Of course not. That’s an outrageous question to even ask. I’m sure she doesn’t “love” them, in the sense of, you know, having fond feelings for them and doodling their names inside hearts with “+JA 4EVA” and asking them around to dinner.
But she mustn’t think they’re all that bad because, whilst she’s telling us that the rule of law is optional, and advocating it being withdrawn from people who commit serious crimes for political or religious reasons (“terrorists”) – she has noticeably not argued for the same to apply to serious domestic criminals, like serial killers and rapists. The people who attracted the toughest sentences in our domestic courts, for doing unimaginably horrible things. And it’s not clear why not.
If she’s calling for us to lock up overseas psychos indefinitely without charge, and try them (if we can be bothered) and convict them on hearsay or other flimsy evidence, if that’s now a legitimate tool in our arsenal according to Janet, then why hasn’t she called for the same for the murderers and rapists in our own society?
Is Martin Bryant less of a villain than David Hicks? Is a notorious paedophile less of a threat to our community than some guy the Americans picked up in Iraq being all suspiciously muslim without a good alibi?
I’m sure many would be sympathetic to Janet’s argument that it’s about time we stopped coddling people we reckon are probably villains with luxuries like “the right to a fair trial” – but why draw the line at terrorists? Why not extend it to Australians the police think have possibly done something wrong or might in the future? There are only two possibilities that I can see:
- Janet Albrechtsen doesn’t think violent psychopaths who kill for no reason are as bad as violent psychopaths who do it for a religious or political reason, and wants them protected with rights that she thinks are optional for the latter group; or
- She does in fact understand the importance of the rule of law, but realises that it would completely undermine her argument if what she’s happy to have us do to people in the Middle East suddenly started happening here, and her readers were in danger of being arrested and locked up on flimsy evidence by our own police.
I really hope Janet can think of a third.
Her arguments are unclear, confused and contradictory.
Pretty much what you would expect for someone defending indefinite detention without trial. There’s no grey area, it’s simply wrong. You can label them terrorists or whatever you like, it’s still wrong.
No point wasting time on her fallicious arguments.
The issue isn’t whether the rule of law is optional. There is always a balance to be struck between civil liberties and social order. The balance is constantly being adjusted by the courts and by legislation. John Howard’s sedition laws are an example of legislative excess in this regard. The politicians are quick to jump to the tune voter outrage, and we will shortly be blessed with new laws to deal with bikie gangs.
Some laws are too beneficial to perpetrators. Under sharia law, to prove rape a woman must produce four male eye-witnesses to the event. This means that there are likely to be few wrongful convictions, but it also means that many rapists will go unpunished.
One consequence of Bush releasing some detainees from Guantanamo Bay was that 60 of them returned to terrorist activities. Too many, this is necessary as the evidence against them was tainted; the lives of their victims are a necessary price to be paid to preserve the integrity of the rule of law.
In times of war, some civil liberties are curtailed. Usually they are restored at the end of the war. A similar issue arises where, due to technological advances, non-state actors can produce similar devastation to war. As the jihadis become more organised and effective it may be necessary to re-evaluate the methods available to deal with them.
The point is that this is a serious issue, deserving more than hysterical black versus white polemics.
I don’t see where the confusion arises.
If you believe “terrorists” have less rights than everyone else, habeus corpus and the rule of law is meaningless.
Habeus corpus, even in the case of seemingly innocent refugees, is not all that well entrenched, as the dreadful decision in Tampa demonstrated.
Habeus corpus is of little relevance in wartime in the case of enemy soldiers held as prisoners of war.
The absolutist view of what constitutes the rule of law has much to do with polemic and little to do with reasoned argument.
SB speaks on behalf of all SB’s.
God, you people really do not like L’Albrechtsen, do ya!?
Her job is to express her opinion, which I am sure even y’all would grant, she does with aplomb. She is also paid to PROVOKE, which the very existence of y’all also gets a tick. I find it incredibly refreshing that a highly educated professionally-successful woman has so publicly succeeded detached from the apron strings of the dreary emotionally-stunted intellectual wasteland of Australia’s feminist hivemind.
