy attack on Muslim civilians, argue some scholars like the Saudi cleric Abdullah bin Nasser al-Rashid, whose writings and those of other prominent Islamic scholars have been analyzed by the Combating Terrorism Center, a research group at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
Shakir al-Abssi, whose Qaeda-minded group, Fatah Al Islam, has been fighting Lebanese soldiers since May 20, says some government officials are fair game. He was sentenced to death in Jordan for helping to organize the slaying of the American diplomat Laurence Foley in 2002, and said in an interview with The New York Times that while he did not specifically choose Mr. Foley to be killed, “Any person that comes to our region with a military, security or political aim, then he is a legitimate target.”
Others like Atilla Ahmet, a 42-year-old Briton of Cypriot descent who is awaiting trial in England on terrorism charges, take a broader view. “It would be legitimate to attack banks because they charge interest, and this is in violation of Islamic law,” Mr. Ahmet said last year.
Rule No. 4: You cannot kill in the country where you reside unless you were born there.
Militants living in a country that respects the rights of Muslims have something like a peace contract with the country, says Omar Bakri, a radical sheik who moved from London to Lebanon two years ago under pressure from British authorities.
Militants who go to Iraq get a pass as expeditionary warriors. And the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks did not violate this rule since the hijackers came from outside the United States, Mr. Bakri said.
“When I heard about the London bombings, I prayed that no bombers from Britain were involved,” he said, fearing immigrants were responsible. As it turned out, the July 7, 2005, attack largely complied with this rule. Three of the four men who set off the bombs had been born in Britain; the fourth moved there from Jamaica as an infant.
Mr. Bakri says he does not condone violence against innocent people anywhere. But some of the several hundred young men who studied Islam with him say they have no such qualms.
“We have a voting system here in Britain, so anyone who is voting for Tony Blair is not a civilian and therefore would be a legitimate target,” says Khalid Kelly, an Irish-born Islamic convert who says he studied with Mr. Bakri in London.
Rule No. 5: You can lie or hide your religion if you do this for jihad.
Muslims are instructed by the Koran to be true to their religion. “Therefore stand firm (in the straight Path) as thou art commanded, thou and those who with thee turn (unto Allah), and transgress not (from the Path), for He seeth well all that you do,” says verse 112 of Chapter 11 (Hud). Lying is allowed only when it is deemed a necessity, for example when being tortured, or when an innocuous deception serves a good purpose, scholars say.
But some militants appear to shirk this rule to blend in with non-Muslim surroundings or deflect suspicion, says Maj. Gen. Achraf Rifi, the general director of Lebanon’s internal security force who oversaw a surveillance last year of a Lebanese man suspected of plotting to blow up the PATH train under the Hudson River.
“We thought the story couldn’t be true, especially when we followed this young man,” General Rifi said. “He was going out, drinking, chasing girls, drove a red MG.” But he says the man, who is now awaiting trial in Lebanon, confessed, and Mr. Rifi recalled that the Sept. 11 hijacker who came from Lebanon frequented discos in Beirut.
Mr. Voll takes a different view of the playboy-turned-militant phenomenon. He says the Sept. 11 hijackers might simply have been “guys who enjoyed a good drink” and that militant leaders may be seeking to do a “post facto scrubbing up of their image” by portraying sins as a ruse.
Rule No. 6. You may need to ask your parents for their consent.
Militant Islamists interpret the Koran and the separate teachings of Muhammad that are known as the Sunna as laying out five criteria to be met by people wanting to be jihadis. They must be Muslim, at least 15 and mature, of sound mind, debt free and have parental permission.
The parental rule is currently waived inside Iraq, where Islamists say it is every Muslim’s duty to fight the Americans, Dr. Massari says. It is optional for residents of nearby countries, like Jordan.
In Zarqa, Jordan, the 24-year-old Abu Ibrahim says he is waiting for another chance to be a jihadi after Syrian officials caught him in the fall heading to Iraq. He is taking the parental rule one step further, he said. His family is arranging for him to marry, and he feels obligated to disclose his jihad plans to any potential bride.
“I will inform my future wife of course about my plans, and I hope that, God willing, she might join me,” he said.
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Comments (28 of 28)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28Nothing new here for the New York Times, check out the article below for a brief history of their propaganda:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6031
today's New York Times offers us coverage of the double suicide bombing in Baghdad's Pet fair, which had the shock factor of "young female suicide bomber" which caused such worldwide revulsion during the Al-Aqsa intifada especially the case of Ayat-al-Akhras http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayat_al-Akhras
But went even further in "shock" reportage by the assertion that both women belonged to the "Down's syndrome" minority population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome
the NYT though has chosen to tell its readers there is no evidence for the latter shock factor.
...."Iraqi security officials said the women were mentally disabled, but offered no conclusive evidence. The Iraqi officials said the bombs were set off by remote control......"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/world/middleeast/02ir...login
go to that page & you can see photos as well as the usual high quality snuff video. Then if you want you can learn how New York subways are as a result of this shock to get sniffer dogs and automatic machine gun carrying guards. That would the hero-mayor of 911 at work there. Back to the grind after the presidency crap.
