Wow, excellent point and one that I had never thought of. This needs to be said again and again. Since when are these guys true Muslims anyway?

It is certainly not your business to say whether these are Muslims or not.

We in the west are right to point out behaviour and acts that are murderous, and to advocate the use of law, or war to end such acts.

Hitar is arguing within Islam and apparently purging the nihilism from the al-Qa'ida activists.

These activists will not listen to half-educated westerners quoting bits of the Qur'an out of context, but they will listen to an "'Alim" or Islamic scholar.

Obviously we have to get beyond debate to action, unfortunately quite often, but Salafis (tell me that Hitar is not a Salafi!) need to discredit the nihilism of bin Ladin from within.

Of course. Not for dhimmis to judge. Should have known. And "activists" - charming term. I guess al-Qaeda are kind of like your local Sierra Club chapter.

The thing is, Dave, Western leaders make this judgment all the time. so do media outlets. By arguing that the terrorists of al-Qaeda have "hijacked Islam", or "perverted" the religion, or insisting, again and again, that "Islam is a religion of peace."

Are they right? Or are they all feeding us complete b.s.? Because if the al-Qaeda folks are legitimate, authentic Muslims, then every word of that stuff is a distortion or a lie.

I recall reading an article on this point by William F. Buckley four years ago. To paraphrase: If Islam has been hijacked, are we not entitled to ask who was at the controls in the first place? Obviously there is no Islamic pope, but which of the thousands of fatwa-flinging Imams represent the true spirit of "mainstream" Islam, and what is the punishment (temporal or eternal) for disobeying them, and who enforces their will?

And if it has been hijacked, why are Muslims everywhere not eager to see the heretics suppressed?

Maybe a great number of Muslims would feel differently, of course, if we didn't live in a world where Saudi clerics tell their flocks that the US invaded Bosnia and Kosovo in order to exterminate Muslims.

"Of course. Not for dhimmis to judge"

No sir. Its not for non-muslims to judge what is authentic Islam, just as its not for non-Jews to judge what is authentic Judaism, or nonChristians to judge what is authentic Christianity.

"Islam is a religion of peace" IS BS, JUST as "Islam is a form of fascism that is inherently violent" is BS. In fact Islam is historically a vast and diverse entity. Sufism is a form of Islam. Salafism is ALSO a form of Islam. And there are many others. We may be at war with a particular interpretation of Salafi Islam (IE Qutbism) but say, wrapping a Salafi in a pigskin would still be seen by most of the muslim world (including, I suspect, most Sufis) as wrapping a MUSLIM in a pigskin. Many muslims (particularly the ones who may be on our side) are reluctant to takfir - to declare a muslim to be an infidel - i doubt they would accept it when we did it.

Lets get closer to home. I think Kahanism is a distortion of Judaism, and a foul one. But if someone say, forced a Kahanist (lets say one arrested for plotting terrorism - not so farfetched - I bet Shin Bet has experience with such) to eat pork, as part of their interrogation, I think i would have problems with it. Or if someone desecrated a torah scroll as part of it. A Kahanist is still a Jew. (and if you want to quibble that they are a jew only because halacha defines a Jew by birth - lets imagine a convert to Judaism who becomes a kahanist - ive known one or two who come uncomfortably close)

or better yet why dont you go ask Ayatollah Sistani, who is probably the main reason that things are going as well as they are in Iraq, if HE thinks its a good idea to deny jihadis prayer, etc.

we seem to forget what a fence sitter is. There are folks out there who wouldnt bomb the WTC, but who are not at all unsympathetic to Salafism - and on a bad day are not unsympathetic to Qutbism. For one reason or another, they feel they have reason to mistrust the West. Do to the detainees what OBL is saying the West will do and you confirm OBLs words. Going around saying that denying muslims the right to pray cause they arent really muslims ya see, cause true Islam is against terror ya see - thats a nice debating club trick, what we would call a Philadelphia lawyer kind of argument - I doubt it will play on the ground in Karachi or Cairo, or even in Najaf.

va te faire enculer

va y voir

vas y faire un tour

liberalhawk,

Its not for non-muslims to judge what is authentic Islam, just as its not for non-Jews to judge what is authentic Judaism, or nonChristians to judge what is authentic Christianity.

And:

I think Kahanism is a distortion of Judaism, and a foul one.

Are you Jewish?

French obscenities, with a link to Islam Online. That certainly clarifies things.

liberalhawk: lets say one arrested for plotting terrorism - not so farfetched - I bet Shin Bet has experience with such

There are two Kahanist organizations in Israel that I am aware of (Kach and Kahane Chai) and both are classified as terrorist organizations, by Israel and the United States both. Therein lies a difference, I'm sure you'll agree.

The article was worth it just the see the left-libs get twisted up, as their brains go into improbability drive, passing thru every singularity point in the universe all at once ...

Its a good thing lane changes dont involve the same area of the brain, but it sure says to stay clear of a lefty lib who has his blinkers on.

Sweet thread so far,

Anyhow I trackbacked with a piece that while pointing out the same things, does so with a lovely beat down flavor.

Cordially,

Uncle J

f someone forced a Kahanist to eat pork as part of an interrogation, because they were picked up on a battlefield after a 9/11 attack perpetrated by jewish terrorists... no, I wouldn't have the slightest problem with it.

Hell, I'd bring the plum sauce - or some nice cheese for the sandwich, and make it a two-fer. And by the way, Avram, have a shrimp from the barby.

If a Jew was part of an organization that had killed thousands in a terror attack, and regularly preached the virtue of killing hundreds of thousands if possible, and ruining a Torah scroll in front of them might secure information that would save many lives, then you're likely to find that many Jewish religious authorities would find that price acceptable (of course, they'd probably have a burial ceremony for the Torah first, but the detainee wouldn't know that).

Of course, therein lies an important difference.

Joe Katzman: "does that mean these guys are the true Islam after all, bonafide believers rather than the hijackers of a religion as they are relentlessly portrayed?"

Yes, I think so.

I've argued this before, with Armed Liberal in this thread, Standing At The Mosque Door.

Joe Katzman: "But the argument on moral grounds is simply incoherent."

It's the bitter truth. There's nothing incoherent about it.

Joe Katzman: "To accept it means accepting that the way Islam is discussed in our society is basically a lie."

Yes, that's what it means.

Joe Katzman: "It seems like an odd set of messages to send: you tell the outside world that terrorists are authentic Muslims, and in the same move you tell your own people that all this "religion of peace" stuff is complete b.s."

Because we're lying about what we're up against, we naturally get into self-contradictions and confusions.

(shrug) That's the war.

rassouli, eculer ta mere, cochon. ;)

The hugest thing to me, is how can any muslim who kills or tries to kill another muslim be called a muslim? That is strictly forbidden in the Qu'ran.

In general, however, my objection to the "not for us to judge" meme goes deeper. Liberalhawk is right about this much, IMO: it is indeed up to a religion itself to define criteria for inclusion and exclusion (hence the non-validity and dishonesty of, for example, "Jews for Jesus" - or the hilarious Jews for Allah for that matter).

Having made that definition, however, others are entitled to notice those criteria, to form judgments about what they've been told and whether it fits, and to apply that moral judgment to policy when relevant. Here, it's relevant.

As for the idea that we might not want to alienate the "fence sitters" in Islam, or that we want to "win them over to our side."

