I’ve never pretended to have it. My (and perhaps a lot of other people’s) hackles were raised because the point was even raised. Out of all the less-inflamatory things they could have said, they picked those two. I understand they’re not asking for a ruling on it.
If it truly is standard legal practice to raise hypotheticals like that, then my fears would be mollified.
I do not buy the argument that the “war on terror” is a “war” in the conventional, combat-against-a-foreign-nation sense of the term, and therefore the United States is allowed to do whatever it wants to wage that war.
I do not believe in a United States that would torture people or execute them without due process just because it can, as the OP seems to indicate.
I find the use of “enemy combatants” for the folks at Gitamo to be a dirty weasel tactic, since it allows the Administration to deny the folks there their rights as POWs under international law.
Any American who is not scared silly at the notion “…under the government’s theory, it is free to imprison Gherebi indefinitely along with hundreds of other citizens of foreign countries, friendly nations among them, and to do with Gherebi and these detainees as it will, when it pleases, without any compliance with any rule of law of any kind, without permitting him to consult counsel, and without acknowledging any judicial forum in which its actions may be challenged.” truly scares me.
What kind of question is that? Of course I don’t support murder. Do you support diplimats raping people?
I was answering your straw man with another.
I DO support the principle of diplomatic immunity, even if, in theory, it would allow a diplomat to commit murder and face no legal consquences; I would of course change my mind if this was actually happening on a large scale.
In the same way I do not think the prisoners at Gitmo can be classed as either POWS or as mere criminals, even if, in theory, they could then be tortured. I would of course change my mind if this was actually happening.
The detainees are a species for which our legal system has no clear taxonomy (and one which I think we need to create one ASAP); terrorism as we know it was not contemplated by the Framers of the Constitution or really by anyone since Westphalia. The closest legal precedent I can think are pirates.
…on the innocence of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners…
… Prisoner 671, Abassin Sayed, was held at Guantanamo Bay for 13 months. His eventual release was due in part to a highly vocal campaign on the part of his father, as well as publicity on the BBC. His case was simple: he was a taxi driver in Gardez, who was caught with a suspected Taliban in the back seat of his taxi by police (described by Sayed as a “gang”) at a local checkpoint. From there, he was shipped off to Bagram airbase, before being shipped to Guantanamo Bay a month later. Since his release he has had continual health problems with his eyesight and his knees. His also had his taxi stolen while he was jailed. (1) The suspected Taliban in the backseat of Sayed’s car, Alif Kahn, was also released at the same time as Sayed. Kahn claims that he was set up by business rivals while he was in Guantanamo Bay business rivals grabbed his business assets. (2)
…the common perception of the people locked up in Guantanamo Bay are that they are Taliban, or Al Queada people, or in the words of United States Senator Cornwyn “I’m satisfied that the 660 at Guantanamo Bay are among the baddest of the bad.” Unfortunately, without trials, there is no way we can confirm that. Sayed insists that his best friend, Wasir Mohamed, is still detained in Guantanamo Bay, his only crime to “make inquires into what happened to his friend.” Other people that are locked up, or have been locked up in Guantanamo Bay MAY include:
-people plucked off the Pakistani border by Pakistani troops looking for bounty
-people turned in by rival tribes/ factions, looking for revenge
-people who have combat lobotomies
-farmers
-bakers
-taxi drivers
-businessmen
…and it is not just people from Afganhistan and Pakistan that are locked up in Guantanamo:
-six people, released from Bosnian custody for lack of evidence (suspected of conspirying to blow up American and British embassies, were driven straight to the American embassy and flown to Guantanamo Bay
-four British citizens, were taken into custody in Gambia, interviewed without right to see a lawyer or the British consulate for TWENTY SEVEN days, before two of them were taken to Guantanamo Bay.
…and then there are the conditions that the prisoners are being held in. Lights on 24 hours a day, withholding privlidges, and giving rewards to those who co-operate are not ways of getting RELIABLE information. Consider this quote from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, Miller says the system of rewards has been a success, saying three-fourths of the detainees had confessed (3)Well, if you seemingly had no hope of release, wouldn’t you confess to make your life a little bit easier?
Imagine that you have been locked up for SIXTEEN MONTHS, with NO information on how much longer your going to be held there, then a rumour goes around that there will be military tribunals held, and those that plead guilty will avoid the death sentence-HOW WOULD YOU PLEAD?
…is the world any safer with the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay? Even if trials were held now, how reliable would any of the testimony be, considering the circumstances of most of the prisoners incarceration? And how many innocent people are still locked up in Guantanamo Bay?
(1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programm...ght/2968458.stm
(2) http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/sp...eguantanamo.txt
(3) http://www.timesunion.com/AspStorie…?storyID=175544
addit: http://www.latimes.com/la-na-gitmo2...0,2294365.story
(…adapted from a Banquet Bear original post on Spacebattles.com , November 2003. As noted in DTC cite, up to another 100 prisoners have just been released- hopefully Wasir Mohammed was among them… )
BBC on Sleep Depravation as Torture
Here is one “torture” the USA has been using… how much of a torture is debatable… but its been used.
I also support the principle of diplimatic immunity. Which, if I understand it correctly, is that diplimats should not have to worry about violating forein laws they were unaware of nor have to face punishment their country deems cruel and unusual.
However I think they should be acountable for their crimes in their own country. So for example, Britian sends someone over and they stab somebody , they would face the charges for the stabing in British court under British law.
I think we need some laws setting guidelines for what is acceptable for “enemy combatents”. Just like we have for other catagories. Just the possibility of torute/legal murder is unacceptable in my book.
Not quite. A diplomat is immune from prosecution by the host country even if he is perfectly aware that what he is doing is illegal, and even if the punishment is exactly the same as the punishment his own country would administer for a similar offence.
The foundation of the principle is the sovereign equality of states. State A has no right to enforce its views about what is right and wrong, permissible or impermissible, on State B, or on the recognised agents of State B.
However this underlines the point that the immunity belongs not to the diplomat personally but to the state he represents. States can, and sometimes do, waive the immunity of one of their diplomats who has committed an offence in a host country.
UDS is exactly right in explaining diplomatic immunity.
Well, I agree. But the point is, we don’t yet have those guidelines. IMO, that’s what the current admin has done wrong and needs to be pushed to do.
Their cause would be aided more not by trying to make them fall under the jurisdiction of the US court system, but by conceding the fact that they are neither criminals nor POWs, and working towards some sort of compromise system.
Not that there’s any easy formula for it, and that’s part of why why the Dems haven’t hammered Bush for it more: they aren’t sure what to do with them, either.