Democrat boneheads shooting their mouths off one more time:
A day after two military judges ruled against the Bush administration’s system for trying terrorism detainees, Democrats seized on the rulings on Tuesday as evidence that Congress should restore the right of those held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detentions.
Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is the majority leader, said he would be willing to bring such legislation to the floor. The Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing to approve such a plan on Thursday.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the rulings on Monday in two cases added urgency to the push to restore detainees’ right to file habeas corpus suits. Congress eliminated that right last year while redesigning the military tribunals after the Supreme Court struck down the first plan.
Mr. Leahy criticized the administration for insisting on an approach to the tribunals “which even conservative courts say no to.”
“It just shows what happens when they want to just rush something through arbitrarily without actually listening to the people who actually knew what they are talking about,” he said Tuesday in an interview. “After 9/11, a number of Republicans and Democrats talked to the White House and said we can put together legislation that can legitimately handle questions of military tribunals.
Oh please. The charges were thrown out because of a very small reason. Lack of clarity between the two deciding acts, those being the Combatant Status Review Tribunal whose procedures for determining a unlawful enemy combatant is here, and the Military Commissions Act which was signed into law by Bush last year. Here is Andrew McCarthy trying to give a moment of clarity to the lefties out there:
Imagine for a moment a statute that said a court could only try cases involving citizens of New York. Let’s say that, to make certain he had jurisdiction over a case, the presiding judge referred the narrow question of the defendant’s New York citizenship to a magistrate, who then made a finding that the defendant “was a U.S. citizen who had lived his entire life in Albany.” What Colonel Brownback has essentially done here is throw out the case because the magistrate didn’t come out and say, “the defendant is a citizen of New York,” even though, if you actually look at what the magistrate did say, it is pluperfectly obvious that the defendant is a citizen of New York.
That’s really all that happened here. The CSRT found that Khadr was an “enemy combatant” by employing procedures under which such a finding cannot happen unless the person is found to be an unlawful enemy combatant. But because the CSRT procedures don’t require the tribunal to say the magic word “unlawful” — just to find the real-world fact of unlawfulness — Colonel Brownback has found the CSRT wanting.
Not to get too technical, but the clinical word for that is “silly.” It ought to be reversed when a sensible reviewing court takes a look, hopefully in short order.
So Reid, Nancy and gang please settle down. Gitmo is going nowhere, thank god, and this enemy of EVERY American will be tried as an unlawful enemy combatant as he should be. Just wish he could be hanged.
See author page
I didn’t see anything in the relevant procedures about the unlawful element.
Ignore that comment above – I misunderstood McCarthy’s objection.
IF found guilty he should be held accountable.
You know, because he’s not rich, white, powerful, and connected like Libby.
After five years, the intelligence value of the Gitmo inmates is nil but the cost to America’s reputation of holding so many people without any real legal process is very real indeed. I recognize that those who post here don’t believe that legality matters very much—just string ’em up is your mantra—but even you guys should take note of the practical downside of our behavior as, apparently, both the Secretaries of State and Defense have done.
I expect it will turn out that the real reason we can’t resolve the status of the Gitmo prisoners is that many of them have no business being in captivity at all and fair legal proceedings would make that fact all too evident. One of the individuals involved in the recent court case was all of 15 when he was captured. Of course neither I nor anybody else knows if the Gitmo detainees were ever a real threat or mostly a bunch of irritated Afghani sheepherders. That’s precisely the problem with a government that acts in profound secret.
If we are totally legitimate in detaining these people, what’s the problem with allowing them to challenge their detention?
I mean, since you’re so sure that we’re detaining the right people, and that they are all unlawful enemy combatants in an ongoing struggle, then letting them challenge their detentions (and having that challenge swatted down, as you are so sure of) would actually ADD LEGITIMACY to gitmo.
Yet, you and most on the right oppose granting habeus corpus.
It boggles the mind.
What I don’t get is why Curt thinks that Khadr or anyone else at Guantanamo should be “tried” at all. Curt keeps referring to these individuals as “unlawful enemy combatants” and “the enemy of every American.” Since none of these detainees have been charged with anything, and since you have not seen any evidence against them and neither has anyone else outside of a small handful of military officials, then clearly you must have some other way of knowing they are guilty as charged (even though they haven’t been charged).
