Posted on 11/15/2005 3:22:43 PM PST by Valin
The United States suspended its controversial military trials for 'war on terror' detainees after a ruling by a federal judge. Following the judge's action on Monday, the Defense Department said it had postponed the first trial hearing of accused "Australian Taliban" David Hicks, which was scheduled to start Friday at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. "The courts have intervened, as I understand it, and things are off for a period until the courts sort through things," US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the government has not decided whether to appeal the ruling by US District Judge Colleen Kollar Kotelly. "This is something that happened last night. The government will obviously review the rulings of the court and make its decision from there," he said.
Kotelly ruled that the Hicks trial be suspended ahead of an anticipated ruling by the US Supreme Court on the legality of the special military tribunals set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Whitman stressed that the ruling applied only to Hicks, but no dates have been set for any other trials to start. Kotelly said the suspension would remain in effect "pending the issuance of a final and ultimate decision by the Supreme Court in that case." The Supreme Court has said it would give a ruling in 2006 on the military trials, which have faced criticism at home and abroad.
Hicks, 30, was the first of nine detainees to face trial by the special military commissions, which have been condemned by civil legal groups and even many of the military lawyers defending the detainees. A convert to Islam who was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, Hicks faces charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy. He has denied the charges.
Despite the Supreme Court intervention, the Pentagon had wanted Hicks' trial to proceed, while officials said they were aware that a court could order a suspension. The Supreme Court said last week it would rule next year on the legality of the military commissions in response to a challenge by lawyers for another detainee, Saleh Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni. There have been a series of court challenges to the tribunals.
A federal appeals court in July reaffirmed President George W. Bush's authority to order trials of "war on terror" detainees by the commissions in Hamdan's case. Hicks' lawyers filed a petition in federal court last week seeking a stay of his trial pending the Supreme Court ruling. The Pentagon brought war crimes charges against five more detainees a week ago, bringing to nine the number who face trial by military commission, on the same day that the Supreme Court said it would rule on the legality of the process.
Nearly 500 other detainees are being held without charge at the military-run prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Most of the inmates were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan after a US-led offensive toppled the Taliban government in Kabul in late 2001. The United States has declared the detainees illegal enemy combatants who are not protected by the Geneva Conventions.
I buy your statement. So what this has accomplished in part is that there may some detainees that may rot in Gitmo without ever being brought to trial before a military tribune. OK. Perhaps the gig is not over. I was afraid that somehow either civilian lawyers would get in on the action, which means ACLU goons go nuts, or somehow a detainee would by some fluke end up being able to seek a DC Circuit Court of Appeals hearing. Obviously my fears where unwarranted. Since those two issues would never come up.
no, its OK to have fears. given the current makeup of the SCOTUS - I fear alot of things! But I don't think they have the stones, at least while Bush is president, to order these prisoners brought into the US (or a district court setup at Gitmo) to give them full US criminal trials. I am usually not an optimist, but I don't think the 5 solid votes they have on the SCOTUS will push it this far.
No, it was the federal prosecutors Clinton fired. Unfortunately the President can't fire judges.
Oh yeah... quoting JimRob makes me a sleeper troll.
LMHO!
nutcase ping
Which reminds me, too bad the guys who caught Saddam hadn't remembered how dangerous he was and that he'd sworn to go down fighting. They could've just opened the lid on his hidey hole high enough to roll in a couple grenades and that would've saved us all a whole lot of grief, not to mention saving many innocent lives.
Regardless, go to reports like the report of General Ryder about how detainees are often innocents. They use the dragnet approach, rounding up many with the intent of sorting through later. That's why so many are released.
So we have a choice...
If we follow the suggestions of some on this thread (e.g., drowning all detainees), then we either are going to kill innocents, or require our troops to be use more discretion in who they capture. Personally, I don't want our troops to be handcuffed that way.
I guess all we can do is wait and watch things as they develop. No kidding.
