Guantanamo Detainees Lose Appeal
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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
- In The Mailbox: 12.23.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll truly IS a sad, embittered psychopath
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Can’t wait to see alphie/SteveXX try to wrestle with this one.
After all, they convinced themselves that foreign terrorists are the equivalent of full US citizens.
Actually, they think they’re BETTER than US citizens. You know, that whole other-cultures-are-better thing.
It’s going to the USSC. Also, it is that whole America-is-better-than-that thing.
Better than what? Giving legal privileges that don’t exist anywhere in US law to unlawful enemy combatants and Islamic terrorists apprehended on battlefields?
America is smarter than that.
You? Not so much.
Really? Are you sure?
I know one thing, the majority of Americans oppose the Iraq war. Still onboard with policy determined by popular opinion?
Hmmm. Well, we could have shot them and left them to rot on the battlefield, and had a pretty solid legal basis for that, given the whole not-fighting-under-Geneva-rules thing. But we’d have been vilified for that.
Instead, we give them a tropical condo, a book that the infidel guards must not sully with their bare hands, and proper food and medical care.
And for that, we’re vilified.
If we released them, we’d ALSO be vilified, because undoubtedly a fair number would go back to their crazy jihadin’ ways, and we loosed them on an unsuspecting world.
If we execute any of them, we’ll be vilified, of course.
In short, it doesn’t matter what we do, we’ll be called bad names by lefties and the “international community” as defined by the NYTimes and John Kerry. So frankly, heet, I don’t care what you think or say on the topic. We’ll protect Western civilization. You can snivel about it.
Want to test your idea of letting every jihadi get a lawyer and clog up the court system with their lying tales of woe and innocence in the court of public opinion?
Aaaaaarrrrggggh. Can’t we sell Pennsylvania back to the Indians or something?
Whoa. So is it just me, or did this post disappear too? If I comment on a post that no longer exists, have I said anything?
Half-Wit 1, Great Writ 0 but it’s going up to the booth for a video replay.
Hey speaking of monarchies, did you see the Brits are taking a powder Dan? These guys need to change their name to “Yorkshire-Pudding-Slurping- Surrender-Monkey Dan and John Ford Coley” right now.
It seems like a moot point now.
The war will probably be over before the Supreme Court decides the case.
Coming from almost anyone else, that would sound optimistic, alphie.
You mean like the one that re-elected Bush?
Jeff and Dan,
No reply to the fat chicks and NBA love machines WMD Medved dropped over Townhall today?
The free world is counting ou you.
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
Winston Churchill
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
Winston Churchill
I don’t know you, Themistocles. Which is probably a good thing for you.
Jeff and Dan,
Why don’t you just grant posting privileges to alphie, since he seems to think that topics he’s interested in would be better aired here than at his own blog? I mean, even though he didn’t bother to provide a link to Medved’s column (you can thank me later), he thinks it’s important that you guys discuss it, even though it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. So, really, let’s let him dictate what gets talked about here.
alphie,
I’ve been away from commenting here as regularly as I used to, so I missed your arrival here as a resident troll. What I’d like to know is this: what do you get out of it? I don’t get it. Most of the people here seem to think you’re kind of a dumbshit. From what I’ve seen, people like you and steveexpat, etc. don’t really want to debate the issues with anything approaching good faith–you just want to fling poo like denizens of the monkey house. The comment I referred to above has nothing to do with the issue of enemy combatants, and it’s just stupid. What do you hope to achieve here with that kind of bullshit?
I don’t usually wonder so far off the trajectory of a thread as I did in my above post, Sean, but I know Jeff has been angling for a comedy writing slot at Fox and I thought he ought to know Medved had entered the race too and jumped straight into the lead with his latest post.
It’s true I don’t argue using faith (good or otherwise), I use reason.
Yeah, but “I like making shit up.” isn’t a very good reason, alpo.
I don’t have any problem sharing a locker room with openly gay men or morbidly obese women, or hot women for that matter, or even notorious love machines. I think that for his penance Medved should have to soap Andrew Sullivan’s back.
I hasten to add that this does not reflect any policy of PW per se.
It really is a joke.
I mean, does anyone really believe that guantanamo is under ‘cuban sovereignty’?
For some people, it always comes down to self-image.
We’re there under a valid lease from the Cuban government, signed long ago. So, yes.
Will the Cubans attempt to exercise that sovereignty? Oh, probably not. But they have it.
I see you get how it is a joke.
Yes. Bwaaahahahahaaa!!!