• You mean, people like this ex-friend of Blackfive's?
• The gentleman from Armed Liberal's 'Unsettling Dinner'?
• Or how about all the folks who quietly cheered after 9/11 - and there were an awful lot of those. Are we talking about them? Or those who are subject to a daily propaganda barrage from their rulers about the evils of non-Islamic culture and especially the United States as a way of distractcting attention from societal failure?

To base American policy on what people like this think is, quite simply, insane. To equate it to running World War 2 on the basis of what the German Bund would approve actually understates the case. Is that really what one would propose as a yardstick?

If our so-called media did their job and actually reported the statements and nature of our enemies clearly and consistently, instead of consistently avoiding those realities and substituting "religion of peace" feel-goodism (and/or attempts to portray the entire war as one that shouldn't be fought), the foolishness of such proposals would be apparent immediately.

But they do not, and illusions persist. To our detrimen - and perhaps to our downfall.

Well said, sir.

Uncle Jimbo, re: your blog post...:

"As far as the low lifes at Gitmo I would do everything in my power to ensure they don't get to practice their twisted version of a bad religion.

For the record, I don't think Islam is an evil religion - though neither is the widespread economic poverty, backwardness and violent reputation of its followers an accident. Suffice to say that I believe Islam can be a force for good as well, and that there there are traditions within it that might rescue it - but I'll say without qualification that the version of Islam held by al-Qaeda jihadis IS evil and twisted, and can never be anything else. The best one can hope for is repentance, and the practice of an acceptable form of Islam.

"I would serve them nothing but forbidden foods, have dogs, menstruating women, and Jews everywhere taking care of them. If we can have Piss Christ venerated as high art then we can have Piss Koran in every cell. But no praying, no clues as to where Mecca is, no respect at all because it must be earned and certainly can be lost.

Must be earned. I'd start there (and save money by not paying any idiot artistes to duplicate a dumb idea). The practice of al-Qaedist Islam is forbidden and should be forbidden. If they tell me Mein Kampf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion are Islamic holy books (and given their ongoing bestseller status in the Islamic ummah, one wonders), there is no obligation to honour that request, or even to secure an Islamic ruling. The answer is no. You're in our custody, and you're here for a reason. This is about our values now. Not yours.

That, by the way, is what we are fighting about. Our values. Not theirs.

So, the practice of al-Qaedist Islam is refused. The practice of Islam is conditional upon uncertainty, in which case we offer the benefit of the doubt until given reason to suspect they are in fact al-Qaedists or associated members of Islam's Klan/Nazis. Or until signs of possible repentance - whether that be cooperation with guards, agreement to theological debates with the likes of Judge Hamoud al-Hitar, whatever. If al-Hitar insists on generalized access to Korans for all as a condition of working with the authorities, then it makes sense to do a cost:benefit and see if we want to do that. If Islamic imams in Gitmo are causing terrorists to turn through their ministry, then I want the case made on that basis. But it's something earned by the detainees or bought by others' delivered value, not a right.

Otherwise, they are beyond the shadow of humanity. Lights designed to disorient their sense of direction, no access to Korans, and related measures become fair dinkum. And non-cooperation can result in forbidden foods on the menu (preferably disguised so they aren't obvious - we can tell them later), dogs all around, menstruating women, etc.

"We have to show a certain amount of deference to the millions of folks who have submitted but we can also say to them that the people in Gitmo have stepped over a big line and don't get to play any more. In honesty desecrating holy books may score some points in breaking the will of prisoners, but overall is counter-productive if word of that gets out. But as far as allowing the jackals in Gitmo to practice their death cult we are wrong. If their religion was Satanism and they wanted to sacrifice animals I doubt we would be procuring chickens for them, but somehow we owe respect to the twisted beliefs of these savages. I don't think so! Screw 'em!

The one sure way to ensure no Korans are desecrated is to make Gitmo a Koran-free zone. Box up every single one and ship them to the Middle East where we might find some peaceful Muslims who could use them properly. The scum we are baby sitting can suffer the torment of knowing they are unable to practice the rituals of their cult and their souls are doomed, No 72 goats, No Paradise, just walls and mental torment. Good!

We don't need to start a holy war by abusing a major religion, but there is no reason why we have to abide by the tenets of a cult sworn to our destruction."

No, we do not. When their religious beliefs include the enjoined murder of 'unbelievers' as a good in and of itself, and they are picked up on the battlefield, there is no obligation to feed that evil further. To allow them to continue to practice this ideology without conditions or repentance is to feed it. And therein lies our first mistake.

We have every moral right in the world to insist on our values among those we capture, and defend those values before the world. I will listen to practical arguments that make a case for a more effective alternative or a set quid pro quo with specific entities - but moral arguments about their rights in this respect are, as I put it earlier, an insanity tbat contains a massive contradiction, and sends some very damaging messages besides.

From what I've read of the Koran there is no way to remove the anti-semitism from Islam. There are just too many evil Jews in that book, and it's not like there's a chance for a new watered down translation.

Nice Links JoeK ...

Reminds me of the lefty libs too, nice folks also .. untill they open up to you, and you find them sitting in secret on the same mountain of skulls as their overt outspoken cousins .. their softer words describe the same path, but they omit the destination.

Blackfives -friend/+neighbor isnt going to fly a plane into a tall building, or chop up his wife and kids, but when the swords come, he will silently stand aside to let them pass. nor will he provide refuge if a little tike was to escape for a few moments.

Its not much of a surprise the convergence of the hard left and the left-islam mix Or Taliban John or The Black Islamic Ferikan and other such sects springing out of the radical left.

Its not even whats interesting. its our denial that is intersting, that self loathing, self contempt at the root of our inability to make a judgement,, a display of the leftist infection in our psyche,,,

Even the progressive income tax is a example of our breakdown .. a central plank of the communist manifesto buried in us like the bullet in a healed over bullet wound, that still causes Liberty disconfort.

I could list offensies and perversions the left consider non reversable,, along with,, what remains of our integrity being negotiable ... untill finally you are a slave, or one of the skulls on murder mountain ...

Im all over and done with the self deceit, Im over the infection.. And sooner or later, the others will wake up too.

The sheepskin on the wolves are frayed and worn, and the wolves are showing a bit too much of their teeth.
.
Reality will assert itself eventually, hopefully before you see the blade thats about to seperate your head from your neck.,, before a real time mushroom cloud shows drivers on the hiway comming back into town what film cant capture.
.

#11 Glen Wishard

There are more Kahanist organisations than that. AFAIK, they haven't carried out any terrorist attacks. Which is more than can be said for the PLO.

But that's another rant :-)

The people who say this are,by and large,the same people who denounce racism,sexism and homophbia,yet proclaimed the violent racism,sexism and homophobia of gangsta rap to be the true,authentic cultural voice of black america.

Go figure.

Calm down Joe. This is not about the people we capture. It is about reassuring the people we don't capture that this is not a war about their religion. There is too much history of conflict with Islam. Whose fault it is is really irrelevant to the war effort. The question is, do we want to let this to expand and degenerate into a religious war or do we want to keep it focused on the terrorists? Keep it in mind that the religious war, once we go down that route, as we ultimately may have to, will lead to something not dissimilar to genocide. I prefer to wait for them to do something on the order of explode a nuke in CONUS before I open that door.

Well I understand the points that Joe makes, but my concerns do not run as deep.

