From Daniel Weintraub's great California politics newsletter:
Actually, I have an idea on this which came from reading Rawls. I'll try and elaborate in the next day or so.Some of the San Francisco peace activists who protested to save Saddam before the war have now gone to Baghdad to keep a close eye on the U.S. military occupation forces and the private companies working on the reconstruction, reports the SF Chronicle. "This is a test of our rights --of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly -- and we will press those to the full extent," San Francisco activist Medea Benjamin tells the Chronicle. Among other things, the activists hope to establish Iraqi labor unions and an organization to work for human rights. Strange. I wonder why they waited until after the fall of Saddam to set up their human rights shop in downtown Baghdad.
(emphasis mine)
Perhaps I am slow or just missing something here.
All of these rights being claimed would seem to end at our border.
How is it that simply because the US Armed forces are on the ground in Iraq that the full range of our constitution is also considered in effect.
signed, puzzled in Michigan
"This is a test of our rights -- of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly -- and we will press those to the full extent," San Francisco activist Medea Benjamin tells the Chronicle.
Umm - those are rights they are privileged to hold, certainly.
But they're in Iraq right now, not the U.S.
Isn't that reasoning rather shoddy to explain their presence in Iraq as of this moment, then?
GMTA, Jim...
This is the exactly the money quote:
"I wonder why they waited until after the fall of Saddam to set up their human rights shop in downtown Baghdad."
Isn't it amazing that all these protesters protest only where there is a decent civil rule.
Benjamin opposes a lengthy occupation, which she defined as five to 10 years.
A glimmer of sense? Up to but not including five years OK? Will they admit it when they discover that Bechtel and others are more coordinators than exploiters, sub-contracting locally and not making a whole lot? That while Iraqis sensibly do not want an occupation, they equally sensibly do not want us out too quickly?
= = =
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/1928/myth.htm
"Medea killed her brother and chopped his body into pieces" which does not sond like a nice person.
OTOH "Creon, the King of Corinth retaliated by killing 13 of Medea’s 14 children", it was not Medea herself killing them or wanting them dead.
Send them to Gitmo. Please. Let them look out from the cages onto the Castroite paradise that surrounds.