I don't understand what evidence they need to gather...just take them out. It's not like we care about international law anyways.

That study is from 2005, and FOX has climbed quite a few steps on the crazy-ladder since then, secondly, like I said, it finds "most of the media" has a "leftist bias" thats because FOX has, as I said, moved the standard on the right into crazyville. This makes anyone left of Reagan basically into a "leftist." Secondly this was an American study. From the outside, to the rest of the world, FOX and its fans look like bewildered extremists with little or no idea what goes on outside their own, largely imaginary, world.

Your insinuations that I'm some sort of brainwashed leftist is very strange. I'm not American, I'm Norwegian, and frankly American left or right politics mean very little to me, nor, I think, to the rest of the world. To me what matters is that American politicians are reality-based and care about other countries and their history as well as their own, that they respect international laws and treaties and that they know about real problems like global warming and so on.

Which reminds me,the fact that I mention global warming probably proves to you that I'm a "leftist" but in the rest of the world GW is not a partisan issue: It's just a scientific fact. And that example alone is enough to show how screwed up the American right has become. Not only are they denying undeniable scientific fact, but they've managed to make it a partisan issue. Basically they've managed to get half the country to ignore the available data on the changing climate, as well as a few other things, like evolution.

We don't really have partisan lines like that, sure we have fiscal conservatives and progressives, left and right and so on, but we dont have the same degree of reality denial. (Alas, I fear it might be on its way to some of the populistic parties, inspired by the success in the US) Anyway we have discussions and debates and disagree on important principles and so on. But no side lies and distorts systematically, no side is fundamentally antiscientific, and no side is full of religious nuts.. Oh well, I guess what I'm saying is that theres nothing wrong about being right wing, but theres something seriously wrong with the rightwingers.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

I maintain - based on personal experience and analysis - that FOX News is no more biased than any other media outlet. Your perception that it is 'insane' is more a reflection of your own left-wing bias, than towards any inherently stronger bias in FOX News. As a leftist, your sensitivity to differential opinion is very high. You are on the lookout - so to speak - for right wing bias because it more easily upsets and angers you.
As a result of this hypersensitivity, you have a false perception that there is 'more' bias at FOX. In addition, what bias you do see become more exaggerated and extreme in your mind. However, research has repeatedly proven that FOX News is no more biased 'to the right' than MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NYT, NBC, AP, and many other news outlets are biased to the left.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA
-6664.aspx
This research was conducted by the UCLA - hardly a right wing bastion - and clearly indicates that FOX is not some sort of outlier in the spectrum of media bias.
So I dismiss as poppycock the false accusation that FOX is somehow crazed, while other outlets are not. Such an opinion is balderdash and nonsense. I've watched all news outlets - and there is no difference between Olbermann, Maddow, Schultz on the left and Hannity, Beck, O'Rielly on the right. These persons are not 'news anchors'. They are opinion based infotainers, and they are all equally guilty of voicing strong opinions that their opponents would call 'extremist' or 'crazy'. However, the accusation that FOX is somehow the sole offender in that regard is pure bologna.

Nobody said you have to be ashamed of your country. You just have to respect the Constitution, which gives certain rights if you are awaiting trial or not, and most of those rights don't go away if you are guilty, the privileges yes, the rights no. How is asking him to be treated with the respect the Constitution demands being unpatriotic? If anything, it is the very definition of patriotic, sticking up for the Constitution even when others think it should be ignored. All people are asking for here is that the government be transparent about their treatment of him to be sure his rights granted by the Constitution and International law are being protected.
It is those here who call for Julian Assange to be sent here for trail that could be called unpatriotic. He did the job the media is supposed to do, and is the very reason the freedom of the press clause exists in the 1st Amendment: to act as a check and balance against government corruption and violation of international laws and treaties.
And when the public knows about such treatment in other countries, then people here complain as well. Perhaps not the people you listen to, or the major media outlets, but the Real News, Democracy Now and other independent non-corporate, pro-humanitarian media do.
If he is guilty then yes, he should spend his life in jail, nobody would argue that, but he should be treated humanely with his full Constitutional and International rights before and after said convection.

>> ^bremnet:

"Air raids on non-military targets that claim large numbers of civilian casualties are prohibited under international law". I guess the International Police were busy that day. For people to be shocked by such practices or debate it in the context of whether it is civil or not during war are delusional. It's war after all. (Should the Allies have stopped carpet bombing Germany while millions of other civilians are taken to the death camps because, you know, it's the proper thing to do? My ancestors would have voted no).


How is it better to try to kill everyone in the city--including innocent civilians, Jews, and POWs (like Kurt Vonnegot, who was in Dresden during that attack) than to do a targeted bombing campaign that specifically targets infrastructure, communications, and factories?

