the best little read ive had in a long, long time

[ziggity]

Originally posted by someone&#39;s livejournal (blog)+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(someone&#39;s livejournal (blog))</div><div class='quotemain'>Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and
tried to light it?

Did you know his trial is over?
Did you know he was sentenced?
Did you see/hear any of the judge&#39;s comments on TV/Radio?


Didn&#39;t think so.


Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.
<!--QuoteBegin-transcript
Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.

Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say.

His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah," defiantly stated "I think I ought not apologize for my actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country."

Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below, a stinging condemnation of Reid in particular and terrorists in general:

January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid.

Judge Young:
Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon
you. On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General.
On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive with the other.

That&#39;s 80 years.


On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive
to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you each of the eight counts a fine of &#036;250,000 for the aggregate fine of &#036;2 million.
The Court accepts the government&#39;s recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of &#036;298.17 to Andre Bousquet and &#036;5,784 to American
Airlines.
The Court imposes upon you the &#036;800 special assessment.
The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it.


But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.
This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.


Let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist coconspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before.
There is all too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.


Here in this court, where we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals.
As human beings, we reach out for justice.


You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist.
You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist.
To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature.
Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist...And we do not negotiate with terrorists.
We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists.
We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big.


You&#39;re no warrior. I know warriors.
You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.
In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and he said you&#39;re no big deal.

You&#39;re no big deal.

What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific.
What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?

I have listened respectfully to what you have to say.
And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing.
And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that is most precious. You hate our freedom.
Our individual freedom.
Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose,
to believe or not believe as we individually choose.
Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom.
They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea.
It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom.
So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.


It is for freedom&#39;s sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.

We are about it.
Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties.
Make no mistake though.
It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.
Look around this courtroom.
Mark it well the world is not going to long remember what you or I say here.


Day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.
Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see
that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.
The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and
lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That&#39;s the flag of the United States of America.
That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten.


That flag stands for freedom. You know it always will.

Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.

So, how much of this Judge&#39;s comments did we hear on our TV sets?
We need more judges like Judge Young, but that&#39;s another subject. Pass
this around.
Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say.
Powerful words that strike home.[/b][/quote]

no words... i have no words. moments like these are so rare and so precious.. sometimes i think myself unlucky, unfortunate, in one way or another.. in money, in friends, in gifts...

but to be able to think... of how lucky i am to have been born here...

no words.

 

[dcwrestlefan]

i originally had a mile long response to this, but decided to go "shorter and sweeter".

its good the terrorist will be put away for life, but the patriotic chest beating rant by the judge didn&#39;t move me. "freedom" is a word that gets tossed about so much, but most americans don&#39;t seem to realize that we really don&#39;t have it.
are we better than most? yes. do i like living here? mostly. do we have serious problems that are not being addressed? damn right.

freedom means living in a country where the person who gets the most votes wins. this is a big deal to me. our elections are becoming increasingly corrupt in my judgement.

freedom means that two consenting adults who love each other can marry if they want to.

freedom means not having your kids taken from you, even though you are a good mother, because you are a lesbian. (happened in virginia a few years back)

freedom means that a 5&#39;1" college student in wyoming (matthew shepard) should not have to worry about being beaten up and hung on a fence to die because he is gay.

freedom means that you don&#39;t go to war and kill people based on a lie. its unpatriotic to put american soliders in harms way if the reason is false.

where is osama bin laden?

i could go on. i love my country but am pissed off at it right now. its not free and is headed in the wrong direction. i&#39;ll cry looking at the flag again when the current batch of lying, homophobic, war mongers are out of office.

 

[Pecker]

Oh, sit down and eat your pudding.

 

[Altairion]

I agree with dc that freedom is one of the most abused words of present time. Once I heard the statement about Freedom Fries....I finally realized how bad it was and just stopped caring.

 

[yaoifun]

Originally posted by Altairion@Feb 27 2005, 01:30 PM
I agree with dc that freedom is one of the most abused words of present time. Once I heard the statement about Freedom Fries....I finally realized how bad it was and just stopped caring.

