Ted Rall for June 13, 2014
Transcript:
Man 1: %$# mullah Omar... first he says we Taliban don't negotiate with terrorists then he talks to the U.S! Man 2: It doesn't matter how our guys got captured. They were at GITMO... tortured... who knows how much longer they'd have lived? Man 3: Too much risk! What if SGT. Bergdahl returns to the fight? What will you say if he attacks Afghanistan again?
kylegann almost 10 years ago
Perfect. Why can’t America ever see the other country’s perspective?
Enoki almost 10 years ago
The Taliban are most likely laughing like used car salesmen who just took a rube for all his money giving him a lemon clunker in exchange.
Dtroutma almost 10 years ago
Excellent ’toon, Ted!
eddodt almost 10 years ago
what a JERK!
sartre almost 10 years ago
Thanks Ted. Keep holding up that mirror.
californicated1 almost 10 years ago
You don’t kill off your POW’s or enemy combatants for the simple reason that the enemy will then retailiate by killing your brother, son, or neighbor if they were captured.
Remember Iraq and the beheadings they used to send to Al-Jazeera, especially of that Wisconsin Truck-Driver who was on contract to the US Government?
He was this curly-haired white kid whom his captors put on camera, had him speak his mid-western dialect and then beheaded him, grabbing that head by the hair and parading around their stage after they read off their accusations and made their demands.
And that happened in the Summer of 2003.
POWs, enemy combattants and the like can always be used as bargaining chips as long as they are alive.
When they are dead, they are of no use to anybody and only their loved ones will care what happened to them and will miss them.
californicated1 almost 10 years ago
Not quite. The Bush Administration did not want any trials of these people to begin with and were looking at folks like John Yoo out there at Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley Law School to furnish them whatever justification to deny them the Rule of Law, Jurisprudence either under International Treaties like the Hague and Geneva Conventions where the US was a signatory as well as well as deny these people the rights they would have had as POW’s that were taken prisoner during wartime.
The Bush Administration did not want trials for the simple reason that they knew that any trial would bring out evidence, not only of how these people were treated while in American custody, but would also lead to questions of both why were we there in the first place and after all these years, why are we still there, especially after capturing and even killing Osama bin-Laden?
Both the Bush Administration and even the Obama Administration nowadays know that if the real truth about Gitmo got out, just like it did for Abu Ghraib back in 2006, us Americans here at home would be asking questions about that and not only questioning our government and their authority to handle things like this, but also in the other ways that they govern us, especially out here in both Mountain and Pacific Time zones.
Quipss almost 10 years ago
Your right, anecdotal evidence is far more reliable than legal reports. Especially when the person is making an argument in defense of themselves.
After all, most people would incriminate themselves of war crimes because it is the right thing to do.“Col. Lawrence Wilkerson is a liar!!!http://macsmind.com/wordpress/2011/08/lawrence-wilkerson-is-a-piece-of-crap-and-colin-powell-should-be-charged-with-treason/”.
Hint, any time a debate enters “treason” 99.9% of the time it has become debased from reason.