Posted on 06/15/2005 3:35:00 PM PDT by AgThorn
I'm not ignorant of history and i know they are not US citizens. I was making the point that holding these people will lead to incrementalism whereby US citizens could one day be held without charges.
I actually pointed this out more clearly on another thread.
"Well, if we decide we can't hold them forever, and they need to be tried, it seems to me that the appropriate thing to do is to give them full due process rights and full-dress criminal trials under the law"
"Exactly what crime would you charge them with?"
That would not be up to me to decide.
It would be up to the laws of Iraq and Afghanistan, to which we would extradite them for full trials on whatever charges those legal systems make against them, followed by the inevitable executions.
We don't have to try them. The countries in which they committed their crimes can charge them and try them and execute them under their systems of law in their jurisdictions.
I will leave what to charge them with up to the cleverness of Iraqi and Afghan government prosecutors.
I don't see that happening as a result of Gitmo. As a result of judicial tyranny, maybe, but not due to our treatment of terrorists picked up on the battlefield. Treating terrorists as if they have rights is actually destructive of our own, since it divorces rights from the reasons why they are legitimate.
The simplest solution, of course, is to not take prisoners in the first place.
better yet drop them out of the bomb bays at say 5000 feet, and save the bombs for their buddies
40 different countries. Most were picked up in Afghanistan, Iraq, Berkley, CA, and Boston, MA.
I'm not so worried about these few hundred foreign detainees as much as I am about the 6 million plus muslims living within our borders already. They have already infiltrated, folks. The next big attack will come from within, not from without.
In the long run, the PR is worse if we keep them alive. If we execute them, the left will have a hissy fit for a few months, and then it will blow over.
If we keep them alive, they're a prepetual pretext for America bashing.
Actually, a few of them are citizen traitors.
But the way I see it, if you're a citizen and you're caught fighting for the enemy, you lose your rights. That's how we treated German-American turncoats during WW2.
No more prisoners...dead men tell no TALL tales!
"Lawyers dislike such things, because.."
Most of these lawyers are unfamiliar with the Law of Land Warfare which they despise thinking it is a lower form of law.
"Their right to a trial is impeded today but ours as citizens will be tomorrow when christianity is hailed as a hate crime."
This is NOT a criminal matter for the courts. THIS IS WAR.
"I am just uncomfortable with the concept of no appeal for review ever."
All of them get regular reviews. On top of that, this is not a criminal venue. This is WAR. If we are not very careful, they will simply kill us and/or our loved ones. Remember Sept. 11th, 2001? Remember the US Cole? Remember the twin embassy bombings? During all of those events we treated terrorism like a crime. All we got for it was more dead Americans. This is WAR, not crime.
As POWs that is not necessary... a military tribunal and adjudication is sufficient.
And btw, I seem to recall we did some Nuremburg trials after a war. What was the legal basis for that? Thin air!
"Which is to say, the republics of Afghanistan and of Iraq, both functioning democracies with legal systems, should be eventually given full custody of these prisoners along with their legal dossiers, to give them appropriate trials."
Practically none of these prisoners are related to Iraq.
Most were captured in Afghanistan, but not just there - a Yemenese in Pakistan, crimes against us. Where do you send them? Send them to those countries and the whiners would have some reason to oppose that too.
The whiners are going to whine no matter what you do.
The best course is to simply ignore them.
It gets dicier if the courts start ordering you to release people who are going to go out there and murder American soldiers again.
If I were President, I would simply say "No" and establish an Executive veto over judicial opinions relating to command decisions in wartime.
But I already know from the Schiavo case that this President is not made of the right stuff to do that.
The best course is to simply ignore them. "
Okay. Keep GITMO open.
But take away the Rice Pilaf.
"
It gets dicier if the courts start ordering you to release people who are going to go out there and murder American soldiers again."
That is why I think it is sufficient for it to be under military tribunal courts, not American courts. They are, in effect POWs in the global war on terror.
The military could decide to turn them over to other jurisdictions and nations, but shouldnt be forced to do so.
"If I were President, I would simply say "No" and establish an Executive veto over judicial opinions relating to command decisions in wartime."
Ha! He's an American President not a French one.
That arrogance would get him impeached!
"But I already know from the Schiavo case that this President is not made of the right stuff to do that."
Very unfair statement. Even his own Legal counsel would not support him on it, there is no Constitutional presidential 'veto' over judicial decisions. It's why we talk of 'judicial tyranny' here, nobody overrides the courts.
"Ha! He's an American President not a French one.
That arrogance would get him impeached!
... Even his own Legal counsel would not support him on it, there is no Constitutional presidential 'veto' over judicial decisions. It's why we talk of 'judicial tyranny' here, nobody overrides the courts."
The arrogance would get impeachment proceedings started against him by the US Democratic Party.
But would a US Republican House of Repesentatives vote to impeach him?
And would 67 US Senators in a chambre with 55 Republicans vote to convict him and remove him from office.
US President Jackson overrode the Supreme Court, and President Lincoln did it many, many times during the American Civil War by categorically ignoring all Supreme Court decisions ordering the release of prisoners on the habeas corpus law. There is a very bitter opinion written by the Chief Justice of the United States under Lincoln in which he writes "I understand the writ of this court no longer runs in the land", which was true insofar as the Supreme Court attempted to tell President Lincoln how he could or could not conduct the US Civil War.
The Lincoln precedent is on topic.
Certainly an effort would be made to impeach a US President who asserted that in time of war his Commander-in-Chief authority over enemy combattants, in the case of military necessity, superseded the domestic legal authority of the Supreme Court of the United States.
But if that effort failed because the political party pressing it did not have enough votes in the US Congress to achieve it, the precedent would be established.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.