Seizure Quotes

It was true that the majority of the citizens of Crimea in 2014 preferred to be a part of Russia than the Ukraine. So the Russians sized the Crimea, had an election and when the vast majority of the Crimeans voted for Russian affiliation, they annexed the Crimea under the principle of self-determination. However, Russia has two of its states with Muslim majorities that prefer to affiliate with one of the majority Muslim nations in the area. But the hypocrisy of the Russians became clear when they would not allow those two states to have elections. The Russian policy seemed to be that whatever is part of Russia is non-negotiable and not subject to self-determination, but whatever borders on Russia that is not part of Russia is entitled to an expression of self-determination and independence of other affiliation if they want. The Crimea had the only warm water port in the Soviet Union; they had a deal with the Ukrainians that their navy could use the port. However, they felt that Western support for the new Ukrainian government was the first step in ousting Russia from that port.

The treaty was ratified by the Senate on March 7, 1796. Much of the text was actually drafted by Joseph Donaldson, a junior diplomat appointed by Humphreys.

Like civil rights advocates and protectors of later times, Beale was viciously attacked by the right wing for his “dangerous” tendencies. The church leaders of the time tried to have Beal tried in court for his criticism of established authority, but he had the respect of many and especially Queen Elisabeth I, and other than the constant smears, Beale endured.

He was explaining his repudiation of General John Fremont’s military proclamation in Missouri confiscating rebel property and emancipating their slaves. See {633732} .

The Khedive of Egypt trying to raise more money, at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 had agreed to sell one of the two great Alexandrian obelisks (“Cleopatra’s Needles”)—one was paid for by British troops (who had defeated Napoleon in Egypt) It stands today at London’s Thames Embankment. The other was sold to New York World Publisher William Hurlburt, who together with Railroad Baron William Vanderbilt, the New York City political and social establishment and the intellectuals of America had obtained the permission of the Central Park designers for one of the few external structures therein. Gorringe was hired by the American ad hoc group to see to the transfer, then thought to be a massively difficult feat of engineering. With cooperation of Engineers the world over, including Brooklyn Bridge Designers Roebling—who built a special crane system and sent it to Egypt—the technology was accomplished but the politics and bureaucracy endangered the project on almost all fronts. At one extreme, were some local NY Merchants who, in effect, didn’t want to risk moving a structure of this weight—220 ton, 69 feet tall—through the streets of New York containing then the world’s most sophisticated infrastructure to the International Law of the Seas and the existence of marine insurance cartels who in consort attempted to extort totally unreasonable shipping insurance fees. But American law did not allow a U. S. Flag vessel to operate without insurance. The Egyptians sold the project an older ship and registered it and passed special legislation allowing it to operate for this single purpose without insurance, however, at the last minute, the Egyptian Government did not want their foreign debt holders to know that the nation was selling such a treasure—any nation, attempting to protect the economic right of it’s creditors might have the ship seized at sea and hauled into a local bankruptcy court. Gorringe and most American politicians took the view that there was no then practical and legal route open, so they shipped under no flag at all thereby flouting American and International Law. Of course, the real lasting legal issue of who had the rights to buy and sell such national treasures which had originally been erected flanking the Cairo Temple of the Sun by Egyptian Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (1504 BC-1450 BC) and then moved to Alexandria by the occupying Romans seeking to deify Caesar—never really then was in dispute as it would be today, and may well be contested tomorrow like the British Museum Elgin Marbles.

A priest, friar or monk with this commission could and did, remove from the custody and control of the local judges, bailiffs and law enforcement officers clerics who had run afoul of the law. At the time the word “clerk” meant any churchman. The principle at the time was that the state could not judge or dispense justice or punishment to members of the church. Only the church could try and convict clerics and they did that persiant to cannon (religious) law. In theory, the bearer of this commission would take custody of an accused criminal who was a churchman, and bring him to the Bishop who would handle the case under Ecclesiastical Law. Often that meant, doing nothing or minor penitence for a crime that could even bring the death penalty under civil law. Historically there has been a major struggle in the West between the churches and civil governments that still goes on to this day in countries like Ireland. In America, the early 21st century saw the Roman Catholic bishops covering up crimes of sexual predation on the part of Priests. Many people were also outraged that the bishops did not report the Priests to the police, but this was unfortunately a throwback to this historical notion that the Church only can deal with the discipline and legal matters involving church personnel or property. Historically, reporting matters like this to civil authorities for handling is only about 200 years old, while the system illustrated by this quotation had been in place for about 1200 years before.

At the time Devine was a clandestine CIA agent in Santiago, Chile. The top secret CRITIC cable took precedence over all other cables and messages and also got immediately delivered to the President and other key government officials. The US position at the time was that this coup ousting the very popular, elected left wing, President Salvador Allende was a spontaneous act of the Chilean armed forces in which the United States had no part. President Richard M. Nixon had ordered a series of economic attacks and sanctions on Chile, and the negative economic effect had set the mood for the coup. Years later this secret Cable come to light. It showed that our chief CIA operative in Chile knew about the coup in advance including minute details, and transmitted this data to the President and others in Washington. For many, it was unlikely that the coup plotters would share this level of detail in advance with any country that was not part of the team plotting the coup or had at least given their approval in advance.