Since 2001. I'm referring to, for example, Sayed Abassin a taxi drivers held for two years and released, and his friend (and also a taxi driver) Wazir Muhammad, who had gone to a checkpoint to ask about Mr. Abassin (and was also detained for two years without trial, IIRC).
Or Dilawar...the 22-year-old taxi driver who was died in December 2002 while being interrogated (see, for example, http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/08/news/abuse.php). It's not like the administration or military deny these detentions! The information comes from their own reports! You can go to the DoD website and search and sift through and find SOME of the details on the detainees' hearings, etc.
But I know there are those on FR who would rather pretend that these things don't happen, and want to shut out any reality... but I think that's stupid. We have to deal with reality, and reality includes the detention of some who are innocent.
Have you been drinking the koolaid at DU????
Sorry...I don't go to DU. I find it a rather distasteful place. Besides, I'd rather have a Sam Adams or Pitch Black Mt. Dew.
You see...I recall what this country was founded upon, and it was just the sort of abuses advocated here that were the sparks for casting off British rule. Does anyone here think that Sam Adams or Thomas Jefferson or George Mason or James Madison would advocate holding prisoners for years without trial?!?
Sorry - I have a hard time beleiveing that they were JUST taxi drivers. Sort of like calling the 911 Terrorists "airline passengers."
"Does anyone here think that Sam Adams or Thomas Jefferson or George Mason or James Madison would advocate holding prisoners for years without trial?!?"
Nope. Being unlawful combatants, which are worse than pirates, the above individuals would've had them deported or executed within days.
Darn't it. We are going around in circles a bit, and I am not accusing either of us in a negative way..........but here we have this
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1522894/posts
"A bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise yesterday that would dramatically alter U.S. policy for treating captured terrorist suspects by granting them a final recourse to the federal courts but stripping them of some key legal rights.
The compromise links legislation written by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), which would deny detainees broad access to federal courts, with a new measure authored by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) that would grant detainees the right to appeal the verdict of a military tribunal to a federal appeals court. The deal will come to a vote today, and the authors say they are confident it will pass."
This is what I have been quacking about. So by agreeing to Levin's crap, what I said I fear, is a reality. The doors are open to allow some sandscum that has been handed down a death penalty for instance by the military tribune, to turn around an put in an appeal to have his verdict handed down to the Libos in DC for review. This is what I tried to indicate earlier own which I evidently did not do a good job in communicating.
If a federal judge decides the military tribune's sentence is not fair, then the goon gets off. This is crap. And I know I have read about a year back or more some long articles describing how the military court allows for this very appeal process to take place within the body of it's own system. So why does the frigen Federal Court System designed to try cases for American citizens have to come into the picture. It is getting late, please do no feel obligated to respond.
"And MANY of the detained have been innocents--but that's to be expected when we give out bounties to get suspects and tribesmen can make cash at the same time that they remove rivals by fingering them."
Only the worst of the worst with plenty of evidence against them were sent to Gitmo, the rest were left in country, and many released for just the reasons that you stated above.
The military tribunals are not for everyone captured. They are only for Gitmo prisoners and others held at unknown locations.
your on probation
deal with it
I agree, except then you open the door for the left to claim war crimes for executing prisoners; of all the practical choices, it seems best to kill them rather than capture them and be denied torture to glean info, only to have them use our courts to grandstand and get off in 5 years.
"Does anyone here think that Sam Adams or Thomas Jefferson or George Mason or James Madison would advocate holding prisoners for years without trial?!?"
During war? YES.
Some people just refuse to understand that this is a WAR, and these "people" want to kill. That's all they live for.
<< The United States has declared the detainees illegal enemy combatants who are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. >>
Nope.
The United States has NOTICED and has noted the illegal combatants to be un-uniformed beligerents. Criminals. Murderers.
And that confirms that ours is still the only Nation on Earth properly respecting those Conventions.
No non-uniformed mass-murdering Geneva Conventions' ring-ins for US!
These individuals are not innocent taxi drivers.
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