Ex-Gitmo prisoner carries out suicide attack

[VABills]

It's very arguable that they are universally equivalent to spies. Under international law, to be considered "agents" subject to summary execution, they would have to be operating under the authority of a sanctioning nation - which is the crux of the problem. They're not. They operate under their own ex-national authority...which traditionally would be a criminal matter, save that no one has criminal jurisdiction over them. The only conceivable way that works otherwise is if you posit that al-Qaeda members fighting in Afghanistan were sanctioned by the legitimate Afghani government (i.e. the Taleban), which is a pretty questionable proposition. Again, their legal status isn't clear.

 

And yes, I do know that foreign combattants (the legally recognized term is "enemy combattants") only are supposed to be in Gitmo. Legally, if any American citizen is in Gitmo, they have a legitimate right to habeas corpus under US law, judicial decision, and tradition (considering that treason - the only real reason any American should be held in Gitmo - is a judicial matter, and not one of military or international law). Non-resident aliens captured overseas engaged in hostilities unsanctioned by another country, though...covered by neither international law nor US law (nor should they be covered by any US law - again, jurisdictional issues). Legally, the Gitmo detainees don't exist - but the solution isn't to arbitrarily give them more rights so you can sleep well at night while holding their legal status in abeyence. The solution is to resolve their friggin' legal status!!!

Shoot them. Problem solved. They won't exist anymore and they can go have their damn 72 virgins.

[ieatcrayonz]

Yeah, when you ignore the part where I site the International Red Cross it makes that so much easier to defend your point doesn't it?

 

Steely Dan post Yesterday, 06:20 PM

 

But lost amid all the speculation are the serious steps taken by Congress to bring U.S. detainee policy back in line with American tradition and values by restoring habeas corpus rights to these detainees. Habeas corpus, or the Great Writ, dates back to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and has been a fundamental part of free and open societies for centuries. It allows any imprisoned person to challenge in court the legality of their confinement.

 

I'm sorry somehow I thought that meant that the U.S. has always given detainees the right of habeas corpus. I also interpreted it to mean that it has been a part of free and open societies for centuries since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215 but I'm probably misinterpreting that somehow.

Hippies might think the "International Red Cross" is above reproach but in the real world we know they are commies. What do you think "red" stands for anyway?

[Steely Dan]

No, the criminal justice system gives the right of habeas corpus to people detained under the criminal justice system. HABEAS CORPUS DOES NOT APPLY TO PRISONERS OF WAR, because they are not subject to the criminal justice system of the detaining country according to the Geneva Convention. I don't care that the ICRC says otherwise (they don't, by the way - note they say "prisoners", not "prisoners of war". Even they dodge the question of the legal status of the Gitmo detainees). THE LAW says that habeas corpus does not apply to prisoners of war, a point of law that has been upheld in court (e.g. Eisentrager: "a nonresedient enemy alien has no access to our courts in wartime", and

 

 

 

That is a matter of interntational law and treaty codified in US judicial process. POWs do not have a right to habeas corpus. Criminals do.

 

(And that, by the way, is how you "prove" something. Not by quoting some ambiguous statement by the ICRC.)

 

 

Which brings us right back to where we started: do you want them treated as criminals under the US justice system (in which case habeas corpus is in effect, and they go free because of the violation of posse comitatus if detained by the military or jurisdictional violations if detained by, say, the FBI)? Or do you want them treated as POWs under the Geneva Convention (in which case they go free, given that their actions are unsanctioned by nation-states, and hence are a judicial matter having nothing to do with warfare)? Or we could just go with your earlier suggestion...just follow parts of the Geneva Convention without resolving their legal status in any way, and thereby feel good about ourselves while accomplishing precisely jack sh--.

 

Or we could actually try to resolve the ambiguity of their legal status. Fascinating idea, that.

 

Them saying the prisoners are being tortured is ambiguous?! How?!

 

Ok lets break this down.

