“war on terror” = “war on due process” ?

[rehmwa 2]

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And to me, words have meaning, ideas have meaning and actions have meaning.

Nice post.

And to me, actions have meaning. Words and ideas have potential for an action. (now the argument that speaking is an action is an interesting way to get around this statement. I hope you know what I meant by it though)

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[jdhill 0]

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Have we imprisoned every surviving Iraqi who fought against us during the first month of our invasion of Iraq?

No, hence the problem we are facing over there now... every member of the Iraqi armed forces should have been inturned, perhaps the police and civilian leadership too... We did not go in with sufficient forces to do that... even though just about anyone below the rank of COL knew that was what was needed...

As for the folks nabbed in Afganistan, if they were captuted by US forces while fighting, hold them until the hostilities are over... if they were turned in by "warlords" as suspected taliban or AQ for a reward rather than being captured in battle, their status should be determined by some sort of hearing... becasue at least some of those "warlords" are playing both sides of the fence, and saw it as an opportunity to get rid of folks they didn't like.

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[mikkey 0]

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As for the folks nabbed in Afganistan, if they were captuted by US forces while fighting, hold them until the hostilities are over...

One of the myths perpetuated by the US administration. Many were not arrested “on the battlefield” or even in Afghanistan. Many were arrested in Pakistan and/or based on “intelligence” (tips). Not a nice scenario if you were taken due to mistaken identity or wrong intelligence and you sit and rot in Gitmo for 3 years without any rights…..

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When people look like ants - pull. When ants look like people - pray.

[jdhill 0]

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many were not arrested “on the battlefield”

Which is why there was a second part to my statement, that said, in essence, if not captured on the battlefield, then they should get a hearing of some sort... ideally these other people would never be taken out of theater until their status had been determined.

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[mr2mk1g 10]

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What is more important? the lives of 11 people? or the lives 3000?

If you want to reduce it to maths, look at the bigger picture. What's more important, the lives of 3000 people or the lives or 300,000,000 people who depend on the rule of law every day of their lives to protect them from the possibility of unjust persecution?

If we are happy discard the rule of law there is nothing to stop you from finding yourself in camp in Cuba waiting 3 years without access to a lawyer before you're even told why you're there in the first place.

You should hold dear the concept of the rule of law and indeed hold it higher than even your constitution; for without the rule of law there would be no mechanism through which you could apply the protections afforded you by your constitution.

[jkm2500 0]

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If you want to reduce it to maths, look at the bigger picture. What's more important, the lives of 3000 people or the lives or 300,000,000 people who depend on the rule of law every day of their lives to protect them from the possibility of unjust persecution?

If we are happy discard the rule of law there is nothing to stop you from finding yourself in camp in Cuba waiting 3 years without access to a lawyer before you're even told why you're there in the first place.

You should hold dear the concept of the rule of law and indeed hold it higher than even your constitution; for without the rule of law there would be no mechanism through which you could apply the protections afforded you by your constitution.

Not once in my meaningless rambling did I ever say that we should just disregard the law and throw people into prison for years at a time without access to lawyers. Infact I think (I am not too sure) that I said that this guy would and should get a trial.

My bitch is that people actually get worked into a frenzy that this guy/mercenary/idiot/whatever-you-want-to-call-him is in gitmo as a victim of circumstance. This guy is there for trying to kill Americans.

But, if it will make you feel better....He should have a trial, by military tribunal. He should have all the rights of.....um......dammit, I knew that he gets rights.....oh yea under the Geneva Convention, not the constitution of the US (something about not being a citizen).