Hey, I think that possibly there are some relevant objections to the Gitmo detentions that deserve a hard listen. Such as: the lack of timely tribunal hearings.
The assumption that everyone in Gitmo is automatically a terrorist is unsupported and unwarranted. It’s a close relative to the assumption that guys in the slam must be guilty, or they wouldn’t have been picked up to begin with.
Slart is onto something. If they were called enemy deadbeat dads, we’d hear all sorts about their sovereign rights. And it still wouldn’t be funny.
Interesting question. Isn’t Gitmo US soil, legally speaking? I mean, we don’t technically own the soil embassies are on, but as long as we occupy it, it’s US soil.
IANAFL, in case it’s not obvious, but I thought it was this way.
You’re right, there should be a simple way for us to tell whether the guys we capture on battlefields are really terrorists or just a lost wedding party that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carrying grenades.
I suggest that the jihadis maybe start wearing uniforms, so their driven-snow bros and hos don’t get accidentally hauled to Gitmo.
Think it’ll catch on? It could85.
Heet, 57% of Americans support finishing the job in Iraq, that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people. Only 25% of Americans want the troops brought home immediately regardless of what happens to Iraq.
Check it out.
There is a way to separate the terrorists from the obviously non-terrorists: tribunals. As far as I can tell, we didn’t bother to start doing tribunals for years after some of those guys were captured.
And not everyone was captured fighting US troops. Some of them were reported by their own countrymen. Imagine: your neighbor reports you for a bounty, and you spend a couple of years inside a US prison before even getting a hearing. I’ve heard of this happening, but it’s not important whether it has or not, what’s important is that it could have, and who’d know unless they bothered to check?
They’re not being held for crimes committed or alleged. They’re combatants being held to keep them off the battlefield. If they were lawful combatants they’d be POW’s.
Legally, an embassy is the sovereign soil of the nation that occupies it. A military facility is not. Cuba owns Gitmo, we lease it from them.
Ah, interesting. So, the law of Cuba applies, as well as UCMJ. Except where they conflict, I’d imagine. Makes me wonder whether the UCMJ overtly attaches the Geneva Conventions.
More on the automatic guilt of Gitmo detainees here. Interesting reading, I thought:
According to the administration, they are being accorded GC protections, though they’re not specifically entitled to them under the GCs. So, the UCMJ doesn’t invoke them, but Bushco has.
“Imagine: your neighbor reports you for a bounty, and you spend a couple of years inside a US prison before even getting a hearing. I’ve heard of this happening, but it’s not important whether it has or not, what’s important is that it could have”
Imagine: That there’s a difference between standing on the street corner in the US and being approached by the local civil law enforcement agency and being in the middle of a battle area, in a land that had been run by a murderous regime that exported terrorism. Despite that difference, The US instituted tribunals to sift through who had been interned. This resulted in people being turned loose. Some of these were later re-captured. Guess what they were doing. And no, they weren’t having a spat with the neighbors.
The issue at hand is whether they have standing in a US civilian court. According to the much ballyhooed international law, they don’t.
And the left, the Dems, the ACLU and the lawyers flipped out screaming that Bu$hco had DESTROYED THE CONSTITUTION!!1!! and then spent years challenging the administration’s authority to hold tribunals until they finally got a decision that said Bush did not have the authority to do so.
And then Congress gave it to him.
Boy, I’m sure glad we went through all that.
So, we released some of the guilty. What on earth does that have to do with the guilt or innocence of those we didn’t release?
I’m not saying everyone in Gitmo is innocent. I’m not even saying some of them are innocent (although we already know that some of them are). I’m saying that in many, many cases, we haven’t even bothered to both check, and heed the information obtained when we checked.
And the notion that everyone in Gitmo was apprehended on the battlefield? Completely unsupported.
Putting them back where we found them would, no doubt, be unlawful rendition.
So I propose we give each of them a knife, and release them into the homes of any of the bleeding hearts who will accept their parole.
Because talk is cheap.
I, on the other hand, am interested in doing (better: having done) at least a rudimentary sorting before deciding to just keep the lot of them.
I mean, some of these guys are in Gitmo because they were wearing the wrong wristwatches.
But to make a flipside argument: if you really believe they’re all guilty, I suggest that you be equipped with a rifle, and asked to execute the lot of them.
Because talk is cheap.
There is no automatic appeal to the Supremes. The USSC hears such cases as please it, and nobody can make them hear a case they don’t want to. Priveledge of being the big dog.
So if they deny cert, the appellate court ruling stands. See?