 

But lost amid all the speculation are the serious steps taken by Congress to bring U.S. detainee policy back in line with American tradition and values by restoring habeas corpus rights to these detainees. I guess you believe Congress acted to restore rights they never had even though it's been a tradition and a core value of this country! Do you know the difference between detainees and prisoners of war?

 

Habeas corpus, or the Great Writ, dates back to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and has been a fundamental part of free and open societies for centuries. I guess centuries doesn't count as a long time to you. Certainly not long enough to establish a tradition.

 

It allows any imprisoned person to challenge in court the legality of their confinement. I guess they don't qualify as any imprisoned person.

 

Jeez just admit defeat.

 

 

It's very arguable that they are universally equivalent to spies. Under international law, to be considered "agents" subject to summary execution, they would have to be operating under the authority of a sanctioning nation - which is the crux of the problem. They're not. They operate under their own ex-national authority...which traditionally would be a criminal matter, save that no one has criminal jurisdiction over them. The only conceivable way that works otherwise is if you posit that al-Qaeda members fighting in Afghanistan were sanctioned by the legitimate Afghani government (i.e. the Taleban), which is a pretty questionable proposition. Again, their legal status isn't clear.

 

And yes, I do know that foreign combattants (the legally recognized term is "enemy combattants") only are supposed to be in Gitmo. Legally, if any American citizen is in Gitmo, they have a legitimate right to habeas corpus under US law, judicial decision, and tradition (considering that treason - the only real reason any American should be held in Gitmo - is a judicial matter, and not one of military or international law). Non-resident aliens captured overseas engaged in hostilities unsanctioned by another country, though...covered by neither international law nor US law (nor should they be covered by any US law - again, jurisdictional issues). Legally, the Gitmo detainees don't exist - but the solution isn't to arbitrarily give them more rights so you can sleep well at night while holding their legal status in abeyence. The solution is to resolve their friggin' legal status!!!

 

They don't need a defined legal status to have trials.

[DC Tom]

Them saying the prisoners are being tortured is ambiguous?! How?!

 

Ok lets break this down.

 

But lost amid all the speculation are the serious steps taken by Congress to bring U.S. detainee policy back in line with American tradition and values by restoring habeas corpus rights to these detainees. I guess you believe Congress acted to restore rights they never had even though it's been a tradition and a core value of this country! Do you know the difference between detainees and prisoners of war?

 

Habeas corpus, or the Great Writ, dates back to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and has been a fundamental part of free and open societies for centuries. I guess centuries doesn't count as a long time to you. Certainly not long enough to establish a tradition.

 

It allows any imprisoned person to challenge in court the legality of their confinement. I guess they don't qualify as any imprisoned person.

 

Jeez just admit defeat.

 

Are you seriously arguing that the Red Cross trumps US court decisions? Re-read my post - reread the court decision I not only quoted but provided you the name of so you can look it up yourself. THE LAW says otherwise. The law says that extra-nationals captured in combat with the US do not have the right to habeas corpus. There is no "restoring" a right they never had - not under the Magna Carta, the Constitution, the Bible, or the !@#$ing Code of !@#$ing Hammurabi. If you are a foreign citizen fighting the US on foreign soil, you have never had and currently do not have any right to habeas corpus. Period. No matter what the ICRC says.

 

Have you even looked at the applicable laws and court decisions? How many would you like me to quote?

 

The "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" protected by the Suspension Clause is limited to people who are part of the population of the United States, as that term is used in The Japanese Immigrant Case. That term is broader than just citizens; it includes resident aliens and even visitors. However, it is not so broad as to include persons who had never entered the United States or any area under its control prior to being brought in as military prisoners.

 

The [boumediene] court held both that Congress—not the executive branch—stripped the courts of jurisdiction to hear lawsuits from detainees at Guantanamo, and that it had the constitutional power to do so.

 

Included because it's...interesting. Apparently the argument whether the White House can suspend habeas corpus at Gitmo is irrelevent, since it was apparently Congress that did it, and they were well within their Constitutional right to do so.

