Posted on 07/09/2009 1:59:46 AM PDT by Cindy
"Obama's Assistant Attorney General Tells Senate: Terrorists Captured on Battlefield Have Constitutional Rights"
SNIPPET: "“Does that infer that these individuals have constitutional rights?” McCain asked Kris.
“Ah, yes,” Kris answered.
“What are those constitutional rights of people who are not citizens of the United States of America, who were captured on a battlefield committing acts of war against the United States?” McCain asked.
“Our analysis, Senator, is that the due process clause applies to military commissions and imposes a constitutional floor on the procedures that the government sets on such commissions …” Kris said.
“So you are saying that these people who are at Guantanamo, who were part of 9/11, who committed acts of war against the United States, have constitutional rights under the Constitution of the United States of America?” McCain asked.
“Within the framework I just described, the answer is yes, the due process clause guarantees and imposes some requirements on the conduct of (military) commissions,” Kris said.
“The fact is they are entitled to protections under the Geneva Convention, which apply to the rules of war,” McCain said. “I do not know of a time in American history where enemy combatants were given rights under the United States Constitution.”"
SNIPPET: "Kris and Jeh C. Johnson, general counsel for the Department of Defense, said that military commissions were a viable “alternative” but that prosecuting terror suspects as criminals in U.S. federal courts was preferable – a position Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) took issue with at the hearing.
“Why would anyone prefer to try people apprehended for violations of the law of war?” Lieberman asked. “The fact is that from the beginning of our country, from the Revolutionary War, we’ve used military tribunals to try war criminals, or people we have apprehended, captured for violations of the law of war.
“Again, I think the unique circumstances of this war on terrorists, against the people who attacked us on 9/11, have taken us down, including the Supreme Court, some roads that are not only to me ultimately unjust but inconsistent with the long history of military commissions,” Lieberman said.
“Why would you say the administration prefers to bring before our federal court system instead of military commissions that are really today’s version of the tribunals that we’ve used throughout our history to deal in a just way with prisoners of war?” Lieberman asked."
Read the whole article at the link provided.
All persons have inalienable rights that our Constitution recognizes. In spite of that, it is Constitutional to imprison or kill people in some cases. Individual self-defense is one such case. Carrying out the lawful order of a court is another. Authorized military action on the field of battle is yet another.
Mind-numbing.
Simply mind-numbing.
Golly gee, good for the terrorists/enemy combatants.
Wouldn’t it be neat if The 0bama Administration would extend the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to the good Citizens of the United States?
And....
I know that this is stretching credibility....
Wouldn’t it be neat if the 0bama Administration would actually follow the Constitution’s limitations on their power?
Silly thought, I know, but still... wouldn’t it be neat?
Let’s get this straight, the Constitution protects foreign enemies captured on foreign battle fields, but the full bill of rights doesn’t extend to the states. Yeah, it’s all clear now!
McCain. What a dolt. Not by inference but by implication.
McCain is an idiot.
All persons? ALL persons?
Complete and utter rubbish. You are proposing that United States Constitutional rights devolve to every person on or off the planet.
Wrong. These rights are guaranteed by the Constitution only to United States Citizens.
This was the plan from the beginning. Infiltrate and bring America down a little bit at a time using our own laws and Constitution against us.
Hello Cindy, hope all well with you.
This obammy and his minions are gonna get a lot of Americans killed.
Do not capture terrorists on the battle fields, our liberal courts will only release them in to our society. Kill them on the battle field and leave them there.
Amen Brother.
Vince
The simplest solution is always the best. Don’t capture any.
Yes and had any lawyer protested at the time they too would suffer greatly as they should even today.
You are terribly mistaken. The inalienable, human rights recognized (not granted) by the US Constitution are those that all persons intrinsically possess by virtue of their being persons. That's what the Declaration of Independence says (*We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.") That's what the Framers said. It's what the courts") have said from the founding of the Republic. It's settled law, and is beyond reasonable dispute.
We don't have rights because we are US citizens, or because some law says we do. We have rights because we are human beings. The US Constitution's purpose is to a) enumerate some (but not all) of those inalienable, human rights, and b) require our government to respect them.
Of course you are perfectly correct that rights accrue to individuals by the grace of God, but so what? I have no quarrel with the basis of the natural rights of man, and I respect the clear manner in which you have enunciated this fundamental principle.
But, in the context of this issue, It is not the job of our nation to guarantee, extend, or protect these rights except as the individuals involved are citizens or the United States. Others need to find ways to protect their natural rights as they see fit, and to the extent that they are even conscious that these rights are theirs by birthright.
It’s not our job, and our Constitution does not obligate us to guarantee these rights to all and sundry.
Your final paragraph sums it up quite nicely, and again I have no quarrel with what you have written there: I only take issue with your insistence that our Constitution obliges us to guarantee these rights to some Pushtoon zealot gloating over the savaged body of an American soldier in Afghanistan.
What it is not empowered to do is to violate those rights itself. Not only does the Constitution fail to grant any such power, it explicitly forbids the government from violating the enumerated rights of individuals. In this regard, the Constitution makes no distinction between citizens and non-citizens. I challenge you to show otherwise, anywhere in the Constitution itself, or in the writings of the Framers.
Do you actually believe that foreign visitors to our country have no Constitional recognition of their inalienable rights? If so, your interpretation is not supported by the text of the Constitution, by the writings of the Framers, or by any court precedents.
Man, are you dense!
YOU are the one who implied first that the US Government was obliged to defend the rights of terrorists!
Now you correctly state that the government is only obliged not to transgress these rights of citizens. Your position that we must extend these protections to foreign terrorists in foreign lands it truly inexplicable - and nonsensical.
Please don’t drag in folks who are in the US under the protection of our government - i.e. those here legally. Those people have been extended the same protections as citizens, and for good reason, and I have never made them part of my argument.
Now, will you explain, as you have failed to do so far, why we ought to extend those Constitutional protections to every single person on the face of the earth, including the scum of the earth, as you propose.
By the way, nice straw man attempt. I never said the government was required to “defend” our rights. That is YOUR word, not mine.
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