I'm wondering, though, if when a foreign visitor is arrested and taken into custody if that changes his status from a foreign visitor to a detained criminal. 

No - only when they are convicted would they be a criminal.  They are protected under the Constitution - which guarantees equal protection under the law.  While the Constitution does specifically state, in some cases, rights particularly for citizens, if not specifically so specified, then they apply to everyone under the jurisdiction of US laws.

Scout – I have to agree with you in principle.I guess the question is whether or not humanitarian interests count as being "vital strategic interests" for the U.S.If there was a strategic interest of the United States being served in going into Somalia in December 1992 then why were not these same intersts to be served a year or so later calling for US intervention in Rawanda?  How about committing US military forces to the tsunami relief in the Indian Ocean?  The same argument is being made now about Dafur.  So, two questions for you:1 - Is it worthy of US military intervention solely to relieve human suffering from natural or man-made disasters, strictly from a humanitarian standpoint?or2 - Is US military intervention only justified in humanitarian situations on the grounds of regional political stability?  As in, we're going to commit US military forces in this instance because a) they are our friends, b) if we don't, the area could be helped by our enemies, or c) the lives in this region are worth saving while the lives in this other nation are not (wrong religion, wrong alliances, not suffering enough)?Of course, the answer is not that simple.  We have to way in the cost in US blood and treasure vs. the ability to successfully complete the mission.  No easy answer, but do we, as a/the world leader have a moral obligation to step in sometimes?  If so, how do we determine which situations warrant our help and which don't?

I do take issue with the maps placing democrat responsibility for the Deaths in Somalia, it was the first Bush that got us into that mess.

Ahh, a subject near and dear to my heart.While Bush the Elder did lead us into Somalia, that operation was a rousing success.  We were able to open the lines of communication, restore secured resupply routes, open ports and airfields for international aid, made it safe for NGOs and international relief operations to conduct the business of feeding the people and starting a humanitarian operation.  By April, after four and a half months on the ground, you could walk through the Bakarra Market with little to no fear.  Thousands (if not ten-thousands) of lives were saved.Then, under some misguided policy beliefs, the early Clinton White House shifted the mission. Operation Restore Hope ended, the majority of US combat troops were withdrawn, and the UN was brought in and given a prominent role.  That was UNOSOM and Operation Continue Hope.  That one failed miserably.  With minimal combat troops and no clear command on the ground, aggressive around the clock patrolling ended and the rats started to crawl back out of the sewer.  With a power vacuum in the city, the tribal leaders (warlords the press called them) asserted their influence to try and fill that vacuum (the UN certainly wasn't going to do it).  As the "warlords" gained in power, they naturally grasped for as much power as they could.  Eventually, two rose to prominence in the capital - Mohammed Farah Aidid and Ali Mohammed.  They realized that power came through money and money came from relief aid and supplies.  In order to increase the size of the aid that they received the their tribal sections of the city, they sought to 1) increase the number of people (refugees) in their sections of the city and 2) decrease the population in the other parts of the city.  In order to increase the population, they would send squads of thugs out into the countryside to drive the farmers and villagers into the city.  They'd tear up crops, shoot livestock, and poison wells (they poisoned the wells, at least in my experience, by shooting the village chief/mayor and his family in the back of the head and dumping their bodies down the well.  Also, with no aggressive combat patrols in the city or countryside by the US or UN, relief convoys started being hijacked again.Rightfully, the White House determined to reduce the power of the "warlords", but they decided to do this with the forces at hand, and they tried to do it by force.  This included then Sec Def Les Aspin refusing to send the forces that the commander on the ground asked for, such as M1 tanks.  This ended in the well documented October 3rd battle (Blackhawk Down).  That ended UNOSOM and Continue Hope.  What followed was UNOSOM II and Continue Hope II -- that is, exit with grace.  Of course, when the Marines went ashore a couple of weeks later, we had those M1 tanks that Sec. Apsin had said weren't needed.So, from my very humble opinion, the failure of the operation in Somalia rests squarly on the governor from Arkansas and his rookie administration.Just my 2 cents.