 

Until the advent of the war on terrorism, nobody seriously believed that the federal courts would entertain challenges by aliens who had never set foot in this country to overseas military detentions—or, at least, nobody thought so who had read the Supreme Court’s emphatic pronouncement on the subject. ‘‘We are cited to no instance where a court, in this or any other country where the writ is known, has issued it on behalf of an alien enemy who, at no relevant time and in no stage of his captivity, has been within its territorial jurisdiction,’’ the Court wrote in 1950. ‘‘Nothing in the text of the Constitution extends such a right, nor does anything in our statutes.’’

 

Notwithstanding the passionate dissent in the D.C. Circuit case, the notion that [the Military Commissions Act] somehow suspends the writ - a step the Constitution forbids except in cases of rebellion or invasion - is not credible. As a legal matter, it merely restores a status quo that had been relatively uncontroversial for the five decades preceding the September 11 attacks - that federal courts don’t supervise the overseas detentions of prisoners of war or unlawful combatants. The demand that they do so now is not one the Constitution makes.

 

Emphasis mine, since it's my point.

 

The Case of the Three Spanish Sailors, 96 Eng. Rep. 775 (C. P. 1779) is a case of the second type. The three sailors were undisputedly captured as enemy aliens and prisoners of war in the first instance, but they claimed they had ceased to be such by their voluntary service on an English merchant vessel. See id., at 775. The holding was that on their own showing they were enemy aliens and prisoners of war and as such the courts "can give them no redress." Id., at 776. The court went on to say that if their allegations were true "it is probable they may find some relief from the Board of Admiralty."

 

Note that last one...the writ of habeas corpus was not only found to be inapplicable to enemy nationals (who, despite their service to the crown, were denied the right on the basis of soverignty), but the court also set the precedent for current international law and convention by referring them to the authority of the military, just as is done at Gitmo now.

 

 

 

They don't need a defined legal status to have trials.

 

Yes, they do. Their legal status determines jurisdiction. That's the whole point. Your misunderstanding of virtually everything about this issue surpasses molson-like proportions.

[Steely Dan]

Are you seriously arguing that the Red Cross trumps US court decisions? Re-read my post - reread the court decision I not only quoted but provided you the name of so you can look it up yourself. THE LAW says otherwise. The law says that extra-nationals captured in combat with the US do not have the right to habeas corpus. There is no "restoring" a right they never had - not under the Magna Carta, the Constitution, the Bible, or the !@#$ing Code of !@#$ing Hammurabi. If you are a foreign citizen fighting the US on foreign soil, you have never had and currently do not have any right to habeas corpus. Period. No matter what the ICRC says.

 

Have you even looked at the applicable laws and court decisions? How many would you like me to quote?

 

 

 

 

 

Note that last one...the writ of habeas corpus was not only found to be inapplicable to enemy nationals (who, despite their service to the crown, were denied the right on the basis of soverignty), but the court also set the precedent for current international law and convention by referring them to the authority of the military, just as is done at Gitmo now.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, they do. Their legal status determines jurisdiction. That's the whole point. Your misunderstanding of virtually everything about this issue surpasses molson-like proportions.

 

Them saying the prisoners are being tortured is ambiguous?! How?!

 

Ok lets break this down.

 

But lost amid all the speculation are the serious steps taken by Congress to bring U.S. detainee policy back in line with American tradition and values by restoring habeas corpus rights to these detainees. I guess you believe Congress acted to restore rights they never had even though it's been a tradition and a core value of this country! Do you know the difference between detainees and prisoners of war?

 

Habeas corpus, or the Great Writ, dates back to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and has been a fundamental part of free and open societies for centuries. I guess centuries doesn't count as a long time to you. Certainly not long enough to establish a tradition.

 

It allows any imprisoned person to challenge in court the legality of their confinement. I guess they don't qualify as any imprisoned person.

 

Jeez just admit defeat.

 

 

 

 

They don't need a defined legal status to have trials.

 

Ok, one question at a time.

