That's not quite what the Fox News article stated as basically it discussed Chinese involvement and how the US welcomed that resolve and hoped that the Chinese would work with the ships already deployed. And obviously the analyst from Rand was wrong because, in spite of the non-strategic cargo aboard the Maersk Alabama, the US did act widening the rationale for intervention a lot. And that ability to act was from ships tasked to patrol, the Bainbridge and the Halyburton, from the prior administration.

While the link to the description of French law has just as many loopholes as current American law in that both countries can try the pirates but did they have the legal right to grab them in the first place. Both countries face political tests in trying the pirates. The US because, it has agreed to act under, the pertinent UN Convention defining piracy was not a signatory. While the French link makes it very clear that France has never signed nor even agreed to abide by the Rome Convention which would be the international legal basis for seizing and trying on French soil the pirates.

The rescue of Phillips was conducted by Navy SEALS but under an ROE approved, changed and then reapproved by Pres Obama. When to act and how to act, if Phillips was in imminent danger, was left to the commander of the Bainbridge. I noticed that imminent danger means something different when its a Democrat in the WH as opposed to a Republican.

Really? Can you name one country that is a former ally of the US that has been punished by the US in any way other than a stern note and cancelling a state dinner?

That bus that France claims to have been thrown under must under must be about 1/43 the size of a real bus and made by Exoto. Saying nasty things about each other on the internet while still having normal polictical and economic relations can hardly be classified as punishment. Anyone else suffering as much as poor France?

All loans were paid, the ones from the Revolutionary War and the Louisiana Purchase were combined at 4% interest and paid in full between 1812-1823. In 1926 Pres Coolidge agreed to cancel some 60% of France's WWI debt and set up a new debt arrangement that allowed France to repay the loans at 1.4% over sixty-two years and which because of the Depression appears never to have been repaid except by Finland. Quite a bit longer than the US repaying it Revolutionary War debts but those anglo-saxons arrogantly assumed that getting a little back was better than getting none back at all. And after 1932 France has not paid one nickel back on its World War I debt though several other nations have not paid either.

Or maybe France has been punished enough so that in its desire to not owe the hated Anglo-saxons any debt it will finally repay its World War I debt and offer out of the goodness and innocence of its heart to repay the billions of dollars the US gave France under the Marshall Plan. Heck, forget the World War I debt France still owes Mexico reparations for the damage caused to Mexico City and the imposition of Maxmillian when France reneged on the Covenant of London and invaded Mexico.

Should I even bring up Citizen Genet?

That makes sense as it appears that asking questions is hyperbole, especially when easily corrected, but somehow responding to counterarguments is somehow undignified to French feelings? I am still waiting for that one magical ally of the US that has been punished beyond that nasty note?

I know you'll claim this is beside the point or more Anglo-saxon arrogance but Jefferson had been out of office three years when Congress declared war and Pres James Madison signed the declaration. The rest is just a muddle when the bulk of troops defending Canada were British, the British had the same low opinion of militias as America was beginning to have, though the British relied heavily on the French speaking Canadian Voltgieurs the oldest native regiment in the New World. By the end of the war the ratio of troops was to the British advantage 5 to 3. But New Orleans ended both the pretensions of the French to regain territory and ended any further designs of the British to bisect the US.

Adding to what John in Michigan said about Jefferson who wrote to the American Ambassador, after Thermidor, asking if it was as bad as the US press reported and if so then perhaps Edmund Burke was right. Also a slight correction even though schismatics under David Koresh suffered a severe downsizing the Branch Davidians of the Seventh Day Adventists are still in business and actually have recovered their property in Waco.

No, actually it meant that MC doesn't know much about American history, the second is obviously not a real attempt but merely the pretensions of the French to regain territory, ie., installing Maxmillian as Emperor and using French troops till they had lost every battle to prop him up, Jefferson did drop his support for the French Revolution because it wasn't a revolution of ideas any more but simply an excuse to kill any enemy, real or perceived, and yes you finally sussed out a joke.

Since we are all citizens of the world my vote goes to either bringing back the Merovingians or at the very least Emperor Norton. Either could run France in interesting and exciting ways.

Don-Good observation on the amount of calls vs the sample size. I went back and it only mentions the former but implies that the results are based on the latter.

As opposed to all of the Bush as Hitler at most of the anti-war rallies? Do I draw the same conclusion as to the intelligence to the general participants based on the idiocy of a particular participant? It is encouraging that all of a sudden the Democrats have turned into true believers in respect for the president's office and also a serious challenge to blue noses and prudes everywhere!

That is not what the report says but how Sen Levin describes it. It beggars belief that an off-duty group of Reservists, who had been warned officially in writing to not return to the prison during their off hours, took their cue from events that were occuring under the authority of the USMC and the CIA thousands of miles away.

But if that's the case then let's start with Pres Clinton and the various Defense secretaries that had essentially approved the similar methods during the 90's? No presidential administration has ever turned against its predecssors as much as it appears to be unfolding now. I can hardly wait for the squealing to commence when some future WH decides to go after Pres Obama and his enablers as per the precedent they are trying to create today.

Why the hyperbole? War is seldom glorious and often brutal and demeaning. Even Daniel Ellsberg admitted that often some of the things that occurred in Vietnam were shameful but considering the benefit to the country justified. Torture seems to have become a litmus test for being the right kind of person or not. But how can there be a discussion when the definition of torture is problematic on two fronts? The first in that everything is deemed torture, especially during a Republican administration, from waterboarding or sleep deprivation to serenading Noriega with Van Halen. The second being to remain a civilized country that country must often be more uncivilized than its enemies. Who in this case hijacked four jets and killed over 3,000 people and in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't take one American or NATO soldier alive to hold as a prisoner.

Ah, if you had just stopped at the end of the first sentence. The example you allude to, Asano et al is not very instructive. The four, civilians and soldiers, were charged an convicted of a variety of acts against American soldiers. Beating, waterboarding, burning with lighted cigarettes, stealing the prisoners Red Cross packages and leaving some of the prisoners exposed naked during the winter. And as the indictment made perfectly clear they were only marginally interested in information but more interested in simply causing the maximum amount of pain to the the POW. Plus the indictments describe the prisoners being held upside down and then having gallons of water forced into their noses and mouths while that description simply doesn't apply to what the US did.

Most of the torture the Allies received seemed to be on the basis of two points. That any Commonwealth soldier who was in the Asian Theatre at the surrender of Singapore who kept to arms was considered by the Japanese to no longer have any protections and the air crew's from the Billy Mitchell Raid were considered pirates.

And I certainly don't agree with the blanket description of waterboarding as torture in every case because what is claimed to be the ruling authority, the UN Convention Against Torture has so many exceptions and exemptions, as does the IV Geneva Convention, as to make them useless except for tub thumpers.

http://www.2008electionprocon.org/pdf/asano_case.pdf