If you already know that all the Gitmo detainees are terrorists and enemies of all Americans, then why give them a trial. Just for show?
It boggles the mind, ME, indeed. It reminds me of that great book and film (with Henry Fonda) “The Ox-Bow Incident.” Convinced they found the cattle rustlers they were looking for, a vigilante party strings them up — only to find out later the real rustlers were elsewhere. At least the guilty vigilantes in the film commit suicide out of shame — can we HOPE as much from these rabid posters or the administration should JUST ONE of the Gitmo prisoners be found blameless? The whole world, humankind, knows the horror of the gang-mind, the blind murderousness of vengence, for that reason civilizaiton set up law and courts to ensure we don’t ever imprison, torture, and murder the innocent.
We are now seen as a bloody, lawless mob. America once stood as the protector of this profound value, and I never thought I would live to see Americans call for the death of un-tried, un-ACCUSED, suspects! It boggles the mind. In the name of my father, who died fighting Nazi Germany, in the name of my brother who died fighting in Vietnam, I accuse these barbarians as UN-American traitors who never understood our values, consitution or cared to learn. May God forgive the United States of America.
The kangaroo court that the administration set up was a dumb idea and I hope this doesn’t go any further. But there’s still the problem of what to do with these guys. A very few may be tried in other countries for legitimate crimes and convicted. But most of them aren’t really chargable with anything in any legitimate court and we can’t just let them go. All of the ones picked up in Afghanistan, at least, are legitimatly prisoners of war, so I don’t agree that we have no right to hold them. But it isn’t practical to hold them as prisoners of war for the rest of their lives, either. And ideas?
Yeah, and you know this because you read it at Salon I’m guessing. Results from these interrogations are not spread far and wide.
Oh it does, but not to unlawful enemy combatants.
There you have it. Terrorists caught fighting our troops have no business being held in captivity.
Did you even read the post? Nothing in there said anything about not allowing them to challenge the detention. It was about the hyperventilating on the left over something very small, and which will get fixed on appeal.
No, since they did not abide by the geneva conventions they are unlawful enemy combatants and can and should be held until the war is over.
I don’t know what gives in Gitmo. Nobody does. On the other hand, I know, from having read reams and reams of documents from the Catholic inquisition, that people who are isolated and mistreated for years on end will eventually end up telling their captors what their captors want to hear. That’s how the Inquisition could claim that the witches were all alike. They might not have known about the deal with the devil, the kiss sub caudam, or flying to the witch’s Sabbath when they arrived in the dungeon but after enough years of pain and interrogation, they learned the official line.
We’re going to be apologizing for our war crimes for decades. You can claim that our behavior is justified by emergency circumstances; but if acting like thugs works, how come we’re losing the war?
There you have it, typical liberal moral relativist. We are at war but to these types we should not capture our enemies, we should not try to gain information from them. No, just dust them off and send them back to fight us once more.
Quite sad.
Trying to get information from captives is perfectly sensible, and nobody I’ve ever met suggested otherwise. Leaving teenagers to rot in jail, on the other hand, doesn’t obviously help our side in any way. The logical error of you rightists is pretty elementary. Since cruel actions are sometimes necessary to win a war, you’ve come to the conclusion that acting cruelly is likely to help us win. That doesn’t follow. Trust me.
For the record, this moral relativism business is a bunch of bull. Conservatives are the real moral relativists, for right just means hurrah for our side. Folks like me think that there is a standard of right and wrong that transcends taking sides. There are certain behaviors that are wrong no matter who does ’em. Torturing people, for example.
Tell that to the left and the MSM who ignored those who REALLY do torture, al-Qaeda. Of course us evil Americans put panties on a guys head, force them to stay awake and stand up for long periods of time….wow. Pretty evil stuff.
Conservatives are moral relativists? Um, yeah….
We don’t say “well they wage on war on us because we do such bad things to them” “they have a reason to hate us, we are just as bad as al-Qaeda”….that is moral relativism. To say there is no one “right” way of doing things is moral relativism.
To put that label on us is just plain ignorant.
“After five years, the intelligence value of the Gitmo inmates is nil but the cost to America’s reputation of holding so many people …”
Not exactly.
