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If their read their miranda rights on the battlefield, are considered criminal suspects, should the Geneva conventions apply to them?

KSM isn’t the only one:

On November 12, 2002, Categories I and II techniques were approved of for interrogating Muhammad al Qahtani, the suspected 20th 9/11 hijacker. Category III methods, which included waterboarding, had not been approved (Interestingly, Rumsfeld approved of some of the Category III techniques in a memorandum dated December 2, 2002, but specifically disapproved waterboarding; on January 15, 2003, he rescinded the Dec 2nd directive).

On November 25th, Qahtani broke down. By spring of 2003, even after harsh interrogations had long ended (January 15, 2003), he was providing a wealth of information and valuable, actionable intelligence.

In October 2005, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), along with co-c0ounsel from the law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger in Vecchione, filed a habeas corpus petition on behalf of Qahtani. That December, Qahtani was visited by a CCR attorney at Guantanamo. He ceased talking to interrogators and ultimately changed his story.

By 2006, Qahtani had recanted previous confessions and testimony. He claimed that the information he gave was extracted from him using torture. In a nine-page letter submitted to the Combat Status Review Board, neatly handwritten entirely in English, Qahtani claimed that he was simply a businessman “kidnapped as a civilian” and illegally brought to Guantanamo. He retracted all his prior statements regarding al Qaeda and bin Laden.
-Pg 37-38, Inside Gitmo

Despite the legal complications,
Qahtani is anything but a “simple businessman”. He is one of the “worst of the worst” and not an innocent victim of injustice and wrongful detainment.

Qahtani did receive abusive treatment and harsh interrogation methods (was not waterboarded, though). Unfortunately, it contaminated our ability to prosecute a criminal case. However, lives were most likely saved by the methods in order to extract information from him, he otherwise would not have given up, as a committed jihadi.

It is becoming overwhelmingly evident that Obama and his administrative support team are very simply, Incapable.

They were adept at getting elected, but they have really proven that the emperor has no clothes. They have demonstrated absolutely no common sense.

Sure that this isn’t a picture of Saddam Hussein? Or does my memory deceive me?

@Jerome:

No, neither of those pics are Saddam Hussein.

Sorry guys but this isn’t a new policy, but another example of Obama continuing the practices of the Bush adminstration.

Fit, why don’t you give us any single example of the Bush admin, instructing soldiers to act as law enforcement, by reading Miranda rights to those picked up on the battlefield.

We’ll wait a few years while you Google your brains out, to no avail.

Otherwise you’re just blowing smoke out your rear end.

Fit, I swear you just can’t comprehend a simple sentence. It’s even more amusing that, in your eagerness to attempt to prove yourself cogent in the most miniscule way, you turn to Huffpo dribblings. So let’s start over…

I said:

why don’t you give us any single example of the Bush admin, instructing soldiers to act as law enforcement, by reading Miranda rights to those picked up on the battlefield.

You can’t because *our soldiers* have never read Miranda rights in their positions as military personnel, and not law enforcement. And in fact, the last paragraph of the Huffpo post says the same… ala:

So there you have it. No, American troops are not walking around Afghanistan reading Miranda rights to people. It’s the FBI’s doing, in appropriate instances, following a policy change made by the Bush administration, which Obama has not changed. There’s no reason to panic, the end.

Now the second part of that… as it relates to FBI (and possibly CIA) is also not entirely correct. For in fact, had you bothered to follow any of the Huffpo links thru their liberal blog references to the original story in WaPo, you would find that, except in rare instances, the detainees were read something “similar” to Miranda rights… not the Miranda language… under the Bush admin.

Officials said most of the detainees talked to FBI and military interrogators, some for days, others for months, while one or two rebuffed them. The men were read rights similar to a standard U.S. Miranda warning, and officials designed the program to get to the information the CIA already had gleaned by using waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and other techniques such as sleep deprivation, forced standing and the use of extreme temperatures.

Fact is, read a detainee something about his rights (not miranda) or not, his status as an enemy combatant allows him only so many rights under GC… which do not get altered whether or not he is read rights, or Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham. However read a detainee Miranda, and you confer rights that are associated with US federal law.

And if you do not get your rights read promptly, but are supposedly deserving of those US federal law/rights, even detention on the battlefield can be challenged, and your “capture” period is limited. Compare this to a traffic stop (aka an arrest). If you are to be taken into custody, your rights are read or else you cannot be held longer than a few days, or you can demand appearing before a judge immediately. This puts pressure on soldiers for capture/detention. And soldiers are not law enforcement officers. This is a Pandora’s box for legal procedures.

So in fact, our soldiers have *never* read any detainee *any* rights, nor should they. Our Bush admin FBI did not make it policy to read Miranda, but “something similar to” Miranda. And Obama is instructing the FBI to Mirandize detainees. It is not a continuation of a Bush policy in any way or form.

@MataHarley:

Fit fit has been out in that humid, muggy Charleston heat too long again.

Actually you guys are having the reading problems:

“There has been no policy change and nor blanket instruction issued for FBI agents to Mirandize detainees overseas. While there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects overseas, at both Bagram and in other situations, in order to preserve the quality of evidence obtained, there has been no overall policy change with respect to detainees.”

Ah yes… DOJ mouthpiece Dean Boyd. Tell me something, Fit… of the Obama admin/DOJ wanted to “quietly” issue policy changes, do you think they’d send Dean out and have him say… “well yup… we are”?

Please note the cautious fence straddling and double speak that is the hallmark of Obama and his admin… … while there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects…

I repeat, the Bush admin FBI did *not* read Miranda, but something “similar” to Miranda. Therefore they did not confer US federal law and Constitutional rights. However if you will note, Boyd has fully admitted they are now Mirandizing battlefield combatants.

This is completely different policy than the Bush/FBI policy.

You still can’t read.

Center for Constitutional Rights-another group that wants America destroyed. Do some research on them and see why they make it a point to defend enemies of this country.

Greetings:

Looking at your photo, I’m thinking no more waterboarding; full body wax from now on.

waxing would be to easy

I say tweezers at the ready…. commence plucking, and one, and two, and three….

I think boiling oil works better for waxing KSM than tweezers, however we should read KSM his rights before dunking him in the cauldron.
So now we are mirandizing enemy combatants to keep them from telling us actionable intelligence, we will soon have a revision of charity rules making it discriminatory to restrict the ability of muslims to invest in the ‘charities’ of their choice, and we have a handful of Uighers sunning themselves on the beaches of Bermuda, causing a major spat with Britain (those smart policies of the Obama Administration are neverending). How many lives these reckless policies will cause is fearful to contemplate.

The Geneva Convention applies to both Civilian and Military.

Miranda rights however doesn’t as it is not International law but only applies in the US.