Ted Rall for October 07, 2011

The FBI needs to investigate Rall

write the FBI. Freedom of information act and see if you are on there list. Its fun. I did. They did. I am,I think for asking. I used to answer the phone"screw You J Edger Hoover, then found that he liked that sort of thing. There just isn’t any fun any more.

There is a slight difference here – many, actually. Reeves has never a) renounced his American citizenship, b) advocated, abetted or aided attacks on the US and its citizens (prohibited by one of the SEVERAL Geneva Conventions) and c) France is not currently in a combat zone. If we play totally by the rules all the time against an enemy that never does, we will lose. Our technology will not defeat someone who is happy to die attacking unarmed people, who murders captives and regards terror as a legitimate weapon. The US won its independence from Britain by employing tactics that went against all of the rules of war as they existed at the time – we cheated. We shot and ran, hid behind walls, attacked at night and in the wintertime. Not cricket, chaps! I’m not suggesting that we let the Taliban set the rules and then beat them at their own game – we cannot intentionally target those who cannot defend themselves, but if the enemy’s tactics force us to use measures that result in the deaths of innocent people, then it is they who are to blame, not we.

It;s a evil era we are in now, when the u.s. copies israeli crimes

Obama wouldn’t be caught dead with the U.S. flag in the background…

sad & horrible & true dat.

The problems with the logic underlying jgcp’s comment aren’t black and white. But there are several assumptions that are incorrect:1) security above freedom: how far do we go in order to have “security”; how many freedoms must we abridge? Not an easy issue, but I think it’s pretty clear that we’ve gone too far at this point. Life IS uncertain.2) “unknown” is not “immoral”. A tactic might be new, unused, etc., but not immoral. Guerrilla tactics were not considered particularly immoral in the 1700s; they just weren’t taught in military schools, probably because they were considered ineffective. Look at WWI, the last major usage of the old school tactics… were poison gas and trench warfare moral? Not by the Geneva Convention today. 3) and the common mistake of the conservative: it was better in the good old days. See above.

Once again: BINGO! You’ve been on a roll lately, Ted! Keep it up!

Obama doesn’t pimp the flag like neocons..

As everybody has forgotten, the United States had a policy of targeted assassinations (I believe in the 1960s and 1970s, but definitely post-WWII). It was eventually discontinued for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the President of the United shouldn’t be given the power of life or death over anybody BECAUSE HE’S HUMAN AND HE MAKES MISTAKES.

As for what you do with the bad guys: you capture them and put them on trial. Not only will you be true to your professed beliefs in justice, but you will help your cause because people around the world will recognize that you actually live by your beliefs in justice. (Yeah, yeah, I know, not all of them. But, enough of them to make the lives of potential terrorists much harder.)

Good ol’ Rall. Unlike Oliphant, he unwaveringly shines a light of the immorality of the government.