Of course any editor worth their salt would tell their readers that if someone wears explosives which are detonated at remote and that person has Down's syndrome it is possible it is not a "Suicide bombing" but rather a type of bombing we don't have a pit pat phrase for. Then again the editors would probably leave difficult issues like that to the Youtube commentators and analysts who have started examining the snuff video. I'd be really anti-american if I suggested most of those youtube commentators and analysts will apply a "hierarchy of victimhood" moral relativism combined with hypocritical lapse of memory that unique amongst the states who apply the death sentance the USA has put the mentally handicapped in the chair & fried their brains. Or that the current death toll of this shocking incident at 100 dead would statistically allow for at least 2 individuals with some type of mental or physical handicap.
I'd be a shite pope, but you know poor and simple people go to heaven regardless but if your blind or deaf you have to work harder at it. Unless you're a Buddhist or Hindu in which case you could put off the effort of being good till next time. We don't know why people who don't believe in any post-life options choose to be nice yet. It might be a genetic flaw.
“UNIQUE AMONGST THE STATES WHO APPLY THE DEATH SENTANCE THE USA HAS PUT THE MENTALLY HANDICAPPED IN THE CHAIR”
That is overstating and distorting things. There have been a handful of cases where defence lawyers have argued that the accused had such a low IQ that they were not criminally responsible but the test for the insanity defence is quite strict in many US states. The view taken is that is someone tries to escape capture after a crime then they realize that they have done wrong and do therefore know the difference between right and wrong. Very many people do get lighter sentences or are found not guilty due to diminished responsibility in the US and no people suffering from Downs Syndrome or the like are ever executed. There would be no objective data available for say China or Saudi Arabia as to the mental state of many of those executed so one cannot make sweeping assertions about the US being unique.
..."US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday the use of mentally retarded women as suicide bombers in Baghdad proves al-Qaida is ``the most brutal and bankrupt of movements'' and will strengthen Iraqi resolve to reject terrorism. ``It certainly underscores and affirms the decision of the Iraqi people that there is no political program here that is acceptable to a civilized society and that this is the most brutal and the most bankrupt of movements that would do this kind of thing,'' she said.
``It says to me that the Iraqi people have been right to turn against these terrible violent people in their midst who will do anything and I hope that it affirms for them how right they were to turn against the foreign fighters of al-Qaida, whether it is in Anbar or the local citizens committees that are taking back their streets,''``The struggle is not over and there will be from time to time terrible days like today but I think that will underscore that for the Iraqis and it will make them tougher in the fight,'' she told reporters at a joint news conference at the State Department with visiting Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski............"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-7275435,00....html
On the sixth of January this year the New York Times whose promotion of a book explaining some of the ritualistic concerns which facilitate & justify yihadist suicide bombing in a "religious context" is the subject of this article published a report alledging that both Condoleezza Rice & Dick Cheney had formulated a plan to attack the tribal belts of Wizaritsan following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Despite the opposition of the Pakistani state one such attack with drone launched missles was aimed at the number 3 of Al Qaeda in that region killing a further dozen other people. It is has yet to be confirmed that the target of the attack is in fact dead.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/washington/06terror.h...login
If we wish to make moral judgements or as Sceptic in the last comment irrelevantly invites us to consider the "fairness of the US judicial system" which alone in the states who hold a common jurisprudence and ethical tradition enforces the death penalty since its reintroduction in 1976 than we can not ignore the execution of mentally handicapped and deficient convicts by the US state. I believe that if we were "consistent" in such a way, than our justified abhorrence of the brutality & unfairness of countries with jurisprudence & legal systems which share little or no principles in common with either the Roman, Anglo-Saxon or Codified legal systems which Europe, the Americas & Antipodes share - is hollow to say the least.
I still maintain, that a decision by the British media & state shared by the US presidency but not shared by the pro-Democrat New York Times to highlight & play propaganda values on the unconfirmed Down's Syndrome status of the women who wore the explosive jackets which were detonated in Baghdad's bird fair is short-sighted playing to the gallery of Westerners who have generally long past the point of saturation. We have been bounced more than enough snuff videos , read increasing estimates of child mortality in the theatres of war which are Iraq & Afghanistan & now Waziristan as they climb from hundreds to thousands to hundreds of thousands. It has been almost 5 years now of moral bankruptcy now.
The words of Condoleeza Rice as she takes a highground of disgust in support of the local Iraqi government who have no state wide policy or mental or physical disability a few short days before her visit to Pakistan where her state have illegally breached sovreignity in their shock-factor high-tech attack can be seen in no other way than disgust & be meet with no other reacion than condemnation. Yes - each massacre demonstrates an inarguable moral bankruptcy.
neither US imperialism or Yihadist terrorism!