 

1. What does this mean; ...the serious steps taken by Congress to bring U.S. detainee policy back in line with American tradition and values by restoring habeas corpus rights to these detainees.

 

2. What does this mean; Habeas corpus, or the Great Writ, dates back to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and has been a fundamental part of free and open societies for centuries

 

3. What does this mean; It allows any imprisoned person to challenge in court the legality of their confinement.

 

4. Where do I say the Red Cross is asking for habeas corpus???? I mentioned the Red Cross in reference to the torture thing!!!!!

 

:lol:

 

I'm very interested in your answers particularly your answer to number 1.

[DC Tom]

Ok, one question at a time.

 

1. What does this mean; ...the serious steps taken by Congress to bring U.S. detainee policy back in line with American tradition and values by restoring habeas corpus rights to these detainees.

 

2. What does this mean; Habeas corpus, or the Great Writ, dates back to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and has been a fundamental part of free and open societies for centuries

 

3. What does this mean; It allows any imprisoned person to challenge in court the legality of their confinement.

 

4. Where do I say the Red Cross is asking for habeas corpus???? I mentioned the Red Cross in reference to the torture thing!!!!!

 

 

I'm very interested in your answers particularly your answer to number 1.

 

1) It's flat-out incorrect. Frankly, the author's an ass. He should have done his research. For example:

 

The writ of habeas corpus exists to protect everyone from unlawful imprisonment regardless of the alleged crime. Convicted murderers and drug kingpins, even terrorists as dangerous as Ramzi Yousef—the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing—are afforded habeas rights. Yousef is as dangerous as anyone at Guantanamo, yet there is no outcry to limit his habeas rights because any challenge he might make to his detention would be frivolous as he was tried and convicted in federal court under rules and procedures that have been developed and refined for more than 200 years.

 

Wrong on many counts: the writ does not exist to protect "everyone", there are actual tests codified in law that determine if it apply (not limited to "cannot be an enemy alien captured on the battlefield detained overseas who has never set foot in the US). Yousef's right to habeas corpus isn't limited because he was arrested, detained, and convicted in pursuit of a criminal act on US soil, a fundamentally different situation than the prisoners'at Gitmo. It's not about "terrorists", it's about the undetermined legal status of foreign fighters captured in combat with the US unsanctioned by any nation state, versus a clear-cut case of criminal action on US soil.

 

The detainees never had a previous right to habeas corpus, either constitutional or statutory, hence there's nothing to restore. Ref. my earlier quote of Eisentrager v. Johnson. How can you not understand this by now? THE LAW, and the judicial interpretation of such, refutes the idea that there's any right to restore, since they never had it, going all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars, if not before.

 

2) It's incorrect. The Writ of Habeas Corpus goes back to an Act of Parliment in 1679. I'd quote the act for you, if FindLaw had the text of it.

 

3) IT'S INCORRECT. The law says otherwise. Again, Eisentrager v. Johnson. (And before you ask, yes I keep pushing Eisentrager v. Johnson. So does every single decision on the subject in the last 50 years. Until and unless The Supremes decide otherwise or Congress drastically alters the habeas corpus statute, Eisentrager v. Johnson is pretty much the last word on the subject.)

 

4) My mistake, you were actually quoting some gomer on americanprogress.org. Which is actually worse. You'd do better quoting the ICRC...at least they're unbiased.

 

 

You're really making this a lot harder than it needs to be. The law's clear: prisoners detained at Gitmo do not have recourse to habeas corpus, because American courts do not have jurisdiction over them (why the hell do you think the military holds them at Gitmo in the first place? According to the law, as soon as they set foot on American soil, they have recourse to habeas corpus, which the administration absolutely does not want). They are not and have never been subject to the American legal system, by that system's own repeated decisions based on English common law precedent going back centuries.

 

 

None of which addresses the actual problem, which is again: the indeterminate legal status of the detainees. Care to address that? Beyond the breathtakingly idiotic and ignorant statement of "It doesn't matter", I mean?