The foiled JFK plot revealed another layer of terrorist activity and planning. Without having detainees available to re-interview we might have missed vital information which helped unravel the plot and also future plots.
Also, Many of the detainees have already been returned to their country of origin. What’s left are the hardcore types who would kill an American the minute they were set free.
You libs are constantly bleating about the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq so I presume you would care if released inmates murdered innocent U.S. citizens. No?
And for all those who constantly point to Gitmo as some dark stain on our national character I would remind them that the facility is under constant scrutiny from the International Red Cross. What a shame that the ICRC isn’t permitted to inspect Castro’s prisons located a few miles on the other side of Gitmo’s fence.
And no one ever condemns Castro for holding political prisoners in appalling conditions.
Gitmo’s just another good example of the moral inversion that invalidates the opinion of those on the left.
Riiiiinnnngg…hello? American values like innocent until proven guily? Habeus Corpus? Right to a trial? Or sorry, wrong number.
What? Can anyone really be this ignorant.
These are NOT American citizens! They are our enemy during a war.
Holy moley the idiocy from you guys is staggering.
Fact is, we don’t know how many detainees have been tortured, either directly by U.S. officials or after rendition to Egypt or some other place that specializes in horrors. It’s a very good bet that this administration is doing many more dreadful things than we know about since both it and its supporters (i.e. you guys) have developed a set of arguments that can be used to justify anything whatsoever.
Hey, I know you’re afraid; but if you don’t summon up at least a little courage in the face of a scary world, you’re going to become everything you claim to hate.
What a pathetic argument. “We just don’t know so we just MUST be doing dreadful evil things.”
Hey, pssss, did you know our govmint planned 9/11 too?
We’re at war, which means we capture prisoners. So your view is just to dust them off and send them home to kill again.
Pathetic.
You wish the state would execute its enemy’s child soldiers? What a humanitarian.
If they are prisoners captured in war, they are prisoners of war.
To say otherwise is to engage in legalisms.
We shouldn’t send them home, we should give them trials. I’d prefer regular trials, but I would settle for the same kinda military trials one of our own soldiers would get.
I believe we have the best legal system in the world, and as such, everyone subject to American law should have an American trial.
(It’s not “all citizens are created equal,” but “all men are created equal.”)
I understand that Bush & Torquamada Gonzalez see it differently, and that they put rules and laws in place in support of their view. I think they were wrong, and that Congress should change those rules & laws so they reflect the founding documents.
Curt I am glad that you again posted the alQueda torture “manual”
If you look at the pictures all of the victims have full beards like al Queda and all of the people performing the torture have clean chins. do you have an explanation for this ?
I also noticed that rather than actually debating you often simply create a straw man argument. This shows a weak position, only a bit better than covering your ears and saying “I CAN’T HEAR WHAT YOU ARE SAYING”
Curt, you BIO says you did a tour in the Corps. If you did then you got the same code of conduct classes I did. So you know what a prisoner of war is and that we, as signatories to the Geneva conventions, are obligated to treat ALL prisoners of war by those conventions whether their country are signatories or not. Were you just not listening? Or are you just another republican asshole who only believes in obeying that laws that are convienient?
Everybody who keeps talking about “trying enemy combatants” need to keep in mine that it isn’t illegal to kill anyone in an invading force. Using regular or irregular tactics. Most of these guys aren’t guilty of anything except being in the Talaban. That used to be the government in Afghanistan, that makes them prisoners of war and entitled to some respect. Even John Walker Lynd wasn’t guilty of what they charged him with. We weren’t at war with the talaban when he joined them. He should have had his citizenship revloked for enlisting with a foriegn power and been kept as a POW, like the rest of them.
The problem with Gitmo is that it’s also being used to house a few people who were picked up as terror suspects and they do need to be tried, convicted and sentenced. Peferrably to death. But the Bushies aren’t doing any of us any favours by mixing the two groups and making us look bad to the rest of the world.
Jim is only partly right about the intellegence value of these guys. Tactical intellegence is worthless after as little as 48 hours, but some of these guys may have strategic knowledge that will be be useful as long as the people they worked for are alive and free. My only problem is with the methods that are being used to extract it. We’re supposed to be the good guys. We don’t do torture. It doesn’t usually work anyway.