I am pleased that you qualified the position regarding the uniqueness of the US in regards to execution but I still think it is stretching it to describe people who may have low intellect as “mentally handicapped”. This is a loaded term used by death penalty opponents to discredit the US system. I am not myself in favour of the death penalty but loose comments about the US system by abolitionists should be corrected. Also you are reading too much into the reports of the use of downs women. The point is this is a newsworthy point – its not to do with media manipulation or propaganda. And your apparent equation of Jihadist terrorism with US military action is itself a simplistic and false equivalence. Whilst complaining of mindsets and ill based assumptions of others you seem to have your particular and idiosyncratic worldview into which you shoe horn events to fit. I don’t see anything wrong with the comments of Condoleezza Rice on the Bird Market bombing. It was an atrocious barbarism which words fail to describe. The Al Qaeda authors of that atrocity are the mortal enemies of all civilization, humanity and decency.
It is you Sceptic who have obfuscated the issue by taking issue with my correct observation that the USA has executed the mentally handicapped. The application of Justice & the mentally handicapped has nothing to do with a terrorist attack involving the mentally handicapped.
It still amazes me how you could hold your opinion on "justice" & attempt to make a comparison with Iran's Sharia law or the legislation in the PRC. Just to make it clear - western jurisprudence rejected the death penalty throughout Europe and all the "western states" based on Roman, anglo-saxon or codified law in the late 20th century. The USA alone chose to reintroduce the death penalty in the 1970's. European jurists rejected the death penalty for the absolute impediment it places on safe conviction, meaning if you hang, fry, shoot or bang up with poison an innocent man or woman your posthumous apology, pardon & decision to convict the real culprit perverts the core principles of Justice. I'm very surprised you didn't think that way. You might not know that the first trial of the Guildford 4 the presiding judge in his summary before sentancing lamented that the death penalty was not an option. But perhaps you really do believe that Justice is pit-pat regardless of interpretation, organic development or other factors.
We now know that the Guildford 4 were not guilty. We might have seen the movie. We also know that many of those who were executed in the last 30 years in the USA were not guilty of the crimes they were accused of. Their unsafe conviction & wrongful executions can only be termed barbarism. That barbarism demands condemnation from citizens of comparative democracies such as yourself & myself. Don't you think? The United States Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), and for all juveniles in Roper v. Simmons (2005) yet since 1995 the USA has executed individuals who were juveniles when they commited the crimes for which they were executed. That is equally barbaric from a European jurist perspective which holds juvenile crime to be subject to certain considerations. Those considerations are even greater when one treats on safe conviction of the mentally deficient. There have been no less than 3 confirmed cases of mentally handicapped individuals who could not understand the nature of their crime who were executed under current US law.
Now instead of forcing this discussion on this thread - I really think you should offer your opinions on an appropriate thread about the death penalty, the current resolution by the UN to universally ban the death penalty.
anyway this story will outline the case which in 2002 saw the US Supreme court rule 6-3 that executing the mentally handicapped was "unconstitutional" for being "cruel & unusual" punishment. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2056235.stm the case which led to that US supreme court decision involved a man with an IQ of 60. A chimpanzee which has been taught sign language and simple arithmetical operations is capable of more developed reasoning.
Now quite as unusual as rendition, white phosphorous or Gtimo - but well cruel all the same-. Indeed the Supreme court had previously declared the execution of the mentally handicapped legal in 1989.
There are at present several cases on death row whose safe conviction relies on an assessment of mental disability or handicap (which might win reprieve) or insanity (which will flick the switch).
It is barbarism because it masquerades as Justice.
I suppose you''ll insist on the last word as usual.
JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR - WESTERN JURISPRUDENCE REJECTED THE DEATH PENALTY THROUGHOUT EUROPE AND ALL THE "WESTERN STATES" BASED ON ROMAN, ANGLO-SAXON OR CODIFIED LAW IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY. THE USA ALONE CHOSE TO REINTRODUCE THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE 1970'S. EUROPEAN JURISTS REJECTED THE DEATH PENALTY FOR THE ABSOLUTE IMPEDIMENT IT PLACES ON SAFE CONVICTION.
No quite true - it was parliaments and governments which abolished the death penalty not the courts and it was usually against the will of the people. There is nothing in any of the legal codes you mention that prevents them using the death penalty and the abolition in the Club Med countries was mainly due to EU pressure as was the recent Turkish abolition. The US never banned the death penalty but the Supreme Court put it on hold for a few years thus enabling Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan to escape it. The problem is the US is a more direct democracy and the people at large in many states decided the rehabilitative, prisoner-centric approach of the late 1960s early 1970s only made crime rates soar hence a shift to a more punitive and more successful containment policy of which the death penalty was a part.
IT IS BARBARISM BECAUSE IT MASQUERADES AS JUSTICE.
That is a non sequitor and a clichéd value judgment. The idea that the death penalty should be abolished is novel and an almost exclusively liberal western European one. One should not be too condemnatory of the rest of the world for not adopting an idea that we ourselves only adopted in the last half-century or so and even then it was only the elites who so adopted it. There are dangers in confusing our own ideas with the notion of progressiveness. The rest of the world sees it as all of a piece with gay marriage and the like – a western liberal fetish.
typing in capital letters is generally considered to be rude in any internet forum Sceptic. At not stage did I claim that jurisprudence in any of its forms was responsible for the abolition of the death penalty in western cultures, no more than I claimed that the theories put forward in the article I wrote even partially satisfy Islamic legal (sharia) concepts of jihad & the use of suicide bombing.