[Steely Dan]

1) It's flat-out incorrect. Frankly, the author's an ass. He should have done his research. For example:

 

 

 

Wrong on many counts: the writ does not exist to protect "everyone", there are actual tests codified in law that determine if it apply (not limited to "cannot be an enemy alien captured on the battlefield detained overseas who has never set foot in the US). Yousef's right to habeas corpus isn't limited because he was arrested, detained, and convicted in pursuit of a criminal act on US soil, a fundamentally different situation than the prisoners'at Gitmo. It's not about "terrorists", it's about the undetermined legal status of foreign fighters captured in combat with the US unsanctioned by any nation state, versus a clear-cut case of criminal action on US soil.

 

The detainees never had a previous right to habeas corpus, either constitutional or statutory, hence there's nothing to restore. Ref. my earlier quote of Eisentrager v. Johnson. How can you not understand this by now? THE LAW, and the judicial interpretation of such, refutes the idea that there's any right to restore, since they never had it, going all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars, if not before.

 

2) It's incorrect. The Writ of Habeas Corpus goes back to an Act of Parliment in 1679. I'd quote the act for you, if FindLaw had the text of it.

 

3) IT'S INCORRECT. The law says otherwise. Again, Eisentrager v. Johnson. (And before you ask, yes I keep pushing Eisentrager v. Johnson. So does every single decision on the subject in the last 50 years. Until and unless The Supremes decide otherwise or Congress drastically alters the habeas corpus statute, Eisentrager v. Johnson is pretty much the last word on the subject.)

 

4) My mistake, you were actually quoting some gomer on americanprogress.org. Which is actually worse. You'd do better quoting the ICRC...at least they're unbiased.

 

 

You're really making this a lot harder than it needs to be. The law's clear: prisoners detained at Gitmo do not have recourse to habeas corpus, because American courts do not have jurisdiction over them (why the hell do you think the military holds them at Gitmo in the first place? According to the law, as soon as they set foot on American soil, they have recourse to habeas corpus, which the administration absolutely does not want). They are not and have never been subject to the American legal system, by that system's own repeated decisions based on English common law precedent going back centuries.

 

 

None of which addresses the actual problem, which is again: the indeterminate legal status of the detainees. Care to address that? Beyond the breathtakingly idiotic and ignorant statement of "It doesn't matter", I mean?

 

So Congress voted on a phantom right?

 

[Congressional Record: January 4, 2007 (Senate)][Page S179-S181]

 

 

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

 

 

Mr. SPECTER (for himself and Mr. Leahy):

 

We have had Supreme Court decisions which have made it plain that

habeas corpus is available to noncitizens and that habeas corpus

applies to territory controlled by the United States, specifically,

including Guantanamo. More recently, however, we had a decision in the

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia applying the habeas

corpus jurisdiction stripping provision of the Military Commissions

Act, but I believe we will see the appellate courts strike down this

legislative provision.

 

I guess you know more than the Supreme Court.

 

Go back and look. I did quote a source about the Red Cross findings of torture.

[DC Tom]

So Congress voted on a phantom right?

 

[Congressional Record: January 4, 2007 (Senate)][Page S179-S181]

 

 

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

 

 

Mr. SPECTER (for himself and Mr. Leahy):

 

We have had Supreme Court decisions which have made it plain that

habeas corpus is available to noncitizens and that habeas corpus

applies to territory controlled by the United States, specifically,

including Guantanamo. More recently, however, we had a decision in the

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia applying the habeas

corpus jurisdiction stripping provision of the Military Commissions

Act, but I believe we will see the appellate courts strike down this

legislative provision.

 

I guess you know more than the Supreme Court.