Prisoners of war MUST be:

- Treated humanely with respect for their persons and their honour.
- Enabled to inform their next of kin and the Central Prisoners of War Agency (ICRC, the International Red Cross) of their capture.
- Allowed to correspond regularly with relatives and to receive relief parcels.
- Allowed to keep their clothes, feeding utensils and personal effects.
- Supplied with adequate food and clothing.
- Provided with quarters not inferior to those of their captor's troops.
- Given the medical care their state of health demands.
- Paid for any work they do.
- Repatriated if certified seriously ill or wounded, (but they must not resume active military duties afterwards) .
- Quickly released and repatriated when hostilities cease.
http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/texts/doc_geneva_con.html

I think that we have been following those rules (I don't know, I am not in gitmo checking up on this). And after the conflict ceases, he should be tried for any war crimes.

The whitehouse guarantees the Geneva COnvetion will apply to the Taliban.http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030507-18.html

I hope that clears things up.

The primary purpose of the Armed Forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

[mr2mk1g 10]

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Not once in my meaningless rambling did I ever say that we should just disregard the law and throw people into prison for years at a time without access to lawyers.

Yeah I know man, I'm only half commenting to you and half to everyone who bothers to bumble through. That concept though is very much linked to your belief that this guy was killing Americans - more on why they're linked below.

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Infact I think (I am not too sure) that I said that this guy would and should get a trial.

yup, we all agree on that one, we figured that out earlier.

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is in gitmo as a victim of circumstance. This guy is there for trying to kill Americans.

I don't know. Seriously, I have no idea. I'm surprised you feel you do - there actually isn't that much information out there about him. I figure he probably wasn't just hung around Kabul driving taxis (although some folk already released from Gitmo were actually just hung round driving taxis, got picked up randomly and suddenly found themselves in Cuba). But then maybe he was just driving an aid truck. We don't know. We won't know till he's put on trial.

See that's why we need a trial (or hearing/tribunal or whatever the military's going to call it). Then the evidence against him will be tested. If their is no evidence or no evidence strong enough to be put before a tribunal then, as my learned friend points out, there ought not be a trial at all.

That's why your presumption that he was doing something wrong is linked to slinging people in jail without trial. It is such a presumption that got this guy in Gitmo for 3 and a half years. I very much doubt this guy is a saint who just got caught up in things through bad luck... but to treat him as otherwise means he gets slung in jail for years without a lawyer and without any formal charges... because we're just allowed to assume he's guilty. That really sucks if you're not.

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He should have all the rights of.....um......dammit, I knew that he gets rights.....oh yea under the Geneva Convention, not the constitution of the US (something about not being a citizen).

Well I'm not a citizen of the US and I would hope that if I were ever arrested in the states I would be treated in line with your constitution. In fact I know I would be because I was being held by citizens of the US whos actions are bound by their constitution.

I actually also believe that the chances are this guy does indeed slip through a crack in the Geneva Convention. I'm not personally convinced he is afforded any rights under it. That doesn't mean though that I think the US is justified in chucking him in jail and throwing away the key. I think the US ought to live up to the moral standards it has set itself even if it's not required to by some treaty it signed. It's a case of conscience before contract if you like.

As for your constitution applying I don't know. I think the case is certainly more arguable than the convention... but then I'm most certainly not an expert on US constitutional law. Didn't the US Supreme Court rule that they were to be given trials as required under the Constitution and that it did apply?

His position at Gitmo though, if indeed outside the reach of the US constitution's, is by virtue of a most contrived attempt to ensure he remains outside the protection of the US legal system and the rule of law I hold so dear. Personally I think that attitude stinks. I think the US govt. has purposefully attempted to make sure these prisoners have no right to fair process and are completely outside the protection of any rule of law. They've succeeded pretty well too... or at least they had till the Supreme Court reined them in.

I think such an attempt to usurp the principals of the rule of law is deplorable. That is a direct attack on the ability of your justice system to protect you from unjust treatment by your government. Such attacks cannot be allowed if you want to maintain the freedoms you hold dear. If not, one day you might just find they've come for you.

We here are not immune to such attacks on our freedoms either. Last year our govt. was holding people without trial. Our House of Lords (court not legislative body - same position as your Supreme Court) slapped the government down good and proper when they ruled that the holding of people in such a manner was entirely illegal and they had to release everyone.