She and Miranda Devine alone finally put the nails in the coffin of that 1970s bintery.
You Go Girl!
Well who would have guessed JG is a closet feminist?
And SB, it’s only a war because that was the term seized upon by Bush, Blair and Howard (the Larry, Curly and Mo of international politics). If, instead of getting hysterical we treated terrorists as the criminals they are, we might actually retain the high moral ground.
I described myself as a feminist back in the eighties. But outside Old Lady circles, in 2009, the label is a bit tired, anachronistic even.
zoot: If, instead of getting hysterical we treated terrorists as the criminals they are, we might actually retain the high moral ground.
Silly us! The big mistake was sending soldiers to Afghanistan instead of police. If we had only listened to your sage advice the problem would have been solved, Osama would be dead and terrorism defeated.
Silly me, I should have realised that when a group of Saudis demolished the WTC the only possible response would be to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. And hasn’t it been a rip-roaring success? After only seven and a half years, we’ve brought about the death of Osama and the defeat of terrorism.
I bow to your superior wisdom. You win the internet.
Come now big J. It’s a bit late to be worried about the rule of law. If judges make a burlesque of the law why not allow JA in on the caper? The law is more like a chocolate wheel than a system designed to deliver justice. It’s more correctly described as a legal system rather than a justice system. We had one judge who declared that he could not find 12 open-minded people in Townsville (population 94,739) and another judge so gifted that he could look at a youth’s face and tell he was over the age of consent.
Locking up religious psychos…suspended sentences for sex offenders…spearing as a court sanctioned penalty…detention without trial…flimsy evidence…lengthy sentences. Again; why can’t Janet join in on this comedy?
I’m not sure if I follow your last point, zoot.
Are you suggesting it was silly to go to Afghanistan to look for Osama, or that we should have just sent in the police, or perhaps been bit nicer to the Taliban – maybe offered them a few women to gun down in their stadium.
To be clear here, your proposition was that the appropriate response to 9/11 would have been to treat terrorism as a crime. That may be appropriate in the case of isolated instances of small scale terrorism. It is almost certainly not the case when dealing with a group that has operatives around the world and the will and the ability to inflict major damage on countries.
It is naïve and simplistic to categorise conflict as either war or crime. A better approach is to analyse the threat and decide what response is required to defeat it.
And hasn’t it been a rip-roaring success? After only seven and a half years, we’ve brought about the death of Osama and the defeat of terrorism.
The fact is that Iraq has seen the end of a grotesque tyranny and the emergence of democratic institutions. In Afghanistan, the truly hideous Taliban have been overthrown. Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, the architect of 9/11 has been captured, and the US has not suffered a major terrorist attack since 9/11. Obama is in hiding and his activities have been severely disprupted.
Maybe you can enlighten us on how exactly treating 9/11 as a crime would have made things better.
Why? You’re not going to approach anything I write with an open mind (you seem to believe the Taliban have been defeated FFS).
As I said above, you win. We live in the best of all possible worlds. Unfortunately (for me) the best of all possible worlds doesn’t necessarily include things like habeus corpus or due process or any other of those legal niceties that are such a nuisance when you’re defending the rule of law. Now let’s get back to Janet.
zoot: Why? You’re not going to approach anything I write with an open mind
Zoot you are quick to make dubious assertions and slow to back them up. You can have Janet all to yourself.
