Creating a Sacrificial Scapegoat
Jan. 24th, 2002 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravencallscrowsTraffic was horribly bad this morning, and apparently not just I-5 and 520. Reports of hour-long waits from I-5 to Kirkland along 405 were on the radio, which made me glad I wasn't going in myself, because I'd have been sitting in it.
Had an interesting discussion about John Walker Lindh this morning- about how the government can directly charge him with conspiracy to harm US citizens, and whether it'll be possible to seat a jury in the case.
I could make a case that as a volunteer fighting with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, unless there's a significant piece of evidence directly linking him specifically to Al-Qaeda, that what he's done isn't significantly different in intent than an American kid joining the French Foreign Legion; or Americans active in the overthrow of Batista in Cuba; the CIA arming the Contras in Nicaragua and so on.
Yeah, the US has been with most of the rest of the world in not recognizing the Taliban, and certainly their philosophies seem barbaric from certain human rights levels, but don't the Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and expression stand without a caveat of "as long as the government doesn't virulently disagree with what you say."
I'm not even sure the Bush Administration wasn't in contraindication of international law declaring war on terrorism. How can you declare war on a concept? Wars are resolutions of conflict between nation-states when other methods have failed, or between factions within a nation-state. Where was the declaration of war against the Taliban? How can the government charge someone with fighting for a cause in which they believe?
Had an interesting discussion about John Walker Lindh this morning- about how the government can directly charge him with conspiracy to harm US citizens, and whether it'll be possible to seat a jury in the case.
I could make a case that as a volunteer fighting with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, unless there's a significant piece of evidence directly linking him specifically to Al-Qaeda, that what he's done isn't significantly different in intent than an American kid joining the French Foreign Legion; or Americans active in the overthrow of Batista in Cuba; the CIA arming the Contras in Nicaragua and so on.
Yeah, the US has been with most of the rest of the world in not recognizing the Taliban, and certainly their philosophies seem barbaric from certain human rights levels, but don't the Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and expression stand without a caveat of "as long as the government doesn't virulently disagree with what you say."
I'm not even sure the Bush Administration wasn't in contraindication of international law declaring war on terrorism. How can you declare war on a concept? Wars are resolutions of conflict between nation-states when other methods have failed, or between factions within a nation-state. Where was the declaration of war against the Taliban? How can the government charge someone with fighting for a cause in which they believe?
