Saturday, December 08 2001

John Dean : Military Tribunals, A Long and Mostly Honorable Tradition

I mean, frankly, the title pretty much sums it up. But, let's look at the reasons why the military tribunals, as proposed by Dubya, are apparently okay. #1) They're expedient. I kid you not:

The potential of having to mete out justice to possibly thousands of alien enemy terrorists, or unlawful combatants, who are openly violating the common law of war makes the use of these military proceedings very appealing.

The good news, of course, is that by this logic we'll have a proven and ready means of clearing of the backlog of cases that already exist in the citizen's court system. #2) That guy, in the Civil War, who opposed military tribunals, well he was just wrong:

...Lee's view, however, was quickly challenged and overruled. Indeed, Lee was legislated out of a job by Congress, and President Lincoln...

Indeed. #3) Bad council:

Rehnquist seems to suggest that if the government had had better counsel it would have prevailed in Milligan.

Because, you know, the customer is always right. I am eagerly awaiting the flood of court decisions that will overturned with this argument. I am told that, in some cases, this is actually a valid argument. In this instance, however, it strikes me as a bit of a strech. #4) Nuremberg:

There were hundreds of these proceedings. Many of them - like those at Nuremberg, to mention the obvious - remain models of fairness and justice.

It is interesting that we don't hear mention of this one made more often. It is, perhaps, the closest thing to a compelling argument made to date. But not really. There were still those, at the end of World War Two who had lived through the justice meted out on Germany after the First World War and had seen what the economics and political conditions it engendered had given rise to, namely Hitler. There was a real incentive to prove, pretty much to all the parties involved I think, that the war had been fought and won on principles and that those principles extended both to the victor and the vanquished. And the U.S. was gunning up for the Cold War so it needed to make friends with the Axis, some quick. #5) Franky got cake; why can't I? :

Both Lincoln and FDR had the blessings of Congress.

This is supposed to be a compelling argument? Congress has also blessed a whole littany of ill-conceived and ridiculous laws in it's long and storied past. Just because Congress says something doesn't mean it's right; that is why laws are sometimes deemed to be unconstitutional. #6) Someone else agrees with me :

For example, as one federal court noted in the 1972 case of Atlee v. Laird...

That's great. People say stuff all the time. What was the outcome of this case? Was it overturned? Was the comment even directly related to the case? Anyway, I can name a few people that agree with me too. What's next, the tyranny of the majority?

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Scott Andrew : When I think of JavaScript events, I think of marbles.

"If you can imagine all that without your eyes glazing over, you have a pretty good idea of what KnowNow does, and what Jon Udell is talking about in this article about the Event-Driven Internet."

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Me : Image::Import.pm

"[slurps] an image as a hashref. In the process, you may optionally resize the image, converting the image to another image type, create a thumbnail or any combination thereof."

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Jeffa : HTML::Template extensions for Dreamweaver

"I am a programmer. Why would I want Dreamweaver extensions for HTML::Template?" If you work with a designer/design team, chances are they use Dreamweaver to create the HTML templates. Now they can use HTML::Template tags in Dreamweaver just like they would any other object - by clicking on an icon which places the resulting HTML code in the document. "

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The dict-ified dictionary.com word of the day is enunciate

| source : web1913 | Enunciate \E*nun"ci*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Enunciated}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Enunciating}.] [L. enuntiatus, -ciatus, p. p. of enuntiare, -ciare. See {Enounce}.] 1. To make a formal statement of; to announce; to proclaim; to declare, as a truth. The terms in which he enunciates the great doctrines of the gospel. --Coleridge. 2. To make distinctly audible; to utter articulately; to pronounce; as, to enunciate a word distinctly. | source : web1913 | Enunciate \E*nun"ci*ate\, v. i. To utter words or syllables articulately. | source : wn | enunciate v 1: speak, pronounce, or utter in a certain way; "She pronounces French words in a funny way"; "I cannot say `zip wire'" [syn: {pronounce}, {articulate}, {enounce}, {say}] 2: express or state clearly [syn: {articulate}, {vocalize}]

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