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.
Perhaps, then, if these so-called innocent taxi-drivers were released, would you have one over for afternoon tea?
I rather doubt it.
These scumbags are the most vile of the vile.
Like the Jordanian bomber, who's believed to be the same man released by the US military as "not a threat" after capture in Fallujah last year?
I'd say he did a spectacular job of proving his innocence. Fifty-seven lives is such a small price to pay to uphold the civil rights of an enemy combatant, wouldn't you say? /sarc
I'll take the latter, with no small thanks due Scottish Law and Cave Jr.
They would have been summarily executed without trials for daring to oppose Stalin and the Communists.
Just one of the many "tactical" problems that must be dealt with if "strategic" goals are to be accomplished.
Frankly, they weren't combatants (people seem to have this idea that these ware people who surrendered on the battlefield, not ones that were rounded up to sift through).
I suppose you would also name the minutemen and militias of the colonies as "enemy combatants" who should have been held without charges or trial? :-( I'm not talking about the foreign fighters there, but the Afghan ones.
The reason they aren't returned to US soil is so their rights can be violated. Doesn't that say something's wrong, if we feel the need to evade our own rules?
I say we should try them, and the innocent freed, and the guilty...well, let's do with them whatever we want, whatever helps our fight. Let's keep the moral high ground.
It's BS like you think it is. :-(
I agree with you.
But, what is actually being "appealed"? I do not believe that the appeal will involve a trial; that is, the appeal only involves a review of the mechanics of the military tribunal (I am guessing here), its not an appeal that essentially "retries the case". If that's what it is, then forget it, why have the military tribunal in the first place if some automatic right of appeal gets you a US criminal trial anyway. Graham can't be this dumb, I think what is being appealed is whether the construct of the military tribunal was legitimate - in other words, that's its not just some "Ronnie Earle" style trial.
Correct: Article III of the Constitution says that judges shall remain in office unless they retire, die, or are impeached for misbehavior.
Thanks for correcting my memory.
Becki
What's our motivation?
What do we gain by clothing, feeding and interrogating an innocent taxi cab driver?
Are our techniques so poor that we cannot determine that the wrongfully accused person is an innocent taxi cab driver?
If he's an innocent taxi cab driver, why don't we just let him go and concentrate on non innocent taxi cab driver types?
they do indeed deserve trials - by the military. get these US courts out of the way, and they will receive them.
Well, sadly our civilian courts have shown the way around treating these animals as domestic criminals. Take no prisoners.
The vast majority of Nazis were not tried. And particularly nasty Nazis of lower rank were often taken from British POW camps and executed. Without, I might note, benefit of a trial at all.
In essence, a Federal Court having the right to negate a sentence handed down by a supposed independent military court, in cases involving non-US citizens committing acts of aggression against US interests. That is my interpretation. This in my opinion clearly shows the military court is no longer in control of cases supposedly within it's jurisdiction.
We gain a few things:
1) Less burden on our troops...if we can dragnet and determine guilt later, then it is more efficient for the front lines.
2) Reduces chance of false negatives if we don't discard.
But please... decide which way to argue...are you claiming it's easy to tell the innocent from guilty, or impossible? Can't have it both ways.
In a war, I have no problem with that.
"2) Reduces chance of false negatives if we don't discard."
Sorry, but I don't know what that means.
"But please... decide which way to argue...are you claiming it's easy to tell the innocent from guilty, or impossible? Can't have it both ways."
OK..here's my only point in posing the previous questions.
Your central position seems to be that we are detaining people at GITMO who are innocent of any wrong doing. Now, I have no way of proving you wrong in your belief any more than you can personally prove that you are right. We can argue and debate based on bits of info and some facts we have from various sources but in the end we can't prove anything.
When I run into that stalemate situation in a discussion I always try to look to logic and reasoning to guide my beliefs and in this case my logic dictates that there would be no reason for rounding up innocent people just so we can feed and clothe them in a prison. Even if we did by chance round up an innocent, which we probably have, there would be no reason to hold them once we determine that they are innocent. To answer your question, Yes, I do believe that the professional interrogators are capable of determining if someone is innocent. Is it easy? Absolutely not as it has been proven there is some chance of error. We have let supposed "innocents" loose in the past only to be rewarded for our efforts by terrorism on their parts later.
ping
"Frankly, they weren't combatants (people seem to have this idea that these ware people who surrendered on the battlefield, not ones that were rounded up to sift through)."
If they got rounded up, it's because there was some evidence of them being involved in terrorist/insurgent activity. Whether they're the trigger-pullers or supplying food/clothing/shelter to those they know are the trigger-pullers is irrelevant. They only hold those they think have intelligence value over long periods of time to break them down. Sometimes they end up finding out their involvement was negligible or wrong place/time. Nothing's perfect. Considering the crippling restrictions that are likely to be placed on interrogation techniques, I don't think it's going to be worthwhile to bother with long-term detentions. I think at that point battlefield executions (like we did with captured German infiltrators during the Battle of the Bulge) should become the preferred method of dealing with captured insurgents/terrorists who won't immediately co-operate.
"I suppose you would also name the minutemen and militias of the colonies as "enemy combatants" who should have been held without charges or trial?"
Unlike the scum were dealing with, the militia/minutemen fought by most of the same rules of conduct as their Imperial opponents. They were "lawful" combatants.
"The reason they aren't returned to US soil is so their rights can be violated."
Unlawful combatants and everyone who assists them self-revoke all their rights. We don't bring them here because of the traitorous scum in the ACLU and their liberal-activist butt-buddies in the courts who think the FOR U.S. CITIZENS ONLY contract known as the U.S. CONSTITUTION applies to every foreign dirtbag with a dirty night-shirt and a stick of dynamite in each hand.
"Let's keep the moral high ground."
When your enemies are throat-slitting bombers who target women and children, you'll always have the moral high-ground.
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