"It's war, after all."

You could justify just about anything with that statement, including the indiscriminate use of nuclear and chemical weapons, the execution of POWs, or the flying of jet planes into skyscrapers. It's not delusional to do as much as possible to prevent atrocities from occurring (or re-occurring as the case may be). You may not be able to wage a war without the possibility of an atrocity occurring but that certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't try to limit that possibility as much as possible.

"Air raids on non-military targets that claim large numbers of civilian casualties are prohibited under international law". I guess the International Police were busy that day. For people to be shocked by such practices or debate it in the context of whether it is civil or not during war are delusional. It's war after all. (Should the Allies have stopped carpet bombing Germany while millions of other civilians are taken to the death camps because, you know, it's the proper thing to do? My ancestors would have voted no).

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker I think you're still not engaging the central criticism several of us are leveling at you -- there's a moral problem with military targeting civilian population centers.

Add to this that in the case of our "war on terror", what we're really involved in here is a sort of international law enforcement effort. We weren't attacked by the military of Afghanistan, and we're not fighting their military now. We're looking for what amount to organized criminals operating within the borders of sovereign foreign nations. We're not looking to destroy the effectiveness of the Afghani people to wage war on us with their military, we're looking to stop a bunch of Timothy McVeighs in a country that doesn't really have any sort of governmental enforcement of law and order.

What you're talking about is a tactic I would argue was only barely justified to stop the Axis powers in WWII, against a country whose only crime is failing to root out criminals within their midst who merely have aspirations of launching an attack on US soil.

Just imagine if Timothy McVeigh had decided to blow up some important building in China instead of the US. Would China be justified in invading us, overthrowing our government and installing a puppet government, then bombing our infrastructure and civilian centers until they felt sure they'd killed every last member of a militia group in the US?

@Pprt From the comment section of the article you posted:
1. Gaza by International Law is an occupied territory – neither a territory nor a state.
2. Even if it was a state, you would need to declare a state of war or belligerence. Neither were declared or made by the Israeli government.
3. In the absence of a declaration of war or a state of belligerence, the action of Israel is considered civil… that it is the persons who organized the raid, and those who took part in it are subject to the International Maritime Law… just the same as most of Israel politicians are subject to common criminal laws in Europe, today, for example.

@Pprt Well, that's an easy one - sympathy. If they said "we're going there to provide weapons" or something similar, the boat would have been leveled and no one would be taking their side - or far fewer at least. It is conspicuous that we got all that video from the one boat, when it was an entire flotilla (I think people have been playing too much Mass Effect, why not just call it a fleet?). I'm am also suspicious of the video black-out on the Israeli side, of course, they would do far better by playing with open cards, but then so would the US and that's just not gonna happen.

@theali Illegal? What law covers that? "International law" only covers the people who have agreed to it or those who wish to make friends with those who follow it. If I make a "law" that you can't smoke in my house and you still do, I can throw you out - but if I make a law that no smoking can be done anywhere, no one is going to follow it - and they shouldn't, unless they want to be on good terms with me.

Attacking in international waters was indeed a bad move and it's already cost Israel bucket loads of goodwill, although technically the Mediterranean is not "International Waters" (only the Barcelona Convention covers it and that's only for environmental issues.), since the borders are right up to each other - I don't know who has jurisdiction where the attack happened, though.

An illegal act of war - well, depending on who's laws and really, the war was there already. They've been fighting since Israel was made and before.

My point is still, the people on the flotilla should, and likely did, see it coming and they went ahead anyway. If they want to run into the wall, the wall does not carry the sole responsibility when they get hurt.

Anyway, great big mess. It's not going to end until people stop thinking the land is holy - as always, religion is to blame.

@gwiz665 The Gaza Blockade is illegal and the flotilla attack was done in International waters. Because the blockade of Gaza itself violates international law, Israel committed an illegal act of war attacking the convoy, regardless of who attacked whom first.

>> ^gwiz665:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Pprt" title="member since April 8th, 2008" class="profilelink">Pprt If they are breaking a military blockade, then they are pretty close to soldiers, wouldn't you say?
I'm having some trouble with the timing of the things - it looks like they were shot before the IDF got there, which is weird. It's a great big mess down there, but the people on the flotilla could have expected something like this, when they break the blockade, even if their intentions may be good and honorable.

>> ^acidSpine:
Didn't Bush and Cheney get Alito to write up some laws giving them immuntity for any war crimes they might commit during their highly illegal invasions. Aggression against a soverign nation is the most serious crime in international law, all this BS about waterboarding is covering up the fact the entire Iraq war is a crime.


Well, then, every nation is guilty. Who wants tacos?