Recently to my horror Victorian Lawyers lobbied to get rid of provocation as a real defence at law.There is something very unfair in the rights of Janet and Miranda to insult and provoke without even a assimilation of factual content, or definitional agreements that are indisputable.The nature of opinion that has a sense of worthiness to a reader the article maybe critical of… would be the shared nature of the factual content. Little does SB know about Afghanistan if Rudd in Washington maybe asked again for further troop deployment. [past tense,sort of, now]Iraq hasn’t been a win, because until the definition of a win in the circumstances are agreed upon by Iraqis themselves, the normal matter of no winners applies to all matters of war.There are serious casualty lists even for the U.S.A. If SB is claiming Australians and other forces didn’t really have many options of attitude to the Taliban, that maybe true, but, it may not of been a result of previous Australian activity,and, is a sign of a disengenius and sly nature to try to win some points because of newly injured there. I mean if you are opposed to us being there then why would injured soldiers be a point of “I told you so” as SB implies!? It isnt a ideological fixation to be opposed to war making , as any returned soldier who was opposed to the entry into Iraq and Afghanistan can open up in a more emotional way than myself. As for Habeus Corpus removal, I am sure there are sections of the U.S.A. society who would engage in SB’s fantasy give him a weapon and call him a terrorist, shoot first ask questions later. It also seems poor little ostracized Israel cannot even handle cartoons against it , so I suppose that is then equality with the features of ALLah cartoon is it!? And no doubt missing weapons from Afghanistan,a reported worry of the U.S.A. military didn’t end up in the hands of Illegal Settlers in the West Bank of Palestine!!??
Yes. The attack of Sept 11 was carried out by a gang of criminals. They were spectacularly successful, but it was an isolated criminal act and the appropriate response was to use police methods to track down the people responsible. But the cabal controlling the White House saw an opportunity to justify the invasion of Iraq which they had been planning for years. Thus was born “The War On Terror” and the spotlight was quickly moved off the Saudis who financed, planned and carried out the attack.
September 11 in a nutshell. It was a one-off (and I would go so far as to say a lucky one-off)
Once again, the White House heavies needed to make Osama Bin laden look like Dr No. In reality he more closely resembles Jack van Tongeren. This doesn’t mean he’s harmless, but a measure of his power is the absence of any attack on US soil in the years since 2001. A measure of the Bush Administration’s commitment to bringing him to justice is the fact that he is still free. They needed the bogeyman of OBL and the Jihadist threat to keep people scared while they actioned whatever was their real agenda. Could it have been bringing down the global financial system? I doubt it, but you never know.. (cue X-Files theme)
Sending the army to Afghanistan makes at least a little sense, since OBL had supposedly found refuge there. But Afghanistan has seen off the armies of the British empire and the Russian empire and I see no reason why the US empire should be any different. It seems to me a diplomatic and policing initiative would have much greater chance of success.
OK SB which of my assertions do you agree with?
Zoot:
September 11 was not an isolated event. It as preceded by the first World Trade Centre bombing, the embassy bombing in Nairobi, the embassy bombing in Dar es Salaam, the the USS Cole bombing and followed by bombings in Bali, Madrid, London and Turkey. There were various failed plots such as the Richard Reid shoe-bombing attempt, the Millenium plot, operation Bojinka and others.
The fact is that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was involved in planning several of these attacks and failed attacks. To describe them as isolated incidents, with absolutely no connection between any of them, is wildly illogical.
There is a common Islamic ideology behind all of them that is consistent with koranic teaching both now and throughout Islamic history. There were people dancing in the street in muslim countries, celebrating 9/11. Opinion polls showed significant muslim support for 9/11 and the London bombings. More importantly, there are a large number of muslims prepared to act in accordance with this ideology.
Why do you emphasise the Saudi connection to al Qaeda but al Qaeda had been booted out of Saudi Arabia and conducted its operations from Afghanistan, as guests of the Taliban?
The war against Iraq should not have been undertaken, irrespective of its outcome. But that view does not require adherence to the weird and wacky notions of cabal conspiracy theorists. In case you missed it, the Iraq invasion was approved by congress, so I guess they must also be part of the cabal, including the current Secretary of State who voted for it.
You are obviously taking the piss out of the delusional left with this patently idiotic rant, and I commend you for it.
The US requested the Taliban to hand over Osama. They declined until the US proved, to their satisfaction, that Osama was in fact guilty. The Saudis sent a senior cleric to negotiate with the Taliban, without success. What next? In precisely what way do you think diplomacy could be effective? How on earth do you suppose the police could gain access to Afghanistan to interview Osama and investigate al Qaeda activity there?
