7/1/2008 - Shit, Fan and All of That |
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Okay, boyz and girlz. First up in the Gitmo detainees going to court regarding their interminable detentions, we have Huzaifa Parhat. From the New York Times article:
In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims. The unclassified parts of the decision were released on Monday.
With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents. The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the Lewis Carroll poem “The Hunting of the Snark”: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.” “This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,” said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Oh, snap! Oh, zing! Oh, you bad, bad Bush administration. More: The unanimous panel overturned as invalid a Pentagon determination that the detainee, Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority in western China, was properly held as an enemy combatant.
The panel included one of the court’s most conservative members, the chief judge, David B. Sentelle. ... A lawyer representing other detainees, Marc D. Falkoff, said the evidence against many of the 270 men now at Guantánamo was similar to that in the Parhat case. ... The 17 Uighurs now held at Guantánamo say they are allies, not enemies, of the United States. This is gonna get real ugly, methinks. I'm just sayin'... |
7/1/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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The trials are pointless. Should let them all go now. We have zero jurisdiction to try foreign nationals who committed acts on foreign soil.
Yeah, I know...it was one of those feel good decisions for those against the war. But it is also incredibly short sighted. That was one of the stupidest decisions that SCoTUS has ever handed down on a short list of really stupid decisions. Even if you give them POW status and drop the unlawful combatants bullshit that noone can agree upon, they still shouldn't have the right to any trial but a military tribunal. You do NOT try prisoners of war who didn't commit acts on US soil. No country on earth has ever done so other than in sham courts designed for propaganda. No country on earth has the jurisdiction to try foreign nationals on foreign soil for acts committed on foreign soil. Granted...we need to find a way and a time to repatriate POWs and determine a length of detainment from a war that doesn't have an end in sight because there is no country to conquer that we're fighting. But that doesn't mean you completely fuck over the system. In retaliation, ANY country could now completely ignore the diplomatic channels and try any American abroad for "crimes" committed outside of their country. Why? Because the US just set a precedent that such behavior is ok. So the next time some Sheik gets a wild hair up his ass about Americans breaking laws in the Koran while they're living in the US, he can snatch them up when they're on vacation and put them on trial. Because that's exactly what we're going to do here by putting a bunch of Arabic people on trial for breaking our laws while on foreign soil. It's completely assinine. Stupid, stupid decision not based on law, the constitution, or any precedent in law, and contrary to their own rulings prior on the matter. And it's going to severely bite us in the ass. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had to drag all 400k German POWs through court during WWII? We'd still be trying them today. And that's not to mention just how peachy troops are going to feel after they risk life and limb to secure and transport these guys alive only to have them, now, returned right away because there's nothing we can hold them on legally. How much you want to bet that there will soon be a larger proportion of combatants who "decided to fight to the death" rather than be captured? |
7/1/2008 - Eclectablog Said... |
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You do NOT try prisoners of war who didn't commit acts on US soil.
My understanding is that the SCOTUS simply said we can't hold them indefinitely without charging them and letting them see the evidence against them. In other words, they are allowed to challenge their detentions. They didn't say there would be trials regarding their guilt. |
7/1/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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My understanding is that the SCOTUS simply said we can't hold them indefinitely without charging them and letting them see the evidence against them.
Read the decision. They gave them right to trial in the US. There is nothing we can hold them on if they get a trial. There is no evidence we could have that a US court has jurisdiction over unless they committed a crime on US soil or on a US territory. They didn't say there would be trials regarding their guilt. How can they possibly be guilty of something they did outside of the US in a place where no US authority or jurisdiction exists? |
7/1/2008 - texican Said... |
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I wasn't sure about the decision because of what Aiel said about POW's. It didn't make sense.
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7/1/2008 - bebbet Said... |
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The problem the administration has landed itself in - as well as all those who supported the use of Guantánamo Bay over the years - is they've already set a precident. They've held people who were not prisoners of war indefinitely without trial. To simply let them all go at this point would be an admission of their own guilt. They might as well stand up in front of the UN and say, "Yes, we've spent the last six years pissing on all human rights laws in a way that would make Robert Mugabe step back and say, 'Don't you think you're pushing it a tad?'."