Respect the Koran as we'd respect any other Holy book. The only change that I'd make is to insist on repsect in return. Respect for thee and not for me? Why?

That what's missing. And more coverage of the abuse of Christian, Hindu, and Buddist icons by Muslims would go along waytoward that goal.

"someone forced a Kahanist to eat pork as part of an interrogation, because they were picked up on a battlefield after a 9/11 attack perpetrated by jewish terrorists... no, I wouldn't have the slightest problem with it. "

well then sir, unless this was done to save lives (which you do specify below, but not in this paragraph) you would be in violation of halachah. AFAIK its assur to encourage a Jew, even one already in violation of halacha, to further violate halacha, much less to force them to do so.

"Hell, I'd bring the plum sauce - or some nice cheese for the sandwich, and make it a two-fer. And by the way, Avram, have a shrimp from the barby."

Ditto, unless you are saving lives by doing so.

"If a Jew was part of an organization that had killed thousands in a terror attack, and regularly preached the virtue of killing hundreds of thousands if possible, and ruining a Torah scroll in front of them might secure information that would save many lives, then you're likely to find that many Jewish religious authorities would find that price acceptable (of course, they'd probably have a burial ceremony for the Torah first, but the detainee wouldn't know that"

Well. Yes, for Pkuach Nefesh. But to justify something for Pkuach Nefesh, you have to really beleive thats whats intended and thats what would result. Im sure all major Torah authorities would trust the CIA to do this, based on Jewish experience of American power these last 70 years. However if you dont think it will really get the results you dont do it. IIUC most Orthodox authorities reject arguements for abortion on vague mental health grounds - IIUC you would need a pretty clear diagnosis of suicidal depression to get an abortion on those grounds.

Now to quite a large number of muslims, the arguement that what we're really doing is just the minimum needed to get intell and saving lives doesnt wash. Im not a "why do they hate us" self-flagelant, but it would be deeply unrealistic to ignore that the muslim worlds experience of the West this century has not been such as to increase their trust. Yeah, weve done some good things, like in Kosovo and Bosnia. But for the first half of the century the west colonized them. In the second half we supported some pretty brutal regimes. And while I think our support of Israel is justified, its not surprising that it doesnt play so well there. So in this case the analogy doesnt quite hold.

I think there is indeed something to be said for the idea that the administration has made a mistake playing along with the human rights types and allowing them to set the terms of discussion. This is surprising from a political team that is famous for doing just that. I know that I personally did a massive double take just recently when reading some of these 'torture' reports. The 'dumbing down' of what constitutes torture is amazing, and the way it has permiated the discussion is equally surprising. I remember reading things like the female soldier straddling the man (which she was disciplined for) or the Koran abuse and thinking, 'uh oh, this is bad'. Then it struck me how silly that was. These are things that at worst would get you an assault charge in civilian life and 6 months probation. And they are supposed to be torture? How did we get to the point where such a stupid mindset could even be entertained with a straight face? Anybody want to argue that Sept 12, 2001 anybody worth mentioning in this country would have objected to the 20th hijacker or OBLs bodyguard having a bottle of water dumped on them? I dont doubt 90% of the country would have voted for a flask of acid. How did we get here? Some terrorist tries to dehydrate himself to death, and Amnesty tries telling us its illegal to stick an IV in his arm? Oh yeh? Anybody who has worked in a hospital want to comment on how a patient who tried to refuse a life-saving IV would be dealt with? Its really just starting to sink in how badly the terrain of this argument has been lost to those who manifestly are trying to derail the fight. The Bush Administration has handled it badly in many ways, perhaps simply by playing ball instead of declaring terrorists captured on battlefields personas nongrata as they have been in every other war in human history. Im conflicted, on the one hand i worry about how we are viewed as the caretakers of liberty, on the other we need to win this war. We have done ourselves no favors by not repeating loudly and unashamedly that those we hold have forfitted their claim on any sort of Geneva protections (which they have), and then giving them a tribunal, and disapearing them from public view forever. Instead we have struck a middle ground which predictably the anti-bush forces have used against us. To think anything we did would be good enough for these people was a mistake.

"Or those who are subject to a daily propaganda barrage from their rulers about the evils of non-Islamic culture and especially the United States as a way of distractcting attention from societal failure"

Yes. Precisely those people.

Joe, your paragraph there makes it sound like you arent concerned with a hearts and minds struggle at all. You compare to Germany in WW2, when we didnt bother with German hearts and minds.

Germany was a nation of 70 million people or so. We fully mobilized the US to fight them. To the point that there were hardly any young men out of uniform. AND we had MAJOR allies. Like the soviet union, with tens of millions of troops. And Britain. And Canada. Etc.

There are close to 2 billion muslims. And I doubt we have a single ally, other than MAYBE Israel, who would join us in an attempt to occupy the entire muslim world. (even if we mobilized on a WW2 scale, which under the current admin - that is the guys who have implemented the interrogation policy - is pure fantasy) DO you really intend to occupy, or even contain, the entire muslim world??? Thats crazy. We NEVER relied on German troops to occupy ground for us. We DO rely on muslims. From Iraq, where the growth of Iraqi forces is our main source of hope, to Afghanistan, to Pakistan (denigrate the Paki state and army all you want, we'd be hard pressed if they werent on our side) to Algeria, to Jordan, to Indonesia, etc.

And BTW, the analogy of the Koran to Mein Kampf is false. During WW2 we respected German culture - Beethoven, Bach, Martin Luther (despite his antisemitism) etc. Mein Kampf was a book written less than 20 year before WW2, that Germans didnt revere.

You want to piss on the writings of Qutb or the statements of OBL be my guest. I doubt anyone will riot about that. The Koran aint like that.

"The possible electoral defeat of President Bush by John Kerry raises the question of whether the Global War on Terror ultimately requires a war on the Left. That is to say whether a political defeat of the Left is a prerequisite for stamping out worldwide terrorism. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many in the Left, at least, believes that the GWOT is a war on them. America, not Osama Bin Laden is the putative enemy, and their fire is directed accordingly. Conversely, many conservatives are conditioned by the sight of a de facto alliance between the Left and Islamism to think that both parties are on the same side of the fence. But must it necessarily be so?"

The answer, to all of the above questions, is "Yes.""

This sir, is crazy. I did not vote for Mr. Kerry, as he refused to publicly commit to democratization in Iraq. He was therefore not strategically capable of being commander in chief, IMHO. HOwever I have no doubt he would have done his best, by his lights, to fight AQ and terrorism. The notion that Kerry, or anyone this side of the Chomskyite loonies, is subjectively on the side of the terrorists is bizarrely false.

One wonders, given the electrons spilled here in hatred at the domestic left, and at the same time the silence about the lack of full mobilization of resources for the WOT abroad, whether some folks are really more concerned about the Kulturkampf against the left then they are about fighting the WOT.

liberalhawk,

Its not for non-muslims to judge what is authentic Islam, just as its not for non-Jews to judge what is authentic Judaism, or nonChristians to judge what is authentic Christianity.

And:

I think Kahanism is a distortion of Judaism, and a foul one.

Are you Jewish?

Yes.

"There are two Kahanist organizations in Israel that I am aware of (Kach and Kahane Chai) and both are classified as terrorist organizations, by Israel and the United States both. Therein lies a difference, I'm sure you'll agree."

I suggest you walk into a police station in Cairo, or Karachi, or Jakarta, and tell them youre a member of Al Qaeeda. See what happens. Good luck.

