It is not a matter of being right-wing, BB. Reagan was probably more right wing than Bush, but (somewhat to my surprise) his administration actually did some very positive things for the US and the world at large.

By contrast, everything Bush touched turned to the brown smelly stuff and brought the US into international disrepute and his own Presidency into unprecedented domestic unpopularity.

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Toad

“BB, my dislike for the USA has reduced substantially over the last week, thanks to it starting to behave like a responsible world citizen again”

Well there’s a surprise!

Funny thing is that my love for the USA has decreased dramatically over the last week.

Given that you dislike a country if it has a right wing gov’t does that mean you have no time for New Zealand now?

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Toad, that’s way to sophisticated for the likes of big bro. “You’re either for us or against us”, you know.

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BB, my dislike for the USA has reduced substantially over the last week, thanks to it starting to behave like a responsible world citizen again.

There is quite a long way to go before I’ll uphold the US as a paragon of international virtue, but at least the decline into authoritarianism and disregard for international law appears to be starting to be reversed.

So probably a lot less comments from me critical of the US – my criticisms related to the excesses of the Bush/Cheney administration, not to the US people or the US Constitution (although I do have a problem with the bit about bearing arms).

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Very funny big bro. You don’t care about trashing the US Constitution but we’re the ones who hate the US. Orwell would love it.

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Well the Yanks were very concerned about our ‘anti-nuke’ policy whilst I were there. Disturbed that ‘we’ didn’t love em anymore.
I spent a lot of time reassuring people that the vast majority of NZ’ers do not Hate anyone. Generally support the US – hey, we shared the Vietnam debacle together.
Gitmo is such a huge mistake – it risks putting the US in the dock at Geneva – this has more to do with right and wrong, than love and hate. Though the victims may disagree.

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Valis

We could all save a lot of time and heartbeats if you and 90% of the Greens simply admitted that they hate the USA and capitalism.

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Frog: “Gitmo represents the failure of the rule of law and the constitution of the US.”

big bro: “You really should try separating the message from the messenger.”

To what end? The message is so bad, it doesn’t matter who the messenger is. How can you support the trashing of the Constitution?

When Sapient posted this: http://blog.greens.org.nz/2009/01/26/should-voluntary-tanning-standards-be-made-law/#comment-69646, I though of you, big bro, and this illustrates why perfectly.

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Frog

I see, so in your world you can excuse these terrorists of all crimes simply because they were imprisoned by Bush.

You really should try separating the message from the messenger.

BTW, care to release my post in the Minimum wage thread?

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Yeah BB. These scum were already outside Gitmo, before it’s closure, so what does your comment have to do with the price of eggs?

Gitmo represents the failure of the rule of law and the constitution of the US. Closing it merely forces the US authorities to do what should have been done from the outset. Convict the ones that deserve it and release the ones that don’t. The Bush administration has been shirking it’s duties for years, the lazy sods, hiding behind a bunch of ill informed lawyers. So bad has their work been that I am sure that some real scum that ought to be locked away ends up getting released because they didn’t get due process under the law. That will be Bush’s fault, not Obama’s or even Gitmo’s.

Smug I am not. Relieved I am. My position on Gitmo hasn’t changed a bit.

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Yep; – there is a whole book on it. Better put the details in one post….”Bad Men” by Clive Stafford Smith – look forward to your review.

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Any of you care to tell me why closing Gitmo is a good idea again?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5594272.ece

I hope that you enjoy your smug satisfaction long enough before these scum decide to kill more innocent westerner’s.

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I doubt that any serious investigation into the practices of prisoner interrogation conducted within Abu Graib or Guantanamo would validate what has been done in the name of the USA, in the name of ‘protecting the world’ from ‘terrorism’.

Not in my name, it wasn’t!

Amnesty International and various UN organisations have been putting pressure on Bush’s administration since around early 2003, to shut these places down.

The US bases in Iraq and Central America were running like their own personal fiefdoms, creating and interpreting law in their own desires, without regard to international ethical or jurisdictional standards. This kind of military despotism has seriously destabilised the Persian Gulf region, and despite Obama’s best efforts, we’ll see the effects of ‘the Bush Wars’ for some time to come.

The USA has used it’s Security Council veto to block all UN resolutions pertaining to this activity, right up until new President Barack Obama took office on Inauguration Day.
I hope that Obama can continue the momentum he has developed; I fear that vested interests within the USA and global corporations will be trying to impede or stop him with all the force they can muster.

We can only bear witness to what is, at this point in time; and congratulate him for the work he has pledged to do, which he is ticking off his list one item at a time.

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Maybe you’re right Valis. It might be foolish for me to think anyone actually reads those press releases, or that they would have any effect

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Well, the US Senate gave George the go-ahead to proceed. This means that potential war-crimes and torture victims might implicate current Powers in their Human degradation and Human Rights Failure – “War Crimes” does not apply in most cases as these people(spuriously suspicious) were sold to the US from Pakistan for $5k per head. Were not combatants but ‘plotters’….
They are ‘dangerous’ because of what they may reveal verbally to the blinkered world – mind you, if they weren’t actively anti- US before – they may well be now…

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ZT, I agree that Chinese psychology might work that way, not that it is inevitable. I disagree with the accusation (“Good Work”) that Green press releases played a role in the outcome of the trial.

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Also, I mentioned several hundred detainees (actually thousands if you count Abu Ghraib) have been tagged and released back into the wild. Here’s an interesting article that suggests some of those people have gone back to their natural habitat. Terrorist Union confirms jobs waiting.

Interestingly, of the 255 people still left, they are pretty sure 110 would be as good for the world as like releasing rats on Kapiti Island, 50 are axis-of-evil neutral and just need new homes offered (their original habitat now too dangerous for them) and the balance could be either pest or environmentally friendly, and require further research.

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BJ: Guantanamo Bay is NOT part of the United States of America.

Ah yes, obvious to everyone who has looked into GITMO. Perhaps a few people out there don’t realise this. And also, not so obvious that the US of A will be the final landing place of these people. There are many other countries in the world – not passing them on may have been the most responsible thing to do. As Bush said:

“I’d like to close Guantanamo,” .. “But I also recognise that we’re holding some people that are darned dangerous, and that we’d better have a plan to deal with them in our courts.

and as Obama said:

“It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realise,” Mr Obama told the ABC TV network.

“We’re going to get it done, but part of the challenge that you have is that you have got a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom may be very dangerous…”

It turns out some terrorists HAVE killed many innocent people, and the US of A may have caught some of them.

VALIS: Yes, I was not trying to be subtle. Glad you caught that. However, I was not trying to put blame exclusively on the NZ Green Party. When I said: “shame China must feel from all such international commentary to ultimately justify the death penalty.” I meant the weight of a variety of international commentary like this would lead the Chinese to this inevitable (given the culture) conclusion. Do you disagree?

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Couple of links to US sites discussing this issue from the inside:

http://blog.amnestyusa.org/

and the obligatory FB page:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/126
[Amnesty International USA Inc]

Seems that freedom of speech has rebounded very quickly post-George Dubya’s departure, for which we can all be truly grateful.

Anyone who missed it, the Independant reported the full text of the Inauguration speech. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/full-text-of-obamas-speech-1451915.html
This is worth reading carefully, if only because so much of it has been misrepresented already, as were his policy stances pre-election by the media in the USA and elsewhere.

Wikipedia has a good entry on Obama’s policy hardlines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#Political_positions

Happy, happy, joy, joy ….

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Book is by notable Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith. Check it out.

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