They have to have trials of some description paint a façade of due-process, however thin and pathetic it might be. |
7/1/2008 - OgreJehosephatt Said... |
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Yeah, they aren't trying the prisoners as much as they're trying the decision to hold them in the first place. These trials aren't going to render sentences. Either they stay where they are or they go home.
We keep them detained irregardless of law-- we keep them because we think they threaten us. Now people are just seeing if we had a reason to think that these people threaten us. |
7/1/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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They've held people who were not prisoners of war indefinitely without trial
Whether or not you consider them to be legal or illegal combatants is irrelevent. Even if they are legal, by the book POWs, they still shouldn't have access to the courts. We have no jurisdiction to hold them on any criminal charges. They might as well stand up in front of the UN and say, "Yes, we've spent the last six years pissing on all human rights laws in a way that would make Robert Mugabe step back and say, 'Don't you think you're pushing it a tad?'." Hyperbole much? Don't cheapen what's happening to people in Zimbabwe by comparing it to the minor discomforts of gitmo. From first hand accounts of someone who've served there. 1. The detainees have direct access to the International Red Cross represenatativies contrary to the accusations that they have no outside contact. Also, all the detainees are allowed to write and receive mail from family. 2. The detainees have their food prepared according to Islamic guidelines. The call to prayer is broadcast for them to go to prayer. Each detainee has the direction to Meccah painted in their cell. They are allowed to practice their religion wihtout interference and are given the religious items they need to do so. They are allowed to observe Ramadan. 3. There are strict guidelines and training concerning human rights protections. If a service member sees a violation they are to report it and if asked to violate someone's human rights they are to consider it as an unlawful order. Those who violate are subject to prosecution. Trying to portray the detainees conditions as something as heinous as Mugabe's rein is just weak...and dispicable. It cheapens the true suffering happening in Zimbabwe and does efforts to bring attention to that suffering a disservice. They have to have trials of some description paint a façade of due-process, however thin and pathetic it might be. Prisoners of war have no due process. They do not go to court. They never have...anywhere. They are held until the conflict is over and then they are repatriated. Period. No country tries them because no country can unless they've actually committed crimes on the soil of that country. You cannot try someone of a crime for something they did in another country. There is no jurisdiction. This decision, for the first time in US history, gives foreign detainees that were captured in foreign lands without any US jurisdiction, and held abroad for actions that took place outside of US jurisdiction, the constitutional right to habeus corpus. The court decision holds that detainees have the right to challenge Presidential authority to hold them. This writ grants habeas corpus remedies to all detaines. The central purpose of habeas corpus is to test the legality of executive detention. So such a writ fundamentally requires an Article III court to hear the prisoner's claims and, when necessary, order release...and has been available to any detainee for over 200 years. The Detainee Treatment Act, according to the court in previous decisions, and even grudgingly in this one, provides an Article III court that is capable of testing legality of detention. What process any prisoner is entitled to depends on the circumstances of the prisoner. Despite that, in this conclusion, the court has reached, inexplicably, an opposite conclusion, by invalidating the very review system that it admits, even in this decision, meets constitutional muster. In addition...the scope of this decision reaches beyond just these particular detainees. If Gitmo detainees can do it, then so can any other. The ruling uses Gitmo detainees as an example, but doesn't limit remedies to them alone. The court reversed it's own previous ruling...and contradicts itself within this one. The decision admits that the DTA meets Article III court guidelines, and yet goes on to invalidate their use. And on top of all that, this decision isn't going to get these guys released any time soon. They'll spend more time in litigation than they've already been detained. Chief Justice Roberts said it best in his dissent: So who has won? Not the detainees. The Court's analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation to determine the content of their new habeas right, followed by further litigation to resolve their particular cases,followed by further litigation before the D. C. Circuit- where they could have started had they invoked the DTA procedure. Not Congress, whose attempt to "determine- through democratic means-how best" to balance the security of the American people with the detainees' liberty interests, see Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 636 (2006) (BREYER, J., concurring), has been unceremoniously brushed aside. Not the Great Writ, whose majesty is hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost, with no tangible benefit to anyone. Not the rule of law, unless by that is meant the rule of lawyers, who will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy for alien enemy combatants. And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges. I respectfully dissent. |
7/1/2008 - Eclectablog Said... |
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Isnt' Gitmo considered to be part of the US since it's on a US Naval base? I don't know, I'm just asking.