Yes.

Fair enough.

"Anybody who has worked in a hospital want to comment on how a patient who tried to refuse a life-saving IV would be dealt with?"

Its entirely legal for a person of sound mind to turn down a lifesaving treatment. And quite illegal to force it on them.

#28 liberalhawk

Joe may or may not be wrong to make comparisons with WW2, but you are flat-out wrong to say that an all-out war between the U.S. and the Islamic world would be one of occupation. It would be a war of annihilation, or at the very least, punitive action on a massive scale.

Depending on who you talk to in the Karachi PD, they might well ask why you weren't at the last cell meeting ...

Does anyone seen an example of the MSM providing an explanation of the Geneva Converntions and what the diffence is between lawful combatant, unlawful combatant, and common crimal is? What about an explantion of what US treaty obligations are WRT to torture and human rights?

This is somehting the MSM should be doing. Why aren't they?

#24 Richard Heddleson

Keep it in mind that the religious war, once we go down that route, as we ultimately may have to, will lead to something not dissimilar to genocide. I prefer to wait for them to do something on the order of explode a nuke in CONUS before I open that door.

You'd prefer to wait until they kill hundreds of thousands to fight decisively? I'd infer from your post you pretty much expect a nuclear attack on U.S. soil.

"Joe may or may not be wrong to make comparisons with WW2, but you are flat-out wrong to say that an all-out war between the U.S. and the Islamic world would be one of occupation. It would be a war of annihilation, or at the very least, punitive action on a massive scale."

Which is why i said 'contain'

I dont think Joe would morally justify a war of annihilation. and, practically, even if we wanted to do it, and could get a majority in the US to support it, it would be a grand strategic disaster for the US. It would lead not only to a war on all of Islam, but lead to the rest of the world, fence sitters and all, fighting against us. States simply arent going to allow the US to go around dropping nukes whereever we please. And several of the countries that oppose have nukes of their own. And are critical markets for us as well.

Punitive raids is more possible, and ive heard that before. But i think it ends up either being Clintonesque pinpricks, or escalates to annihilation "lite" At either end, it does NOT deter so much as it enrages. I dont think the purely punitive use of force, without the occupation, nationbuilding, dig em out side, really achieves much. The lead counter example is the Kosovo war - but Serbia was pretty effectively isolated (despite verbal support from Russia). Lets say we got out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Lets say, with the US gone, and a US disregarding the hearts and minds game (as Joe suggests) we get an overtly pro-AQ regime in Pakistan, and several other countries (as well as Iraq and Afghanistan). Now lets say theres a terror attack on the scale of 9/11, or slightly smaller. What do you do? A couple of conventional cruise missiles a al Bill Clinton? Or you nuke somebody? But whom? You nuke Karachi? Baghdad? The ever popular Mecca? How does the world respond then?

by the way, does anybody in the "we dont need no stinkin allies" crowd have ANY thoughts for the future???

In 50 years time we are likely NOT to be the worlds only superpower. We are going to be sharing that honor with China, whatever political shape China has at that point. The possibility that an Islamic Caliphate will be a contending superpower is vanishingly small, but Chinas rise is virtually certain. Do we really want to have NO allies at that point?

And no, this is the unilateralism meme. We do have allies now, UK, Australia, Japan, etc even if you dont want to consider "old europe" an ally. But thats with our current "hypocritical" approach to the WOT. And our tolerance of the "left" (who would be on the right in UK, and even Australia, I think) If we adopted a forget about hearts and minds, war of annihilation approach, would we keep even those allies?

Thank G-d US foreign policy is in the hands of a sane and intelligent person like Dr. Rice, and not some of the folks here.

should be "isnt the unilateralism meme"

To return to the beginning of this discussion, here is a simple set of questions for "moderalte" Muslim "leaders" in the world, along with the answers I think they would probably give:

1) Are infidels forbidden to touch the Koran? (Yes)

2) Are members of al-qaeda authentic Muslims? (No--they're heretics and apostates who pervert a religion of peace to justify mass murder).

3) Are heretics and apostates infidels? (Yes, in fact they are worse than peaceful, if misguided, Christians.)

4) Therefore, shouldn't you (moderate Muslims) be incensed that the detainees at Gitmo--who are infidels of the worst kind--are permitted anywhere near Korans? (Sputtering, backpeadaling, etc)

"Anybody who has worked in a hospital want to comment on how a patient who tried to refuse a life-saving IV would be dealt with?" Its entirely legal for a person of sound mind to turn down a lifesaving treatment. And quite illegal to force it on them.

Generally correct (although I'm not sure if it would apply in this circumstance), however I think the concern that was being made is that many of the same people who would object to forcing a prisoner who attempted to dehydrate himself to death to take water would, should he succeed in his objective, then proceed to gleefully denounce his death as yet another example of prisoners being abused and dying in U.S. custody.

Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.

#38 liberalhawk

Which is why i said 'contain'

My mistake:

And I doubt we have a single ally, other than MAYBE Israel, who would join us in an attempt to occupy the entire muslim world. (even if we mobilized on a WW2 scale, which under the current admin - that is the guys who have implemented the interrogation policy - is pure fantasy) DO you really intend to occupy, or even contain, the entire muslim world???

Emphasis seemed to be on 'occupy'.

"Its entirely legal for a person of sound mind to turn down a lifesaving treatment. And quite illegal to force it on them."

A person dying of dehydration is debateably of sound mind. But i wasnt pointing to so much the legalities, but the reality. If i was rushed to an emergency room, diagnosed dying of dehydration, the IV would be stuck in my arm however i protested or fought. Its been done in prisons as well as I recall.

"Emphasis seemed to be on 'occupy'."

yes, because I dont think a strategy of containment, even combined with selective "punitive" raids, is a feasible strategy. Thats why I focused on occupation.

"To return to the beginning of this discussion, here is a simple set of questions for "moderalte" Muslim "leaders" in the world, along with the answers I think they would probably give:

1) Are infidels forbidden to touch the Koran? (Yes)

2) Are members of al-qaeda authentic Muslims? (No--they're heretics and apostates who pervert a religion of peace to justify mass murder).

3) Are heretics and apostates infidels? (Yes, in fact they are worse than peaceful, if misguided, Christians.)

4) Therefore, shouldn't you (moderate Muslims) be incensed that the detainees at Gitmo--who are infidels of the worst kind--are permitted anywhere near Korans? (Sputtering, backpeadaling, etc)"

I think the weak link is 2. Recall, to become a muslim all you have to do is declare that Allah is god, and that Muhammed is his prophet. You do NOT have to be in obedience to all sharia. A whiskey drinking muslim is still a muslim - just a sinner. Historically, IIUC, the declaratation of someone as an apostate is reserved for folks like Bahais, Amadiyas (?) etc whose doctrines more or less directly contradict the root ideas of Islam. Not someone who simply adopts an incorrect legal ruling - note there are four major legal schools in Sunni Islam, which disagree on many things. Note also that MOST Sunni muslims, IIUC, still accept that Shia muslims ARE muslims. AFAIK no Sunni Muslims object to the fact that Shia, say, handle a Koran.

Now it IS true that the radical Salafis are fairly quick to declare other Muslims apostates. I think this has given us a wrong impression of how common this is in Islam. Most muslims (in particular non-Salafis) are NOT quick to declare even someone guilty of profound moral crimes as an apostate.

