Posted on 06/30/2004 12:27:40 PM PDT by optik_b
hindsight is better than foresight by a damnsite.....
Pretty clear now but it might have been a different story.
His son knows he's been locked up.
Sorry, but cynical me is not convinced this was an innocent foreigner.
Well he was planning on returning to Nepal soon. I'll give him that. I didn't see exactly how long he actually overstayed his visa, though.
I'm going to be called a hypocrite, but I feel a little sorry for the guy. Our usual suspects get treated much better than him. I don't think he deserved to be treated so harshly. The ones screaming meCHa and throwing rocks at police cars get away scot-free.
You should spit in the face of anyone who dare call you a hypocrit in this case. That byzantine structure will last forever. One day it could be inverted.
Every docket must be public. Better to bear the danger and costs of alerting our enemies, than to become like the friggin Germans under the Third Reich and the East Germans under the commies -- not to mention the worst of the Soviets.
I agree. I don't like all the secrecy.
Yep, this to me shows all the difference in the world between being pickup on a foreign battle field and being picked up in the US. Thus on the recent decisions the US Supreme Court should have said:
1. Padilla gets a hearing, maybe a military tribunal ala the German saboteurs caught in this country during WWII.
2. All the rest of them including the technical US citizen from Saudi, get no hearing. They are enemy soldiers, ie POWs. We have had 100,000s of them in various wars in our history with NO appeal rights because they are not criminals. If they have committed no war crimes, they go free at the end of the war. But at their own risk they threw in with a group not apt to surrender the US real quickly so they may well die in a US POW camp, unless al Qaeda surrenders to the US. [An actual US citizen might be treated differently and get a chance to show they were just on the battlefield by happenstance.]
3. The 20th hijacker gets pulled out of federal court and goes before a military tribunal. Any out of uniform member of al Qaeda is an irregular and does not become a POW.
4. Anyone else caught in the US include illegals get a public hearing. The illegals get deported unless legal or illegal they fall under #3 above. This is because of the problems in stories like this. The government is not infalible. Only under the unusual circumstances of war and particularly the battlefield, do we detain with no crime. There is no crime, but plenty of danger so they must be held until the war is over or the executive decides they can be safely released.
"Sorry, but cynical me is not convinced this was an innocent foreigner."
Maybe you haven't been paying attention to current events but Buddhists from Nepal are not our problem.
Never mind that he was illegal. That he managed to file a lawsuit and collect $37,000 all the while he was here illegally.
Sorry, I still don't buy the story.
The problem with your proposal is that terrorists don't wear uniforms. How about anyone caught spreading sedition, being caught in illegal acts against American interests, or being in possession of bomb making equipment be tried as an enemy combatant.
Unfortunately, with some of the fifth columnists in our government, the last statement could apply to posters here, or gun owners.
Very dangerous times.
How many Nepalese have committed terrorist acts in America?
He overstayed his visa. At least he bothered to get one. All he did was videotape the sights before he went home. This is worth the treatment he received?
If it wasn't for his attorney, I don't think it would have occured to him to file the lawsuit.
One more thing...Nepalese are a traditionally peaceful people. Yes, they are home to the Ghurkas, who have worked with the British for generations. Not all Nepalese can be Ghurkas though.
I'm going by the story that was posted. The fact that an FBI agent would stick his neck out for a detainee, tells me something.
We'll obviously have to agree to disagree...
Why is this a problem?
Once detained they have a hearing. If someone, citizen or alien, can be established as a saboteur, they then are moved to military tribunal. You just do not put them in secret hearings until it is determined that they are such a threat. That solves the problem for the person in the story and should satisfy real civil libertarians as opposed to people looking to score points on Bush.
BTW, what part of being an enemy combatant not leading to trials don't you understand. POWs are NOT NOT NOT criminals unless they committed war crimes. You do not arrest them you capture them. You do not sentence them, you hold them until the end of hostilities.
You have a choice, you either treat this as a war or you join Kerry and treat it as a criminal matter. Regular soldiers who have not committed war crimes go free whenever the war is over.
I'm just going by what happened to the man in the story. He was arrested for filming buildings.
As for everything else you're talking about, I don't know enough about the subject, obviously.
This is not WWII. This is different from any war America has fought. Sure, it's one thing to catch someone doing things I mentioned in my previous reply to you, it's another thing to just assume that someone is a terrorist.
My son in law's family emigrated to America from India. He's a wonderful guy, and my daughter is lucky to have him for a husband. He's never been to Tijuana and wanted to take us all down for the day. I told him no way. I had enough trouble the last time when I went to purchase medication. Now I need to warn him about filming in public. No he doesn't wear a turban, but he can be mistaken for other nationalities. He is well educated, and dresses nicely. If he were treated like the man in this story for some stupid reason, it would horrify us.
Please don't bring Kerry into this discussion. At least not to me.
I had an old colleague who is originally from India wander across the international bridge on a trip to Canada without his US passport. It did not take long to get that straightened out. So I would not suggest your son in law needs to be particularly careful other than to keep his passport handy if he were to go to Mexico. I would advise that of anyone.
Had the man in this story been a US citizen or a legal resident, he would have had no problem. He should not have been held six months like he was and the way to prevent that is to have public hearings to determine they should have a military tribunal rather than a trial. I think several people have said this and I agree.
Feel sorry for the guy but we was illegal (just how "long-expired"?) and he was filming an FBI office.
No different an offense than the guys caught filming the dam in Tennessee or the nuke reactor in New England. This guy just had the added baggage of being an illegal. Plus doing this a month after 9-11.
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