You've been altogether too dim to make that analytic connection, haven't you?
But I have established beyond argument that the US supreme court ruled execution of mentally handicapped convicts was constitutional & then in a later decision ruled it was cruel & unusual punishment. When I first presented this article, I though to leave it in the "other press" section as one of those articles which quickly passes the attention of the readership & thus does not excite, provoke or deserve a thread. For that reason I didn't respond to "davekey's" comment. I had wondered for a long time what special rituals & dispensations would be facilitate yihadist recruits to overcome the Quran's prohibition of murder to commit the crimes we are now sadly familiar with. Like many others I sought patterns to the attacks as much as the profile of those who donned the explosive jackets. Unlike many I never entertained for a moment the widespread fallacy that the prime number "11" was a factor, rather I tended to the belief that the lunar phases of the calender were important.
Alas, you're not really nor ever have been a worthy sparring partner Sceptic. If you support the death penalty that is your warped vision of retribution rather than justice & I for one feel it disqualifies your comments on any other warped vision of retribution which at end play such an important role in the emergent forms of terrorism. Long before death penalties were abolished by western legislatures they had been rejected by jurists for the single problem of unsafe conviction. You obviously have no understanding of legal history, jurisprudence or the development of human rights. It is not a "liberal" matter. The US supreme court judges who ruled executing the mentally handicapped was unconstitutional voted 6 to 3. I would have expected a right wing troll like you to know the liberals never held that many judges. ergo a right wing conservative judge who quite likely was just as opposed to abortion, gay rights or squatters as you are - voted.
now gurggle on!
You misunderstand - I'm opposed to the death penalty and have already said so on this thread. Furthermore abolition is a most assuredly a liberal position. What I object to however is western liberals smugly denouncing it as barbaric in itself when it fact it was an everyday occurrence in the west itself not so long ago. Moreover it was seen as effective and popular as well as fully lawful and biblically sanctioned. Thus it was very deeply rooted in both the traditions of the west including in the post enlightenment historical stage. The abolition in Europe may yet turn out to be a transitory phase – there is no guarantee that it won’t.
I've always had my doubts about votes for women & working men, haven't you? Damn Gladstone.
Sceptic this thread is not re-introducing the death penalty to Europe or ending it in the USA. It was to bring attention to just one quite influential book on the warped interpretations of Sharia that are used by terrorist organisations to overcome the prohibition on murder in Islam.
Last October you merrily trolled another one of my threads [ "Ahmadinejad at Columbia University New York" http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84366 ] & I wrote this about you :-
My thoughts turn for light relief to expressing the "dimness of Sceptic". Your dimness is absolute. Yours is the dimness of a black hole, from which even a spark generated by two bodies floating in the vast vacuum of space might not escape, your dimness is that of the absolute crushing density left behind the final twinkle of a star wished upon for aeons without hope of human eye. The utter dimness which prompts you to declare chomsky is "flawed" without even offering a suggestion sa to where, why or in what, other than you believe he is unqualified to discuss American policy but you the dim one who expects Iranian tv to do lie broadcasts at the same time as Foxnews are just what we need as a constant heckling commentator. From timezones to linguistics, from the US forces in WW2 to mc donalds burgers your quotidien dimness once seemed to continue like the mournful wailing of a pulsar - but now I know it is unavoidable. Yours are the black hole of comments, the gaping maw which sucks all material to an unknown or untheorised end. Not even science and its metaphors or imagery could express the awesome futility of feeding that abyss more. If not science perhaps religiosity might scintilate - the celerity of your dimness sceptic is that of a prince of darkness, you are the satan of our comments.
stop gurgling & heckling.
the power of christ compels thee!
Human societies can regress as well as progress as we have seen many times. However the death penalty issue reform is not entrenched as well as the abolition of slavery for example which was ended centuries ago as a result of enlightenment thinking. Sentiment on the death penalty issue is a function of popular will, crime rates, terrorism and the like. For example the abolition in Iraq did not long survive the outbreak of serious terrorism there nor would it here as the 1922/3 insurgency was met with the suspension of due process prior to execution in some cases.. Incidentally crime is much less manifest in most of the US than in Ireland. For example almost every suburban house in Dublin has a burglar alarm. Almost no suburban houses in Boston do as there are hardly any burglaries. The same is true of LA as well as Texas. Prospective burglars know there is a good chance they will be shot by the householder and if convicted will serve a long stretch in a tough environment. Thus there is little house robbery - the system works well.
Sceptic, I have never used either concepts of progress or regression in reference to the changes in collective human organisation which may briefly but not comprehensively be understood as legal systems, statehoods, vernaculars or linguistic practises, metaphysical or religious belief systems, moral codes..,
I've learnt by experience there is only so much one can throw into your dimness at a time Sceptic, so I'll leave the list at that. Slavery is still present in many forms on this planet & in no less than 6 instances I can think of straight of the top of my wooly head in geographic territories subject to direct Western state intervention or quasi-protectorate status.
