What the heck - on to Tehran and bonding with Ramsey Clark and the Moustache himself. Perhaps she can swoon in the courtroom at his feet.

"This is the 21st century - killing is barbaric"

Agreed, which is why America the Wog Civilizer has to be forced to kill.

If you don't invade your neighbors, seek to overthrow America, or allow your society to dissolve into anarchy, then the odds that America will do more than try to jawbone you to death are remote.

"I don't buy into the fact that George Bush and Tony Blair can't be called terrorists because they are elected officials. This occupation of Iraq is killing innocent people by the thousand."

Moonbat ignorance literally makes me want to cry.

How could America's schools fail so badly that an average American adult wouldn't know the definition of "terrorist", or at least how to look it up, and be so ignorant of foreign affairs as to NOT KNOW that Saddam ordered the deaths of, or caused to be killed as a direct consequence of his decisions, over TWO AND A HALF MILLION PEOPLE, including Iraqis, Iranians, Americans, British, Kuwaitis, and Israelis, hundreds of thousands of whom were CHILDREN, a fact well-known to Saddam.

Sheehan hasn't just drunk the Kool-Aid, that publicity whore has married the Devil.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at December 9, 2005 4:31 AM

Is this your revenge for Galloway? No fair. You've already hit us with Michael Moore and Madonna.

Has anyone found who is footing the bills for all this traveling around she is doing? Seems to me that this is being played like a drum for the publicity they can scavenge up and we don't know who is doing the scavenging. I think we should know who is doing this and then why they are doing it. I hold no brief for her as I think she is seriously deluded but I also think that we need to know who is pulling the strings and why they are pulling them. She is just the kind of victim who can cause a whole lot of damage both to our troops and to our media stories. Think of her as another version of Abu Ghraib in that she can be used to rally the opposition troops if they don't die laughing first. Not a good picture and no one is telling us the truth about it. Definitely not the media. They are slanting for all they are worth on this story and on the torture stories also.

If you get a chance, check into the story about the torture decision of the High Court in Britain. I defy you to tell me how torture is defined there. It seems as if they are saying torture is what I say it is when I decide to say what it is and don't you forget it. You can't use it in court and I will tell you what it is when you try to use it in court. Totally delusional. And it is being portrayed as a great decision.

dick:

It is the right decision. As I understand it, it's saying that if suspects reasonably claim that evidence against them was obtained by torture - under the definitions we (and the US) currently work with - then the source of that evidence should be investigated, and if shown to be gained by torture, will not be admissable in individual prosecutions.

It won't affect, for example, reactions to security alerts.

I will ask again. Who will define what torture is? From what I could see there is no definition except what the international groups says is torture which is anything that causes pain. That definition is so broad you could drive a jet plane through it. It essentially says that torture is whatever a judge says is torture at the time and means that anyone can define torture as whatever they want it to be be. That was my point. I will grant that torture is not a good basis for legal proceedings. My point was that they did not define what was torture and what was not and until they do so the decision is essentially meaningless. I could say that clipping my nails is torture and you could say that serving me a drink without ice was torture. there is nothing in that decision to say we were wrong and could not base out cases on our own definitions. After all the HRC group thinks solitary confinement is torture. In that case then every police force in the world is guilty of torture and those cases should immediately be dismissed. You could say that I picked stupid instances but what in the decision says mine were any worse than what else would be allowable.

dick:

True, it is difficult to define, but that same objection could apply to any law prohibiting the use of torture in gaining evidence - it's not specific to this particular ruling.

This ruling merely asserts that the law as applied in all other aspects of British law, should also consistently apply in cases before the Special Immigrations Appeals Commission.

As for the definition of torture, it is defined by the UN Convention thus:

"Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

Make of that what you will. I will observe though, that torture is a very good way of getting misinformation and false confessions.

Incidentally, the first line of the Grauniad story:

"When Casey Sheehan joined the army in May 2000, he was assured that he would never see combat. Four years later, he was killed in Iraq."

Does that remind anyone else of the Monty Python sketch with the private who wants to leave the army because its "too dangerous".

"I joined the army for the water-skiing and for the travel, sir, not for the killing."

Brit,

So it is basically saying community standards after you get through all the persiflage. Not nearly good enough. The court in Britain would call almost anything done by Saddam torture and he would call it just good policing and they would both meet the standards of that statement. Would you call putting panties on someone's head torture by that definition? The HRC does but almost every university fraternity does far worse in pledge week. That is my point. The court decided nothing at all except that some undefined action to be determined at some time in the future might under certain circumstances be torture if it occurred in Great Britain but not if it occurred in Rwanda or Darfur or Somalia. Yet from this we are to get some sort of international agreement.

dick:

You're missing the point of the ruling. It wasn't about defining torture - that job had already been done, whatever you think about its success. It was about consistently applying the law in Britain.

Anyway, although torture may be hard to define on paper, it's not so hard to spot in practice.

Why didn't her handlers fly her first class? Seems like a slight to me. Poor Cindy.

And I cram my 6'2" frame into a couple of flights a month (sometimes on RJs) and it isn't that much of a bother, unless we are forced to wait in the box for more than 15 or 20 minutes.

Having seen and heard Sheehan, one wonders whether it was Rove promoting her.

She is clearly suffering from some sort of retardation. Her every word convinces one that she is addled.

With Madonna and Moore, even your typical antiwar/antiAmerican Brit must think, "Gosh, their antiwar movement is even dumber than their pro-war movement."

This must be a plot to let them keep their illusion of "superiority." ;-)

Perhaps torture like pornography, is difficult to define, but easy to identify.

dick, my question is about funding too. Not only Sheehan et al and the anti-war moonbats following Hillary around the country, but bussing anti-war protesters to DC and just generally following the rule to, cherchez les buckeroos.

I happened to see an expanded picture of the Sheehan campsite in Texas last summer. There were luxury RV's, high tech communication satellites and all kinds of pricey toys.

Who paid for them?

dick, erp, et al. -

Jonah Goldberg wrote a piece last summer about the 'professional' organizers who arranged Sheehan's triumphal entry into D.C. I don't remember the head woman's name, but she was involved in the Seattle riots of 1999 as well. It's all part of the anti-globalization, anti-business, anti-GOP crowd.

jim

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2005/08/choosing_sides_3.html

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2005/08/was_she_ever_even_in_cambodia_1.html

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2005/08/antisemites_of.html

George Soros, MoveOn, the Hollywood Left-Wing Conspiracy. The usual suspects.