[post=286868]Quoted post[/post]​

Who wants a freedom Kiss? Or to visit the country of Freedom? Did anyone know I&#39;m part Freedom-Canadian? (I&#39;m really not, I&#39;m just playing on words&#33 You are right, freedom is one of the most abused words as of now. If you think about it there really is no such thing as true freedom. If there was, we would all most likely be dead by now.

 

[mindseye]

Terrible, infantile behavior for a judge. The grandstanding guarantees him a press-op, but calls into doubt his objectivity and fairness -- which should be the defining characteristics of a judge.

In any case, this is old news; the ruling came out over two years ago. Since then, Judge Young has declared that federal sentencing guidelines (which he applied to Reid) were unconstitutional (PDF source). (The Supreme Court has since upheld the unconstitutionality of mandatory sentencing guidelines.)

 

[B_RoysToy]

Don&#39;t let your stance be shaken, zittity. Thank you for giving us Judge Young&#39;s statement because I would never have seen it otherwise. No, we&#39;re not perfect, but there is always hope for improvement when there are people like you who earnestly appreciate and love the positive aspects of The United States of America.

It&#39;s great that we can express our dislike for corruption in government and for being mislead by supposedly righteous &#39;leaders&#39;. Although we know there are many countries in the world where this can not take place, we must never become complacent and fail to resist prejudices and discriminations when we see and &#39;feel&#39; it.

There will always be a place for well chosen words.

 

[jonb]

Well, freedom is slavery, just like war is peace and ignorance is strength. "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we&#39;re really talking about peace."

A while back, I posted a whole bunch of Orwellian tendencies of the Bush administration to a Yahoo list. Some of them, like the aforementioned quote, were lifted directly from 1984.

As for freedom fries, well, I gave up after "homicide bomber". Do soldiers go on "homicide missions"? Of course, the original Orwellian one was "peacekeeping".

The military defines terrorism as "the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological". Sounds like Bush (and a few other former presidents) to me.

 

[ziggity]

Sometimes I wonder why the people who can tell the difference between a warrior and a terrorist are a minority rather than a majority. It&#39;s a very, very simple concept.

 

[jonb]

Actually, it&#39;s a rather simple element; a suicide mission&#39;s called that because the chances of the agent&#39;s survival are slim to nil, hence the term suicide mission.

Or did you mean you think Bush was a warrior. Ever heard of "champagne units"? You&#39;ll notice those who favor war have never been in the military.

 

[ziggity]

I&#39;ll be sure to let you know whether I favor it or not when I get back..

But for now I&#39;m content to know that no Iraqi Freedom or Enduring Freedom Marines I&#39;ve met have regretted being there or expressed feelings of guilt or resentment towards their efforts there.

As for the "suicide bomber" vs "homicide bomber" deal, it&#39;s sort of a moot point to me. I really don&#39;t care about the terminology either way. Yes, he will die, thus, suicide. But the mission is not usually to destroy military targets or targets of tactical opportunity, but to end innocent civilian lives, thus, homicide. I think they both make sense. Obviously the best term is either "suicidal homicide bomber" or "homicidal suicide bomber" because they encompass both aspects

And I&#39;ll go ahead and spell out my own personal view on the "warrior" vs "terrorist" issue.

Take, for example, one of the underground resistance movements in Europe. Nazi Germany was an even more powerful (by scale in the 1930s and early 40s) "oppressor" than the United States is in Iraq... so the rebels must have had some serious nuts to go up against them. Right? In fact, the number of people in the resistance may or may not be LOWER than the number of people violently opposing the US&#39; presence in the middle east.

And yet... the resistance movements targeted military targets and targets of tactical opportunity, with virtually no exception. What advantage did they have in killing civilians deep in the comfortable and protected heart of the Nazi Fatherland? None. They would waste time, effort, resources, and manpower, and only make their oppressors angrier.

Instead, they engaged in sabotage, espionage, and outright guerilla warfare against the Nazis. That was actual warfare. That is the equivalent of what MOST of the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing right now.