Its entirely legal for a person of sound mind to turn down a lifesaving treatment. And quite illegal to force it on them.

This is wrong. A person of "sound mind" cannot turn down a lifesaving treatment in a hospital if they are also of an otherwise "sound body". To do so, they would need to justify suicide, which it is unlikely they could do without being declared incompetent.

In The Three Conjectures, Wretchard argues that the attainment of WMD would likely lead to internecine war within the Dar al Islam.  In other words, we might not see an Al Qaeda nuke blowing up on CONUS, we might see a Hezbollah nuke taking out Riyadh.

We can hope that the fanatics waste their energy and weaponry on each other, but if they do hit the CONUS with a nuke or equivalent CBW I will be one of the people yelling to write that 1E9 in their losses column before they get another chance.

"Depending on who you talk to in the Karachi PD, they might well ask why you weren't at the last cell meeting ..."

Touche, dan, touche :)

Of course I dont know we could guarantee that theres NOBODY in the Israeli security services whos secretly a Kahanist. Infiltration all over the place, dont ya know. But probably not on the scale of what youre talking about. Still the earlier point was about legality, not infiltration.

by the way, can i point something out. Something a litte "meta" but maybe important?

If you dont mind.

in the last two days we've had 4 posts here about gitmo, interrogations, etc. And two about the international human right to guns. against one on Iraq.

Maybe, just maybe, its time to step back and take a deep breath. Chill out, as someone else said.

I mean gitmo is a cool place and all that. And yeah this is an intell war - esp on the "global" front. But lets keep it in perspective. There is no way on G-ds green earth that interogation will cease. And, IIUC, interogation in many instances HAS achieved results in cases where controversial techniques were not used. And interogations are only ONE source of intell - electronics, US and allied operatives, open source, captured documents, cell phones and computers, are all additional sources. and the intell war is only one side of the whole war - which includes not only that, and a hearts and minds battle, but also battles on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in many other oft forgotten fronts around the world - Mauritania, Algeria, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Phillipines, Chechnya, Kashmir, etc.

So calm down. Put away Time magazine. Stop worrying about torture - dont turn into the mirror image of Andy Sullivan (hell, even he seems to have reduced his torture obsession lately) Think about the triumph of Iraqi forces, liberating an Australian hostage. Cheer the capture of a Baathist general. Watch Turkey squirm as it tries to find its way back into US good graces. Wonder if Italy might really leave the Euro, and if that would really be good.

If that fails, go outside. Pet a dog. Take a walk.

Of course I dont know we could guarantee that theres NOBODY in the Israeli security services whos secretly a Kahanist.

One poll I've seen suggests about one in three Israelis would vote for a Kahanist platform. Fortunately for the Arabs, Kahanist parties are banned as a political party, too.

Richard ..

Calm down Joe. This is not about the people we capture. It is about reassuring the people we don't capture that this is not a war about their religion.

Bzzzt,,, reality denial alarm warning buzzer ... .. they ARE in a religious war with us,, they know this, they have no doubt, the only thing they question is our willingness to defend ourselves. for good reason, this reality denial self deception crap we swim in.

Reassure them they are not in a war against the infidels ? ... boy, talk about guile, leftists operate in a fake reality and relativist brain mushage, they are not indoctrinated with leftist self hate, self contempt, they have no inferiority complex ... they have a SUPERIORITY complex and there is zero doubt.

And your pu...yfied wallowing is self loathing convinces him all the more he is correct.

There is too much history of conflict with Islam. Whose fault it is is really irrelevant to the war effort.

Bzzzt, Bullshit alert, Islam was spread by the sword the flame rape pillage and humiliation of the infidel in ways that would make you wretch for a week, and they will make you watch for amusement,, all the better to see you wimper and your headless torso sprays the square .. on common public display in Iran and Saudi Arabia,, and in lots of handy video files a click away.

Whow fault ? ahh yeah .. as if the identity of the aggressor is in question ..

21 wars in the world because Islam does not a good Neighbor make ... the Infidel must convert or die ,, sumbit to the Quran or submit to the sword, if you bow your head like a slave convincing enough, they will keep you alive as a Dihmmi .. .. and you better pay up or your littler girl is raped then chopped up while you watch.

How pathetic of you to attempt to pass that "Whose fault it is is really irrelevant" corncob ... denial of reality at every level must be maintained eh ?

The question is, do we want to let this to expand and degenerate into a religious war or do we want to keep it focused on the terrorists?

Expand ? they are doing all they can, those who want to fight do not delay, the rest in stratigic wait untill theyare strong enough, and thru the process of immigrate multiply so they can impose their will and create mayhem from within.

Keep it in mind that the religious war, once we go down that route, as we ultimately may have to, will lead to something not dissimilar to genocide.

As I said, they are, we are in denial, untill they get strong enough to really hurt us.. our denial, our refusal to accept reality is the variable.

I prefer to wait for them to do something on the order of explode a nuke in CONUS before I open that door.

Its not if but when ... perhaps our willingness to sacrafice millions of our own due to politcal correct cultrual marxist projection of weakness inviting attack (always does) will have recriminations, too bad millions of the murdered of those dear to us might just indeed be needed before reality sets in ..

But with the leftist track record, I doubt even that will work ... it will instaed be held up as the example of why fighting back at all was wrong, by the same left that tied us down so we could not prevent it.

Which of course, is the whole point of the left. who deserves to get nuked, the USA that the left hates. while they shrug past mass graves of kids.

Showing the left is as evil as our enemies of the Islamic kind.

"One poll I've seen suggests about one in three Israelis would vote for a Kahanist platform. Fortunately for the Arabs, Kahanist parties are banned as a political party, too."

Citation? I dont believe that for a second. When they were legal they never got above two percent of the vote. Sounds like somebody took some kind of kahanist doctrine, softened it up and asked about that "Would you vote for a party that would expel terrorist supporters" or something like that. Kinda the way pollster can always show huge numbers who are against the first amendment here. Dont mean squat about practical politics.

liberalhawk,

Over 50% of our Congress AND our President AND the Supreme Court are against the First Amdmt.

Proof - election speech laws - you know that FEC thing.

LH:

I tend to agree regarding the hysteria and would like to post more than I do on those "forgotten fronts" if not for the fact that my RL job (which also involves this stuff) keeps eating up my time.

Still, the most common accusation that keeps floating around is that WoC et al. deliberately ignore the Gitmo stuff ...

liberalhawk,

You may be quite right regarding apostasy in Islam. But I can imagine few crimes against religion more serious than using it to justify mass murder, which gives your entire "community of faith" a bad name. I mean, Rushdie got a (thus far unconsumated) death sentence for saying mean things about Islam. I would think that, to any rational mind, becoming a terrorist should rank higher on the heresy scale.

johnnymozart,

Although there is little caselaw on the right of fully competent, otherwise healthy people to refuse life-saving medical treatment, it is highly likely that the Supreme court would find that they do in fact have just that right. "[I]nformed consent is generally required for medical treatment. Justice Cardozo, while on the Court of Appeals of New York, aptly described this doctrine: 'Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body, and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient's consent commits an assault, for which he is liable in damages.'" CRUZAN v. DIRECTOR, MDH, 497 U.S. 261, (1990) (internal citation omitted) It's your body; to merely touch it without your permission is a battery for which the toucher can be sued.

"Still, the most common accusation that keeps floating around is that WoC et al. deliberately ignore the Gitmo stuff ..."

