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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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 Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:43 pm Post subject: Bush's Jane Fonda-esque Mistake |
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WHAT THE HELL IS THIS???
I know it's the lefty LA Times with another Bush-bashing story, but why in hell did LINDSEY GRAHAM provide these JAG memos to the Media???????
This whole article is just garbage and Graham had to know how this
LEFTIST RAG would twist it!!!
LA TIMES
| Quote: | Bush"s Jane Fonda-esque Mistake
ROSA BROOKS
July 30, 2005
Jane Fonda announced Monday that she's heading to Iraq for an anti-war tour in a bus powered by vegetable oil.
Doesn't Fonda ever learn? In 1972, after she visited Hanoi and accused U.S. leaders and POWs of war crimes, Fonda became America's most despised anti-war activist. Her Iraq jaunt will only give the hawks something new to snicker about.
But if Fonda learned little from her Vietnam escapades, the U.S. military learned many lessons from both the Vietnam War and the protests it generated.
Many in the armed forces felt bitterly undermined by Fonda's accusations and her cavalier attitude toward American POWs. Although the overwhelming majority of U.S. soldiers served honorably during our terrible war in Vietnam, the military has since come to accept that some of Fonda's points, while exaggerated, were not wholly unfounded.
After the testimony of scores of veterans appalled by their own brutalization, after the photos of children running from napalmed villages, and after My Lai, no credible voices inside or outside the military now deny that some American soldiers committed atrocities in Vietnam.
To U.S. military leaders, one lesson of Fonda's escapades was that preventing war crimes is not only a matter of law and morality, but also crucial to preserving military morale and public support for the troops.
In the three decades since the Vietnam War, our armed forces have worked hard to integrate material on the Geneva Convention into every soldier's training, and to develop internal procedures to prevent and punish violations. Members of the Judge Advocate General's Corps work with service members at every level to ensure the mistakes of Vietnam are not repeated.
Though not perfect, these efforts have met with enormous success. As Maj. Gen. Jack Rives, the Air Force deputy judge advocate general, put it, while military "culture and self-image
suffered during the Vietnam conflict" because of accusations of war crimes, post-Vietnam military programs emphasizing principles of the laws of war have "greatly restored the culture and self-image of U.S. armed forces."
Given this history, it's no surprise that the chief opponents of Bush administration efforts to gut prohibitions on torture and mistreatment came from the military.
On Monday, Republican Sen. (and former JAG officer) Lindsey Graham released several 2003 memos from JAG Corps leaders to their civilian Defense Department bosses. Unlike the syntax-parsing drivel from the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel asserting that neither international law nor federal criminal law prohibited the president from authorizing interrogation techniques long viewed as torture the JAG memos don't mince words.
Rives warned the general counsel's office at the Pentagon that "several of the more extreme interrogation techniques, on their face, amount to violations of domestic criminal law and the [Uniform Code of Military Justice]." His Navy JAG colleague, Rear Adm. Michael Lohr, wrote that at least one of the interrogation techniques suggested by the Justice Department "constitutes torture under both domestic and international law."
The Army's judge advocate general, Maj. Gen. Thomas Romig, said the Justice Department analysis could damage military "interests worldwide
putting our service personnel at far greater risk and vitiating many of the POW/detainee safeguards the U.S. has worked hard to establish over the past five decades."
Marine Corps JAG Brig. Gen. Kevin Sandkuhler cautioned that the techniques suggested by the Justice Department would "adversely impact
public support and respect of U.S. armed forces [and] pride, discipline, and self-respect within the U.S. armed forces." Also at risk would be military intelligence-gathering, efforts to encourage enemies to surrender and efforts to obtain support from allied nations.
It was Lohr who put the bottom line most poignantly: If questionable and harsh interrogation techniques are used, he asked, "will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values?" His words were written in 2003, so we know the story's unhappy ending. The Bush administration ignored the JAG Corps warnings and permitted the use of numerous interrogation tactics including "waterboarding," forced nudity and sexual humiliation that make a mockery of the military's decades-long championship of the Geneva Convention.