 

I'm quoting the Supreme Court. And Specter's being disingenious if not actually completely dishonest or stupid. Eisentrager v. Johnson as applied concerned German prisoners under US jurisdiction in Germany, and determined that although the US had jurisdiction, they didn't have soverignty, hence there was no right to habeas corpus conveyed. Similarly...Gitmo is by treaty with Cuba under jurisdiction of the US but soverign to Cuba (I presume Specter's ambigouos phrasing of "territory controlled by" is purposeful to cloud the issue). This is only partially overturned in Rasul v. Bush - but only partially, in that it conveys not the right to habeas corpus, but the right to petition for habeas corpus. It's well worth reading - not the decision itself (which personally I think is crap), but Kennedy's and Scalia's opinions (agreeing and dissenting, respectively). Kennedy's, although I find his conclusion flawed, in particular is excellent in defining exactly what I've been saying, that there's considerable ambiguity in the status of the detainees that needs to be addressed.

 

Funny how you keep dodging that particular datum. You still haven't explained how you'd address the actual problem of their legal status. I guess granting them actual legal rights is less important to you than just feeling like you might have.

[Steely Dan]

I'm quoting the Supreme Court. And Specter's being disingenious if not actually completely dishonest or stupid. Eisentrager v. Johnson as applied concerned German prisoners under US jurisdiction in Germany, and determined that although the US had jurisdiction, they didn't have soverignty, hence there was no right to habeas corpus conveyed. Similarly...Gitmo is by treaty with Cuba under jurisdiction of the US but soverign to Cuba (I presume Specter's ambigouos phrasing of "territory controlled by" is purposeful to cloud the issue). This is only partially overturned in Rasul v. Bush - but only partially, in that it conveys not the right to habeas corpus, but the right to petition for habeas corpus. It's well worth reading - not the decision itself (which personally I think is crap), but Kennedy's and Scalia's opinions (agreeing and dissenting, respectively). Kennedy's, although I find his conclusion flawed, in particular is excellent in defining exactly what I've been saying, that there's considerable ambiguity in the status of the detainees that needs to be addressed.

 

Funny how you keep dodging that particular datum. You still haven't explained how you'd address the actual problem of their legal status. I guess granting them actual legal rights is less important to you than just feeling like you might have.

 

You really do think you know more than the Supreme Court!!

 

I've told you they don't need to have a legal status in order to get a trial!! The Supreme Court agrees!

 

I'm done here.

[UConn James]

You cannot possibly really believe the charges would be reversed by "bleeding hearts", who by your definition, it seems, is anyone who wants fair treatment for them.

 

Linkage

 

Here's an article that I'm sure will have you saying the guy is a complete liar. I don't know that and you don't know that. For sake of argument if it is true do you think he should be held at Gitmo indefinitely and with a sham trial?

 

Well, I think yall and ieatcrayonz (is it sad to be upstaged by him? Honestly... I think I'd shoot myself) did my light work yesterday.

 

'Here's a guy that didn't do anything but deliver an unmarked package! Ask him! He'll tell you! It's all trumped up! ... Oh, that part about providing passports and attending a terrorist training camp? What, I left that out? No biggie!' What a f--kin' joke.

 

Any sensitive information can be left out of the public part of the trial I'm surprised you don't know that. Wait, no I'm not.

 

Yeah, I don't know that. I also don't know that aforementioned bleeding heart ACLU/AI-types will use these redactions as a way to claim that any conviction was not fair and that 'the blacked out sections would prove it all... if they weren't blacked out. So it needs to be reversed.' "Heavily (intimation=unnecessarily) redacted/What do they have to hide?" are regular cries from the apologists.

 

I was wrong about the contact with families as it stands now. I do believe though that I remember it was a very long time before they were permitted any contact at all with families.

 

At least you admitted to it. Amazing how a little Google searching can lead to startling revelations that your previous ignorant slanders were off base. Maybe you should try doing research before you make more baseless assertions of what the big, bad, faceless admin is and is not doing.

 

Here's something about their access to their lawyers.

 

So, the admin wanted to limit or block access to those lawyers who broke rules of communication and encouraged uprisings that put guards' lives more at risk? I'm shocked! That article has a little dust on it, tho.

