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May 10, 2005
Illegal Non-Combatants

Roundtable Interview of the President by Foreign Print Media – Mai 5, 2005

Q: Mr. President, … For instance, how does the way detainees at Guantanamo Bay are being handled, how does that relate to your promotion of democracy and the rule of law?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. That, and, for example, the pictures people saw about the prison — prison abuse is different from the detainees in Guantanamo. We’re working our way forward, so that they — and our courts, by the way, are adjudicating this. It is a clear, transparent review of the decision I made by the courts, so everybody can see it. And they’re being argued in the courts as we speak. People are being treated humanely. They were illegal non-combatants, however, and I made the decision they did not pertain to the Geneva Convention. They were not — these were terrorists. Obviously, we’ve looked at Iraq differently.

Ignore the usual bullshit, but wtf are illegal non-combatants???

Posted by b on May 10, 2005 at 16:49 UTC | Permalink
Comments

It’s simple. If it happened not to be a terrorist, then you have to be an illegal non combatant.
Never mind, if you are in jail, you are there for some reason.
If you are not holding a gun or a bomb, you are probably an informer or maybe you see dreams involving illegal actions. Something like that.

Posted by: Greco | May 10 2005 17:05 utc | 1

this isn’t the first time he used that term, so it’s probably not a misstatement or neologism he just made up. he probably means that they are illegal b/c they were not born as white christians. it’s a good bet that that’s how his base understands what he’s saying.

Posted by: b real | May 10 2005 17:24 utc | 2

Barbarism whitewashed with innocuous-sounding euphemisms do not, unfortunately, seem peculiar to this age. In the age of Reagan, racism was condoned with the otherwise laudable label of promoting “state’s rights”. Under Bush the Elder, baiting and bashing homosexuals fell under the umbrella of supporting “family values”. We are all familiar with pseudo-military speak to describe wanton atrocities (more expedient to say “collateral damage” than talk about innocent lives lost). Obviously, coming out and saying what they mean without the use of sanitized code phrases such as these would be politically suicidal.
What is peculiar these days is the sheer volume and rapid evolution of the Newspeak they employ. There is an expression in America: “If you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” Respectfully, you can not ask us to “ignore the usual bullshit” but then dissect what Bush the Younger meant by saying “illegal non-combatant” instead of the slippery term “enemy combatant” his administration invented to evoid being prosecuted for violation of the treatment of prisoners of war. The fact that he garbled his own sanitized euphemisms (I suspect he put together “illegal detainee” and “enemy combatant”) gives us a product that is more psychologically frank than he intended, but it does not reveal anything we did not already know. Since I have yet to see any satisfactory definition about what constitutes a “terrorist”, the only reason I can imagine for them to be fishing around for new blanket terms like this is that the present US administration has fallen back on the use of fear and terror at home and abroad so reflexively that if they continue to use “terrorist” to describe anyone who disagrees with their policies in any way, shape or form, they run the very real risk that someone will eventually call them on it (to be fair, it would be more accurate to describe the denizens of the White House and Pentagon as “terror artists”; they have the same goals as the garden variety suicide bomber, but they do not get their white collars as dirty).

Posted by: Monolycus | May 10 2005 17:42 utc | 3

Bush knows nothing about the law. He’s afraid of authority, and happy to abuse it in ways great and small; but about the law–what laws are, how they come to be formed, what they can and can’t do–none of this is part of his experience. He’s a Caliban without a Prospero.

Posted by: alabama | May 10 2005 17:55 utc | 4

Simple. Let me explain. An `illegal noncombatant’ is someone that is illegal and not combating. Or, looking at it another way. An `illegal noncombatant’ is the opposite of a legal combatant – one that has a legal right to combat.

Posted by: Dismayed | May 10 2005 18:46 utc | 5

I appreciate you posting this. What the President means is, we’re moving forward on this through the appropriate — and by the way I think that blogs are great. No one thinks that torture — and by torture, I mean things that could cause, you know, significant hurting or damage or something — it’s not what the goal of this military is. The United States Army, our army, the strongest and most on-the-go army in the world, that’s a great thing. And they are good guys. You see, I’ve talked with many of our soldiers, and all of them are right there, you know, bringing freedom to Iraq. And I don’t see anything wrong with that.

