Re: International politics flamewar! [was Re: DebConf 2 post-mortem]
On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 19:57, Chris Lawrence wrote:
> On Jul 11, Russell Coker wrote:
> > I've never seen the Canadian PM declaring war on terrorists or drug
> > users/smugglers. The Canadian government isn't planning to invade the
> > Netherlands if their soldiers go on trial for war crimes.
>
> <INTERNATIONAL_POLITICS_LECTURE_MODE>
>
> (In this previous paragraph, you can also use the name of the leader
> of any other country that depends on the United States to stop it from
> being invaded/nuked by $BAD_COUNTRY_OF_THE_WEEK. For example, it
> reads equally well with the names "Tony Blair" and "Gerhard Schroder"
> in it, much as it reads with the name of the Australian prime
> minister, John Howard.)
I don't think that the Australian government needs to kiss US butt to avoid
being invaded. They are quite busy kissing the butts of all the countries
that might invade them anyway...
> </INTERNATIONAL_POLITICS_LECTURE_MODE>
>
> To put it another way, Mr. Chretien is fully cooperating in the "war
> on terror", even though he isn't calling it that. If you were on the
> U.S.'s list of "bad people from Australia", you'd be rotting in a
> Canadian jail today. Of course, that presumes that the Australian
> government hadn't already arrested you before you left (much more
> likely IMO).
Apart from bad people who get collected from a war zone, bad people have a
right to a fair trial. The Australian government wants to change that, they
want to be able to detain people without any trial, and without actually
accusing them of guilt. This would be turning back the legal system to a
time before the English civil war (or making it much like the legal systems
of the nasty countries that the US wants to attack depending on your point of
view).
Right now if a country wants to arrest me they have to formally accuse me of
a crime, give me an opportunity to defend myself at a trial, and if I am
found guilty a judge will assign a sentence based on their judgement and the
relevant laws. If the liberal government gets it's way then all that will be
history, Australian justice will become like Taliban justice.
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