| | Kerguelens = Atlantis? / Outlaw (2 Parts)
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OUTLAW
One very useful concept that has dropped out of usage, but which derives from common law, is that of the "outlaw." We are currently crippled in our fight against the islamists by the Left's insistence that there is no such thing as an enemy or a war crime, and by the Right's reluctance or failure to make explicit the moral and political issues involved.
For instance, before we toppled Saddam we were categorically ~not~ at peace with the Iraqi regime. Saddam had breached the terms of the Gulf War armistice within a month of the cessation of hostilities. Given that there was no peace treaty (i.e., definitive cessation of war) with the Iraqi regime and that an armistice is a temporary and conditional truce, Saddam's (1) violence against his populace, (2) failure to prove he had destroyed his armaments and (3) unceasing daily attacks against the coalition's "no-fly" patrols were all acts of war. THE GULF WAR NEVER ENDED!!! We were in a de facto and de jure state of war for the remainder of GHWB's & all of Clinton's presidencies, and those two men, who had sworn to uphold the laws and treaties of the U.S. and to protect the U.S. from her enemies should both have been impeached. By using force to remove Saddam, GWB was not going to war, he was ~ending~ the war.
Yet neither the GWB administration nor the press nor anyone in the punditocracy ever made the argument. Given that the emperor had already been naked for 12 years, no one wanted to comment at that late hour on his clothing. We were now going to pick his hair for nits in the U.N. and with trial balloons. Hence the unfortunate and awkward need to manufacture a new casus belli, the non-concept of WMD. This fatal fiction that the Whitehouse conjured up was a meaningless mental contagion that opened Bush up for attack after the "cessation of major hostilities." No matter what weapons were found, or traced to Syria, or to the bottom of the Persian Gulf, Bushes foes and the Left were never going to admit that ~those~ weapons were ~the~ weapons of mass destruction.
And just as the administration had failed to explain that we were ~already~ at war, and that the burden was ~Saddam's~ to show he had destroyed the weapons his own generals had admitted to possessing at the time of the armistice, the administration has now failed to argue that the Gitmo detainees are not felons but war-criminals and outlaws, and it has failed to make explicit the moral justification for using overwhelming force and summary justice to vanquish our enemies. It is too late to say "Oh, yeah, we forgot, you guys in Gitmo have by your own actions put yourselves outside the protections of law, and we are going to shoot you all tomorrow at dawn." The party-political implications would be unacceptable both domestically and with our allies. We have morally disarmed ourselves.
It is time to re-arm. As a matter of domestic law we must re-state and re-affirm the concepts of treason and sedition and we must return to treating outlaws – capital felons, murderers, or traitors and the like who have intentionally removed themselves from the state and the state's protections - as outlaws, and permanently exile them to hell on earth or hell itself.
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GALT'S GULCH?
I first came up with the idea of exploiting the Kerguelens a year ago when arguing with my O'ist bro-in-law that we needed to bring back exile as a tool in law enforcement. Exile is cheaper for society than is life imprisonment of criminals, and it is not irrevocable as is the death penalty. Also, it is much less pleasant and a much better deterrent than prison. Perusing my Atlas I chose the Kerguelen's for their remoteness and unpleasantness and as better than Tristan da Cunha or South Georgia because they belong to our state enemy France and not an ally.
But as a Dane by descent I happen to love cold and wet weather, and after reading Coates' above response last night it occurred to me that while desert-dwellers mind find the Kerguelens hellish, I would find them ideal. The thought came that perhaps the islands might be of better use. And I now see that Hudgins and Malcom parallel my thoughts. What could possibly be a better cover to keep out trespassers than appearing to be a barren, frozen, frog-infested fen? (P.M, S.V.P.) Maybe Galt's already there. Does anyone know how much parcel postage would cost to send the French scientists a copy of Atlas Shrugged?
Ted Keer 09/03/06 NYC
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