Posted by: Super Ju | May 10 2005 19:12 utc | 6

LOL!
The best explanation for these bushisms was in the book The Bush Dyslexicon: when Bush is talking about what he knows, he can be succinct. When he is talking about what he doesn’t know, he strangles the English language. Anything to do with human rights, with accountability, with responsibility, with true moral clarity, you can put in his ‘do not know’ column.

Posted by: gylangirl | May 10 2005 19:33 utc | 7

Sorry, but I have the intense desire to express my disgust:
What a f’ck’n imbecile. Most of the rest of the world sees it. Why can’t the average American corporate grunt?

Posted by: Juannie | May 10 2005 19:33 utc | 8

good catch!
Giving Bush the benefit of doubt, I assume it means auxillaries, e.g. supporters, but not fighters.

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | May 10 2005 20:24 utc | 9

The truly scary thing is that he didn’t use his “tell.” He didn’t say “of course,” so he must be telling the truth.
Yikes.
I guess you might call it “Gibberish from the Heart.”

Posted by: Vicki | May 10 2005 20:56 utc | 10

Haven’t been here for a few days…. Is Super Ju……… being sarcastic?

Posted by: Friendly Fire | May 10 2005 21:10 utc | 11

I assumed Super Ju was parodying the prez. That one really made me laugh. But the president’s response itself is appalling in its incoherence. Would you hire someone who couldn’t express a complete thought in a coherent sentence? I wouldn’t. But evidently about half of the people who voted in the last election are satisfied with it…and that is even more appalling.

Posted by: maxcrat | May 10 2005 21:38 utc | 12

The question posed by juannie and by maxcrat, “how does he get hired/not fired” has a simple answer.
The Dub is the perfect puppet for this show. What other prez would willingly go and hide in front of school children while his handlers commit mass murder? Not any that I can think of but him.
The right choice for the task at hand I would say.
Now lets look into this task that so few are willing to acknowlege or believe.

Posted by: rapt | May 10 2005 22:19 utc | 13

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H.L. Menchen ( 1880-1956 )

Posted by: edwin | May 10 2005 22:34 utc | 14

Ignore the usual bullshit, but wtf are illegal non-combatants???
Victims of war criminals.

Posted by: edwin | May 10 2005 22:36 utc | 15

@Super Ju – welcome!
Finally someone who has a serious answer to my question.

Posted by: b | May 10 2005 23:19 utc | 16

I agree with rapt. The Corporate Media does a great job of shielding the bovine masses from the truth, while the puppetmasters do their thing. Look around you, there are many people out there who haven’t enough sense to pound sand in a rat hole.

Posted by: B | May 11 2005 2:52 utc | 17

If I had my wish, this is what Bush would be looking at right now.

Posted by: Lupin | May 11 2005 9:19 utc | 18

@lupin
He is getting closer every day.

Posted by: rapt | May 11 2005 15:23 utc | 19

@ Lupin. Although admirable, I find your suggestion to be far too humane. Too quick and lacking in lasting suffering (though I’ve no doubts that he’d wet himself from fear before the first shot was fired).
Personally I’d rather envisage George locked up within a cold, damp concrete cell devoid of all furnishings, clothing, comforts or toiletry facilities for the remainder of his life.
The cell to be divided into two separated parts by a clear, shatter-proof perspex wall containing tiny perforations so as to allow the transmission of sound. Opposite him, the other half of the cell to contain Saddam Hussein.
No other human contact allowed, ever. Their diet to consist of starvation rations of rotting offal.
Just George and Saddam together, though separate, for decades to come. No distractions or entertainments available except to rant and rave at each other in mutual loathing and madness.
Unable to physically harm each other. Unable to hide from nor escape from each other, 24/7 for years and years to come. A marriage of hate.

Posted by: Perchance to Dream | May 11 2005 15:34 utc | 20

@gylangirl
Could you give us an example of something Bush knows something about…..”when Bush is talking about what he knows, he can be succinct.”
??????

Posted by: Sister Faith | May 11 2005 19:36 utc | 21

how about his mocking karla fay tucker w/ “please don’t kill me”

Posted by: b real | May 11 2005 19:42 utc | 22

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