 

As for Stimson, what of it? He's surprised that NY lawyers have taken the detainees as clients? Perhaps we could get The Law Offices of Cletus Soreass Esq. in Branson, Mo. He had Robert Vaughan do some commercials for him, yaknow! Who should represent the detainees? It's not really any different than lawyers who defend murderers, rapists and the like --- that lawyer serves as the defendant's legal counsel, not as his best buddy.

 

 

Here's something else of interest to this discussion on the peripheral about torture;

 

"From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me. It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way," al-Nashiri said, according to the transcript. "I just said those things to make the people happy. They were very happy when I told them those things."

I'd say there is some truth to his statements and some lies. I do think however this does show that prisoners subjected to torture will say anything to get out of the torture and information gleaned from them is mostly useless despite what the pathologically lying Bush administration claims. After all they can't say we've gotten no decent information after submitting these guys to torture can they?

 

As I wrote before, this thread wasn't about torture, it's about detention. I don't support torture b/c I don't think it works; much more effective info is gleaned in other ways. I think the admin mostly accepts this too, just wanted to keep their options open for some relatively milder forms (i.e. not causing lasting physical harm), and Congress iirc passed an anti-torture bill incl. waterboarding. But like I said, I don't support torture. Well.... maybe in the extremest of cases --- like if we caught OBL/Zahari and had evidence that he was financing an attack to be carried out in the next week and only he knew the details. And even then, that would have to be in one of my weaker moments.

 

I know there's not much to go on there, and I'm not saying for sure this guy above is lying, but if you were tortured, wouldn't you say, when questioned, specifically what torture was inflicted on you? Wouldn't it be burned into your soul? 'One way and then another way' reeks of lawyer-inspired talk.

 

Because I try to own up to my mistakes here is an interesting article. I don't think it really has much to do with the neutral country argument but it does show the problems with trying to get other countries to accept prisoners which I think does show how difficult getting other countries involved in anything can be.

 

Maybe we have a hard time b/c... oh I dunno... the people in Gitmo are the scum of the earth and would invite terrorist attack. Like I wrote, you aren't going to find any neutral countries. "You're either with us or with the terrorists."

 

 

Hesitant and adamant are two very different words in my opinion and I believe in most peoples opinion too.

 

Lynch was hesitant for Bragg to write for all the world to see that she had been raped by her (initial Iraqi army) captors, as was verifiable from her medical records. She had final editorial control of her own book. That she now has regrets about including it is understandable for that type of victim.... and also from a standpoint of whatever it may mean for future GI Janes. I don't get what you're trying to argue.

 

---

 

Tom, it just don't seem to be sinking in to him no matter how many times it's been explained. You'd probably have more success talking to a brick wall.

 

And then there's the old phrase, "I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person." (One obstinate person I said that to once said, "What is that supposed to mean?" Checkmate.)

[DC Tom]

You really do think you know more than the Supreme Court!!

 

I've told you they don't need to have a legal status in order to get a trial!! The Supreme Court agrees!

 

I'm done here.

 

No, I think I'm QUOTING the Supreme Court. You should try it. You didn't bother reading a damn thing about the subject, did you?

[ieatcrayonz]

Well, I think yall and ieatcrayonz (is it sad to be upstaged by him? Honestly... I think I'd shoot myself) did my light work yesterday.

Careful Jimmy. Repeating college professors line over and over may make you feel smart, but it doesn't make you look smart.

[UConn James]

So this morning, I was reading a magazine in the waiting room, I think it was Time (or maybe Newsweek?) from late June, and there was an article in there about the big prison breakout in Kandahar where ~ 1000 Taliban inmates escaped after a large suicide bomb and a convoy of minivans that shuttled the prisoners away.

 

And I'm reading.... and up comes the detail that the seed of the escape happened when Terrorist A in the prison called Terrorist B on the outside, on his cellphone. Go on to read that about 700 prisoners in the compound were allowed to have cellphones, provided they were paid for by family members and they paid $100 to... whatever entity collected it (gee... what're the odds that this $ went straight into someone's pocket?). Reports were that the prison guards, over the period of a day of escaping/shuttling going on, had stripped off their uniforms and mingled in with the prisoners so as to avoid being killed.