And then... you have the terrorists.

http://www.waronline.org/terror/suicide/rengen.jpg

Skull of a 17 year old middle eastern girl. The object in her head, which was confirmed as the reason for her death, was classified as "shrapnel". What from? oh... a WARRIOR?

No. Definitely not. The young girl was not a target of opportunity. Killing her was not a tactical advantage in the fight for the bomber&#39;s (suspected Palestinian) holy land. The death, like many other civilian and innocent deaths in that area, served only to aggravate and inflame the problem of religious and political conflict.

Can you honestly tell me that killing people at the heart of OUR nation... creates a GOOD situation for the killer? What happened to Al Qaeda after the bombings? I don&#39;t see any way that the 9/11 bombing was a tactical military triumph, seeing as how the head operators have now been forced into hiding and the visible physical manifestations of their regime have been all but exterminated.

The bombing created terror, yes..

But was it a warrior&#39;s victory? A military success? A tactical accomplishment?

No. It was anything but.

In fact, I&#39;m not going to end this argument with a stupid quip. The fact is, the 9/11 bombing was the most back-asswards thing any anti-american could have ever done. Our presence in the middle east was minimal until after it occured. Whoever wanted us to stop "meddling" over there and came up with that ingenious idea..

Wow. Good job, dumbass. You know what I mean?

 

[dcwrestlefan]

Originally posted by Pecker@Feb 27 2005, 01:18 PM
Oh, sit down and eat your pudding.

[post=286834]Quoted post[/post]​

excellent response.

 

[D_Martin van Burden]

Originally posted by Pecker@Feb 27 2005, 08:18 AM
Oh, sit down and eat your pudding.

[post=286834]Quoted post[/post]​

Ah, ah, ah. Questionably humorous snapback for sure, but remember this -- as I am learning it -- silence and belligerance both, if used inappropriately, connote acceptance where acceptance is not due. To that end, speak up; speak up if you feel that it is necessary so that you too aren&#39;t misunderstood. Must he eat his pudding because you weren&#39;t in a mood to appreciate a "liberal" perspective? If so, he&#39;s not in control of your feelings, so don&#39;t inadvertently ask him to do so.

As some of the posters have mentioned, I&#39;m not too thrilled about my control or my leadership. It&#39;s not even about the war anymore. It&#39;s the improper use of rhetoric as a means to shadow true intentions and to balance interests -- kind of like using debate as a means to win a dispute versus showing a more truthful, coherent argument and to spread that knowledge. As I have always maintained, I would have rather wanted Bush to say that, come Hell or high water, he wants the oil and he wants the money. Let &#39;im be a golddigger, I say... at least he&#39;s being honest about it.

Fuckin&#39; OWN what you do, what you say, and how you feel.

I think some posters understand that message; unfortunately, not all the replies have been that forthright either.

 

[D_Martin van Burden]

By the by, if you want a real straightshooter&#39;s perspective on what other madness we can cook up in the Middle East, check out the commentator&#39;s response in the February 2005 issue of Esquire magazine.

 

[jonb]

Originally posted by ziggity@Feb 27 2005, 07:06 PM
As for the "suicide bomber" vs "homicide bomber" deal, it&#39;s sort of a moot point to me. I really don&#39;t care about the terminology either way. Yes, he will die, thus, suicide. But the mission is not usually to destroy military targets or targets of tactical opportunity, but to end innocent civilian lives, thus, homicide. I think they both make sense. Obviously the best term is either "suicidal homicide bomber" or "homicidal suicide bomber" because they encompass both aspects

But isn&#39;t all collateral damage then homicidal? But we don&#39;t refer to the Iraq war as homicide, even though it&#39;s killed some 100,000 civilians, far more than any terrorist attack in history.

Take, for example, one of the underground resistance movements in Europe. Nazi Germany was an even more powerful (by scale in the 1930s and early 40s) "oppressor" than the United States is in Iraq... so the rebels must have had some serious nuts to go up against them. Right? In fact, the number of people in the resistance may or may not be LOWER than the number of people violently opposing the US&#39; presence in the middle east.

