Supremes rule on Gitmo

[Tobra]

So Shaun, you are saying the Republican Party is a bunch of terrorists?

Watch out with that talk, I am a Republican and will not hesitate to torture hell out of your cat

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by Tobra

So Shaun, you are saying the Republican Party is a bunch of terrorists?

Watch out with that talk, I am a Republican and will not hesitate to torture hell out of your cat

neocons are certainly terrorists, yes. look what they've done to the Constitution. Look at what our own Rick Lee has to say about those captured, in this very thread. those are the same words terrorists use every day.

She looks cute, and really is a puppy at heart, but half lab, half rottweiler, she's not one to fool around with. She can demolish any rawhide product, no matter the size or density, in under an hour. I'm not a cat person.

[The Gaijin]

We can winnow out the direct 9/11 plotters and supporters and prosecute them in court.

But should the remainder of these detainees (most of them non-Afgans) be handed over to the newly reconstituted Afganistan government? I wonder what their fate would be then?

They may want to stay in Cuba..

[Rick Lee]

From the WSJ. I concur with all of it, especially the third to last paragraph.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

President Kennedy
June 13, 2008; Page A14

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy isn't known for his judicial modesty.
But for sheer willfulness, yesterday's 5-4 majority opinion in Boumediene v.
Bush may earn him a historic place among the likes of Harry Blackmun. In a stroke,
he and four other unelected Justices have declared their war-making supremacy over
both Congress and the White House.


Boumediene concerns habeas corpus – the right of Americans to challenge detention
by the government. Justice Kennedy has now extended that right to non-American enemy
combatants captured abroad trying to kill Americans in the war on terror. We can
say with confident horror that more Americans are likely to die as a result.

An Algerian native, Lakhdar Boumediene was detained by U.S. troops in Bosnia in
January 2002 and is currently held at Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. military heard the
case for Boumediene's detention in 2004, and in the years since he has never
appealed the finding that he is an enemy combatant, although he could under federal
law. Instead, his lawyers asserted his "right" – as an alien held outside
the United States – to a habeas hearing before a U.S. federal judge.

Justice Kennedy's opinion is remarkable in its sweeping disregard for the decisions
of both political branches. In a pair of 2006 laws – the Detainee Treatment Act
and the Military Commissions Act – Congress and the President had worked out painstaking
and good-faith rules for handling enemy combatants during wartime. These rules came
in response to previous Supreme Court decisions demanding such procedural care,
and they are the most extensive ever granted to prisoners of war.

Yet as Justice Antonin Scalia notes in dissent, "Turns out" the same Justices
"were just kidding." Mr. Kennedy now deems those efforts inadequate, based
on only the most cursory analysis. As Chief Justice John Roberts makes clear in
his dissent, the majority seems to dislike these procedures merely because a judge
did not sanctify them. In their place, Justice Kennedy decrees that district court
judges should derive their own ad hoc standards for judging habeas petitions. Make
it up as you go!

Justice Kennedy declines even to consider what those standards should be, or how
they would protect national security over classified information or the sources
and methods that led to the detentions. Eventually, as the lower courts work their
will amid endless litigation, perhaps President Kennedy will vouchsafe more details
in some future case. In the meantime, the likelihood grows that our soldiers will
prematurely release combatants who will kill more Americans.

To reach yesterday's decision, Justice Kennedy also had to dissemble about Justice
Robert Jackson's famous 1950 decision in Johnson v. Eisentrager. In that case,
German nationals had been tried and convicted by military commissions for providing
aid to the Japanese after Germany's surrender in World War II. Justice Jackson
ruled that non-Americans held in a prison in the American occupation zone in Germany
did not warrant habeas corpus. But rather than overrule Eisentrager, Mr. Kennedy
misinterprets it to pretend that it was based on mere "procedural" concerns.
This is plainly dishonest.

By the logic of Boumediene, members of al Qaeda will now be able to challenge their
status in court in a way that uniformed military officers of a legitimate army cannot.
And Justice Scalia points out that this was not a right afforded even to the 400,000
prisoners of war detained on American soil during World War II. It is difficult
to understand why any terrorist held anywhere in the world – whether at Camp Cropper
in Iraq or Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan – won't now have the same right to
have their appeals heard in an American court.

Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution contains the so-called Suspension Clause,
which says: "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended,
unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
Justice Kennedy makes much of the fact that we are not currently under "invasion
or rebellion." But he ignores that these exceptions don't include war abroad
because the Framers never contemplated that a non-citizen, captured overseas and
held outside the U.S., could claim the same right.

Justice Kennedy's opinion is full of self-applause about his defense of the
"great Writ," and no doubt it will be widely praised as a triumph for
civil liberties. But we hope it is not a tragedy for civil liberties in the long
run. If there is another attack on U.S. soil – perhaps one enabled by a terrorist
released under the Kennedy rules – the public demand for security will trample the
Constitutional delicacies of Boumediene. Just last month, a former Gitmo detainee
killed a group of Iraqi soldiers when he blew himself up in Mosul. And he was someone
the military thought it was safe to release.

Justice Jackson once famously observed that the Constitution is "not a suicide
pact." About Anthony Kennedy's Constitution, we're not so sure.

[Rikao4]

somewhere down this road 'common sense' got out of the car,
why ?, drunks on board.
Rika

[MRM]

If the people we capture are bad guys, a habeus hearing hurts nothing because the government will be able to prove their case and keep the guy in detention. But requiring the government to account for its prisoners and state a basis for their continued indefinite detention protects the liberty of you and me. If they can do it to Gitmo detainees, they can start moving the goal line in my direction. If they can't do it to them, then we are all safer.

What did Larry Flint say at the end of his movie? Something like he was proud that the Constiution protected people like him, because if it protected a lowlife like him, it really protected the good people of the country. If we provide habeus for detainees, it goes a long way toward making sure citizens' rights are not eroded.

Rick, aren't you stocking up on guns 'n' ammo for the coming apocolypse? If the SC keeps upholding individual rights and requiring the government to follow basic procedural safeguards you might not need to.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Let me see here - non-U.S. citizens, captured on foreign battlefields, out of uniform, not belonging to any military of any nation state, deliberately targeting civilians, having declared war on the U.S. and not physically on U.S. sovereign soil.

How on earth would you know this? Sounds like you are simply parroting administration propaganda. I'd like the truth about who we have there, apparently it does not matter to you.

What other country would consider foreign terrorists caught in third party countries somehow entitled to that country's domestic laws?

If they were captured on a battlefield during a legitimate war, they would be considered POWs. The rules that apply to POWs are designed to protect our own people when they are captured, as much as anything else.

If you targeted and killed a busload of German students in China and were caught in Pakistan, why would you expect to be entitled to German constitutioal protections? If the world thinks Americans view themselves as the world police and the supreme moral and legal authority, this decision only reinforces that. If our laws apply to everyone everywhere, where don't our laws apply?

"A busload of German students in China?" This is just strange, bysantine logic applied to rationalize your position. I guess it's the only kind available to defending torture and indefinite secret detention of unnamed individuals, but still, you can do better than this. If you killed people in any country in the world, you would be subject to the laws of that country. Not thrown in a secret prison in a random 3rd country specifically to avoid certain laws.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Oh, and if I had my way, we'd interrogate them until they had nothing left to tell us, capture and kill their wives and kids, film it, show it to them and then bury them alive. No point in killing a terrorist who may have valuable intel until they've been squeezed like a lemon. I have no problem whatsoever with torture and believe we should do whatever it takes to extinguish al Qaeda, not play nice, wring our hands and worry about world opinion. Taking the so-called high-road does not earn us any love around the world and certainly doesn't make the terrorists play nice.

Yeah, where did the U.S. ever get all of that "high road" stuff?

Your writings are the very definition of fascism. You should really read them to a shrink.

[MRM]

A few years ago the feds changed the law so that the murder of any US citizen anywhere in the world falls under the jurisdiction of US law. And many acts committed by US citizens in other countries are illegal, even if legal in the country where they were committed. US Constitutional protections should apply to US citizens anywhere in the world, and Constitutional obligations should follow the government anywhere in the world.