Didn't Bush and Cheney get Alito to write up some laws giving them immuntity for any war crimes they might commit during their highly illegal invasions. Aggression against a soverign nation is the most serious crime in international law, all this BS about waterboarding is covering up the fact the entire Iraq war is a crime.

^Nice copy pasta. Well then I raise you with>

Cut and paste, yes, to prevent inaccuracy, and thank you.

To an ante of coin based in fact you raise in fiat of opinion. I addressed
opinion already. Don't like facts? How about polls? Opinions were all you laid down.
.
As such, and from the website of the International Committee of the Red
Cross at:

<http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO/560?OpenDocument>

<Forum of adoption International lawyers and naval experts convened by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, Livorno (Italy)>

<The San Remo Manual was prepared during the period 1988-1994 by a group of legal and naval experts participating in their personal capacity in a series of Round Tables convened by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law. The purpose of the Manual is to provide a contemporary restatement of international law applicable to armed conflicts at sea. The Manual includes a few provisions which might be considered progressive developments in the law but most of its provisions are considered to state the law which is currently applicable. The Manual is viewed by the participants of the Round Tables as being in many respects a modern equivalent to the Oxford Manual on the Laws of Naval War Governing the Relations Between Belligerents adopted by the Institute of International Law in 1913. A contemporary manual was considered necessary because of developments in the law since 1913 which for the most part have not been incorporated into recent treaty law, the Second Geneva Convention of 1949 being essentially limited to the protection of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked at sea.>

Good enough for the Red Cross.

Israel had and has an extant blockade...Simply, there was no attack. Termed
a Visit within the language of the manual and is evidently reflective of Maritime
Law. Israel was within their proper bounds per the above.

All the harangue amounts to posturing. Mission(s) accomplished. This, by the
way, is the only opinion I have offered.

^Nice copy pasta. Well then I raise you with this:

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory said that the “ships that were situated in the high seas where freedom of navigation exists, according to the law of the seas” and called for those responsible to "be held criminally accountable for their wrongful acts".[181]

In a legal analysis published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a staff expert on international law explained that countries are not allowed to extend their sovereignty on areas outside of their coastal waters. In a zone extending 24 nautical miles (44 km) from the coast, countries have the right to inspect ships in order to enforce immigration and public health laws and regulations. In international waters, if there is reasonable suspicion of piracy or human trafficking, a country has the right to access foreign ships. If the suspicion remains, it can search the ship. Israeli soldiers have the right to defend themselves. If Israel has used force against the ships without legal justification, the crew members had the right to defend themselves.[text 2]

Robin Churchill, international law professor at the University of Dundee in Scotland, said there was no legal basis for boarding the ships as they were in international waters. [182] Ove Bring, Swedish international law professor, said that Israel had no right to take military action.[183] That was supported by Mark Klamberg at Stockholm University,[184] Hugo Tiberg, maritime law professor[185] and Geir Ulfstein, professor at maritime law at University of Oslo,[186] while Jan Egeland, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs said that only North Korea behaved in international waters in the same manner as Israel.[187]

Canadian scholar Michael Byers notes that the event would only be legal if the Israeli boarding were necessary and proportionate for the country's self defence. Byers believes that "the action does not appear to have been necessary in that the threat was not imminent."[188] Jason Alderwick, a maritime analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies of London, was quoted as saying that the Israeli raid did not appear to have been conducted lawfully under the convention.[189] Anthony D'Amato, international law professor at Northwestern University School of Law, argued that the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea applies to a situation in which the laws of war between states are in force. He said the laws of war do not apply in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which isn't even a state. He said the law of the Geneva Conventions would apply.[9] Said Mahmoudi, an international law professor, said that boarding a ship on international waters, kill and capture civilians is not in line with the law.[190]

A group of Israeli lawyers, including Avigdor Feldman, petitioned the Israeli High Court charging that Israel had violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea by capturing the boats in international waters. [191]

Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu called the raid "a grave breach of international law and constituted banditry and piracy—it was “murder” conducted by a State, without justification".[22] Prominent Turkish jurists have characterized Israel's actions as a violation of international law and a "war crime."