And to make the other flip side, you should blow up the whole fucking planet with a million nuclear bombs and
HILTER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER …
Oops, those were supposed to be in bold.
HILTER HITLER HITLER HITLER HITLER …
Then shoot the fucking wristwatch!
Classic! Simply one of the most egregious lies ever told on the intertubes. Great work, *lph**!
“And the notion that everyone in Gitmo was apprehended on the battlefield? Completely unsupported”
Really? As opposed to:
“I mean, some of these guys are in Gitmo because they were wearing the wrong wristwatches”
But then the voice of Reason states:
“But to make a flipside argument: if you really believe they’re all guilty, I suggest that you be equipped with a rifle, and asked to execute the lot of them.”
First: According to international law, captured unlawful combatants are subject to summary execution.
Second: The only person suggesting that is you. That hasn’t happened to my knowldege, and I doubt that you could prove otherwise (crap off of Kos doesn’t count).
Third: Once again, there is a difference between internment for the duration of a conflict and imprisonment following a conviction in a court. Your repeated attempts to confuse the two are…what? Ignorance? Intellectual dishonesty? Ideological bias?
That point isn’t going to make itself, Blue Hen, even if you wait for it to.
In response to the Voice of Reason that stated:
Context is unimportant to those committed to ignoring it, and irony is unimportant to the irony-deficient.
That was what you got from my comment? See above.
Wrong again; see above.
You’re misstating my argument. What ideology do you think I’m speaking from? You might want to check around a little, before assuming.
Look, I’ll say it again, only with shorter words this time: in order to avoid looking like major league fuckups, it’s sort of our responsibility to at least sanity-check our reasons for holding a given guy in Gitmo for near-perpetuity. You know, if only because you wouldn’t like having that done to you.
I mean, it’s gotten to the point where one can hardly even acknowledge actual events without having a given ideology. Maybe this was what they meant by reality-based, although I completely disagree that many of those claiming to be reality-based are, in fact, strongly versed in actual reality.
Or, even, that I am. There are just certain things that are so, and denying that they are so is just…denial.
My understanding is they will most likely hear the case. By creating a “legal black hole” the executive has practically guaranteed judicial review.
“You’re misstating my argument. What ideology do you think I’m speaking from? You might want to check around a little, before assuming.”
As for that I neither know or care. That’s why I phrased it the way I did. This thread began with the announcement that internees should not have access to US courts. Your statements indicate that you believe that they should. is this the case?
If so, then please see the statements made by myself and Pablo.
If not, what is it that you are intimating? That the tribunal system is flawed or inadequate?
In any event please clarify this comment:
“But to make a flipside argument: if you really believe they’re all guilty, I suggest that you be equipped with a rifle, and asked to execute the lot of them.
Because talk is cheap”
No one else here has advocated executing persons detained there. I did note that international law actually permits such an action, and that the US has decided against it.
Also, you continue to use the term ‘guilt’. That simply doesn’t pertain regarding internment. The detainment isn’t occuring because of an attempt to gain proof of guilt, except for the purpose of establishing participation and gaining information.
“Look, I’ll say it again, only with shorter words this time: in order to avoid looking like major league fuckups, it’s sort of our responsibility to at least sanity-check our reasons for holding a given guy in Gitmo for near-perpetuity. You know, if only because you wouldn’t like having that done to you “
A sanity check? That’s it? Then perhaps you could suggest improvements to the tribunal system. I would also note that a sanity check is not similar to ‘executing the lot of them.’
The chimera of “you don’t want this to happen to you’ is nonsensical. Again, we are not talking about US civil law enforcement. The subject was the detention of unlawful combatants in a war zone.
I clearly have to watch out for predicating posts on goofy puns. It’s demoralizing when they turn out to be so popular.
blue: the subject may be the detention of unlawful combatants in a war zone (not really) but in getting there the court is ruling on things which do affect civil law enforcemtn.
To emmadine
That’s sounds very odd. How so? If they are making a clear distinction between the two, that could be a good thing. Or did they instead do a not a good thing?
Not odd at all. The court has to rule on when Congress can limit habeas. That affects domestic US issues in general. Clear distinction or not.
Courts tend to be pretty good about identifying distinctions in their rulings. I would expect the Supreme Court can rule, if it chooses, that Congress can limit habeas when the detainees are unlawful enemy combatants in a war.
And that would be that.
The question is whether the right of habeas extends to foreign military prisoners offshore. Unless the SCOTUS decides to change things, it does not, and they are not entitled to access to the US courts.