Neat map, but I'm not sure of your premise…Are you saying that more Americans have died during wars / conflicts started by Democratic Presidents than wars / conflicts started by Republican Presidents?  Is there really any historical correlation?  Would fewer Americans have died in World War II if a Republican had been in office then?  While the numbers may be accurate, I'm not sure of their relation / relevance to history.

What do you consider the biggest threat to Western Civ?

Apathy & ignorance

Interesting discussion in the two articles.  Here's a link to the NYT article that Ellis is responding to:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/books/25human.html?_r=1Reminds me of something that Admiral James Stockdale once said in an interview:  :  ?I was always being asked by the Navy brass what a destroyer skipper needs to know about Immanuel Kant: a liberally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination.  An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear.?In addition to honing a student's ability to concisely and succinctly express themselves in both the written and oral format, along with the ability to think critically and analytically, an education in "the humanities" will give students and ethical grounding that is not necessarily a part of a technical and vocational education.  And a solid ethical grounding is the foundation of society and responsible citizenship.  I remember reading somewhere about the obligation of each citizen is to be educated and informed.Food for thought.

Parents most likely won?t take on that task

As cold as this sounds...Too bad.  They have to.

Why stop there, why not have parents responsible for teaching science and math too?  If they are not qualified to teach their kids English because they are struggling to learn it too an you require them to learn it well enough to teach it, then why not require them to learn science and math well enough to teach it to their kids too?  In English of course.I know I'm stretching the point here - but I don't think that the U.S. can lose its character as a place for refugees to seek freedom and asylum.  What I read is that you are basically saying it is okay to bring refugees to the US but they can't get a job or enroll their kids in school until they learn English?

I'd have to question why any company would hire someone that they couldn't communicate with.  I've hired many refugees when I ran a manufacturing plant - working with the local Catholic Charities office, I'd hire teams of foriegn nationals with the understanding that at least the team leader spoke English.  Generally, these were hard working folks - many of them professionals -who fled violence in their homelands.  I had teams of Serbs, team of Croats, Nigerians, Liberians, Rwandans (Hutus and Tutsis), Somalis -- all working on the same factory floor.  While I never integrated the teams - each had their own line to run - they got along well enough here even when back in their homeland their bretheren were trying to kill each other.  These folks all had something in common - they fled terror and were looking for a better life.  There were accountants and engineers working a production line for $8.50 an hour so that their kids could have a better future.  Frequently they were working two jobs, and personally, I found their work ethic and integrity much better than many of the local "Americans" that held the same jobs (or tried to).

I think we need to make "reasonable accomodation" -- reasonable being the key word.  We can't flush an entire class for one person, but neither can we flush a group of hard working and ambitious immigrants / refugees because a handful are working the system for all it's worth.

I think a lot depends on how you define ?diversity?.  Increasing diversity has been a rather ?hot? topic at the place I work.  Is diversity defined along racial and ethnic lines, or along gender lines?  How about along experiential lines?    If we all come from the same experiential backgrounds, then regardless of ethnicity and gender, we all have the same basic approach to and solution to problems.  If a group is 48% male, 52% female; 60% Caucasian, 15% African-American, 15% Hispanic, and 10% Asian, but all of us came from upper-middle class backgrounds with Ivy League educations?  Is that diversity?  How about if we were all cops and came from families where our fathers and grandfathers were cops?  Or if we were all farmers and came from families with agrarian heritage?Often, I think the definition of diversity is too shallow, based on gender and/or skin color only.Now, on a side note, going back to one of the posting above, I?m all in favor of hiring Spanish speaking / bilingual teachers in our public schools.  As a matter of fact, I think it is essential.  The question is, how are they to use those language skills?  What better place than our public schools to insure that immigrant and non-native English speaking children learn to speak English and assimilate into our society?  Parents most likely won?t take on that task ? so it may be the kids teaching the parents English if they are learning it in schools.  Where it goes wrong is to do all instruction in a second language ? to give SOLs or other testing in languages other than English?.But, we can go a long, long way into discussions about the state of our public schools and education in America.  I think that would deserve its own thread.