Now I'm sorry for trying to remind the general readership that your frothy gurgles are so half-baked that you railed against Iranian telly for not broadcasting the Ahmadinejad debate at Columbia university on live telly at the same time as Fox news until I pointed out the Iranians would be in bed asleep. But this "Bostonians have no burglar alarms thus the electric chair deters acquisitive domestic petty crime" crap just demands a rejoiner. Massachusetts the state or commonwealth of which Boston is capital city does not have the death penalty Sceptic. It is one of the 17 US states and all overseas associates which do not.
I believe therefore what you're proposing having paused to read your last comment with suitable attention is not a return to the death penalty (you said you're against it) nor a closer examination of this thread & it's links but rather the right to bear arms. I do believe I wrote an extensive article in the analysis section of the newswire entitled The Right Versus The Privilege to Bear Arms which you could of course ponder before you presume (as you do with much else) what my opinion, agenda, prejudice or plan for the future might be.
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82065
Anyone want to engage with the actual article or is the "what do you do to be a suicide bomber in grace" or "did Al Q use mentally handicapped people in bombings or was that just propaganda" thing?
sure, there are less burglaries but there are more murders and accidental deaths on the streets. Not everyone is responsible enough to have sex or own a gun. Some people should NEVER have sex. Like you septic! one is already more than enough!!
Life would be easier and less confused if you did not mislead by putting words in my mouth. We were debating penology but at no time did I suggest a cause and effect relationship between burgler alarms and capital punishment. It is a fact that many types of crime and anti social behavior are much more evident in Ireland than in the US and one is more likely to me mugged or kicked in the head in Dublin than in Manhattan as well as burgled just about anywhere or suffer car crime.
Also someone who kills in the US and is conviceted stays inside for a log long time. In this country a soft sentence for "manslaughter" is all too often the norm.
They have of course just been charged by the military tribunal kangaroo show trial thing the US right managed to get past our Human Rights on the small treaty trophy island of Guantanamo bay in Cuba.
The Pentagon has announced charges against six Guantanamo Bay prisoners over their alleged involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the six, who include alleged plot mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The charges, the first for Guantanamo inmates directly related to 9/11, are expected to be heard by a controversial military tribunal system.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7239099.stm
Six Guantánamo detainees who are accused of central roles in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will be shown all the evidence against them and will be afforded the same rights as American soldiers accused of crimes, the Pentagon said Monday as it announced the charges against them.
Meanwhile at the courtroom designed for military commissions at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba so far, no trial has taken place. Military prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the six Guantánamo detainees on charges including conspiracy and murder “in violation of the law of war,” attacking civilians and civilian targets, terrorism and support of terrorism, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann of the Air Force, legal adviser to the Defense Department’s Office of Military Commissions, said at a Pentagon news briefing. General Hartmann said it would be up to the trial judge how to handle evidence obtained through controversial interrogation techniques like “waterboarding,” or simulated drowning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/washington/11cnd-gitm...login
that little bit of "waterboarding" convincing the hairiest people they're drowning to get a bit co-operative on the self-incrimination thing brings us neatly to the New York Times article on CIA use of torture.
Nobody thought they were mentally handicapped going in, all the same, in fairness to Sceptic.
Military Tribunals are not at all kangaroo courts and the defendants will have access to the appellate courts including the Supreme Court itself if convicted. That is as fair justice as is available anywhere especially compared to any Islamic country and is arguably better than a UN Tribunal. The location is not relevant. Gitmo is a place of detention for dangerous terrorists that are what these seem to be. The main objection to Gitmo is that the prisoners were interned – but in this case they are being tried so that takes the sting from that charge. Evidence gleaned via water boarding will most probably not be admitted. It was a mistake ever to approve of water boarding – I am with John McCain on that one. However there is much evidence besides and there is no reason, apart from prejudice, to suspect that this will not be a well run and fair procedure. Such was the scale of the mass murder involved most people would not baulk at tough sentences and the McVeigh case is a precedent for a Federal case involving terrorism with mass casualties ending in a death sentence. There can be no mitigation for the evil of 9/11 – it was designed to kill civilians en mass and that’s what it did. Arguably McVeigh was a disturbed young man who largely acted alone and he claimed did not knowingly blow up a children’s day care centre. No excuses whatever for the calculated lethality of 9/11 however.
: Do they execute people?
...there'll be a little potted history along now before night fall. I would have thought you'd say hanging was too good for them, invent up some other slow punishment, like not telling them what will happen to them or where they are you're only messing with the near-death-experience thing and then just send them back home to fit in with the neighbours complete with new teeth & there perhaps the happy oldtimers would sacrifice a goat or something for a stew. But I always forget, you're not really real, Sceptic - you don't have opinions of your own. It's quite amazing how much time you spend adding comments for someone who has no real opinion on their own. It's all just knee jerk. You're convinced that a military tribunal of dubious constitutionality based on evidence whose supposed extraction was torture is still better than anything else out there.
