Posted on 12/04/2008 3:51:52 PM PST by MyTwoCopperCoins
WASHINGTON: US Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Wednesday the United States would have jurisdiction to prosecute the surviving gunman captured during the deadly attack in Mumbai, where six Americans died. But he did not say whether there are plans to do so.
Mukasey also said he did not believe the US was more vulnerable to a terrorist attack during the presidential transition period, although security will be heavy for president-elect Barack Obama's inauguration.
``Terrorists will strike when they feel the moment is right, not according to the political calendar,'' he said.
The United States has ``all of the surveillance techniques we need to keep us safe,'' Mukasey added.
The attorney general said he has not yet spoken to the nominee named to succeed him, Eric Holder, but the current Justice Department officials are working with Obama's transition team.
Mukasey appeared in good health in his first news conference since collapsing during a speech on Nov 20. Mukasey said he still does not know what caused his fainting spell. As he neared the end of his address, ``the lights went out,'' he recalled.
Absurd!
We have enough problems with the terrorists we “own” (see Gitmo).
Let the Indians handle their own terrorists - the USA is NOT the world’s cops or prison system!
For the crime, the surviving terrorist would be fast-tracked to a hanging in India, pending some “human rights” group pressure, like in the case of one Afzal Mohammad, who orchestrated the 2001 Parliament Attacks, and is still to be hanged.
It happened in India - not the US even though US citizens were killed. It’d be like someone who killed someone in California being extradited to Kansas since the Kansan was the one killed in California by someone from Colorado ....
He’s probably telling his interrogators “kill me, but please don’t send me to the Americans”.
I think if an American travels overseas they take their chances with those foreign governments, countries, and environments. The idea that an American citizen travels with the full force of the US is absurd. Imagine every other country doing the same to us.
In the future, note the Activism sidebar is reserved for News/Activism of the FR chapters and not this.
Well duh. I'm sure this government paid numbnuts is chomping at the bit. As is the ACLU. I'm tired of lawyers....
I generally agree with you with the exception that Americans should not be singled out by supposedly friendly countries without those countries suffering economic or political retaliation. If you travel as we do, you need to conform to the laws, customs and sensibilities of the people in whose country you are traveling. If you get in trouble, the Marines usually won't come to the rescue barring exceptional circumstances like the Tehran embassy as it should have been. Embassies are American or other foreign country's soil.
Terrorists will strike when they feel the moment is right, not according to the political calendar,''
All the gnashing of teeth at time that are Meaningful for us is often silly, but we need to be always vigilant.
Where does this idea that American courts have jurisdiction over people and events not in American territory come from?? Recently a court (Fifth Circuit, perhaps) determined that people abused by American priests could sue the Vatican.
What would we do if Nigerian courts suddenly decided they had jurisdiction over people and events here in America?
Is that anything like, "Please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me into the briar patch..."?
No. Don’t bring him here. Leave him in India. Our guys can go over there and talk to him.
Terrorists are not the armed forces, militias, volunteer corps, insurgents, or freedom fighters of any country or authority. They are not an organized resistance movement carrying arms openly and have no distinctive identifier. Terrorists are not even spies and saboteurs covertly destroying the infrastructure, industrial capacity or armed forces of an opponent. The focus of their campaigns is the murder, mutilation, and torture of people defined as Protected Persons by the Conventions. There is no basis to consider these human abominations prisoners of war or to consider their admission to a civil criminal process.
However, even prisoners of war are excluded from civil courts by our Constitution (another long post); a position re-enforced by Article 84 of the Third Geneva Convention, which requires a country must expressly permit trial by civil courts.
Any steps this country takes to accommodate this extraordinarily savage behavior checkmates national laws intended to manage simple murder and kidnapping, and renders Posse Comitatus a crumbling deception.
These steps invite alien terrorists onto a national stage where we must justify our position against their unsurpassed savagery. As civil criminals they become the artifice for constructing a legal conduit through which to move personnel and weapons for an enhanced war against us.
Embassies are of course an exception. They must be treated as US soil as theirs will be on our soil. Sans that, we are subject to their laws as we would expect they would be to ours when here.
I think the philosophy of western ranchers in dealing with coyotes and wolves is the best approach. "Shoot, shovel, and shutup." Find 'em, kill 'em, cremate 'em (so they know there's no way in hell they're going to their paradise)...
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