...the concept of 'creating your own enemy' so you can control the whole show is brilliant...

And the intent of your original post is....what?

Yet, "they" abduct, torture and kill hundreds of Iraqi's every month, and we can't FIND them or KILL them without the occaisional "tip off" of someone in the neighborhood.

Truth is.... without the war, we would have pinpointed them all by using TRUE intel resources by now, and would probably have brought the whole bunch of them to "justice."

Until we invaded Afghanistan, UBL was wallking around in the open talking on cellphones, radios and whatever. The war in fact DROVE him into his hiding places, and now we can't find him!

And just HOW is an Iraqi insurgent, captured IN Iraq, considered an alien?

BUSH has declared this a WAR. Yet, WE are the ones violating the Geneva Convention. Given the nature of this war, and the customs of the enemy (who are WE to dictate that they have to go out and BUY themselves a uniform?) there is NO SUCH THING as an "unlawful combatant."

Furthermore, with the help of the Patriot Act, the Commissions Act, and the illegal wiretapping by the NSA, IF an American citizen is "captured" by means that BTW USED to be outlawed by the Constitution, he will easily be convicted of treason, which strips him of any further Constitutional rights.

So we should get to treat the insurgents according to the Geneva convention? I'm all for that! They could simply be put up against a wall and shot!

Thats the attitude that breeds violence in the first place...If you do that to them, they will do that to you. Unless you raise yourself above their standards, you are no better than them. And BTW, I do not believe the Geneva convention sais insurgents should be put against a wall and shot. It does however dictate the treatment of POWs, defines warcrimes.

To inform the population! I merely quoted an article because I feel its important for people to see a different perspective from what the white house tells us. If you dont believe this article, I can find numerous more that talk of the 'Bush Powergrab',etc.

Fozzy: I'm sure you know 'something' about SOMETHING, but I haven't figured out yet just WHAT that might be!

Obviously, you don't realize that the Geneva Convention does NOT allow shooting POW's.

However, your ignorance of these and other matters should make you a prime candidate to be the next Republican President.

There is a song by Montgomery Gentry that has a verse in it that says it all for us 'redneck folk';


"Gimme' a 308 and a shot gun; a gallon of homemade wine;
Drop me-off on a mountainside, where the bear and the deer reside;
I'll spend my nights sittin' 'round the fire, making this guitar ring;
I'll be doin' fine underneath the pines..
WHILE THE WORLD GOES DOWN THE DRAIN."

You've obviously never read the Geneva accords especially the part about un-uniformed people who conduct miltary operations in civilian areas. They are NOT POW's in any way shape or form. they are unlawful combatants at that point and can be "dealt with" by the local commanders.

I believe the intent was to point out that, by capitalizing on and instilling fear in the American citizen (i.e. a form of terrorism,) Bush has managed to undermine if not completely tromp on the Constitution of the United States. And by doing so, he has consolidated nearly absolute power in the Executive Branch of our government.

This is exactly how despots have come to power in other countries like Russia and Germany. NOT by armed coup, but by manipulating the electorate.

By feigning religious conviction, he mobilized the Christian Right. By giving tax breaks to the richest 2% of the country, he solidified HIS base and seduced the Conservative middle. By demonizing the Liberals, he galvanized the prejudiced White majority, and by putting our soldiers in an ill-advised, poorly conceived WAR, he played on the sympathies of the Patriot. I gotta hand it to him.... he played y'all like a fiddle!

Having coerced the voter into electing a Republican Congress, he has bought himself a 'rubber stamp' for anything he chooses to do, and ensured himself a conservative Supreme Court, to avoid being stopped by legal decision.

In his own words, HE now decides who gets the protection of Constitutional rights, and whether he is smart enough to have done this for a reason, or whether he is a puppet of a greater force bent on World domination, the fact is... we have sat by and let it happen.

We can no longer count on a reasonable expectation that a National election, whether for Congress OR the presidency, will SPEAK for the will of the people. And we no longer seem to have the courage of our convictions to vote on the principles of this country anyway. We have been seduced by pork, and terrorized by innuendo. We'll get the government that we now deserve.

If we get to keep an extra $500 a year of our taxes, we'll turn a blind eye to the record deficit and the fact that CHINA is now our primary note holder, and we'll send our emmisary to them to beg for their help in dealing with North Korea. If we get to keep our job making bullets, we won't mind that they are only replaced when they are SPENT in a war in which our own sons and daughters must die. And as long as we can keep those gays from getting married, we won't miss our OWN rights to privacy.

We have wandered into the barn without our boots on, with a clothespin on our nose, wearing party politic blinders, and our fingers in our ears. Just give us a bottle of wine, a guitar and a tax break, and we'll let OUR World go to Hell!

Hobo