That's where the bigger picture argument comes in. While those people were a threat and could have been released (in the end the govt. found a legal way round the problem) the threat posed by the erosion of the rule of law was far greater than any threat those suspects could have posed to our populous.

Speaking of the UK anti-terrorism legislation which allowed imprisonment without trial, Lord Hoffman of the House of Lords stated: "The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these."

Personally I'm inclined to agree with His Lordship.

[AlexCrowley 0]

I think its a simple equation:

Gitmo is a travesty. Those with their eyes open who have read the reports of those released understand my meaning.

Gitmo represents a terrifying part of the US public's psyche, one that I feel has been manipulated openly since 9/11.

Torture, illegal incarceration of foriegn nationals, illegal incarceration of US nationals.

the US simply changes the definitions to remove culpability, and the public idly sits by and thinks that 'you reap what you sow', without understanding the magnitude of the crime, or the numbers of people released with NO charges, totally innocent after many months in a cell.

These are the reasons liberals throw out the Nazi monicker - the manipulation of a basically moral and good, yet ignorant public to accept a situation that would be considered morally repugnant and anti-american in saner times.

Even sadder, it's had no quantifiable impact, led to no major incarcerations and merely sullied the US image - not that our human rights record was pristine, but it was better than most South American and 3rd world dictatorships.

TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

[lawrocket 3]

I like what Rear Admiral Michael Lohr wrote, who was the Judge Advocate General of the Navy when he wrote this paragraph:

"Will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values? How would such perceptions affect our ability to prosecute the Global War on Terrorism?"

I've said it before and I'll say it again - my biggest problem with these tactics and techniques is the "criminal defense attorney" mindset of the administration in its attempts to find so many loopholes as to make the rules and laws unenforceable. "The US doesn't have to comply with the Geneva Convention because this is going on at Gitmo, which is foreign soil." Or, The US doesn't have to comply with the Geneva Convention because this is going on at Gitmo, which is American soil." Or, "The Geneva Convention applies and not the US constitution because it's foreign soil."

I just hate it when all these contrary arguments are made.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[kallend 2,150]

Due process started to go down the tubes in a serious way with the "War on Drugs". The latest "war" just helped it on its way.

Nothing helps authoritarian administrations more than a good "war".

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[lawrocket 3]

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Due process started to go down the tubes in a serious way with the "War on Drugs". The latest "war" just helped it on its way.

Nothing helps authoritarian administrations more than a good "war".

Hmmm. Seems to me you are forgetting people like J. Edgar Hoover, and other policies like Jim Crow. Due process started going down the tubes well before the "War on Drugs," didn't it? Ask some of our elder Japanese citizens whether failure to recognize due process of law stated with the "War on Drugs."

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[kallend 2,150]

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Due process started to go down the tubes in a serious way with the "War on Drugs". The latest "war" just helped it on its way.

Nothing helps authoritarian administrations more than a good "war".

Hmmm. Seems to me you are forgetting people like J. Edgar Hoover, and other policies like Jim Crow. Due process started going down the tubes well before the "War on Drugs," didn't it? Ask some of our elder Japanese citizens whether failure to recognize due process of law stated with the "War on Drugs."

The qualifier was "in a serious way", applying to all. Internment involved a very small number (although it set a bad precedent), Jim Crow applied to folks who never had rights anyway, and Hoover was a piker compared to the current bunch.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[crwtom 0]

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Prisoners of war MUST be

so what are we talking about here -

criminal suspects or prisoners of war?

In case of the former - are we talking about one that is supposed to have been already found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and is awating punishment,

or just a criminal suspect awaiting trial and determination of guilt or innocence.

In case of the latter, when would the "hostile actions" be over and the former combatant be repatrianted and released. Which "hostile actions" exactly are we talking about and how is their temination defined?

Or perhaps do they have a newly invented status of "generic evil-doer" in which case you can switch between any of the above at any time during an argument and however it pleases you?