The fact that many of these so called "threats" to the USA were turned in by other people in Afghanistan and the Middle East, perhaps at times to deflect attention or curry favor, makes their status pretty tenuous if you ask me. They may or may not be being tortured (based on first hand reports from people they've let go already, I'd suggest that they ARE). Either way, you're depriving people of their liberty and that's no small matter. |
7/1/2008 - bebbet Said... |
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Aielman, your entire rant seems to hinge on these people being prisoners of war. They were dragged from their homes by a foreign power, taken to another country and thrown in a cell under charges no stronger than word of mouth.
Your killer line was: They are held until the conflict is over and then they are repatriated. Period. What conflict? And please don't say 'The war on terror' because that will pretty much discredit every word you've ever typed on this blog. Which ever way somone might try to twist the definition, they are not prisoners of war. Also have to give honourable mention to the line: And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges. Lose control? What control do they have now? The elected, supposedly politaclly accountable administration has done whatever the hell it wants to do for the past eight years, and has said very plainly that the opinion of the American people means nohting. Less than a third of the nation now supports Bush, and yet the witless, illiterate, brain-dead gibbon remains free to do whatever he likes. |
7/1/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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Isnt' Gitmo considered to be part of the US since it's on a US Naval base? I don't know, I'm just asking.
Depends on who you ask. According to SCoTUS, sorta. In their last ruling on Gitmo they stated that it wasn't US territory, but that there still needed to be Article III Court guidlines set for them, which is basically what you have to do for POWs held on US soil. Which is why the DTA was approved by SCoTUS. The fact that many of these so called "threats" to the USA were turned in by other people in Afghanistan and the Middle East, perhaps at times to deflect attention or curry favor, makes their status pretty tenuous if you ask me. And we still have no legal jurisdiction to try them...regardless of who captured them. Their acts were not committed on US soil and they are not US citizens. Even if you give them POW status with full Geneva protections, they still don't have habeus corpus rights within the court system. I don't disagree that we need to come up with some solution to deal with the length of their detention. But breaking the military court system and giving rights that POWs have never had in the history of the country isn't the way to go about it. What conflict? And please don't say 'The war on terror' because that will pretty much discredit every word you've ever typed on this blog. What else would you call it? "War on a loosely affiliated group of terror groups with no national affiliation" is kind of hard to remember and takes too long to say. The fact is we are at war with an entity that isn't a sovereign nation for the first time in our, or really anyone elses, history. There is no precedent for this. What is certain, however, is that we have no jurisdiction to try foreign nationals committing acts on foreign soil. To even attempt to do so invites like attempts from foreign countries unfriendly to Western lifestyles to try the citizens of those countries for "offenses" committed while on their home soil. If Iran decided that it didn't like Britain protecting Salman Rushdie, they could bag some random American tourist from somewhere and try them for offenses against Allah because of our close association with Britain...and this case would be a perfect precedent for them. They were dragged from their homes by a foreign power, taken to another country and thrown in a cell under charges no stronger than word of mouth. You're going to continue to use wholesale hyperbole like this and then question my credibility on the blogs? Do you have any evidence whatsoever to support that all the detainees at gitmo were just innocents dragged from their homes? Anything you can point to at all that contradicts that the majority of the detainees were caught in direct military action against US personnel...some more than once? How about the group that was detained in Gitmo, released, and then ended up being recaptured? Which ever way somone might try to twist the definition, they are not prisoners of war What do you call someone who attacks US troops or civilians in a foreign country using military tactics and weaponry? Criminal doesn't stick...there's no US law that says you can't shoot at Americans in Afghanistan and even if there was, we'd have no jurisdiction to enforce it. The elected, supposedly politaclly accountable administration has done whatever the hell it wants to do for the past eight years, and has said very plainly that the opinion of the American people means nothing. The American people had the ability to elect someone else to office and they voted for Bush in record numbers. They had, and always have had, the ability to remove Bush from office by electing officials that would impeach him. Neither has come to pass...so they obviously don't want it that badly. |
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Name: Mr. E (get it?) Location: Ann Arbor-ish, Michigan, USA, Earth EFx2Blogger since: September 19, 2007 |
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Some folks sleep on a problem, but you can camp on one as well. Camping is for the mind what a high-speed run on the highway is for a car. It tends to blow out all the sludge that accumulates in the type of urban driving most of us are forced to do in order to earn a living.-- Tim Cahill
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