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Frankly, FEL, you're making all Americans look bad enough--and if I EVER have sexual thoughts about you, I'll shoot myself.
As for you, onetime2, do we in the U.S. have:
freedom from being forced to invade a country <i>on the other side of the world</i>? (hint: conscription)
How about freedom from rape? (there are tens of thousands every year)
Starvation? (one in five children here are undernourished; besides, you failed to acknowledge that our sanctions harmed everyone in Iraq, except the elite leadership.)
Freedom from electric shock? (Florida's "Old Sparky")
Freedom from religious oppression? (So far intact, but the forceable introduction of Christianity into government, as Judge Moore attempted to do, would change that in a hurry.)
Freedom from torture? Not if you're an "enemy combatant" and your "interrogation" gets outsourced to one of our new allies, like Pakistan.
onetime2, I can't point to an equivalent situation for each of your supposed "freedoms," but I can state with absolute certainty that Saddam Hussein was engaging in all of those activities when the U.S., under Reagan and Bush Sr., was his ally and chemical weapons supplier. If you weren't outraged then, you haven't a leg to stand on now when you produce a list of atrocities that the U.S. has "ended" by invading another sovereign nation without provocation.
If the man was actually trying to incite violence, why not say so when questioned about the reason for his detention? If he was "trying to incite a riot," what reason could there be to behave in a manner that is itself inflammatory? This "anti-coalition" bullshit is like some Roman sedition charge. Fortunately, our troops only duct-taped his mouth, rather than crucifying him in public, like the legions did. I wonder...would you (FEL, onetime2, seretogis, Phaenx) support the crucifixion of dissidents if it meant that fewer American soldiers would die? Our own restrictions on free speech are based on the premise that they are imposed by a government of the people, in order to protect those people. To restrict the free speech of a person whose government you have overthrown, who has no means to "petition for redress of grievances," who is giving vent to their frustrations in public, is called repression. It is not remotely the equivalent of prohibiting the yelling of "fire" in a crowded theatre.
I see that moral relativism is not the sole prerogative of cultural anthropologists.
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"I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible)." -- Thomas Paine
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