People being kidnapped from hospital beds and tortured by their own government. It's hard to imagine a more depraved situation.
How about drone strikes which target and kill a US citizen and his teenage son?
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What is really happening in Ukraine
271–280 of 324 posts
Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#272That has some elements of propaganda yes, but from my talks with many Ukrainians including several of my employees, this seem to be more or less fair depiction of the facts. Nobody calls protesters Nazis, but Russian media view of the subject is indeed extremely biased. What's worst of this is that the view of it from Eastern and Western sides of Ukraine is totally different, too (while both dislike Yanukovich strong…
Re. Russian media: I wonder, why their view (extremely biased, no doubt) could be of any concern to HN readers who are predominantly English-speaking and get much of their information from Internet sources?
Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#273People being kidnapped from hospital beds and tortured by their own government. It's hard to imagine a more depraved situation.
How about drone strikes which target and kill a US citizen and his teenage son?
Politics of foreign drone strikes (which I oppose, but don't equate to whole-sale domestic political repression) aside, this is a logical fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
In other words, it's not simply not a valid argument.
Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
A trial in absentia would have been preferable to a fiat killing, but the end result would have been the same. The US had no means of apprehending al-Awlaki because he had situated himself in a war zone controlled by AQAP. The trial would have concluded, and the US would have faced the same 3 choices. You make a good point, but not one that fundamentally changed the options on the ground.
With all due respect Thomas, you have completely missed the point. The executive branch (Bush and Obama both) have taken unto themselves the roles of judge and jury. This doctrine says that president alone gets to decide the definition of "war", the location of the "war zone", and the guilt of the presumptive defendants. No trial needed. And the penalty is death. That this particular case seems obvious to you, should…
And this was untrue of World War 2 how?
Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Al Awlaki was tried in abstentia by Yemen in 2010. It is often suggested that a trial in abstentia by the U.S. would have been preferable for Al Awlaki, but to me, it's even scarier than the drone strike. Legally, there are essentially two regimes: the domestic criminal regime, and the military regime. If you fall into the former bucket, there are lots of protections. Trials in abstentia, for example, are illegal and…
Your last few sentences have me very confused. >"at least its encapsulated: you're in a war zone..." Yemen is not a war zone in any sense of the word. There is no declared war on Yemeni soil. You could call it a "conflict zone", a term that could be applied to the vast majority of the developing world. >"...a place without functioning rule of law, and pose a military threat, you're fair game." According to John Yoo a…
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Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate perspective and, when more general discussions on government abuse are taking place, comparisons to other 'first-world' countries. You're being criticized because we should be able to have discussions about other parts of the world without changing the subject.
his/her point is that while it is hard to imagine, (sadly) this type of brutality/murder is carried out by our (assumed US) government as well.
Thanks, I'll tell this to my friends in Ukraine! This will make them feel very warm and fuzzy and reassured, that indeed, is US launching missiles from drones (which is a completely new fact to them and something they've never heard of before!).
Similarly, I was going to write my congress-critters to oppose NSA surveillance and drone strikes, but you've taught me wonderful logical insights: see, demonstrators are kidnapped and tortured in Ukraine, so that makes my point invalid and refutes any arguments I had against drone strikes and NSA surveillance.
Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
A trial in absentia would have been preferable to a fiat killing, but the end result would have been the same. The US had no means of apprehending al-Awlaki because he had situated himself in a war zone controlled by AQAP. The trial would have concluded, and the US would have faced the same 3 choices. You make a good point, but not one that fundamentally changed the options on the ground.
We can't be sure what the result of that hypothetical trial would be. Otherwise why have a trial in the first place? It appears there was a lawsuit against U.S. It was brought by al-Awlaki father after U.S. put him on a kill list (while he was still alive). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki#Lawsuit_agains... .
What hypothetical trial? The USG could not apprehend al-Awlaki without invading Yemen. No trial was possible.
Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
his/her point is that while it is hard to imagine, (sadly) this type of brutality/murder is carried out by our (assumed US) government as well.