Cheers, T

*******************************************************************
Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

[jkm2500 0]

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so what are we talking about here -

criminal suspects or prisoners of war?

In case of the former - are we talking about one that is supposed to have been already found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and is awating punishment,

or just a criminal suspect awaiting trial and determination of guilt or innocence.

In case of the latter, when would the "hostile actions" be over and the former combatant be repatrianted and released.

Or perhaps do they have a newly invented status of "generic evil-doer" in which case you can switch between any of the above at any time during an argument and however it pleases you?

Cheers, T

What would you prefer I say?

Quick news flash, the world is not perfect. Unfortunatly people have to make decisions on what is right for the nation. That is bigger than this one person or plural persons. Now I dont agree with everything that everyone does, I just try to make the best of the situation at hand. If you are looking for utopia, it doesnt exist. Complaining about the people held in gitmo on DZ.com is fairly futile. Nothing will be changed here, everyone still walks away with the same opinion as when they started. Maybe through some cathartic channel of expression this makes people feel better. If we took as much time actively doing something in society as we do bitching on DZ.com something might change.

My question for you tom, what would you rather do? Terrorism is something that will not go away. THere are people out there willing to trade their lives for a kill. There are two ways to win that war, one is passivity (a war of attrition). Or, we go hunt the people down, and kill them before they have a chance to do any harm. If you expect rational thought from this group of people, you are not thinking rationally.

I think that if this guy staying in prison for the rest of his life makes it impossible for him to kill any americans, let him rot.

I know, that is not the american way. We should allow him to express himself. But when that expression is a bomb, or machine gun fire aimed at america I dont want to be the target.

I have in the past spent a significant portion of my life in the service of the people of this country. I plan to finish out my career going and doing the bad things neccesary so that people will have the ability to say what they want, and do what they want. It sounds as though you would rather give up the legacy that our forefathers left us so that this piece of scum can roam freely. Remember that there is no moral majority when it comes to terrorist tactics, only the people left alive at the end of the day. You obviously have not seen the horrific things up close and personal that terrorists do.

No amount of hugging, kissing or apologizing will stop the desire for these people to kill. The only thing that will satiate them is for you and I to die. I don't know about you, I don't feel like dying. I know, its a savage world that we live in.


Oh yea, flame on!!

The primary purpose of the Armed Forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

[kmcguffee 0]

You guys don't believe that a country is allowed to hold prisoners during a war without having a trial for each and every one of them?

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do." Ben Franklin

[tso-d_chris 0]

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You guys don't believe that a country is allowed to hold prisoners during a war without having a trial for each and every one of them?

If I understand the argument correctly, the complaint is that the prisoners are not accorded the status of captured enemy combatants, with rights guaranteed by the Geneva Convention, and are simultaneously denied the status of civilian, with the right to due process guaranteed by the Constitution.

[jdhill 0]

That would be the general argument... they are either, or... not neither... to further the problem, who's laws are the governed by? If they were picked up in Afgan, then they should be given rights under afgan law, and adjudicated by such, if Pakistan, the same, if in the US, etc... which is why we should have never taken them out of theater... by taking them in to US custody, AND within US jusisdiction (which Gitmo is, like it or not) you have to pick, EPW or illegal combatant... at least in theater there is a grey area, where one can still be determining the appropriate status...

day by day, I have to say I cam coming to the opinion that if they want a holy war, give it to them... islam v. the rest of the world... the gloves have yet to really come off, and it is nearing the time that they do... "main stream" (read moderate - you have your religion, I have mine) islam needs to wake up, and throw these neanderthals out, or they will go down with them... words are not enough...

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[tso-d_chris 0]

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islam needs to wake up, and throw these neanderthals out, or they will go down with them... words are not enough...

The same can be said of all fundamentalists, from Islam and Christianity.

The danger comes from the fundamentalists, not the religions.