I agree that the Iraq war should not have been undertaken. The rest is just delusional drivel.
5:18 pm
10:25 pm
Aww c’mon Splats.
SB I tried to follow your link to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the hope that it would explain how all of those attacks are attributable to the same group of people. The link is broken.
Having re-read and digested your rant of 10:25 I am satisfied that your paranoid fear of Islam makes you impossible to debate.
You demonstrate no capacity to understand any point of view other than your own and attempting to engage you feels like addressing a brick wall.
I think it’s time we stopped hijacking this thread.
“Is a notorious paedophile less of a threat to our community than some guy the Americans picked up in Iraq being all suspiciously muslim without a good alibi?”
So what you are suggesting here lefty is that the majority of people incarcerated in Iraq are just unlucky people who were on their way to church?
Zoot here is the KSM link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Shaikh_Mohammed
I am satisfied that your paranoid fear of Islam makes you impossible to debate.
I demonstrated that your ‘isolated attack’ statement was patently untrue and I gave you plenty of facts to refute if you thought they were wrong. You merely made a few generalisations and called me paranoid. If you can’t do better than that then you should spare us all your delusional ranting.
“So what you are suggesting here lefty is that the majority of people incarcerated in Iraq are just unlucky people who were on their way to church?”
No, Sam. I’m suggesting that without due process and fair trials we’ll never know.
The Taliban had the nerve to ask for proof of Bin Ladens guilt before they handed him over. How dare they?
When the US wants to imprison and torture someone, everyone should just step aside.
America could not provide any immediate proof of his involvement, but plans to invade Afghanistan had long been on the agenda before 9/11. So they simply begun dropping 2000lb nail bombs on everyone, and took over the place.
The Saudis are the main financial and moral supporters of Islamic terror, as 9/11 showed.
Actually the Saudis have a strict fundamentalist version of Islam that is very similar to the Taliban.
But we don’t bomb them because they’re one of “our guys”. Just like Saddam, Allende, Noriega, Suharto, Ceausescu and all the other mass murderers were. Even Bin Laden was once on the US payroll.
Karl:
The Taliban harboured the terrorists responsible for a major strike on the US. They refused to co-operate with the US in dealing with the perpetrators. The US rightly treated 9/11 as an act of war against it and behaved accordingly. The US rightly decided that in demanding proof the Taliban were playing games with them.
This is the central question on this thread – is it always necessary to have due process before taking action in circumstances where there is a grave threat to your country. My view is that there are circumstances where it is necessary to forgo the niceties as otherwise there will be no country and no rule of law at all.
This is a decision not to be taken lightly. I think Australia has overreacted with its anti-terror laws, given the relatively small amount of jihadist activity here. In the US there has been a major strike on US soil and where the major Islamic institutions are controlled by the muslim brotherhood the circumstances are different.
When you are dealing with non-state actors it is both trite and stupid to say that therefore their activities are merely criminal and shouldn’t be treated as acts of war. We need to re-think how these situations are dealt with. To the extent that the Geneva conventions treat terrorists as civilians they also need to be updated. The fact is that improvements in technology, especially in munitions and communications means that fewer people than at any previous time in history can now inflict massive damage.
The Saudis have a mixed record in this.
Well before 9/11 they kicked out Osama and his crew. The regime has suffered attacks from al Qaeda, and has taken some action against them
However, they support the wahabbi version of islam, which is at the cave-dwelling end of the spectrum. Worse they have invested a large amount of money including spreading this poison throughout the world. Powerful individuals in Saudi Arabia appear to have financially supported al Qaeda and other jihadists.
The reason the US did not attack Saudi Arabia is that it wasn’t necessary. The Saudis had already booted Osama and his crew. They arrested people, provided information, and financial controls put in place. They also sent a senior cleric to Afghanistan to ask the Taliban to hand over Obama. The fact that Saudi Arabia was a major oil supplier to the US, and was generally co-operative in adjusting oil production was also a consideration. It would be stupid of the Yanks to shoot themselves in the foot by disrupting their oil supplies.