And they should not be. The Constitution is not designed to protect enemy combatants. War is not law enforcement.
There is no “black hole” and Congress, not the executive, created the current status quo. See the Military Commissions Act of 2006
This isn’t about distinction. Congress is limiting habeas, which the constitution says can be done in cases of rebellion or invasion, when the public safety requires it. The court is ruling that the present day qualifies as that. Thats a general issue, that doesn’t have to do with whose habeas is being limited.
Was that act passed before or after the prisoners were sent to GTMO? That Congress passed the MCA gives me no pleasure and does not mean the executive was trying to limit habeas. They did this by explicitly sending them to a place where they could make such arguments. It wasn’t an accident.
whoops, “wasn’t trying”…
No, they’re not, as Congress has not suspended habeas. What’s been said is that habeas doesn’t extend to foreigners held offshore.
After, of course. What does that have to do with whether SCOTUS will review as you asserted was guaranteed in your 12:01 comment?
Um… nothing? So, Congress gave the executive the power to avoid the problems w/ habeas that Rasul v. Bush gave them, right? The prisoners were put in GTMO and not Wisconsin for a reason.
Like I said, I’m not happy w/ Congress providing cover for something I feel is un-American. I suspect the USSC will take a look at the MCA and the pending petitions. You do not? Would you care to make a friendly bet?
Well, they’ve never particularly appealed to me . . .
(this one’s for you, Dan! So sad when people take you so seriously!)
BTW, Dan, this is for you, too. So may I just say, “Hey, Dirt!”
Thats curious, because in Rasul, the court held that habeas extended to people in guantanamo. And then the MCA came in and limited that.
heet,
You think it’s un-American to take POW’s? Why?
emmadine,
Hey, you’re catching on!
You’re funny. You should be a Republican pollster. Or a radio show host.
So, do think the USSC will hear the case?
What’s so funny? It’s a straightforward question, deserving of an answer.
And no, I have no idea whether SCOTUS will grant cert. Neither do you.
Hardly. If it was such a straightforward question, why did the USSC rule in favor Rasul in the first place? Does the USSC think we shouldn’t take POWs?
AP:
Seton Hall Law School:
Does the possibility that we may be detaining innocent people at Gitmo bother anyone here?
Thanks for admitting that you’re purposefully erecting a strawman. It sort of makes any further involvement by me unnecessary, given your penchant for playing it solo.
Ah, NOW he asks. Here’s what I think: I think that if the tribunals had done a proper job from the get-go, access to US courts wouldn’t need to be an issue, and I’d be opposed to it. As it is, though: not so much.
This still not paying attention thing, is it inadvertent? I hope not.
Again: if that establishment of participation were actually taking place in anything resembling a timely manner, I’d not be saying anything, here.
Exactly.
You’d think that, if you had neglected to read any of the comments.
If the tribunals hadn’t been legally challenged from the get-go, then?
Stop moving the goalposts, heet, and tell us why you think taking POW’s is un-American.
What, you think the tribunals were going to go ahead and process prisoners, and were foiled by a bunch of shrieking moonbats?
Could be, Pablo. I’d have to see it, though.
Not moonbats, Slart. But here’s a taste.
Who’s moving goalposts? You are making up fantastical questions and getting on me for not answering them. Do you even know if the GTMO detainees are POWs? Here’s a hint : the US Government doesn’t think so.
heet sez:
Pablo sez:
Then heet sez:
Yer fulla shit, boy. There’s nothing fantastical about asking why you think taking POW’s is un-American.
If the answer is no, then they’re entitled to even less than POW’s are.
I finally see you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. Thanks for the enlightenment.
Hell of an exit strategy you’ve got there, heet. Lemme guess, it’s a “strategic redeployment”, right?
Status review and trial are not the same thing, Pablo. You can’t just declare everyone illegal combatants without sufficient cause.
Or maybe you can. I’m wondering who the decider is.
Sure, pal. Think whatever you like. The truth, if you care to know, is that I prefer to argue about topics with people who actually have some basic knowledge of the topic instead of chest-thumping thimblewits. Now, if you want to trade put-downs I’m game, but don’t claim you have proved anything at all about POWs and GTMO.
Tribunals, Slart. Halted. Not allowed to proceed.
Why do you think taking prisoners in the course of war is un-American, heet? Or are you leaving?
Pablo, read the article you linked to: the Hamdan tribunal was to try Hamdan. What I’m talking about is status review tribunals.