Really? i dont follow the leftie blogs (im liking praktile, Gandelman, and sometime Yglesias), and Sully only seems to mention Glenn and sometime Wretchard. Though hes really obsessed with Glenn not mentioning it enough. Wretchard and other far righties he tends to focus not on their ignoring it, but on their justiying it.

"I mean, Rushdie got a (thus far unconsumated) death sentence for saying mean things about Islam. I would think that, to any rational mind, becoming a terrorist should rank higher on the heresy scale."

well sure. Go complain to the Iranian mullahs. In Judaism we have a legal category called Chillul hashem - profanation of Gods name - Ie doing bad things that make Judaism look bad. I dont know if Islam has a similar category. If they did though, i wouldnt be surprised if its a legally distinct thing from Apostasy, as it is in Judaism. As for the seriousness of the punishment, of course death for apostasy is crazy. And, AFAIK most non-salafi muslims dont really practice that. It was a radical Salafi who attacked that MP in Holland. Its the Wahabi govt in KSA that enforces this sort of thing.

#29 liberalhawk,

Kerry sold us out to the communists. (I believed him at the time). Why are you so sure he wouldn't do it again?

Jimmy Carter without the endearing Southern Charm.

The Left has not joined sides with Islamism; the Left simply does not believe that there is a war going on. Or that this is not a real war, its a rhetorical device like war on drugs. Or even if there is something called a war going on, they fundamentally do not feel threatened.

How often has it been asked: "Do you know there is a war going on?"

On the Left, ambivalence meams that feckless point-scoring against the POTUS and Gitmo hand-wringing poses no threat. But on the Right, (the non-internationalist conservatives), success breads apathy.

LH:

I'm just saying that the accusation is made, true or not, that we deliberately ignore any and all cases of prisoner abuse so as not to tarnish our Great Leader™. Similar (and equally baseless, IMO) lines of thought include that we're in on a cover-up because we don't spend our days obsessing over Plame, Cheney, Halliburton, Feith, and most recently the Downing Street Memo.

So now we've had our Gitmo commentary (which I think has gone reasonably well, all things considered) so no one can accuse us of ignoring the controversy the next time it comes up.

LH:

I believe the Islamic term you are looking for is a harabah (phonetic).

#29 liberalhawk,

"Kerry sold us out to the communists. (I believed him at the time). Why are you so sure he wouldn't do it again?"

Jimmy Carter without the endearing Southern Charm.

Jimmy "bear trap" Carter?

harabah - not quite. Chillul hashem is a broader category - ANY behavior that brings Jews and Judaism into disrepute. A kahanist terrorist does chillul hashem, but SO does an Ivan Boesky, or even someone who cuts you off on the road while wearing a kippah. Harabah seems to refer only to some kinds of war.

Richard Heddleson !!!

You prefer a Nuke Exploded in the US before we get rough?

The hell with you!

China is not going to be a superpower.

It is a Ptomkin village.

20% (the coastal manufacturing and trade sector) is doing well. 80% (the inland agricultural sector) is not.

They also have a severe demographic problem. In about 20 years their population will begin aging 9 months per year. They will have the problem of a bunch of old folks and no $$$ to support them.

Which says their relative military power will peak in about 15 years.

In addition if they want "quality" military eqpt. they have to buy Russian designs. Their own designs are crap.

Did I mention the political problem: no land ownership. One party state. Corruption.

I was reading about the WW2 British intel. The reason given for it being better than the German was the Germans were corrupt. The Brits were not.

Corruption leads to bad info.

What does that do to an information based modern tech society? Kills it in the womb.

BTW the pollution problems in China resble those of the Soviets.

And huge swaths of agricultural land are lost to desertification every year.

Rob,

I don't want to belabor this, but while you are correct anout surgery, I spoke very specifically. A person requiring surgery is would be able to justify refusing surgery based on a logical, although debatable reason, for example- risk of complications. Justifying refusing rehydration would be far more difficult and a person doing so would be viewed as potentially suicidal and a psychiatric consult would undoubtedly be obtained to determine if the person was either incompetent or depressed, both of which would impair ability to make sound judgments. I suspect one of the two would be determined, and indeed, be upheld, and life-saving treatment "against the patient's wishes" would ensue.

The Left has not joined sides with Islamism; the Left simply does not believe that there is a war going on. Or that this is not a real war, its a rhetorical device like war on drugs.

I'm not sure I see a significant difference, PDShaw, because the end result of an advantage to Islamists is still the result.

johnnymozart,

If the IV fluid in question is blood, than I am certain that you are wrong and that refusal of a transfusion is protected by law, but I don't have time to look it up. I doubt any caselaw exists for simple IV saline because most likely nobody ever refuses it.

Simply put, you don't have to "justify" to anyone your decision. It's your body.

"I doubt any caselaw exists for simple IV saline because most likely nobody ever refuses it."

I find it unlikely anyone close enough to death to require an IV to survive would be dealt with as a rational patient. As I said before, in practice it would never reach close to a court. The nurses would make a command decision and thats that. Just try getting out of your wheelchair at the hospital and tell me you are in charge of your own body.

#53 liberalhawk

Citation?

A poll by the Haifa University's National Security Studies Center. The relevant section:

The survey also found that 48.6 percent of the Israeli Jews polled said the government was overly sympathetic to the Arab population, and that if national elections were held today, close to 30% of the public would support a Kach-like party (whose platform was to expel Arabs from Israel and Yesha).

Another relevant section, which I'd forgotten:

An October 2004 survey commissioned by Israel's Channel 2 TV revealed that 58% of adults aged 18-22 support "transfer" (the expulsion of Arabs from Israel), 26.4% believe the slain Kach Party founder, Rabbi Meir Kahane, was correct in his call to expel the Arabs, while one-third believe the Kach Party should be declared a legal organization once again.

ME: The Left has not joined sides with Islamism; the Left simply does not believe that there is a war going on. Or that this is not a real war, its a rhetorical device like war on drugs.

Johnnymozart: I'm not sure I see a significant difference, PDShaw, because the end result of an advantage to Islamists is still the result.

I guess I'm taking issue with Joe's Morder diagnosis. I'm not convinced that defeating the Left is essential to defeating Islamism, I think creeping ambivalence and apathy from both sides of the spectrum are more disconcerting. I think there is more Chuck Hagel on the right, than the type of studied interest in the WOT that you see in these parts. But yes, the result is the same.

PD, some of the far Left have joined the Islamofascist movement. Lynne Stewart is their poster child along with Galloway. I think you can see people like Michael Moore flirting with the idea with his usual cowardice in his failure to commit.

Has the Left joined with Islam to try and destroy the West? Undoubtedly. Both hate and fear the central tenets of the West, openness, social mobility, freedom, no aristocracy, secularism, technology, etc. Leftists dream of some romanticized Islam-Socialist utopia where they change human nature and apologize for being wealthy while Muslims and others live in poverty, Muslims dream of the Caliphate and ruling by tribute and terror.

Sen Durbin called our troops Nazis and Pol Pot torturers, for PLAYING RAP MUSIC at terrorist prisoners.

That speaks for itself as to the Democratic Party being uninterested to hostile to the task of defending America.

