H/t to ThinkProgress for this one. On the O’Reilly Factor, Bill-O had Al D’amato on to ramble about John McCain and the proposed modifications to the Geneva Conventions. Watch it.

[youtube]QTijEqvgcAM[/youtube]

Now I want to point out the two most glaring errors in this…

1. Bill-O mentions that even if America does honor the Geneva Conventions, that doesn’t mean our enemies will.
2. Bill-O then says that there’s no point in doing this because it won’t make us look any better and the haters will continue to hate us.

The big problem is identical in both. The idea is that because the REACTION to what we do won’t be great, that means we don’t need to do it at all. Because our enemies might still torture, we should do the same. Because it won’t improve our image, we shouldn’t bother.

What this tells me is that these men have no actual moral fiber. Their actions have nothing to do with caring about what’s moral, what’s ethical, and what’s just plain the right thing to do. It’s all political. And because they don’t think it’ll improve our image amongst the “haters”, it doesn’t matter that it WOULD help our image amongst those on the fence, or our current allies who are quickly becoming alienated.

You would think that America’s purpose is to serve as an example for the rest of the world live up to, yet here we have our political squawkboxes suggesting that, rather than providing the example and hoping others live up to it, we stoop down to the same level our enemies are already at.

See, a truly moral person doesn’t care if his actions won’t change others’ perceptions of him. He does it because he knows it’s right. It seems the redcoats don’t fall under that category. They have an “eye for an eye” attitude. I wonder if that’s what Jesus would do?

[tags]terrorism, torture, bush[/tags]

We’ve had a few Gitmo detainees pop out already, but I think we can assume this is the first exported-for-torture victim that also turned out to be completely innocent.

“I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada,” Justice Dennis R. O’Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference.…

The Syrian-born Mr. Arar was seized on Sept. 26, 2002, after he landed at Kennedy Airport in New York on his way home from a holiday in Tunisia. On Oct. 8, he was flown to Jordan in an American government plane and taken overland to Syria, where he says he was held for 10 months in a tiny cell and beaten repeatedly with a metal cable. He was freed in October 2003, after Syrian officials concluded that he had no connection to terrorism and returned him to Canada.

…

Evidence presented to the commission, said Paul J. J. Cavalluzzo, its lead counsel, showed that the F.B.I. continued to keep its Canadian counterparts in the dark even while an American jet was carrying Mr. Arar to Jordan. The panel found that American officials “believed — quite correctly — that, if informed, the Canadians would have serious concerns about the plan to remove Mr. Arar to Syria.”

Le sigh. I think we can all look forward to more cases like this showing up. That’s the part the Clan forgot: if we’re torturing people with no evidence, eventually a few of them are going to be let go. And when that happens, they’re going to be able to say what happened to them.

Must be why they keep telling us that the secret prisons are being emptied. Gotta get all of these guys somewhere else so they aren’t released to the media just yet.

[tags]torture, terrorism, war[/tags]

Talk to me folks, I know you’re out there.

If I wasn’t reading about this in multiple places, I’d swear it’s fake. Apparently there is a film coming out called Jesus Camp that chronicles a camp that, basically, teaches kids to be terrorists. What, I’m lying?

“I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are in Palestine, Pakistan and all those different places,” Fisher said. “Because, excuse me, we have the truth.”

“A lot of people die for God,” one camper said, “and they’re not afraid.”

Wow. Now, someone tell me what the difference is between these people and those training to martyr themselves for Islam. They, of course, separate themselves because they believe that they’re “right”. Which is so inherently flawed I think the only people dumb enough to think that’s a difference are also dumb enough to actually go to this camp.

You know who wasn’t afraid to die for God? Moussaoui. Remember that guy? Don’t forget all of the 9/11 hijackers. That’s what you get when you have people who are training to be warriors who will die for God. It doesn’t matter if they’re following Jesus or Mohammad, nothing good will ever come of this kind of radicalism. Period.

[tags]religion, movies, jesus, christianity[/tags]