Which, if they’ve taken place at all, have taken place in nearly complete secrecy as far as I can tell.
Does the possibility that we may be detaining innocent people at Gitmo bother anyone here?
No.
GitMo is where they mine information about terrorists. Could it be likely that everybody behind the wire at GitMo knows something about terrorists?
Of course it bothers me that we may be detaining innocent people.
On the other hand, I’m hoping that our military is concerned about that possibility, too, and believe that they probably are.
I can’t really speak for heet, but anyone with an acquantaince with the issues of detention as they have arisen over the years should be able to realize that the problem is the indefinate detention with no recourse, specially of the innocent. That you think the objection is to united states ‘taking prisoners,’ which hasn’t really been challenged in any of the court cases, shows why heet may be uninterested in further discussion. It’s pointless.
Interesting thread. alfi and heet both on top form, in peak condition. Double-distilled delusional fantasies of adequacy.
Slartibartfast seems to me to be raising some fair questions.
I think most of us accept that when you are fighting an illegal enemy which obeys none of the rules of war, you need to find means of combating them which will go beyond what has previously been considered fair.
One of the issues is where to detain people who you have captured armed and out of uniform if you choose not to summarily execute them.
Guantanamo seems to me to be a humane and sensible solution.
However I think it is important that there should be seen to be a winnowing process whereby those who are in there on the unsubstantiated word of what may simply be a clan enemy can be either cleared or else convicted and sentenced.
Those who are in there because they are known to have been taken prisoner whilst armed and not in uniform should technically be shot, and I would suggest that after a short trial to prove their guilt that is what should happen. I believe that would only account for about 15 to 20 % of the detainees.
A military tribunal seems to me the best way of achieving that although I would suggest that each tribunal be chaired by a senior civilian judge.
Letting them rot without taking any sort of tribunal process swiftly forward is giving helpful idiots and fellow travellers a quite unnecessary stick with which to beat the good guys.
Another point on which we may all do well to ponder is this:
How many US or Allied combatants have been captured? If any, are they still alive? If so, in what circumstances? Is anyone making a noise about this? If not, why not?
And a very Hey, Dirt! to you, too, Meg!
I think it’s possible that Rusty does. Detain him!
I’d hope they’d be concerned about that, too, but how would we know? And…and this is maybe completely perpendicular to the subject matter…who decides? Seriously, who’s making the decisions?
Believe me, I really get that we don’t want to let actual terrorists go. I actually have no problem with executing actual terrorists, but unless we have some…oh, I don’t know…evidence, how can we know?
Oh, and thanks, furriskey. I appreciate that you can grant me some notional good-faith-ness in this discussion.
there’s some hints about who’s deciding here. I haven’t done much searching yet…. but i seem to recall hearing an interview with someone about the process.
That’s precisely what has been challenged. What do you think the fundamental question is in a habeas suit?
That’s a dead link, Maggie.
But this seems to show that there have been status tribunals all along. Possibly these tribunals know something we don’t know?
On the other hand, this seems to indicate that the tribunals only began in the summer of 2004, which would be two and a half years after we invaded Afghanistan.
So, possibly I’ve been wrong, but there are some indications that prisoners have not, in fact, gotten anything like a decent hearing. Classifying the evidence is also not a good move. What evidence against a guy captured in Iraq or Afghanistan could possibly jeopardize national security?
Taking prisoners isn’t challenged. Its on basis they are being held that is challenged. Nobody objects to the US picking people up in a war. It’s what procedures are used to hold them, separate in quite a bit of time and space from when they are taken, that are objected to.
Think of it this way, in none of these cases are there going to be changes in who we take in. There, however, going to be changes in how we hold them.
Ahhh, so you don’t mind us taking prisoners, you mind us keeping them, and think that ought to be hashed out in America’s courts as if it were a domestic law enforcement matter. Great.
Not unless SCOTUS changes the status quo and decides to give enemy prisoners rights our own troops don’t even have.
Slart,
Why? Is there some particular benefit to transparency in military operations?
Tactics, policies, and procedures can be exposed as well as letting the enemy know what we know about them. None of that is helpful. What benefit can we derive from opening it up? Will jihadis like us then? Will the ACLU shut up?
Who said its a domestic law enforcement matter? I mean, there are certain parts of it that affect domestic matters, true. Like the power of congress to limit habeas, for example, or basic questions of separation of powers.
But for the pickup / hold distinction, nobody challenges that, say, jose padilla can’t be arrested. The challenge is to something else.
This is a one super duper site