The Left s Next Cause C l bre: Taliban Jose

Front Page Magazine ^ | 6/12/02 | Chris Weinkopf

[Pyro7480]

This is already happening. A guest on the Sean Hannity radio show today was slamming the federal government's actions concerning Pedillo, and was particularly focused on John Ashcroft's actions. Again, the Left's lack of shame is exposed.

[Soliloquy]

Okay I'll bite :-) Clearly the FBI cannot sit around and wait for guys like this to strike before they act and they can't just allow people who are a threat to walk around freely that would just be plain stupid. In times of war it is reasonable to expect people's freedom to be curtailed to some extent. BUT how far should this logic go? This guy is an American citizen...as an American citizen he should be entitled to the same rights as everyone else. The government having the ability to declare him a combatant, take away his rights and lock him up for an indefinate period without evidence and without access to an attorny is downright scarey. You may as well ship him off to Siberia just to complete the picture. I don't pretend to have an answer to how we should treat this guy...thats probably going to be something for the supreme court to figure out once all this is over. But what I do know is that these actions fly in the face of the values that America is supposed to stand for. Well I think I'd better climb into that flame retardant suit right about now :-)

[Nogbad]

This case has a precedent.
There was an American citizen who fought
for the Italians in WWII.
He was tried as a combatant.

[LarryLied]

Wonder if Bush, Cheney and Rummy set this up. They knew the left would not be able to resist the civil rights yazza! yazza! yazza! And they know the left will get zero support from the general public. I think they are trying to make Democrats appear more stupid than they really are--not an easy task.

[Soliloquy]

I hadn't heard about that precedent. I had heard of a precedent regarding a group of ww2 German saboteurs, one of whom was actually American. In any case is it a good precedent or a bad precedent?

[TennesseeProfessor]

I have to agree with Soliloquy. Imagine that Bill Clinton and Janet Reno announced that they suspected McViegh of bombing Oklahoma City, but they weren't going to try him; rather they were going to hold him without trial “indefinately.”

[ohioman]

to hell with this guy's rights. They should find out all he knows, give him a fair military trial, and Hang 'em.

[Virginia-American]

We should be wary of setting precedents that Pres. H*l*ry could misuse (Not that she'd be bound by precedent). A good rule of thumb is to imagine any proposed legislation or policy is being administered by your worst political enemy.

[Pyro7480]

BUMP!

[Leto]

If McVeigh were part of a group that had previously killed 3,00 Americans, had declared war on us and attacked us on 5 other occasions and had threathened to wipe out cities in the US with Nucs and bio weapons, prople wouldn't have cared if he were treated as a POW.

[TennesseeProfessor]

And are you going to take Hillary's word that McViegh was the one?

[Hamza01]

Agreed. But they should do the same with John Walker. I don't understand why either of these guys is not in front of the military tribunal right now.

[Revolting cat!]

You are right (probably.) However, let's not overlook the very basics. Wars aren't fought in courts, and certainly not in crazy American courts. Combatants don't file legal motions and ask permission from the ACLU before they start shooting at each other. Well, duh! We send our combatants to kill their combatants. If he's a combatant, treat him the same way his side is treating our combatants! Neither Jose nor Johnny should have been brought back to the cruel US prison system where they serve baklava on Muslim holidays while the tenants listen to live Mimi Farina concerts in between their computer science classes.

[mhking]

If Padilla is so big and bad, then charge him and try him! What the feds have done is nothing short of grabbing a guy off the street and saying, "He's the one!" Now before you start painting me with the broad brush of the left, please realize that if his butt can be nailed, then I'll pull the switch on Ol'Sparky myself!

But the larger problem is that the feds are taking the easy way out - which, while it looks good now, will come back to bite us later. Based on the precedent, there's nothing stopping them from coming up to YOU on the street this afternoon, while you're in traffic, hauling you off and keeping you bagged and under wraps for as long as they want to, simply for writing something on FR that they didn't like! There's no difference!

We've been quoting Benjamin Franklin ("They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety") for the past several weeks, but now comes the time to put your money where your mouth is. By allowing Padilla to be carted off and held without due process, nor access to his mouthpiece (however repugnant you might think she is), we are doing nothing short of giving up some of our own liberty. Is that what we REALLY want here?

All I'm saying is that we need to demand that the feds do all legwork necessary to get this guy, and not to set things up so that he can be freed (and all the work head down the drain) because of a technicality; and right now, because the feds are taking the easy way out instead of doing the hard work necessary to get it done right, we are headed in that direction!

[mhking]

We should be wary of setting precedents that Pres. H*l*ry could misuse (Not that she'd be bound by precedent). A good rule of thumb is to imagine any proposed legislation or policy is being administered by your worst political enemy.

Exactly right - just imagine - President Hitlary (gag! retch!) demanding from Jim everyone's personal information that posts on FR, simply for calling her Hitlary. Using this precedent, she could "round up all the usual suspects" -- in this case, all of us, and throw away the key, simply because she didn't like what we said.

Do we really want to open that Pandora's box?

[Soliloquy]

Okay so we are both agreed that we can't just treat this like any normal criminal case...its war time and the priority is getting these guys out of circulation and protecting American lives. But I have a problem with the whole "treat them they same way they treat us." idea. If we come down to their level and throw away our ideals of justice, fairness and respect for human rights then it makes us no better than the terrorists and means that al quaeda has won.

[Revolting cat!]

There'll be debates about this here - it's a worthy subject (another thread is now starting.) When I say treat them they way they treat us, I mean treat them that way on the actual battlefield as battlefield is traditionally understood (I mean for them the entire world is a battlefield.) In Pakistan and Afghanistan where we deploy our troops. Don't bring them here to feed them baklava and Critical Legal Theory!

Thinking about it all during my run this afternoon, I thought of how ill prepared the Western democracies are for the kind of warfare that al-Queda is waging. I mean, can you imagine the uproar if the 19 hijackers were singled out on the morning of September 11 and arrested? "Box cutters? You can't hijack an airplane with boxcutters! Preposterous!" There'll be demonstrations across the country and some of those who perished on that day would be among the demonstrators carrying "Racism!" and "Fascism!" signs. How do you prevent crime and terrorist acts? Our perfect Constitution and perfect Bill of Rights are mighty imperfect in this area. Look, the Israelis shoot to kill individuals they suspect of having bomb belts on their bodies. Should they read them Miranda Rights first? What to do?

[Leto]

You asked what would happen if the rapist and Reno had treated Mc Veigh the way this guy is being treated. I answered that if Mc Veigh were part of a group that had declared war on the US ect.... Hillary and her beliefs about Mc Veigh are irrelevant. I was pointing out the obivious: the situation is different therefore the response of the goverment should be different. Comparing Al Qeada with McVeigh or whoever is silly.

I tend not to believe the Clinton's about anything, however McVeigh was convicted by a court of his peers.

[Soliloquy]

It is new territory for America but there are other states around the world that live perpetually with the threat of terror. Perhaps we need to look at how these states balance security with human rights to find the right way to go here. I am thinking particularly of Israel and the UK (wrt Northern Ireland here). But you are right, the constitution and bill of rights are imperfect here.

[ThePythonicCow]

This guy is an American citizen

Not now. If you join the enemy in war against us, then you involuntarily renounce your citizenship. I tried tracking down a reference for this on the web, but don't see one yet. However, I've heard the paragraph on the back of a passport (I don't have a passport handy) read to me on the radio. And I did find official references to a couple of other countries having similar policies. So I'm pretty sure of my facts here.