Habeus Corpus doesn’t apply to POWs, by the way. POWs automatically get repatriated when the war’s over. The trouble is we never finished the job in Afghanistan, so we can’t let em loose.
And then there’s that problem of which ones are POWs and which ones are terror suspects, who should be subject to habeus corpus since they’re also subject to crimnial prosecution, and why are they being housed together. Gitmo was a mistake and every time the Bushies try to fix it they seem to make it worse.
“If they are prisoners captured in war, they are prisoners of war. To say otherwise is to engage in legalisms.”
Oh really?
Maybe Repie and Iaintbaccchus should READ the Geneva Conventions:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm
You want to show me where these psychopathic murdering terrorists have fulfilled those conditions?
Here’s the video of Khalid Sheihk Mohammed beheading Daniel Pearl:
http://aztlan.net/pearlvideo.htm
Perhaps you can use that video to explain how KSM is following the conditions laid out in Article 4 section 2 and should therefore receive even MORE rights than he currently does at Gitmo?
Again, you folks simply do not offer ANY practical, effective alternative for how to address these very difficult issues. All you do is have a reflexive knee jerk liberal reaction to blindly oppose whatever President Bush is doing to keep us safe and bring monsters like KSM to justice.
It’s this blind, obstructive attitude that emboldens evil men like KSM to commit further murder and mayhem.
What disgusting ignorant thought you have put pen to paper here.
And to think you were a Marine.
Shameful.
We took out the regime in Afghanistan that harbored and helped Osama take down our towers and you want to call what we did was wrong! We captured many of those men who helped Osama, who fought with and for him….and we’re the boogie men.
You lefties take the cake.
To further Mike’s point: Did Joseph Anzack Jr receive due treatment as accorded him under the Articles of the Geneva Convention?
Not one libertard on this thread has complained of the lack of basic treatment of this POW in accordance with the geneva convention. You all have plenty to say regarding the care of the LIVING detainees at Gimo.
Asshat hypocrites.
I wonder if Anzack’s last meal was one that is served in Gimo: ?
To further Mike’s point: Did Joseph Anzack Jr receive due treatment as accorded him under the Articles of the Geneva Convention?
Not one libertard on this thread has complained of the lack of basic treatment of this POW in accordance with the geneva convention. You all have plenty to say regarding the care of the LIVING detainees at Gitmo.
Asshat hypocrites.
I wonder if Anzack’s last meal was one that is served in Gimo: ?
Gitmo”>http://www.gitmocookbook.com/”>Gitmo Cookbook
Mike:
How incredibly disingenuous of you to only paste the one portion of Article 4 that fits your argument while leaving out the other 5 sections that disprove it. What was going through your head when you did that? Did you not read the other sections, or were you so intent on making a point that you know is wrong that you intentionally left out the other sections that list all the other categories of non-uniformed personnel who qualify as POW’s under the Article? If it is the former, are you really in a position to call other people asshats? If it is the latter, why are you so intent on clinging to that argument that you would willingly ignore proof to the contrary? Is it because you can’t admit that your elected officials are doing things in your name that you know is wrong? Or is it because you have watched too many episodes of 24 and you are just sure that the rule of law is for sissies, so we should have never signed that damn document anyway?
By the way, if you are going to make a lie of omission like that, in the future it would help if you didn’t post a link to the full document that proves your argument wrong.
I apoplgize. It was Skye who used the asshat term, not Mike. I would urge skye to use Mike’s link to the full Geneva document and read the entire Article 4 before calling other people asshats.
“You want to show me where these psychopathic murdering terrorists have fulfilled those conditions?
Here’s the video of Khalid Sheihk Mohammed beheading Daniel Pearl:
Perhaps you can use that video to explain how KSM is following the conditions laid out in Article 4 section 2 and should therefore receive even MORE rights than he currently does at Gitmo?”
“Did Joseph Anzack Jr receive due treatment as accorded him under the Articles of the Geneva Convention?”
Nothin’ like that “But they’re worse!!!” argument.
(And what argument would be complete without a little ad hom… for dessert? Yum.)
Either the folks we capture & hold in the war on terror are prisoners of war or they’re not. (My reading & common sense says they are, but others do disagree.)