And it&#39;s a resistance to an invading force in either case. Let&#39;s just make those 6 million Jews irrelevant; the history of American-led genocide is pretty much ignored by American history textbooks anyway. (Did you know IHS was still forcibly sterilizing Indian women in the early 90s?) An invading force, whether good or bad, is still an invading force. Furthermore, the U.S. history of "spreading democracy" leaves much to be desired. It begins by replacing government by consensus with a type of "democracy" where leaders can be replaced by Congress. From there, it goes on to include Batista, the Shah of Iran, Mobutu, Ky, Suharto, Pinochet, Noriega, Hussein, and the Taliban. Lovely.

And yet... the resistance movements targeted military targets and targets of tactical opportunity, with virtually no exception. What advantage did they have in killing civilians deep in the comfortable and protected heart of the Nazi Fatherland? None. They would waste time, effort, resources, and manpower, and only make their oppressors angrier.

And Iraqis have attacked the U.S. when? (9/11 was Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Egyptians.)

Skull of a 17 year old middle eastern girl. The object in her head, which was confirmed as the reason for her death, was classified as "shrapnel". What from? oh... a WARRIOR?

I can do you one better with images of five-year-old Iraqis with severed limbs from U.S. bombings. Or even better with images of pregnant women killed by U.S. bombings. Do you really want to go there. Just don&#39;t forget: The Iraqi death toll is over 30 times the 9/11 death toll now. And here&#39;s the thing: Bush has been talking about invading Iraq since 1999. His "election", if it could be called that, was one of the reasons I opted out of military service; I just can&#39;t see the morality of pre-emptive strikes, from the U.S. or from those dirty japs.

Can you honestly tell me that killing people at the heart of OUR nation... creates a GOOD situation for the killer? What happened to Al Qaeda after the bombings? I don&#39;t see any way that the 9/11 bombing was a tactical military triumph, seeing as how the head operators have now been forced into hiding and the visible physical manifestations of their regime have been all but exterminated.

Strange, I thought Al Qaida was still at large. No matter; the government&#39;s bred a new generation of terrorists by attacking Iraq. I&#39;m surprised you even remember Al Qaida; your boy George seems to think Iraq was behind 9/11, even though the 9/11 Commission Report says otherwise.

 

[ziggity]

Originally posted by jonb@Feb 28 2005, 05:25 PM
But isn&#39;t all collateral damage then homicidal? But we don&#39;t refer to the Iraq war as homicide, even though it&#39;s killed some 100,000 civilians, far more than any terrorist attack in history.

That&#39;s ... a hilarious number, to be honest. Do I even need to tell you why? Even sensationalist "bodycount" websites and the like list numbers far lower than that.

Or are you counting combatants as civilians? If so, this discussion is over.

And it&#39;s a resistance to an invading force in either case. Let&#39;s just make those 6 million Jews irrelevant;[it is irrelevant.] An invading force, whether good or bad, is still an invading force.

When did I say the US wasn&#39;t an invading force? Actually, I think I said that first.

Furthermore, the U.S. history of "spreading democracy" leaves much to be desired. It begins by replacing government by consensus with a type of "democracy" where leaders can be replaced by Congress. From there, it goes on to include Batista, the Shah of Iran, Mobutu, Ky, Suharto, Pinochet, Noriega, Hussein, and the Taliban. Lovely.

That conversation does not interest me, not in the least. Believe me, I&#39;m hardly in line with that brand of "democratic conversion". Besides, it&#39;s utterly irrelevant. For the benefit of the both of us, don&#39;t drag this TERRORIST vs. WARRIOR argument into the conversational abyss that is American foreign policy...

And Iraqis have attacked the U.S. when? (9/11 was Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Egyptians.)

Did I say they did? Did I not mention Al Qaeda? I actually stated (with too much subtlety, it seems) that the insurgents/rebels/anti-coalition forces in Iraq ARE warriors, soldiers, legitimate fighters for a cause other than terror.

I can do you one better with images of five-year-old Iraqis with severed limbs from U.S. bombings. Or even better with images of pregnant women killed by U.S. bombings. Do you really want to go there. Just don&#39;t forget: The Iraqi death toll is over 30 times the 9/11 death toll now. And here&#39;s the thing: Bush has been talking about invading Iraq since 1999. His "election", if it could be called that, was one of the reasons I opted out of military service; I just can&#39;t see the morality of pre-emptive strikes, from the U.S. or from those dirty japs.