Why was that now?
oh yep. killing handicapped people. I did my best to introduce you to verifiable facts & recorded history to accept the USA and Al Qaeda think killing mentally handicapped people is morally justifiable. Now you want to bring it on to unlawful combatants & prisoner of war & getting killed. You're the expert. Tell us about UN Tribunals. You & your great ideas Sceptic. Can you do that explanation before March 11th?
bit of rhetoric there - for as you probably know (what with you being with John McCain & all that) the USA is not a party to the UN international tribunal treaty. & why is the USA not a party?
Because of fears it would be tried for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, use of illegal weapons & whatever else you'd like to mention.
executing the mentally handicapped would be my suggestion.
Anyway - you say military tribunals are not kangaroo courts. Great. Give us one example of a fair trial of enemy combattants legal or illegal by any military tribunal in general or any US military tribunal in particular. Since we're talking about one the Cuban base of Gitmo - I thought to suggest the first US military tribunal for an "illegal enemy combattant". That kangaroo court saw a Scottish former British army officer shot during the Florida campaign of Andrew "old hickory" Jackson when as a general he turned a border security exercise into a full scale war of occupation. A war which led to the dismantling of the Spanish empire in the Americas & almost led to war with the British empire over the utterly illegal & criminal execution of one of its subjects. He finally got roped in by Washington before he could launch an invasion of Cuba, toddled back to his farm in Tennessee to whip some slaves' backs & only when the time was right & the call made - did he find it in himself to become president number 7.
over to you Sceptic.
engage.
I've given you an approximately 125 years headstart on the Nuremburg trials.
I thought that sort of dovecotted into the gap left above as I sought to remind everyone that by the 6th presidency of the USA that state had seen a military tribunal execute a foreign national after illegaly invading foreign soil for supposedly arming an indiginous community engaged in criminal activity in the homeland. For we don't need the scourge of comment fields Sceptic to remind us of exactly what the Nuremburg tribunal accused its prisoners of & exactly what didn't get a mention.
........"The UK foreign secretary, David Miliband, today opened a rift with the Bush administration by raising doubts about the fairness of US military tribunals for the six men charged in connection with the September 11 attacks. Miliband said he had "some concerns" not only about impartiality but also about the methods used to extract information from the detainees, who are being held at Guantánamo Bay..........." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/12/guantanamo....er112
"..........Asked if the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would respect his legal rights, Mr Miliband said: "We have some concerns about that, and there are still some cases in front of the American Supreme Court, because, of course, the great thing about America, and I suppose countries like ours as well, is that the independent legal system provides a check and a balance on the operation of the legal system itself.........."
Khalid is the hairy less than handsome man whose sleepy photo was quite probably taken in the few seconds between verifying his identity through DNA (&/or) fingerprints and the moment a hood was put on his head & he was brought to a plane. Less civilised people would have chopped his head off long ago and made a vid for youtube if they'd been so sure he done them ill or ever had anything useful to tell them.
"And so the Supreme Court has already ruled against some of the tribunals that have been established from the Guantanamo experience, and there are some cases in respect of what's called the Military Commissions Act, which is the basis on which he'd be tried, that are being discussed in front of the Supreme Court at the moment."
Now that's not really making room for sharia law, which incidently the brightest amongst you will be pleased to know would file a long list of criminal charges for the events which led to the rendition of the accused & imprisonment outside of a human rights framework for almost 2000 days each. So don't get too excited about UK Minister Miliband "sort of"falling in step with Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch. It's all about safe conviction which brings us back to executing the mentally handicapped, when you think about it.
A few hours later the same Brit minister was talking to Oxford students about democracy (more of that) - values of justice (priceless) and having regrets about Iraq & Afghanistan.
:- sure hasn't everyone..,
Execution is just a penalty - contrary to your assertions its presence
as a possibility does not invalidate the trial process which is to
determine guilt or not. The two things are separate except in rare cases where they become intertwined eg a jury won't convict because it fears the defendant would be executed and this does not apply in this
instance. Personally I think the smarter thing upon a conviction in this case would be not to execute but there are realities involved. Speaking of Nuremberg was that trial invalidated because execution was available to the bench as a penalty? Or the trial of Eichmann or Hoss? Or the IRA killers of Garda Frank Hand in 1984?
I can't claim authoritative knowledge of the procedures back in Jackson's
time but I gather standards were lower back then. I can’t see how that has much relevance to anything now.
US non-membership of the recently established International Criminal
Court is also not relevant - the UN legal order is just one among many and
can be criticised on many grounds. That does not mean that the US’s own
standards of law or accountability are suspect. There is no other easily available legal remedy to try Charles Taylor for instance – that is the value of that particular Tribunal. There is however large panoply of legal remedies in the case of a US serviceman suspected for misconduct for example.
I lay a trap, you walk right into it.
* the charges read to the defendents at Nuremberg were that of starting an illegal war of aggression................the Iraq war fits the charges perfectly.
*Adolf Eichman was the only individual ever charged with the Holocaust, & the only man executed by the state of Israel in a civil case. Whatever one may say about the sentance the evidence was conclusive & the conviction was safe.
