One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter

Temporarily caught up in the freedom concept, that quote caught my attention.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter

"The Yale book of quotations" by Fred R. Shapiro lists this quote as coming from "Harry's game" by Gerald Seymour in 1975 as opposed to some of those who have used the quote later without attribution. "Harry's Game" is described as "A British cabinet minister is gunned down by an IRA assassin, leaving an undercover agent to track down the killer before he himself is killed." To put the quote more in context.

This has become a topic of discussion and even research papers.

Attorney General Eric Holder at the Constitution Project's awards dinner

Highly recommended blog post over on the American Prospect on the recent speech given by Holder. It makes some thought provoking points, one:

Following a surprisingly good showing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee this week in which he managed to parry one baseless Republican criticism after another, Attorney General Eric Holder, delivered a speech before a civil libertarian crowd at the Constitution Project's awards dinner. What transpired as Spencer Ackerman writes, was pretty much a political science textbook definition of a Sistah Soulja moment:

Like every person sitting in this room, like the President and those who serve this Administration, and like every Member serving in our Congress, I am determined to win this war. I know we can, and I am certain we will. But victory and security will not come easily. And they won’t come at all if we approach this work by adhering to a rigid ideology or narrow methodology.

The civil libertarian community is basically the only constituency Holder has had at his side since he announced the decision to try the 9/11 defendants in civilian courts. The GOP has continually smeared him as a weakling whose commitment to this sissy "rule of law" stuff prevents him from doing what it takes to Keep Us Safe. With his speech, Holder implicitly compared the people in the audience -- the people who have supported him through his extended media flogging -- to the very "rigid ideologues" whose attacks they have defended him from.

Another recommended blog post on this speech is from FireDogLake.

Ralph Nader: Just War is Just Words

Recommended piece written by Ralph Nader that was posted to his website on Friday, "Just War" is Just Words. While I recommend you read the entire piece, a selection from it:

President Obama, the Afghan war escalator, received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, and proceeded to deliver his acceptance speech outlining the three criteria for a “just war” which he himself is violating.

The criteria are in his words: “If it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.”

To say as Obama inferred in his Oslo speech that the greater plunge into Afghanistan is self-defense, with proportional force and sparing civilians from violence is a scale of self-delusion or political cowardliness that is dejecting his liberal base.

For as President Eisenhower stated so eloquently in his 1953 “cross of iron” speech, every dollar spent on munitions and saber-rattling takes away from building schools, clinics, roads and other necessities of the American people.

AP and the Death of a Marine

If you have been following the Associated Press story about Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard this link is one you might want to read since it's the explanation as to why AP decided to run the piece and it also contains links to the complete series of photos that were taken along with commentary by photographer Julie Jacobson.

I don't disagree with the AP position, this does show first hand the horrors of war, it's something we should not forget.

Not just Democrats calling for the end of the war...

While most of the attention gets placed on some of the Democratic groups that are out there calling for an end to the war in Iraq, I think it's important to point out that this is an area where the Libertarian Party has been speaking on for quite some time. The 5th anniversary of the war on Iraq did not go unnoticed:

It is with a heavy heart that I woke up on March 19, 2008, in a country still at war in Iraq, now five years after it first began. It is also with great disappointment that neither Republicans nor Democrats have provided a plan to end what is shaping up to be a "forever war." On this five-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the Libertarian Party renews our call to bring American troops home without undue delay. May the courage and sacrifice of the 3,990 soldiers who have died in Iraq while serving their country never be forgotten.

US helping Turkey attack Kurds

It's hard to see a positive outcome in the US intermingling itself even deeper into the mire that is Iraq with the recent news that U.S. Helps Turkey Hit Rebel Kurds In Iraq, the subtitle of the article reads, "Intelligence Role Could Complicate Diplomacy". I think that's a bit of an understatement given the reaction so far:

Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, which administers three northern Iraqi provinces, called the attack "a violation of Iraq's sovereignty." He blamed the U.S. military, which controls Iraqi airspace, for allowing Turkish warplanes to cross the border. The Iraqi parliament also condemned the attacks yesterday.

Unless of course this is meant as some type of a reverse psychology ploy where we anger Iraq so much that they order us out of their country...

Pakistan constitution said "ripped to shreds"

The arrests of lawyers and the upheaval in Pakistan should be causing a great deal of concern here in the US, it's obvious when reading this Washington Post article, Ousted Pakistani Chief Justice Urges Lawyers to Continue Protests that there is freedom at stake here. While some lawyers are protesting, others have gone into hiding:

Under house arrest since his firing along with six other Supreme Court judges, Chaudhry reached a gathering of lawyers in the capital via cell phone and told them to "go to every corner of Pakistan and give the message that this is the time to sacrifice," the Associated Press reported. "Don't be afraid. God will help us, and the day will come when you'll see the constitution supreme and no dictatorship for a long time."

While some political opponents and rights activists also participated in the protests -- the most significant since Musharraf declared emergency rule Saturday -- it was the lawyers who dominated. In recent months, they have clashed repeatedly with a government they accuse of interfering with the judiciary, and on Monday, they voiced outrage over the president's decision to suspend the constitution and fire a group of dissident Supreme Court justices.

Equally disturbing is the reports of arrests of human relief workers and the fact that non-government owned media has been kept off the air for the third day in a row. This makes getting information about what is happening even more difficult.

Daily show on Turkey...

This one was a funny one that was on October 18th...