Thanks, I'll tell this to my friends in Ukraine! This will make them feel very warm and fuzzy and reassured, that indeed, is US launching missiles from drones (which is a completely new fact to them and something they've never heard of before!). Similarly, I was going to write my congress-critters to oppose NSA surveillance and drone strikes, but you've taught me wonderful logical insights: see, demonstrators are kid…
What are you going on about? The person to whom you're replying was only explaining the point of another post, not criticizing or applauding it. You're arguing at the wind.
Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
his/her point is that while it is hard to imagine, (sadly) this type of brutality/murder is carried out by our (assumed US) government as well.
Thanks, I'll tell this to my friends in Ukraine! This will make them feel very warm and fuzzy and reassured, that indeed, is US launching missiles from drones (which is a completely new fact to them and something they've never heard of before!). Similarly, I was going to write my congress-critters to oppose NSA surveillance and drone strikes, but you've taught me wonderful logical insights: see, demonstrators are kid…
I think you took my comment the wrong way.
Re: What is really happening in Ukraine
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Al Awlaki was tried in abstentia by Yemen in 2010. It is often suggested that a trial in abstentia by the U.S. would have been preferable for Al Awlaki, but to me, it's even scarier than the drone strike. Legally, there are essentially two regimes: the domestic criminal regime, and the military regime. If you fall into the former bucket, there are lots of protections. Trials in abstentia, for example, are illegal and…
Your last few sentences have me very confused. >"at least its encapsulated: you're in a war zone..." Yemen is not a war zone in any sense of the word. There is no declared war on Yemeni soil. You could call it a "conflict zone", a term that could be applied to the vast majority of the developing world. >"...a place without functioning rule of law, and pose a military threat, you're fair game." According to John Yoo a…
> Yemen is not a war zone in any sense of the word. There is no declared war on Yemeni soil. You could call it a "conflict zone", a term that could be applied to the vast majority of the developing world.
I don't understand this preoccupation with "declared wars." Who cares what you call it? The government simply does not have control over vast swaths of Yemen, and militant groups unaligned with the government are using it as a base of operations for attacks on people outside of Yemen. No, this does not characterize the vast majority of the developing world. Places like Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia are in a totally different situation.
> Terrorists are really bad criminals. Are you able to draw a bright line between the two? If not, then what's the use of the distinction?
The line doesn't have to be bright, but it's crucial to draw the line. There is crime, and there is war, and the two are not the same thing. The regime applicable to external threats versus internal threats is very different. Maintaining this distinction allows you to better preserve the protections applicable to domestic criminal prosecution. If you try to shoe-horn well-financed international terrorists armed with military grade weapons into the framework of domestic criminal law, you end up distorting that framework and militarizing the domestic law enforcement apparatus. That's bad.
> He was never uniformed, he was not in a declared war zone, and he was not a citizen of a foreign nation.
You're elevating formality over reality. Al Awlaki wasn't unambiguously a foreign soldier, but aside from his U.S. citizenship he essentially acted like one. If a state affiliated actor had done the same thing, it would be considered an act of war.
> Am I mistaken?
Some procedural rights cannot be waived, and a constitutionally valid trial cannot be conducted without meeting that requirement. The historical understanding in the U.S. has been that trials in abstentia are unconstitutional, at least for capital cases. To date, the Supreme Court hasn't directly addressed the Constitutional issue (though it strongly implied it in Diaz v. U.S. in 1912), but has held that a trial in which a defendant is not present in the beginning of trial is defective for violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 43 (Crosby v. U.S.)
From a practical viewpoint, trials in abstentia are a far more dangerous precedent than drone strikes. Sovereign countries already reserve the right to kill foreigners if they feel attacked by external threats. You can sugar-coat it with international agreements and treaties and whatnot, but fundamentally, every nation, as against external threats, embraces the sovereign right to kill people in other countries. That's the foundational basis for war.
The precedent for trials in abstentia in the context of domestic criminal prosecutions, however, is novel and scary in the U.S. and it's a stone better left unturned. It's better, for people back at home, to just say that people like Al Awlaki, through their long absence and actions abroad, simply relinquish their rights as U.S. citizens and can be treated as foreign enemies. Because you don't want the ramifications of the government figuring out how to deal with guys like him within the framework of domestic criminal enforcement.