[Rick Lee]

Speeder, plenty of the 9/11 conspirators had not been in the U.S. for years before 9/11, if at all. KSM and Ramzi bin al Shibh were caught in Pakistan, but hatched their 9/11 plot in Germany, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. AFAIK, bin Laden has never been in the U.S. and began the 9/11 plot in Sudan and directed its execution from Afghanistan. Where would you suggest we prosecute them? And would you want to risk another OJ-like fiasco with such defendants, all the while watching the prosecution have to keep quiet to keep from revealing intel-gathering methods and other classified info from coming out in open court? Why should we be alerting still at-large al Qaeda folks that we have some of their cohorts in our custody, which habeus corpus hearings would surely do? Our normal "justice" system rules don't work with this stuff.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by MRM

US Constitutional protections should apply to US citizens anywhere in the world, and Constitutional obligations should follow the government anywhere in the world.

By that standard, we should honor other countries' laws when their citizens break them in our country. So, if a North Korean defector makes it to the U.S., we should send him back because he broke N. Korean law.

[speeder]

Rick, you are presenting a classic "either-or" type of flawed argument. There are plenty of solutions, (previously used legally by the U.S. govt.), to deal with proven terrorist leaders in foreign lands. I am not a peacenik and I have no problem w/ well-placed cruise missiles, for example, but holding a bunch of nobodies for years in a secret prison w/o rights is wrong. Period. And incredibly un-American.

[Mule]

Rick, you'll lose your mind trying to have a logical discussion with these left wing buffoons. I'm buying ammo too!

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

By that standard, we should honor other countries' laws when their citizens break them in our country. So, if a North Korean defector makes it to the U.S., we should send him back because he broke N. Korean law.

If that's what our law says. (And of course it doesn't). You want to give the dirtiest, most corrupt administration in the history of the U.S. the ability to make things up as they go. The rest of us do not.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by speeder

Rick, you are presenting a classic "either-or" type of flawed argument. There are plenty of solutions, (previously used legally by the U.S. govt.), to deal with proven terrorist leaders in foreign lands. I am not a peacenik and I have no problem w/ well-placed cruise missiles, for example, but holding a bunch of nobodies for years in a secret prison w/o rights is wrong. Period. And incredibly un-American.

Just wow. You have no problem with "well-placed cruise missile", which 1) violate other countries' sovereign airspace, 2) kill plenty more than the target, 3) bypass the whole trial/judicial process and leave plenty of evidence with our military's fingerprints all over it.

Nothing you suggest or support will deter terrorists or even stop them. I'm not interested in prosecuting them. I want them stopped forever, snuffed out. They welcome death. They know being in our custody is not that bad - they get a Koran, a prayer rug, three Islamic meals a day and excellent healthcare, all the while laughing at all the chaos we put ourselves through, wringing our hands with guilt. Where's the downside for the terrorists? They are willing to die for their cause. I doubt they'd be willing to sacrifice their families for it, which is why we should go after them too. Oh, and before we bury them alive, we should cover them in pig fat and an Israeli flag.

[DARISC]

Mule is calling someone a bufoon!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by speeder

If that's what our law says. (And of course it doesn't). You want to give the dirtiest, most corrupt administration in the history of the U.S. the ability to make things up as they go. The rest of us do not.

Your BDS is acting up again and making you forget the dirtiness and corruption the previous administration. You need your meds.

BTW, which pre-2001 laws do you consider adequate for dealing with al-Qaeda?

[speeder]

The only true BDS is still supporting those coksuckers. You know that, Rick.

[MRM]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

By that standard, we should honor other countries' laws when their citizens break them in our country. So, if a North Korean defector makes it to the U.S., we should send him back because he broke N. Korean law.

No, you're purposely mistating my point. The US asserts it jurisdiction and applies it's laws. North Korea might assert its jurisdiction and prosecute the guy, but when he's in our control he won't be prosecuted because he broke no US laws. As a matter of fact, that's how we're dealing with the guys caught in Afghanastan or wherever. We're asserting US jurisdiction over them. They mau have broken no local law, but they broke US law and we're detaining them for it. If we want to assert US jurisdiction we better take it all the way and not pick and choose what part of our laws apply.

[Jim Richards]

Richard, I'm sure the Army or Marines would welcome someone with your mad skillz. You can personally "stop them forever."