Posted on 01/13/2008 3:31:02 PM PST by MichMash
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The chief of the U.S. military said Sunday he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been "pretty damaging" to the image of the United States.
"I'd like to see it shut down," Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Its clear that Bush was making a statement to fend off the ACLU/anti-war types, AKA. surrender monkeys. Mullen’s remarks are not what we need from America’s head military man. Fred made that abundantly clear in the Fox sit down debate last week, when it criticized Huckabee's policy for closing GITMO.
" The Court gives only two reasons why the presumption against extraterritorial effect does not apply to Guantanamo Bay. First, the Court says (without any further elaboration) that “the United States exercises ‘complete jurisdiction and control’ over the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base [under the terms of a 1903 lease agreement], and may continue to exercise such control permanently if it so chooses [under the terms of a 1934 Treaty].” Ante, at 12; see ante, at 2—3. But that lease agreement explicitly recognized “the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba over the [leased areas],” Lease of Lands for Coaling and Naval Stations, Feb. 23, 1903, U.S.-Cuba, Art. III, T. S. No. 418, and the Executive Branch–whose head is “exclusively responsible” for the “conduct of diplomatic and foreign affairs,” Eisentrager, supra, at 789–affirms that the lease and treaty do not render Guantanamo Bay the sovereign territory of the United States, see Brief for Respondents 21." Scalia in Rasul.
Laws which can be ruled unconstitutional by the SUPREME COURT!
The Geneva Conventions allow for the holding of unlawful combatants for the duration and they also allow for those unlawful combatants to be held incommunicado. You knew that right?
Moreover it has nothing to do with the FACT that the lease states unequivocally that Cuba is sovereign in GITMO. This isn't hard stuff here friend, what seems to be the problem?
If you indeed are a liberal supporting judicial adventurism by liberals on SCOTUS, just fess up. Then I'll understand.
Liberaliam is a mental illness.
“They should be tried by military tribunal the same as some german sabotuers were tried during WWII. If found guilty, they should be executed. No attorneys, no appeals.”
How can they be tried without attorneys defending them? I have not heard of that.
You seem to agree with the detainees and the lawyers. Despite some SCOTUS decisions on how the detainees should be treated, there has been no decision that treats them as if they are on US soil. If there were no distinction, Gitmo would have been closed by now. There are still legal advantages to keeping it open, which is prima facie evidence that you are wrong.
Maybe we should just stop taking prisoners and that way we wouldn’t have to worry about their treatment at Gitmo.
Scalia here admits that the court has ruled that Gitmo is under “complete jurisdiction and control” of the US regardless of who holds sovereignty! Sovereignty is irrelevant!
Wrong again, the constitution empowers the Congress to limit the jurisdiction of lower courts which is what they did.
And the SCOTUS doesn't have the power to do jackcrap about it.
You ever read the US Constitution?
Why should they have Geneva convention protections at all!? Only because the court said so! They are illegal combatants! The Geneva convention should not apply to them AT ALL! The court has conferred Geneva convention protection on illegal combatants and the Bush administration recognized the courts jurisdiction to make such a decision!
Nah. Just a coward.
Bush is concerned about international opinion. There is no denying that it affects our image abroad. I believe we should keep it open, but the administration, including the JCS, must play the game of saying we would love to close it, but there are legal problems that impact on national security. It’s politics, nothing more. The article is meant to sensationalize what has been our policy for years. Mullen is not speaking out of school nor is he stating anything that is not our position. The intent of the author, Burns of the NYT, seems to have worked given many of the posters who buy this nonsense and tear into Mullen.
Glad they spend their time here where we can handle them.
When I heard this on the radio, I just had to Grrrrrrrrrr.....
I’m sick to death of our MSM’s rantings. They NEVER report the good news in Iraq or Afhganistan.
Just, yuck, and those that post this kind of garbage here. When I lived in Minneapolis, that was about the murder rate in a year.
LOL, evidently. Liberals know no bounds. But you've backed into some truth since the liberals on the court seem to think their power reaches the "four corners of the Earth".
But Scalia is much more eloquent and infinitely more informed where the law ids concerned. Let's hear once again from Antonin:
" Part IV of the Court’s opinion, dealing with the status of Guantanamo Bay, is a puzzlement. The Court might have made an effort (a vain one, as I shall discuss) to distinguish Eisentrager on the basis of a difference between the status of Landsberg Prison in Germany and Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. But Part III flatly rejected such an approach, holding that the place of detention of an alien has no bearing on the statutory availability of habeas relief, but “is strictly relevant only to the question of the appropriate forum.” Ante, at 11. That rejection is repeated at the end of Part IV: “In the end, the answer to the question presented is clear. . . . No party questions the District Court’s jurisdiction over petitioners’ custodians. . . . Section 2241, by its terms, requires nothing more.” Ante, at 15—16. Once that has been said, the status of Guantanamo Bay is entirely irrelevant to the issue here. The habeas statute is (according to the Court) being applied domestically, to “petitioners’ custodians,” and the doctrine that statutes are presumed to have no extraterritorial effect simply has no application."
You should understand the majorities twisted and perverse holding.
It's a liberal thing.
IIRC from what I have read before, a military attorney or officer is appointed to 'represent' them but the rules he operates under are totally different from a civilian court. The evidence is not to the same standards and a conviction does not require proving guilt 'beyond a shadow of a doubt'.
I am definitely no expert but remember reading about tribunals a few years ago and was very surprised at some of the differences.
The only problem I have with the process is that I dislike forcing our military members to be executioners. That is one thing that should be contracted out.
Mullen should be torn into. There have been at least 20 jihadists who have been released and returned to the battlefield. In all likelihood at least some of them have killed American soldiers or our allies.
Mullen's position as CJCOS should be to prevent that bs at all costs, politics be damned.
You must be a liberal ACLU lawyer.
On this issue, Huckabee merely agrees with the President, and although I don’t concur, I cannot blast Huckabee over this position either. We should keep Guantanamo open because any escaped terrorists cannot haunt the American populous easily.
If W doesn’t get rid of this guy within minutes he is unfit as CIC.
The CIC needs to step up to the plate.
He probably won't.
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