Simply put, you don't have to "justify" to anyone your decision. It's your body

Since you insist on arguing about this, you do indeed have to justify it if there is evidence that you may not be rational, Rob, whether it is blood or whether it is saline. People who refuse blood justify it on the basis of being jehovah's Witnesses or other reasons. But they justify it. People making those those decisions have to prove that they are able to make them. People who just refuse "because I don't want it" are viewed with appropriate level of concern, because Mark Buehner is exactly right; many times the people doing it are not rational. People refuse saline lots of times, but someone with hypernatremia from dehydration cannot be considered able to make informed decisions.

If you choose not to resuscitate some who later turns out to have been incompetent, depressed, or have some other decision making impairment, Rob, then I assure you, you will not have a leg to stand on in court, when you are sued for malpractice.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/
My Senator, Dick Durbin.

This is exactly what im talking about, if you read the accusations Durbin quotes, you hear about handcuffing and shackling a prisoner to the floor (their padding against the cuffs are changed several times a day, I suppose they picked that up from Eichmann), about extreme temperatures in the room (while our troops are sitting in 120 degree Iraq), and about 'loud rap music' (Pol Pot preferred the Sugar Hill Gang when he really wanted an answer). How is this anything but outrageous and wreckless hyperbole? This is nothing like what the Nazis or Stalin did. Nothing. If anything, this is quite the opposite of how they interrogated. Yet Durbin's idiotic little comment will go unquestioned and unexamined by most of the country, because we are so far down this meme not many people are taking the time to really ask if sleep deprivation is really how Stalin would have treated the 20th hijacker. WTF?

Durbin's comments are the headline in his home town newspaper. I think Durbin will take heat in his home state, come away looking less responsible in his choice of words than Obama.

Question though: If Bush says that the Geneva Convention will be complied with, while recognizing that the Geneva Conventions largely have no application to these detainees, is Bush helping create the confusion that exists?

Follow-up: What percentage of the American public erroneously think that the Geneva Conventions require a trial?

Colt, 3dc,

I don't expect a nuclear device will be exploded in the U. S. by terrorists. But the U. S. is not going to mobilize for or support a religious war short of an event of that magnitude, nor should it, in my opinion. As I said, when it comes to that point, we won't fight fair. It will be more like genocide than a war.

I expect this war to last at least 35 more years. Americans may not like the fact that it will take this long to resolve the problem, but sometimes that's the only way it happens. It took 30 years to deal with Germany. It took 40 years to deal with Russia.

One could say we've been in this one since 1979 and we should date it from that time. For Iran, that may be true. I would be surprised to see the Mullahs in charge past 2020. But we'll still have fundamentalist wackos from Saudi to deal with along with whatever nutters arise out of Egypt post-Hosni. As Bush has promised from day 1, this will be a long war. Patience is called for.

"Question though: If Bush says that the Geneva Convention will be complied with, while recognizing that the Geneva Conventions largely have no application to these detainees, is Bush helping create the confusion that exists?"

Yeh, I think that is a valid point. Bush (Rummy really) has tried to have it both ways. Its one of those situations where they may be factually correct, or at least have a plausible reading, but because they have been unwilling to take the charges on head on and explain things to the American people in detail they look like they are just full of crap. Luckilly for them once again their enemies are overplaying their hands. No rational person can look at what Durbin said and come to his conclusions, its just nutty.

"Follow-up: What percentage of the American public erroneously think that the Geneva Conventions require a trial?"

Im not sure, I think most Americans are just not sure what the Conventions say and only know what the MSM is trying to feed them. Luckilly that doesnt work so well these days. Rummy and Cheney should have been out usuing their great gifts of sarcasism and reputations as serious people to swat this hyperbole right back in their faces. I could just see Rummy asking the press corp if they seriously advocate trying the 100,000 enemy soldiers taken prisoner in the next war. Or Cheney asking if rap music and leg shackles is really analagous to Vietnamese tiger cages and bamboo torture.

A big problem has been the poor quality of the PR coming out of the Bush administration. They need to put a simple sound-bite tag onto the silly positions of people like Durbin and Leahy.

I propose we call the Democrat position on detainees "Catch and Release Program".

johnnymozart,

Indeed, someone shows up an ER hovering near death probably will be rescued if for no other reason than doctors and nurses don't like to see people die. The probability of success in a battery or malpractice action is low because of the emergency nature of the situation; courts don't like to second-guess doctors who make split-second decisions on incomplete information. And Mark is right that a severely dehydrated person may well be legally incompetent.

I do not know the probability of legal success in a malpractice suit in the event that doctors withhold simple lifesaving treatment at the request of a possibly incompetent patient, but a jury might well prefer a doctor who errs on the side of life.

But you haven't provided any legal authority for your overly-broad claims, which, since we are arguing about a legal question, is not a very effective way to persuade. If you care, I'd suggest going to a legal library and picking up Am. Jur. 2d and looking under "Death." Sections 496 and the following indicate that doctors who perform unwanted procedures are both civilly and criminally liable, and that competent patients generally can do--or not do--whatever they want. Of course, you can also write it down in advance to express your wishes in case you become incompetent (Look under "Advance Health Care Directives" in Am. Jur.). That is, if you intend to go on a hunger strike for some reason, you can specify in advance that you don't want to be nourished through IVs, and then even if you wind up in an ER starving to death, the doctors can't help you (in practice they might, and a jury might support their decision in a subsequent suit, but the law says they shouldn't).

The key issue is competence, not justification.

>>To return to the beginning of this discussion, here is a simple set of questions for "moderalte" Muslim "leaders" in the world, along with the answers I think they would probably give:

1) Are infidels forbidden to touch the Koran? (Yes)

2) Are members of al-qaeda authentic Muslims? (No--they're heretics and apostates who pervert a religion of peace to justify mass murder).

3) Are heretics and apostates infidels? (Yes, in fact they are worse than peaceful, if misguided, Christians.)

4) Therefore, shouldn't you (moderate Muslims) be incensed that the detainees at Gitmo--who are infidels of the worst kind--are permitted anywhere near Korans? (Sputtering, backpeadaling, etc)"

I think the weak link is 4. The assumption that many/most of the "detainees" in Gitmo are actually murderous assholes seems dubious to me. See also "Son of Al Qaeda".

I propose we call the Democrat position on detainees "Catch and Release Program".

The key issue is competence, not justification

No, Rob, it is about informed consent AND competence. Competence is justification for doctors to do or to do not. It is incumbent upon the doctor

Rob, you keep asking to look up things for which you have assumed the outcome. I am not disagreeing with your point, but you are changing the context of the original comment

To do so, they would need to justify suicide, which it is unlikely they could do without being declared incompetent.

to which you replied:

Although there is little caselaw on the right of fully competent, otherwise healthy people to refuse life-saving medical treatment, it is highly likely that the Supreme court would find that they do in fact have just that right.

Yes, there IS little caselaw, because there are assuredly not many of these; the reason being that an otherwise healthy person refusing lifesaving treatment would be viewed as abnormal, and indeed, suicidal. We view a suicidal person as having impaired decision making capacity, Rob. Pull out any psychology or medical ethics textbook that you like. And a doctor faced with that decision would err on the side of assuming that the patient wanted to live and not die in an emergency if there is doubt. While the absurd theoretical example you used would be correct, the likelihood that an otherwise healthy person coming in for a lifethreatening emergency would have their advance directives readily available is miniscule at best.

The key word that you used here is "unwanted procedures". It is the doctors discretion to decide by predetermined criteria who is able to make "informed consent" and who fits the definition of "competent". And it is THAT which determines what is and is not an "unwanted procedure." In principle you are correct, but real life doesn't always work that way.

