Good to see that susoected terrorists have more rights than my British son, arrested in the US for visa irregularities after he’d been living there for five years, with a green card and checking in annually with the immigration bureau. One year they spotted an irregularity, arrested him, confiscated all his goods, told him he had no rights, not even to a lawyer, and deported him after three months lockup. He lost his car, apartment, all his wordly goods.
So how come he had no rights yet if you’re captured fighting a terrorist campaign against the US you have rights coming out your ass?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but in any case never without somebody taking a necessary first step of simple recognition. A fairly easy step, which you appear strangely and persistently reluctant to take.
Haven’t read the opinion, but I doubt it would cover that. Court decisions are limited to the particular issues the lawyers have placed before the court (thought they might have far wider implications).
Vague concept? I could have sworn that floating around somewhere on the internets there was some document, called, uh, oh yeah, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yeah, that’s it. Been a while since I last read it, but it seemed pretty specific to me.
And yeah, I don’t have any problem, conceptually, with human rights have the force of law. Plenty of details to argue, of course.
Regarding Maher Arar, I really don’t have a clue what point 2.5 thinks he is making, except that he apparently strongly believes that nothing wrong or incorrect was done to him by the US government, and it is unfair of any of us to blame the US Government in any way for Mr. Arar’s poor treatment in Syria. I also have to think that he personally believes that Arar was indeed guilty of something, as I cannot otherwise reconcile his bizarre insistence on scrupulously showing no empathy for Mr. Arar whatsoever. I’m afraid I can’t get on board with either of those things. It may indeed be true that from a purely (and very narrow) legal standpoint, the US committed no prosecutable offences against Mr. Arar, but it seems to me that with even a minimal knowledge of the facts surrounding the case, only an ass would try to claim that no injustices were done to the man.
Oh yeah, one more thing. I was listening to KTRH, Houston’s self-appointed right-wing radio outlet this morning, and they had an on-the-air poll concerning the possible effects of the Supreme Court ruling that is the subject of this thread. As of 8AM, 90 percent of the respondents had said they believed the ruling will result in harm to the US. What a depressing way to start the morning.
Cite for what? An hypothetical person captured while fighting a terrorist campaign against the US and sent to Gitmo, who would, as the Supreme Court has ruled, have rights? I’m not referring to any particular case.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one conception of human rights. IF you like it, you can work to have made law in the US.
I never claimed no injustices were done. I was only discussing the legal aspects of his deportation.
Oh yeah, one more thing. I was listening to KTRH, Houston’s self-appointed right-wing radio outlet this morning, and they had an on-the-air poll concerning the possible effects of the Supreme Court ruling that is the subject of this thread. As of 8AM, 90 percent of the respondents had said they believed the ruling will result in harm to the US. What a depressing way to start the morning.
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Why “depressing”? How could this ruling harm the U.S.? That’s like saying crime will be uncontrollable unless the police can do whatever they please to or with suspects.
Yeh, well, that’s like getting depressed by the stupid posted to Free Republic. What would you expect to see there?! What would be depressing would be if polls showed agreement by the majority.
I don’t see why it’s an either/or thing. If this thread had actually been about British guys held for visa irregularities, I’m sure many would have said how fucked up your son’s case was as well. There’s nothing unreasonable about wanting both people held at Gitmo and foreign citizens jailed for visa issues to be treated fairly. Your appeal to emotion (especially with the comparing your son’s case to “suspected terrorists” - I’d think somebody pissed off at the way the U.S. government handled visa problems wouldn’t be so quick to use its bullshit propaganda terminology) comes off as misguided, though.
Pretty weak reply, really. I mentioned the UDHR solely in regard to your reference to human rights as a ‘vague concept’. The Universal Declaration, and indeed components of the US Constitution, appear to demonstrate that your assertion is false.
Just to be clear, KTRH has for decades been a hard-news station, and only went over to the dark side within the past couple of years. Although the midday is taken up with the Limbaugh/Hannity daily hatefest, during morning drive-time the station does news, weather and traffic only, and, one presumes, is not listened to by a purely right-wing audience. That 90% figure is depressing to me because it seems to indicate that a majority of people (in this area at least) really don’t think prisoners in Guantanamo should have any rights at all.