*The Jackson tribunal saw the USA come within a hairs breadth of war with both the Spanish & British Empires. Oh yes, standards have improved since then Sceptic - but the principle remains the same.
*If the 6 suspects held in Gitmo are put to trial & found guilt of 911 & executed their trial process will not have guaranteed a safe conviction merely seen killed 6 men on evidence we the international community may not examine & extracted under torture. Leaving us with the niggling doubt of what if it wasn't them who planned & executed & the 911 attacks & were ultimately responsible for civilian deaths of many nationalities in the US homeland that day?
the niggling doubt is what unsafe conviction is all about. I remind you yet again that up the page I pointed out to you that in his summary, John Francis Donaldson the judge presiding the case expressed regret that the Four had not been charged with treason, which then still had a mandatory death penalty which in his words "he would have had no qualms in passing".
of course your pit pat answer is procedure has improved since then.
I did not walk into anything - I am quite familiar with Nuremberg. Aggressive war was just one of the charges at Nuremberg and was directed at certain defendants only. I don't believe it has been used since, as the case for it was weak especially with the USSR on the bench. The Iraqi affair was legal and legitimate in the minds of the Governments which compromised the coalition of the willing and their law officers - that is US, UK, Spain, Italy, Kuwait and Qatar. Its legitimacy derives from the previous 1990/1991 resolutions, the doctrine of pre-emption and the doctrine of liberal intervention. Arguably a UNSC resolution was not needed as it was the 1991 war that was being resumed following Iraq’s ceasefire breaches including not abusing his own people.
You are not a member of the international community since you are neither a state nor an international body.
The trial is an American matter. That is where the crime was the US is the correct sovereign entity to try the suspects. The international criminal court is for the likes of Charles Taylor who was a head of State.
Since you are not making an issue of the Garda Hand, Eichmann, Nuremberg or Hoss death sentences why make such an issue of the death penalty in this case? It was an Israeli court that tried Eichmann not an international one – why should this be different? Moreover his was a case of what would now be called extraordinary rendition – quite justified I might add though these days a UN court would probably acquit him on this score. I think we have settled the question that the death penalty in itself does not automatically invalidate the trial process which precedes it.
Who appoints the judges?
Has the Republican party a say in the appointment of conservatives on the bench?
Are The judges appointed free from the Political mechanisms of the US state?
If there is a Democratic Government will the 9/11 trial ensure that the US citizen will be
exposed to the trial through owned medic corporations in order to keep the Issue
of war and terror within the pscyhe of that people?
Is this the beginning of a re-election campaign, post Obama/Clinton.
(cos Mc cain is a true conservative who has stated that he will seek to keep 'Life'
issues on the agenda through court appointments).
= no separation of powers.
Sceptic you have trolled this thread as you do all.
Are you suggesting the convictions were unsafe in the Eichmann or Garda Hand trials or the process which led to the trials was reliant on torture and breached international law?
Now in your words "you know all about it" - so think it over. You'll probably find internet links, whereas you haven't seemed to have found any on the Jackson tribunal which is probably why you're running shy of it.
Is your refusal to address the possibility of a death sentance in the guildford 4 trial of 1976 a sleight of hand or just plain stupidity?
Is your consistent refusal to add any new information or even directly comment on the material of the article evidence that all you do is disrupt?
Why do you think executing the mentally handicapped is justifiable?
You begin your trolling seeming only a tongue in cheek "rightwinger" but then given enough rope you expose yourself as the swampfascist I personally consider your opinions to typify. I only hope you are not politically involved or hold membership of a party. Your dismissal of my right to criticise the open presentation of evidence in the forthcoming show trial in Gitmo "you're not a member of the international community" is yet more utter crap - in due time I may freely access the reports of the International tribunal of Justice set up under charter by the United Nations which both the state of my residence & the state of my birth have ratified. Furthermore I may enjoy as a member of two non-governmental organisations further access to all proceeds of any case which has international bearing. The GITMO cases have international bearing. They aren't just a piece of electioneering crap.
or are they?
Dante – as an opponent of the death penalty the risk of wrongful conviction as in the Guilford case is an argument against it. I have no problem with that. But the fact that the death penalty is available does not mean the trial process itself is compromised. You began by saying this was a kangaroo court. My central point is that it is not. I think a procedure through the regular federal courts would be preferable but that does not make the proposed procedure a “kangaroo court”. A kangaroo court is what the IRA use just prior to the bullet in head. The very obscure case from Jacksonian times almost 200 years ago has no relevance and I don’t see why you hanker on about it. Going on about the mentally handicapped is also a red herring. Also the suspects in this case were handed over by Pakistan – they were not kidnapped, as I understand it. Finally even your membership of two NGOs does not make you a member of the “international community”. Every politically active plonker is member of a few so called NGOs.
As regards Pillar’s piece - the executive usually appoints judges and this is a case to be tried on facts of evidence. The separation of powers is protected by an number of measures like the unsackablity of judges. There is always elections of one kind or another and some conspiracy buff can always shout that this is all for show etc but that does not make it so.