 

This is the crap about detention of Taliban/AQ prisoners that no one seems ready or willing to answer. Where do we put them, if not Gitmo?

 

Above all, I want that question answered.

 

Both candidates have said they will shut it down, w/o getting into details, as far as I've seen. Real-world question: Where do they go? To other countries where they will be released only to bomb again as was the impetus for the start of this thread? Or to other places where the security is, shall we say, less than adequate to defend against groups of people who have no hesitation to kill and be killed for their demented cause? Or where said security is waylaid by a little graft under the guise of 'prisoner rights to talk to their families' that enables communication/coordination b/w terrorists to take place?

 

Perhaps this large escape is why we're having a difficult time of it in Afghanistan for the past few weeks now? Hmm? Maybe it says they had the right guys locked up? Where's the apologist schpiel, Steely?

 

As well, to update the goings-on, many pretrial hearings were held in the last couple of months, and, as predicted, quickly turned into a 'I don't respect your authority/I will cut all your heads off, Allah willing' circus. How 'bout that?

[UConn James]

*Bump*

 

The question stands.

[KD in CA]

*Bump*

 

The question stands.

 

Take the lot of them five miles out and toss 'em overboard. If they swim back home, they are free to go.

[Wacka]

This is the crap about detention of Taliban/AQ prisoners that no one seems ready or willing to answer. Where do we put them, if not Gitmo?

 

We take them to a f'n country that will allow us to hook up a battery to their nads (BiB's favorite), get them to spill the beans and then shoot 'em in the F'n head.

 

I'm sick and tired of these bleeding hearts caring about a bunch of sub-human scum that want to eradicate all infidels from the earth.

[Endzone Animal]

I am not interested in the rights or lives of our enemies. We are at war, we capture terrorist enemies who are trying to kill us, keep them alive until they have nothing left useful to extract, and then they are shot. If the Supreme Court says we need to offer them full rights to a trial in a US civil court, fine, we make the process quicker, give a battlefield interrogation, and then shoot them. Either way, any enemy combattant who is caught in the act of terror, or conspiring to commit terror, must be shot dead.

 

If we aren't willing to fight war as a true war, meaning war of victory by killing as many of the enemy as possible until they have unconditionally surrendered, than let's declare ourselves the United States of Switzerland and disband our military.

[Adam]

My issue is not with it being in Guantanamo Bay. My issue is holding people for years without charging them and giving them their day in ANY court. That IS NOT what America is all about, regardless of the WHY these people are being held.

 

 

I don't see the correlation. We're taking these people's lives away from them, for a really long time. Each of them has a family and community at home that we're basically telling to "fug off" because they're not important. That's not a very smart idea, PERIOD.

 

We're not protecting ourselves. We're continuing the same silly pattern that gives credence to this crap in the first place. We'll win the war on drugs before we win the war on terrorism.

Every point you've made in this thread is dead on.

 

The very concept of setting up a prison outside our country to attempt to circumvent everything that our country stands for is unamerican, IMHO. Only a few more months to go!

[John Adams]

*Bump*

 

The question stands.

 

The WHERE of GB is not an issue for me. It's the bigger problem that we're holding people without the benefit of any trial or review (including some Americans), and we're holding them for years on end. That's not OK and we'd be hollering (rightly) to the heavens if North Korea or some other country just jailed some Americans under accusation that they're enemies.

[UConn James]

The WHERE of GB is not an issue for me. It's the bigger problem that we're holding people without the benefit of any trial or review (including some Americans), and we're holding them for years on end. That's not OK and we'd be hollering (rightly) to the heavens if North Korea or some other country just jailed some Americans under accusation that they're enemies.

 

Well, point of fact, the trials of some of the detainees will be starting soon. Kind of a test run of the system. As much as I agree with AD about the principle, the truth is where the rubber meets the road.

 

Found a pretty good article here.