Powell Says Close Gitmo

Wow. I just finished reading the decision. It really is a good read. I'm going to quote the final paragraph because it's so good.

Quote:

To sanction such presidential authority to order the military
to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President
calls them "enemy combatants," would have disastrous consequences
for the Constitution -- and the country. For a court to uphold a
claim to such extraordinary power would do more than render
lifeless the Suspension Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the
rights to criminal process in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth
Amendments; it would effectively undermine all of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. It is that power -- were a court
to recognize it -- that could lead all our laws "to go unexecuted,
and the government itself to go to pieces." We refuse to recognize
a claim to power that would so alter the constitutional foundations
of our Republic.

I tried to read the dissent but after reading the majority opinion it was like reading graffiti on a bathroom wall. I'm going to take that last line as my sig line.

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Check out what Mike Huckabee thinks...

Later, on CNN's Late Edition, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) expressed his disagreement with Powell about closing Guantanamo, saying "most of our prisoners would love to be in a facility more like Guantanamo and less like the state prisons that people are in in the United States."

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/11/huckabee-gitmo/

-you can't make **** like that up...

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FreeDuck,

I skimmed the decision. It is interesting where the judges note that the government is arguing the opposite of what Gonzales testified to congress.

The decision more than once seems to note the credulity of the government's argument in light of what they have said and argued elsewhere.

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So, how many American citizens are held at Gitmo?

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okie wrote:

So, how many American citizens are held at Gitmo?

There's a non sequitor.

I'm not sure how Jefferson ever managed to write the declaration of independence since there were not US citizens to have rights at that time.

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parados wrote:

I'm not sure how Jefferson ever managed to write the declaration of independence since there were not US citizens to have rights at that time.

That's what I've been saying for years. Just pay your damn taxes to England already, and forget about this embarrassing little secession in 1776.

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okie wrote:

So, how many American citizens are held at Gitmo?

I'm still working on the issue of "paper or plastic?"

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Nuremberg Prosecutor: Guantanamo "Violates The Nuremberg Principles" http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N6B384799.htm

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A. Kill them on the spot.

B. Turn them loose.

C. Hold them as enemy combatants and try to extract information from them to prevent further harm to ourselves and our military. Holding them prevents them from further actions, and the information gained from them also aids our efforts to protect ourselves from further harm.

D. Try them under the criminal justice system, with full rights as U.S. citizens.

Any of the great legal minds here have any more choices to add to this list I compiled for consideration?

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okie wrote:

So does any of the great legal minds here have any more choices to add to this list I compiled for consideration?

e) hold them as if they were regular prisoners of war, strictly applying the Geneva Convention in their treatment. Try them in court-martials, or in tribunals that closely resemble them.

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Two points, Thomas.

One, the combatants do not come under the jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions.

Secondly, we are already treating them better than most prisoners of war previously held in previous wars under the Geneva Conventions.

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okie wrote:

Two points, Thomas.

One, the combatants do not come under the jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions.

Secondly, we are already treating them better than most prisoners of war previously held in previous wars under the Geneva Conventions.

Three points, Okie:

One, I said "as if they were", leaving open whether they legally fall under the Geneva convention -- a point we've debated ad nauseam, and which I agree to disagree with you about.

Two, your second point is merely an assertion; you offer no evidence to back it up with; I see no reason to accept it as a fact.

Three, you had asked us for choices other than the ones you'd offered. I gave you a choice other than the ones you'd offered. All I did was give you something you'd specifically asked for.

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Fair enough. Yes, there have been plenty of accusations about Gitmo, of abuse, etc. My take on all of this as a citizen that follows the news is that first of all we have a very vocal, adversarial, anti-Bush, anti-war press that is looking for any slight report of abuse at Gitmo. Secondly, it is in the handbook of terrorist organizations to complain and claim abuse if ever held in prisons. It is their standard operational procedure. My conclusion from my following the reports of the prison is that they are likely being treated very well down there compared to past prisoners of war. As to evidence you ask, where is the evidence to the contrary? Granted, I don't live down there and witness everything, but neither does the press, and we already know of false reporting. Remember the claim that korans were being flushed down the toilet?

So you can add your option to the list, but I think it is already pretty much the same as Option C that I listed.

My last point, where is the outrage from the civilized world community directed at terrorist organizations that have created this problem, instead of constantly nitpicking a country and an administration that are attempting to address the problem?

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okie wrote:

So you can add your option to the list, but I think it is already pretty much the same as Option C that I listed.

Where does your option C "[t]ry them in court-martials, or in tribunals that closely resemble them"?