Not once have you specifically responded to the execution of the mentally handicapped by US courts other than to initially dismiss it till I pointed out the matter has twice been a subject of Supreme Court deliberation, the latter occasion ruling it was cruel & unusual punishment. To which you purported that was a "liberal" decision depite my correctly observing that the ruling was passed 6 to 3 & the so-called "liberals" have never held 6 judges on the bench.
Your attempts to obfuscate & troll this thread on a daily basis have not seen you address the original article in the New York Times or the issues of Sharia Law and its prohibitions of suicide bombings or contemporary Islamic jurist thinking on Jihad. It is still my belief that you haven't in even read the article merely returned to continue whatever discussion you think you're having.
Time and time again you have dismissed reference to historical fact by maintaining that "procedure has changed" since then. For you - the Jackson tribunal could not happen nor could a Guildford 4 trial occur because "procedure has changed". Yet you have not offered one iota of evidence other than a belief that procedure must have changed. On most of the threads you troll & disrupt you presume a historical understanding which on closer examination is seriously wanting. Up this page you suggested that the abolition of the death penalty in Europe was merely a passing phase - with the same overbearing ignorance with which you dismiss key military tribunal processes in the past.
Sceptic - your drivel is a waste of time, and a waste of space. The GITMO tribunal is kangaroo court. I defy you to shed your veil of anomynity & claim greater knowledge than mine of Islamic extremist terrorism in Europe or the West & any (if any) subsequent processes of law. As I said before your dimness is astounding & your opinions ("pro Mc Cain") (how odd for someone who is anti-death penalty & trolls a leftwing site) are nothing short of what I'd expect from a swamp-fascist.
Executing the mentally handicapped is not a red herring - the ping of this thread was the bombing of Baghdad in which the Iraqi authorities claimed Al Qaeda had used 2 women with Down Syndrome as bombers. This is my thread Sceptic. I read it as well as write it. Now please stop your incessant infantile attempts at sophistry. You have failed to respond satisfactority to any point I have made, you have solely exposed yourself for the sadly warped individual you are.
Dante all of this ad hominem bluster is a sign of weakness and frustration if anything. I was merely commenting on the fact that the upcoming trial(s) should not be tartly dismissed in advance as the work of a "kangaroo court" by someone with a rather grandiloquent view of his role in world affairs and the scheme of things. Not to have a huge wide ranging debate about anything for good or ill the US legal system might have done in its quarter of a millennium or so of existence and that goes for ancient case law going back to the 1840s or so which is irrelevant and brought in as a diversion. Ditto the mental capacity issue which I have already discussed contrary to your charges. It too has no relevance to this case unless an issue of inadequate mental capacity should arise in the trial(s) which seems unlikely at this point. To point out any of this is quite reasonable and balanced not “fascist” as you put it. A “fascist” in your view is someone who does not fully share your world view it seems or your place within it. Again, distorting things, – I never said a Guilford case could not happen again – of course any human arrangement is fallible – even the best justice system is. So there is a risk of mistaken conviction in any trial. This is why I personally disagree with capital punishment. I presume we have that much in common as we both do with John McCain on weatherboarding for that matter if on that issue alone. But that does not mean the entire justice system of the US is invalidated or to be rubbished. It is still one of the best there is and certainly a lot better than most of those states on the UNHRC who sit in judgement on the US almost each day while nothing is said about their own large scale human rights abuses – up to one million people killed in Darfur and 7 million political prisoners in China. On the latter in particular we don’t hear too much about from various western “NGO” busybodies and leftist “human rights activists” or indeed the “international community” at large.
* you have shown no sign that you have read the article yet have on a daily basis added comments since the the Iraqi forces suggested Al Qaeda had used Down Syndrome sufferers in an attack, a suggestion whose reporting in the western press I ironically compared to the execution of mentally handicapped individuals in the USA.
* not once have you expressed abhorrence or repellence at such an idea.
I have challenged you to throw off your mask of anomynity and state who you are - perhaps you are in your words "a two bit politically activist plonker" who as any member of Amnesty International or the US based Human rights watch would have a right to view the evidence in a proper accountable and transparent tribunal or trial. Those "so-called NGO's" (your words) condemned the forthcoming tribunal before HMG UK foreign office expressed its doubts. They all dismiss the possibility of a fair trial for the six GITMO prisoners accused of planning the 911 attacks & being responsible for the death of many thousands of civilians.
To make it simple - it's a kangaroo court.
To make it even simpler - your opinions are typical of what I would expect from a swamp-fascist.
You have shown no ability to treat on the matter in hand - (this thread & its subject material) you have repeatedly dismissed valid opinions & have on a daily basis offered me the opportunity to remind all fellow contributors & readers of this site of your constant disruption & ignorance.
The US liberal & leftwing establishment is quite obviously & openly opposed to the tribunal proposed by the Pentagon. The only people who seem to think it a good idea or a demonstration of western values and concepts of law are those who I would term "swamp fascists". That's what you are Sceptic.
I'll tell you again tomorrow night too.
You haven't any