[jdhill 0]

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The same can be said of all fundamentalists, from Islam and Christianity.

True on many levels, but I would not say it is the fundamentalists, but rather the extreamists or radicals... But the immediate threat that faces the world today is not from christian, jewish, hindu, budist, or wicken terrorists, it is islamic terrorists, and the rank and file have yet to actively cast out these cowards, half assed statements that "they do not represent true islam" are not enough...

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[tso-d_chris 0]

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True on many levels, but I would not say it is the fundamentalists, but rather the extreamists or radicals... But the immediate threat that faces the world today is not from christian, jewish, hindu, budist, or wicken terrorists, it is islamic terrorists, and the rank and file have yet to actively cast out these cowards, half assed statements that "they do not represent true islam" are not enough...

I have to respectfully disagree that Islam extremists pose a greater risk to the world than "extremists" from other religions. Perhaps it can be argued that their tactics are more desperate, but their ideology is not in and of itself any more dangerous.

[jdhill 0]

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disagree that Islam extremists pose a greater risk to the world than "extremists" from other religions.

Who poses a greater one? Or one that is even close?

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but their ideology is not in and of itself any more dangerous.

I really don't care about the ideology, I care about the actions... Islamic extreamists want to kill anyone who does not think or worship the way they want... I do not see such a threat coming from other religious groups in a global way.

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[crwtom 0]

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What would you prefer I say?

Exactly the point you have been missing for the last X amount of posts.

My preference? Totally irrelevant here!
Just make up your mind and check ONE box.
I don't care which one.

I find it sad how low your oppinion of the effectiveness of the US justice system appears to be - that you think all legal principle that have carried this nation "through the fire" for centuries should be cast aside.

Here the Young Judgement against Reid that has been circulated again recently by email chain letters (or glorifications thereof)

In any case, this guy was effectively dealt with strict adherence to due process:
The judge definitely made his check in the box. No POW status whatsoever was recognized and even dismissed as an absurdity.
The guy was give no more status than a common criminal.
He was found guilty by due process and was thus eliminated from society.
The US did not break any of its own rules, did process this as routinely as possible, and imposed a senetence as just as iot gets.
He was treated as common criminal by the letters of the book.

As a result there's absolutely no way he will ever rise to the status of a hero or martyr - he was effectively neutralized and eveyr aspect of his ambitions. Nobody cares a flying wet dirt about him anymore.

As many here on this forum I grew up in a country that had some serious problems with domestic terrorism for decades. Many of the blunt panic reactions I see in the US now sound like deja-vu's from the times in my childhood when terrorism was just on the rise. The nature and concepts of terrorism also made it into our government classes in high school. I remember learning as 15 year old its basic principle:
Terrosits are of course too few in number and to short on resources to overthrow a government - however, they can count on getting some general population sufficiently upset about their or another government so they will take a much broader action. How do you get them upset. Well, you start attacks against the government that will provoke it into defensive actions. Most of these defensive action will have substantial potetial to be viewed negtively by a population - anyhting from restriction in civil liberties to violent or military actions of the government. Moreover, taking actions outside of its own set of principles of due process is something one would expect a government to do when it is on the brink of its own destruction. Thus, a hadnful of crminals can generate the public image of a society and government in desparation and near desintegration.

This was the officially formulated strategy and philosophy within for example the German RAF, and I'm sure within a few more terrorist organizations around the world. In many western countries
it was eventually realized (after the initial paics) that the justice system in place is working just fine, and affording terrorists more stature than common crimials does more harm than good.

Whether islamic terror oragnizations have such a strategy as clealry formulated we can only suspect, and the populus they try to impress or disgruntle is obviouly not (or only secondarily) the US popultaion. The effect or attmepted effects on the muslim populations are, however, not hard to see and understand. Hundreds of Millions, perhaps billions, of muslim in the world are on the fence, sceptical and ambivalent what to think about the extremists that claim their religion and the western reaction to them.