Either way, their status as POWs/UEC’s doesn’t change by virtue of how they treat our soldiers. We don’t choose to follow or not follow laws and treaties based on what others do. We stand by our words and maintain our American values, regardless. It’s not about them, it’s about us.
Curt. I don’t think the term “moral relativism” means what you think it means. Do you think it is always wrong to torture? Answer is no. Do you think it is always wrong to deny rights to people? No you do not. Liberals believe that these are moral absolutes. You do not. You are a moral relativist plain and simple. Buy a dictionary.
Which groups constantly state that we caused 9/11 because of our actions toward muslims? That they fight us because we are invading them? That those we fight are not the bad guys, it’s all relative?
It’s not conservatives I can assure you.
“What is right or wrong and good or bad is not absolute but variable and relative, depending on the person, circumstances, or social situation.”
So what you are saying Curt is that torture is right if we do it, and immoral when terrorists do it. Denying people rights is O.K. when you and your ilk do it but immoral when the terrorists do it. Is that what you are saying Curt? Thanks for providing the definition. You proved my point. YOU ARE A MORAL RELATIVIST!
p.s. You also share many of the same values as Bin Laden.
Quit your hyperventilating. We DON’T torture. You liberals view of torture is forcing someone to put a girls panties on their head, making them stand for long periods of time, making it a bit cold for them, sleep deprivation….When those are most definitely NOT torture.
I love it, terrorists have rights now. I bet you think they have Habeas Corpus rights also….pathetic.
Oh, btw, these terrorists do have rights thru the Military Commissions Act…
Personally I would hope that most of them die on the battlefield, but if their caught they should stay in custody until the end of the conflict….as it has been done through every war.
So anyone acuused of terrorism should have no rights? Is that what you say Moral Relativist Curt. I think you are a terrorist therefore you have no rights Moral Relativist Curt.
I view torture as torture which by the way you favor but only when we do it because you are a moral relativist
“I bet you think they have Habeas Corpus rights also….pathetic.” says Moral Relativist Curt.
You don’t believe in God given inaliable rights?!
I bet your belief in God is just as phony as your belief in freedom , or justice, or America.
By the way Curt, how old are you? If you are only twelve, I apologize.
Holy christ man, you really are a retard.
Isn’t the mothership calling you back? I can hear them now…..Go to the light young KOStard
Go to the light!
Maybe I shouldn’t have pulled out the tard namecalling so soon, I think he really did ride the special bus. Check out this post from Crooks and Liars (love that name for a leftist site). It’s about the HUGE scandal of 8 political appointee’s being let go:
To which the tard known as ec1009 commented:
Shocker there, a lefty dismissing a successful operation to take down a terrorist organization BEFORE they attack as a joke.
Then the typical leftard conspiracy theories start sprouting:
Of course his tinfoil buddy concurs:
Then we get the typical ec1009 fare of in depth discussion and arguments:
Just a sample of the intellect we get from Salon readers. Of course this guy being such a rabid tard he goes to all the conservative sites to give his “in depth” analysis as you’ve seen in the comments on this thread. Go here for a few examples:
Wizbang
Wizbang
Blogs For Brownback
Blogs For Brownback
Riehl World View
Riehl World View
Heard Here
And so on.
So without further ado…
Be gone leftard…back to KOS!
“Also, Many of the detainees have already been returned to their country of origin. What’s left are the hardcore types who would kill an American the minute they were set free.”
Mike, Like the kid who was fifteen when picked up with the Taliban (of course the upper echelons of al – qaida would have confided in him) or the Australian David Hicks (who signed a plea bargain) who after five years is SO dangerous he’s being released in Australia at Christmas? (watch out Americans travelling in Australia in 2008). Mike how do you know WHO is in there without Habeas Corpus? Moral relativism is this – OH Habeas corpus is okay for John Walker Lindh (captured with the Taliban) because he is American, but it is not okay for David Hicks because he is a stinking dirty Australian. It is not okay to torture John Walker Lindh cause he is American, but it is okay to torture David Hicks because he’s Australian. Cultural relativism is when you argue one set of standards apply to Americans, but another one to others – like Australians.
Fighting for the ‘rights’ of Gitmo terrorists …
You’ll never guess who’s doing that. Well ok, you will. Curt at Flopping Aces has the details.
…