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Thomas wrote:

okie wrote:
So does any of the great legal minds here have any more choices to add to this list I compiled for consideration?

e) hold them as if they were regular prisoners of war, strictly applying the Geneva Convention in their treatment. Try them in court-martials, or in tribunals that closely resemble them.

If we are to expect our anti-terrorism measures to be worthwhile, it would seem that exposing the methods and intelligence used against them in an open court would be counter-productive.

In a trial, evidence and witnesses must be presented. Naturally the liberals will want the trials televised because of their paranoid personalities which I am sure the government would balk at. Even with a secret trial, the lawyers would be exposed to vital secrets in the war on terror. We could assign the defendants military lawyers, but I somehow believe none of the usual suspects would accept any rulings were that the case.

Instead of this circus, the government has decided that they are to be kept secluded from the general populace until such time as they no longer present a viable threat from their knowledge or that holding them no longer will be productive for Intelligence. Then they get released, some to their home countries to continue to be held in prison, others to whatever it is they were doing before the war.

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okie wrote:

My last point, where is the outrage from the civilized world community directed at terrorist organizations that have created this problem, instead of constantly nitpicking a country and an administration that are attempting to address the problem?

This comparison is a non-sequitur, because the whole civilized world agrees that the US government is more moral than Al Quaeda. The disagreement is that some people think this ends the story, whereas others -- myself included -- maintain that "better than Al Quaeda" is too low a standard to which to hold the United States.

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Thomas wrote:

okie wrote:
So you can add your option to the list, but I think it is already pretty much the same as Option C that I listed.

Where does your option C "[t]ry them in court-martials, or in tribunals that closely resemble them"?

The terrorists have created a different kind of war from a conventional war, Thomas. First of all, there does not seem to be any mechanism for the enemy to give up and sign a peace treaty, which would bring closure to prisoners of war under the normal circumstances. Again, I should not have to point it out, but we did not create this scenario, the terrorist organizations have. So our best legal minds are still wrestling with how to handle these people. They have already released a significant number of them, and unfortunately I think I have heard reports that some of those have already turned up trying to kill us again.

As for trials, I will need to brush up on what the current course is planned for these people, maybe you can tell me. I am simply arguing here that giving these people all the rights of a normal criminal would obviously present a very impractical solution to all of this. I use the word, "obvious" again because it seems like it should be.

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McGentrix wrote:

If we are to expect our anti-terrorism measures to be worthwhile, it would seem that exposing the methods and intelligence used against them in an open court would be counter-productive.

Red Herring. If civilian courts, in antitrust cases like United States v. Microsoft, can keep sensitive information secret, court martials can surely keep them unpublished in their more secretive proceedings.

McGentrix wrote:

Naturally the liberals will want the trials televised because of their paranoid personalities

Could you back up this assertion by citing the liberal of the highest standing who actually demands this?

McGentrix wrote:

which I am sure the government would balk at. Even with a secret trial, the lawyers would be exposed to vital secrets in the war on terror. We could assign the defendants military lawyers, but I somehow believe none of the usual suspects would accept any rulings were that the case.

How many court martial cases can you cite that revealed any operational information useful to the enemy?

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okie wrote:

I am simply arguing here that giving these people all the rights of a normal criminal would obviously present a very impractical solution to all of this.

People in a court martial do not have all the rights a normal criminal would have in a civilian trial. Nevertheless, court martials aren't designed to hold monkey trials, unlike the various commissions and tribunals allegedly invented to fight terrorism.

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Thomas wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
If we are to expect our anti-terrorism measures to be worthwhile, it would seem that exposing the methods and intelligence used against them in an open court would be counter-productive.

Red Herring. If civilian courts, in antitrust cases like United States v. Microsoft, can keep sensitive information secret, court martials can surely keep them unpublished in their more secretive proceedings.

No ones life is at risk if the Microsoft source code were to be leaked. We have many operational people in the field and working underground that could stand to lose quite a lot if some secrets were exposed publicly.

Quote:

McGentrix wrote:
Naturally the liberals will want the trials televised because of their paranoid personalities

Could you back up this assertion by citing the liberal of the highest standing who actually demands this?

It hasn't happened so that couldn't possibly have demanded it yet. Do you somehow doubt that it would happen though? Have you looked at the looney left these days? Shocked

Quote:

McGentrix wrote:
which I am sure the government would balk at. Even with a secret trial, the lawyers would be exposed to vital secrets in the war on terror. We could assign the defendants military lawyers, but I somehow believe none of the usual suspects would accept any rulings were that the case.

How many court martial cases can you cite that revealed any operational information useful to the enemy?

How many court martial trials have tried suspected terrorists?

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Powell Says Close Gitmo

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