An otherwise healthy person who comes into ANY ER in the country, and inexplicably refuses lifesaving treatment will be assumed to have impaired decision making capacity until proven otherwise if there is any doubt whatsoever. Bank on it. That is for not only the patient's protection, but the physician's as well.

In order for an otherwise healthy person to refuse lifesaving treatment successfully, you have to prove that suicidal ideations=competency. My only point was that would be difficult to do, which I imagine, is why you see very little caselaw on it, as you mentioned.

That is, if you intend to go on a hunger strike for some reason, you can specify in advance that you don't want to be nourished through IVs, and then even if you wind up in an ER starving to death, the doctors can't help you (in practice they might, and a jury might support their decision in a subsequent suit, but the law says they shouldn't).

Again, I am not disagreeing with the spirit of what you are saying here. Theoretically, you are right. What I am arguing however, is that most people like the imaginary patient you are describing will not be assumed to be on a hunger strike or some other odd reason; they will be, and appropriately so, assumed to be not of sound mind. Unless, of course, that they can demonstrate unequivocally that there is no impaired decision making capacity. That demonstration, Rob, is incumbent upon the patient to make. Which I am arguing will be difficult to do if the choice being made results in the unnecessary death of an otherwise healthy patient.

johnnymozart,

I think the problem here is a mismatch between medical ethics (and practical application thereof) and the law. As a matter of medical ethics, although I know little about the subject, I'm in favor of saving people's lives. I accept that people who are in critical danger, or who seem to want to die, probably have diminished capacity. And very few if any otherwise-healthy people want to sue doctors who save their lives, which leads to a dearth of caselaw. But note that the law distinguishes between suicide (the active taking of one's life) and refusal of medical treatment (again, grab an Am. Jur. or A.L.R. at the local law library)

And as a matter of practical reality, which often has very little to do with legal reality, you are probably correct that it will be virtually no circumstances in which doctors will not attemt to save a critical patient's life. (And as a matter of legal reality, decisions made in emergencies get substantial deference).

But you have made a number of legal claims--e.g. "you will not have a leg to stand on in court"--which you have failed to substantiate with legal authorities. In the case of this particular quote, you are quite wrong: a doctor who withholds lifesaving treatment has a solid leg to stand on. He can say that his patient was fully competent and he had no choice but to respect the patient's wishes. The question of competence, and of the doctor's determination thereof, is a question of fact for the jury (advised, no doubt, by expert witnesses in proper medical practice). The jury may be biased in favor of life--and thus the doctor may be likely to lose--but that's not the same thing as "having no leg to stand on."

Reframe what you have said as "this is what doctors do in real ERs" or "this is what medical ethics suggests is right" and I have no argument with you. But don't confuse what doctors do with what lawyers do.

OK, I'll agree with the fact that perhaps we were talking past each other to an extent, but you have quoted me out of context, and I am not going to let you get away with it. :)

You said that I claimed "you will have no leg to stand on". Here's what I said: "If you choose not to resuscitate someone who later turns out to have been incompetent, depressed, or have some other decision making impairment, Rob, then I assure you, you will not have a leg to stand on in court, when you are sued for malpractice.

That's a bit different from what you quoted me as saying. And I spoke figuratively, anyway. I was actually referring to a negligent assumption, rather than a defensible opinion. Either way, I wouldn't want to be the doctor trying to justify it.

And having said that, I stand by it. While I am certainly not versed in the jursiprudence literature, I can cite plenty of medical journals and medical textbooks, which, if you like, I will. And additionally, I feel confident making that statement because failure to fully investigate a person's decision making capacity (for example, by obtaining a psychiatry consult) and subsequently withholding medical treatment on that basis would be malpractice, and I personally believe a physician or their lawyer would be a fool to let that go to trial if there was sufficient lack of documentation to prove that he had done an adequate evaluation. As you say, a jury will determine what is "adequate" or "reasonable", but the point is not to have to be in front of a jury at all.

Given that the legal standard for malpractice is largely medical--failure to to what a "reasonable physician" would do--I will yield to your judgement on that question. Remember, though, that battery is a separate tort from malpractice, and "all doctors do this" isn't a legally sufficient defense to battery (might win in front of a jury, though).

And I didn't mean to misquote you (although I concede I was misleading), I meant to point out that the question of incompetence is one for the factfinder (usually a jury), that is, it isn't really a legal question at all. Your sentence, rewritten, reads: "If a doctor commits malpractice, he's in deep trouble." Well, sure. I peeled off one of your assumptions to make a point, but I should have been more explicit about that.

I think we can consider the "medical malpractice" sub-thread as addressed.... views have been put out there, people can make up their minds, but it's tangental to the topic. If someone can come in with a blockbuster post that clearly settles the issue with cites and sources, do it. Otherwise, how 'bout we mosey on....

Sorry I've been away from this debate for so long. Wanted a day to cool down, and other things to do.

Agreed. I wasn't trying to be overly dogmatic or adversarial. It was probably unwise of me to tune this to fine detail, but in the context of liberalhawk's original comment with regards to the "torture" of detainees trying to dehydrate themselves to death, I thought it would be prudent to look at examples of what the people faced with those decisions have to do. (And that's not even considering the tenuous legal status of the detainees, anyway)

Thanks for the reasoned debate.

Joe, sorry, was wondering when one of the marshals might show up to shut us down.

My apologies for inadvertently hijacking the thread. It was tangential.

Yes, joe, we got way off topic.

I am Hindu (originally from India) so you may take this with whatever bias/prejudice you may believe I have. I am no foreign policy expert, sociology expert, or religious scholar (actually, even in Hinduism extremely lacking in this regard).

What JoeK posited has been gnawing me for some time (I am a recovering liberal). A few years back (I think before 9-11), we had a discussion group with a swami and somehow we got on this very topic. I had mentioned that it is only a small minority of Muslims that is carrying out violence in the name of Islam and so perhaps this fringe does not represent true Islam (still in my liberal days here).

He responded with a position similar to what JoeK states in his original entry. He asked: although there are, no doubt, people within Islam who wish to carry out some form of reformation within Islam, what percentage actively or passively support such reformation? If this percentage is extremely low, then what segment of Islam is to be considered the fringe and what segment is to be considered true Islam: those who want some sort of reformation or those who actively support/sympathize with the Wahabi form of Islam?

Since that day, I have looked for signs of some sort of discussion let alone attempts at reformation within Islam that is advocated by some sizeable segment of the Muslim population. Maybe I haven't noticed it or I haven't looked hard enough but I don't believe I come across those signs yet. Perhaps President Bush's actions in the Middle East can provoke such a widespread discussion. Yes I am not Muslim and yes perhaps I am being judgemental but this strain of Islam is, to put it mildly, affecting the rest of the world whether or not the rest of the world wants to be affected.

BTW, the reason I bring up my religion and country of origin is to point out that this "brand" of Islam has existed since close to Islam's birth. It did not suddenly come about as a reaction/response to the big, bad and evil America. If one investigates closely, one can discern a pattern/methodology to the conquest/administration of lands (of which significant parts of India can be classified) by this Islam. I don't think it has changed much in over 1200 years.

Please don't misunderstand this as a refutation/condemnation of all of Islam. I still wish to believe that radical Islam is only the fringe. I fervently hope so.