The side they will eventually tilt and drift towards is the real war. This shadows in magnitude anything that was there before.

Gitmo would be considered a success for a terrorist organization with the above described political strategy. Gitmo has essentially no significant impact on the functionality of terror organizitaion. No Gitmo will prevent future terror attacks any better than regular intelligence gathering and law enforcement. However, it pushes all the right button in an ambivalent muslim population and, more and more, in parts of a US population.

Once apprehended a treatment of terrorist suspects as crimials suspects as in the Reid case and subjecting them to a sober routine process is inifinitely more effective.

That of course opens the other can - who do you find the terrorists, and I mean the real ones, not a broad and indefinite assembly of remotely possible suspects.

Military action with clear cause as in Afghanistan should of course be part of the repertoire. (which was fought on the cheap and slow, I suppose, to save resources for the already planned megalomaniac world-reconstruction-experiment in Iraq).

Terrorists, however, are not bound to countries and can move very quickly. (Eg Osama had no problem moving his operation from Sudan to Afghanistan, after Egytian crack-downs). Unless you have a major accumulation of terrorists in one country and know you can take them very swiftly by surprise, an invasion and even occupations of another country in a classical military fashion are pretty pointless exercise (and of course that was never the reason in Iraq).

Also Gitmo will do nothing - or no more than the regular legal capabilities - to find terrorists.

War on terrorism is an extremely fluid, scattered, and sophisticated animal with innumerous moving parts ranging from interntaional weapons trades, money shuffling, myrads of foreign intelligence agencies, political propaganda, infomation gathering and misinformation spreading, etc etc. Blunt tools such as invasions or dentention camps other naive conceptions aremuch more likely to help it than to beat it.

The real big problem that the US has always had and, looking at the way things are going, will continueto have it the darth of human intelligence. Quite possibly this becase the US never had to deal with domestic organized terrorism for many decades and was in a narrow minded cold war mode for much too long.

In any case it is breathtaking and incomprehensible how blind and an ill-organized the most powerful nation on earth is, when it comes to probably the most important tool in the war on terrorism. (After many years this being the obvious even the dim-wit in the WH acknowledges that)

Also here detention camps and vaguely justified invasions do serious damage to the US intelligence's capabilities to correct a very bad situtation. Human intelligence are for most part foreign nationals who are in the system of potentially hostile governments or organizations. They usually expose themselves to pretty dangerous risks to gather and pass on information, and they really don't have to do that. While getting paid big $'s is good incentive it is still unlikely that they will volunteer if they don't (at least a little) believe in what they are doing.

Now really, who would put his/her life on the line for a nation that has bombed out their neighbors and many parts of their city, that is putting their fellow contry men into detention camps, and a bunch of other such things?

Somewhat analogous to human intelligence also the corporation of other governments - such as Pakistan. Even if there are willing to cooperate they can do so only as long as the disgrutlement in their own population does not boil over into a possible revolution. Pakistan, for one, is getting closer and closer to that edge.

OK I REALLY should stop now and do something productive

Cheers, T

*******************************************************************
Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

[tso-d_chris 0]

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Who poses a greater one? Or one that is even close?

Jewish extremists pose a threat to the world. Christian extremists pose a threat to the world. Islam terrorists pose a threat to the world.

In fairness, I'm not terribly concerned with fundamentalists from Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism or Hinduism.

[jdhill 0]

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Jewish extremists pose a threat to the world. Christian extremists pose a threat to the world.

You actually see Jewish extreamism, or Christian extreamism as being as great a threat, on a global level, as is the current state of islamic extreamism? Please elaborate as to why you think that? Give me some examples, because I'm not seeing it...

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[tso-d_chris 0]

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You actually see Jewish extreamism, or Christian extreamism as being as great a threat, on a global level, as is the current state of islamic extreamism?

Yes.

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Give me some examples, because I'm not seeing it...

If you don't see it already, pointing out the most obvious examples is not going to change that.