Guy, where do you get these notions? You say we lack sophistication when we respond to your opinions (which usually are unsupported by fact), and I say you engage in sophistry of the worst sort. "Torture", "execution" (especially your particularly egregious statement that the "U.S. has executed more children than any other country") and other such words are thrown about by you, but you fail to cite even one non-partisan and authoritative source reference for such characterizations that all here could agree with.
Art's done yeoman work in providing explication, and I've posted at least one editorial by advisors to the current UN Human Rights Commission that gives the lie to your "the U.S. disrepects human rights" statement. Yes, the U.S. has its faults, and sometimes they can be frustrating. But, this nation is far and away the most superior advocate for human rights and respect for the rule of law than any other country you'll find out there, and that strong advocacy seems to be mirrored in other nations that are free and strong democracies. Sadly, it's a fact that in a nation of almost 300 million people, you'll have bad apples, but that just highlights the strength and superiority of our system of governance, which is derived from an almost perfectly-written document (our Constitution). We get it out in the open, for good or bad. But we also realize that that same document isn't a suicide pact, and that our style of democracy isn't a "one size fits all" model for other countries.
I'm sorry that you're frustrated that we haven't subordinated that document to some fuzzy and ill-defined court of international law (man, that court really did a great job in dragging old Slobo Milosevic to a fair and speedy trial, didn't it?), but you and your ilk give me no comfort whatsoever that, were your type put into power all of sudden, we wouldn't wake up the next day being governed by some sort of super-European Community version of governance in our own hemisphere, where the presidency devolves to the prime minister of Guyana, for example.
You seem to be like a lot of the left-leaning types I've met. You believe every negative thing you see, hear or read about our country and refuse to concede that we might possibly be on the correct path about anything, unless it conforms to your own narrowly-limited worldview. I've helped build hospitals and schools in some countries, and I've helped fight against the enemy in others (and sometimes in the same country, at the same time). I say to you that both methods can be equally as effective in the right circumstance. We've all seen real victims of real torture and genocide (sadly, I've seen some up close and personal). We're not even remotely close to sanctioning that sort of behavior, as a nation or as a people, regardless of what you think might have happened at Gitmo or in Abu Ghraib.
Boy, that Newsweek story on our so-called Koran-flushing servicemen down there in Gitmo sure panned out, huh? Just like those Downing Street memos proved to be true, too, right? Or the whole Bush National Guard memos thing. Or the former editor of USA Today, who said that he knew, just knew, that American troops were deliberately killing journalists over in Iraq. The list is endless and full of hasty rushes to judgement (Senator Dick "Gestapo" Durbin comes immediately to hand), and just as full of hasty retreats and choruses of "never mind!". But, to quote a famous Senator from the state of New York, "you know what I'm talkin' about".
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big kahuna: Mar 17, 06 18:04