The rhetoric isn&#39;t only poured thick on the mild conservative side. Please don&#39;t sidetrack the discussion. Collateral damage is still collateral damage. Our military has not made it an OBJECTIVE to destroy civilian lives.

Strange, I thought Al Qaida was still at large.

Operating phrase was "all but exterminated". Rather than "at large" you could say "still breathing". Or not even.

No matter; the government&#39;s bred a new generation of terrorists by attacking Iraq. I&#39;m surprised you even remember Al Qaida; your boy George seems to think Iraq was behind 9/11, even though the 9/11 Commission Report says otherwise.

Just because I have views on the war that don&#39;t involve the liberal mainstream doesn&#39;t mean I should be partied with an entirely ineffective establishment that I am not fond of in the least.

If you think this is a good place to stop discussing the terrorist vs. warrior issue, I&#39;m all for it. It really aggravates me to be lectured about foreign policy when I&#39;m debating, say, puppies, or something equally unrelated, like the discussion I attempted to make a few posts prior..

 

[jonb]

Originally posted by ziggity@Feb 28 2005, 06:15 PM
That&#39;s ... a hilarious number, to be honest.  Do I even need to tell you why? Even sensationalist "bodycount" websites and the like list numbers far lower than that.

BBC, numbnuts. Now then, since they&#39;re funded by the British government, they might be biased. But their bias would be in favor of minimizing the numbers.

That conversation does not interest me, not in the least. Believe me, I&#39;m hardly in line with that brand of "democratic conversion". Besides, it&#39;s utterly irrelevant. For the benefit of the both of us, don&#39;t drag this TERRORIST vs. WARRIOR argument into the conversational abyss that is American foreign policy...

And I&#39;m saying the U.S. government simply uses violent means to accomplish political and ideological goals, much like the military&#39;s own definition of terrorism.

The rhetoric isn&#39;t only poured thick on the mild conservative side. Please don&#39;t sidetrack the discussion.  Collateral damage is still collateral damage. Our military has not made it an OBJECTIVE to destroy civilian lives.

Strange, since Cheney, Rummy, Wolfowitz, et al. -- the list of contributors reads like a list of Bush appointees -- stated that as their goal I love the part about biological weapons to target particular ethnic groups.

Operating phrase was "all but exterminated". Rather than "at large" you could say "still breathing". Or not even.

And their financiers got away scot-free. Their financiers will fund another terrorist organization.

Just because I have views on the war that don&#39;t involve the liberal mainstream doesn&#39;t mean I should be partied with an entirely ineffective establishment that I am not fond of in the least.

"Liberal mainstream"? CiS Trust me, whether the mainstream media has a left-wing bias or a right-wing bias is like whether or not Osama bin Ladin puts too much oil in his hummus. But suffice it to say, I have views that don&#39;t involve the liberal mainstream too; for one thing, I know for a fact that Saddam didn&#39;t have WMDs, something Kerry never bothered to call Bush on. I also know for a fact that Saddam had no connection whatsoever to Al Qaida, soemthing Kerry never bothered to call Bush on.

Trust me, calling the mainstream media liberal because it covered Enron is like calling Pravda a capitalist publication because it denounced Trotsky.

 

[ziggity]

I could continue, believe me or don&#39;t.. but I draw the line at namecalling. It&#39;s an easy way to tell when things aren&#39;t worth pursuing. Distressing how the little punk kid who WANTS to go to war can at least keep his head on during an online debate and the ADULT who felt it would be a wise decision to stay out of all the war nonsense has to go and start with the namecalling. Sorry for all this crap and to get you and everyone else riled up.

 

[jonb]

Keep your head? Last I checked, I haven&#39;t used ALL CAPS at all. Nor have I formatted specifically to make things BIGGER

 

[ziggity]

I thought I was pretty calm. Maybe I was wrong. Anyway, sorry for giving you the impression that I was a numbnuts. I don&#39;t get the BBC.