You need to keep your inner lunatic on a tighter leash. When he slips the leash he makes you look like just another nutjob conspiracy theorist.
I want to see strong evidence before invading a country and killing thousands. Yes, I am a nutjob.
Karl:
And you know that the US did not have strong evidence? I am sure the fact that they didn’t share it with you was an oversight.
I agree wholeheartedly with your second sentence.
SB trying content whereas content without a evidential chronology of places and events and individuals is but a choice between vegemite and marmite when you are wondering where is Dick Smith!? So the very healthy Osama has been behind a whole series of incidents involving American installations!?!. Whereas last time I looked the FBI hadn’t yet concluded the 9/11 event was one of his. Certainly military cases involving prisoners at the Gitmo were all noise and bluster.But even an aaardvark wearing sunglasses could see a confession by the the accused forgot to ask him and now the them,a simple,” are you alright mate?”. And I doubt wether any of this stuff has anything to do with Australian decisions to stay in Afghanistan or not.And the reason for that are pretty clear ,chronologically speaking,more debate has occured outside the precincts of Federal Parliament than within.Instead its a tug of war in Parliament of individuals who try hard to avoid the fact, often, even when the military wanted to go, avoiding a thorough set of reasons for…. see what happens.That is they really have no set of guidelines for involvement,and use this repeatedly over other issues besides overseas military involvement.They cannot debate in Parliament the merit of many issues because of their contempt for factual matters. Instead disruptive noise and other well practicised time wasting. And none of the SB address to the Nation here, was the upfront reasoning in a public way in the Democratic Houses of the Elected in the U.S.A. Remember the photo of George Bush with the binoculars! Remember the Victory Warship all television and later George saying it was really for some other reasons. And have a comparative look at all the Osama videos,and this man had been diagnosed as having Nephritis,further more so many of his underlings have been killed captured and forgotten about it looks like a soap opera. I think there was two number threes caught embarassingly within a week. All part of the process of making matters seem convincingly terrible and at the same time ensuring none of it can be believed, so reality is obscured. SB is selective,which is quite normal…. in what he accepts as factual remainders.But this isn’t how the game itself is played.When was the latest sighting of the man Osama bin Laden SB!? And why are the Saudis now your number one contender for all matters evil!? I have noticed in my reading,that the Saudis remain quite aloof,have their own programmes of changing potential terrorists minds etc.
SB, you attack the likes of Karl, Zoot and EvShow with such gusto, but I notice you are shit-scared of engaging Philip, you big fat gutless wonder.
He asked “SB trying content whereas content without a evidential chronology of places and events and individuals is but a choice between vegemite and marmite when you are wondering where is Dick Smith!?” and you had absolutely no idea how to reply to that, did you? You’re pathetic.
Badbob:
I thought for a while there that this village had lost its idiot. But here you are, back again and barking mad as ever. Devoid of original argument you are reduced to quoting Philip against me proving nothing other than that you are merely a moonbeam from a larger lunacy.
You are right about one thing though – I have absolutely no idea how to reply to anything Philip says.
I should spare us all my “delusional ranting”.
Badbob is “back again and barking mad as ever”.
Karl needs to keep his “inner lunatic on a tighter leash”.
And on another link, Evshow is “an endearingly deluded tool”.
SB, there’s a pattern emerging here.
Agreed zoot. There is a pattern. That confederacy of dunces is populated entirely by lefties.
SB, do you do irony at all?
Karl,
“But we don’t bomb them because they’re one of “our guys”. Just like Saddam, Allende, Noriega, Suharto, Ceausescu and all the other mass murderers were. Even Bin Laden was once on the US payroll.”
Allende?
You mean Pinochet right?
BadBob:
Hardly ever. My wife does that. I do the washing up.
“Hardly ever. My wife does that. I do the washing up.”
Now I don’t need to go to the Comedy Festival. Who could top that?
You do realise you got yourself into a big soapy lather over a joke at Philip’s expense, do you?