Although the Bush administration silenced its JAG Corps critics, all their predictions are coming true: The administration's disregard for law has weakened support from allies, provided a propaganda boon to our enemies, and appears to be contributing to lowering the morale of U.S. troops in the field. The JAG Corps itself, which once attracted the best and brightest young military attorneys, has seen its applicant pool diminish substantially in recent years.
In the Vietnam War era, escapades such as Fonda's left American soldiers feeling bitterly undermined by some of their fellow citizens. It's a crying shame that this time around, those undermining the military are in the Bush adminstration. |
| Quote: | | It's a crying shame that this time around, those undermining the military are in the Bush adminstration. |
NO, Ms. Brooks, the Administration is doing everything it can to buck up
the morale of our troops! It's the leftist slime-balls who are smearing and and attempting to demoralize our military!!!
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I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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I'm unfamiliar with this writer...here's probably why...
| Quote: | Until August 1999, Brooks worked at the U.S. Department of State, where she was Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. At the State Department, she participated in the U.S. negotiating team for the International Criminal Court and worked extensively in trouble spots such as Kosovo and Sierra Leone.
Before joining the State Department, Brooks taught at Yale Law School as a Lecturer in Law, and also served as Acting Director of Yale's Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights Law and faculty supervisor of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Law Clinic. Since coming to the Law School she has continued her active involvement with various human rights organizations and foundations. Brooks served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA in 2002-03...
http://www.law.virginia.edu/lawweb/Faculty.nsf/PrFHPbW/reb2d |
She also appears to be a self-absorbed media-monkey Paul Krugman wannabe, judging by the following...
http://www.law.virginia.edu/lawweb/faculty.nsf/PrFMPbW/reb2d
Oh, and BTW, where does this leftist twit get THIS from?...
| Quote: | | Jane Fonda announced Monday that she's heading to Iraq for an anti-war tour in a bus powered by vegetable oil. |
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LewWaters
Admin
Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 4042
Location: Washington State
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| Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | After the testimony of scores of veterans appalled by their own brutalization, after the photos of children running from napalmed villages, and after My Lai, no credible voices inside or outside the military now deny that some American soldiers committed atrocities in Vietnam. |
Just a few points here, from this obviously lacking in credibility Veteran;
1. Other than sKerry's so called Winter Soldier Investigation, just where were these "scores of Veterans" testifying? Somehow, I fail to remember a massive outpouring of Veterans testifying.
2. "Photos of children running from napalmed villages?" Plural? I am aware of only one photo depicting this tragic event and that was a napalm canister dropped mistakenly on a village by a VNAF pilot, no American involvement at all.
3. I have never heard of any Viet Nam Veteran state there never were any atrocities committed. I also haven't heard the left explain why LBJ (Long Binh Jail) was filled by those court martialed for offenses, including atrocities and drug offenses.
My Lai is often brought up. But, what isn't brought up is that what was going on was stopped by an American Helicopter crew that landed between the handful of soldiers firing on the Vietnamese and those villagers. Regardless, My Lai, horrible as it was, was miniscule compared to the Hue Massacre by the Viet Cong and North Vietamese just prior to My Lai. No one from the left acknowledges that massacre and strives to forget or hide it.
America prosecuted and convicted Lt. Calley for My Lai (even if he was later pardoned). No one has ever been charged, much less prosecuted for the Hue Massacre. Reading the "credentials" of this alleged author, I can see why it is never mentioned. Just another America hating lefty longing for the day her Soviet Union style of governing replaces the Democracy that has served America well for over 200 years.
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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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| Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | On Monday, Republican Sen. (and former JAG officer) Lindsey Graham released |
I am not surprised to see his name connected. |
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dusty
Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 1264
Location: East Texas
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| Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2005 4:47 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | It's not up to America to forgive Hanoi Jane. It's up to Viet Nam Veterans and POWS and she hasn't asked us yet!!! |
She can ask me til she's blue in the face. Some things can't be fogotten or forgiven. What she did is one of those things in my book.
Course that's just my book.
Dusty |
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