Turkey's deputy parliament speaker, Guldal Mumcu, said in a declaration that "[t]his attack was an open violation of United Nations rules and international law," and that "Turkey should seek justice against Israel through national and international legal authorities. The parliament expects the Turkish government to revise the political, military and economic relations with Israel, and to take effective measures."[192]
Dr. Turgut Tarhanlı, dean of the Law department of İstanbul Bilgi University,[193] cited the concept of innocent passage, under which vessels are granted safe passage through territorial waters in a manner which is not "prejudicial to the peace, good order or the security" of the state.[194] He said that the Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that a coastal state may consider intervention if a ship is engaged in arms and drug smuggling, the slave trade or terrorist activities. However, the case with the aid boats is totally different. They set sail in accordance with the Customs Act and are known to be carrying humanitarian aid, not weapons or ammunition. According to the Convention on the Law of the Sea, Israel was not entitled to launch a military operation against the boats and activists.[195]

With all due respect, there are alot of feelings and opinions being expressed here. I sought facts and found this that may be read in its entirety at

<http://www.redstate.com/jeffdunetz/2010/05/31/was-israels-boarding-of-the-gaza-flotilla-a-violation-of-international-law/>

I like facts, especially when legality is at issue.

<According to the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994:

SECTION V : NEUTRAL MERCHANT VESSELS AND CIVIL AIRCRAFT

Neutral merchant vessels

67. Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:

(a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture;

NOTE: the San Remo Manual is not a treaty, but considered by the ICRC to be reflective of customary law.

Also, on piracy: the definition of piracy under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, section 101, is clear that piracy can only occur where there are “illegal acts of violence or detention” that are “committed for private ends.” Israeli actions were legal under the law of armed conflict (as evidenced by the San Remo Manual) and in any event, were not committed for private ends. Anyone using the term piracy to describe the Israeli action is clearly not aware of international law on the subject.

Here’s the bottom Line:

* A maritime blockade is in effect off the coast of Gaza. Such blockade has been imposed, as Israel is currently in a state of armed conflict with the Hamas regime that controls Gaza, which has repeatedly bombed civilian targets in Israel with weapons that have been smuggled into Gaza via the sea.

* Maritime blockades are a legitimate and recognized measure under international law that may be implemented as part of an armed conflict at sea.

* A blockade may be imposed at sea, including in international waters, so long as it does not bar access to the ports and coasts of neutral States.

* The naval manuals of several western countries, including the US and England recognize the maritime blockade as an effective naval measure and set forth the various criteria that make a blockade valid, including the requirement of give due notice of the existence of the blockade.

* In this vein, it should be noted that Israel publicized the existence of the blockade and the precise coordinates of such by means of the accepted international professional maritime channels. Israel also provided appropriate notification to the affected governments and to the organizers of the Gaza protest flotilla. Moreover, in real time, the ships participating in the protest flotilla were warned repeatedly that a maritime blockade is in effect.

* Here, it should be noted that under customary law, knowledge of the blockade may be presumed once a blockade has been declared and appropriate notification has been granted, as above.

* Under international maritime law, when a maritime blockade is in effect, no boats can enter the blockaded area. That includes both civilian and enemy vessels.

* A State may take action to enforce a blockade. Any vessel that violates or attempts to violate a maritime blockade may be captured or even attacked under international law. The US Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations sets forth that a vessel is considered to be in attempt to breach a blockade from the time the vessel leaves its port with the intention of evading the blockade.

* Note that the protesters indicated their clear intention to violate the blockade by means of written and oral statements. Moreover, the route of these vessels indicated their clear intention to violate the blockade in violation of international law.

* Given the protesters explicit intention to violate the naval blockade, Israel exercised its right under international law to enforce the blockade. It should be noted that prior to undertaking enforcement measures, explicit warnings were relayed directly to the captains of the vessels, expressing Israel’s intent to exercise its right to enforce the blockade.

* Israel had attempted to take control of the vessels participating in the flotilla by peaceful means and in an orderly fashion in order to enforce the blockade. Given the large number of vessels participating in the flotilla, an operational decision was made to undertake measures to enforce the blockade a certain distance from the area of the blockade.

* Israeli personnel attempting to enforce the blockade were met with violence by the “protesters” and acted in self defense to fend off such attacks.>

@burdturgler, fair enough. I'm not so sure he really implied that the political "enhancements" were exactly for sale though.

Generally speaking, it's a whistleblower site -- people are turning over confidential information that they believe is evidence that some sort of breach of legal or ethical standards had taken place.

For example, the climategate e-mails in raw form were too numerous and unfocused for an average person to glean anything meaningful from them at all, unless they spent hours or days reading them all.

Much better to edit them down to the juiciest, most damning bits, and then work through whether the worst of the worst really proved anything.

Other than the obviously biased title "Collateral Murder", a lot of what the editing did here was fill in supplemental information that you might not have been able to glean from watching the raw camera footage.

I'm still not sure it really proves criminal action, either by US military code or international law, but it sure does bring home that war is hell.

As for getting more attention, it kinda defeats the purpose of publicizing things like this, and the risk their informers are taking to provide it, if everyone ignores it.

I'm not sure they've made the right choice by going down this path, but I don't necessarily think they've made the wrong one, either.