# Khalid Sheik Mohammed can be held indefinitely without trial, says Obama administration **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 15, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743 "2010-11-15T15:10:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/201 "2010-11-19T14:51:59Z")
Once more, AG Eric Holder has managed to turn an embarrassment into a fiasco. His insistence upon civil trials for terrorists will ensure humiliating defeats to the US Government-liberal judges will throw out all of the evidence, because the sources are secret. Personally, I think that our combat forces should include legal teams, to interview terrorists (who are shooting at our troops), to be sure that their rights are not violated.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/202 "2010-11-19T15:00:38Z")
What are you jabbering about now? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/203 "2010-11-19T15:42:28Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > What are you jabbering about now? Apparently, alleged terrorists don’t deserve the protections that our Constitution gives to ALL people in our courts. Also apparently, liberals don’t want to actually convict terrorists because we’re all terrorist sympathizers. Also, too, apparently **ralph** is happy to have torture-elicited confessions introduced to criminal trials as evidence. Wonder if he’d be as happy if that were being done with his own trial if he were brought before a court for something? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/204 "2010-11-19T17:22:04Z")
I’m sure if we tortured him we could get him to confess to **something**. Tax evasion. Murder. Liking Kenny G. Once again, **ralph** - the vast majority of the people we held in Guantanamo were not battlefield captures. A lot were people handed over by bounty hunters. It’s funny how, if you ask people if they know any terrorists and offer to give them a year’s wages on a no-question-asked basis, they always find _someone_ to point the finger at. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/205 "2010-11-19T22:51:41Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Ok. I think you’re refuting something **Der Trihs** never said (and could not possibly believe) because you’re incorrectly parsing his language to apply to the whole of your sentence instead of just the second clause, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m happy to end the hijack here. Given that he was responding to my sentence it is actually the only conclusion I could have drawn, meaning there was but one way to parse his language. If he just wanted to talk about Bush being evil, without talking about the “actions of Bush that were new on the stage of world history and American law” then he _should not_ have put his post in a **direct response** to mine. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/206 "2010-11-19T22:53:10Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What I said was _“The problem is that the government has invented a new category which apparently has no rules. This new invented category - “unlawful enemy combatants” or “unprivileged belligerents” or “people we just want to keep in prison” - has no legal foundation. We have no more legal authority to hold these people than the Iranians had to hold our embassy staff back in 1979.”_ (post 117). > > Bricker (in post 120) and Ravenman (in post 129) then specifically cited the Geneva Conventions as authorization. > > To which I responded _“The Geneva Convention says that certain people can be classified as prisoners of war and may be detained and are entitled to certain rights. But there are no provisions in the Geneva Convention for detaining people who are not classified as prisoners of war.”_ (post 133). > > As you pointed out there’s nothing in Article 3 which authorizes the detention I described. If you’re going to claim that Article 3 doesn’t specifically prohibit the detention of anyone, then you might as well claim your authorization exist in the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Like Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, that law doesn’t specifically prohibit detaining unlawful enemy combatants. > > I also quoted Article 75 (in post 167) which does specifically prohibit holding people indefinitely. It says _“Any person arrested, detained or interned for actions related to the armed conflict … shall be released with the minimum delay possible and in any event as soon as the circumstances justifying the arrest, detention or internment have ceased to exist.”_ I see, you’re stuck on the word authorization. The Geneva Convention does not authorize anything, it only regulates and proscribes. So I find it very odd that this is the line of debate you have chosen. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/207 "2010-11-20T00:45:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It does seem like our legal position here boils down to “We’re holding a bunch of people in captivity because we want to. And nobody’s big enough to make us stop doing it.” In addition to **Little Nemo** ’s quote above, I just want to comment on what I think his possible, and legitimate, frustration might be. There’s no question a country can hold combatants until the end of hostilities (indefinitely) under the principle of military necessity. That has been cited thoroughly in this thread. Further, the Supreme Court recently said it’s lawful to detain combatants who are not POW’s (ie, irregular/unlawful/unprivileged “whatever you want to call them today so as not to sound like your predecessor” combatants) as long as you have a clear definition of who they are that corresponds with who you authorized military force against (so you’re not arbitrarily detaining people) and provide them with some due process (since you took away their guaranteed POW due process). That’s were we stand today. Frustration should not lay in preventively detaining combatants, it should lay in\* **that person is no combatant** \*. However, we’ve already crossed the legal line that classic “terrorists” can’t be combatants. KSM, the mastermind of 9/11, is clearly the ideal person who Congress authorized force against. Thus, _he_ can be indefinitely detained. Aside from KSM, this is why you go through every six months and review the case to make sure they are still a threat. Hundreds and hundreds of detained combatants have been released who no longer pose a threat or never where a threat. Having said that, unlawful combatants are not allowed in other first world countries. Combatants _must_ be held as POW’s (or they are tried and/or released as Geneva “civilians”). You can’t detain civilians (if absolutely necessary, you may intern; restrict their movement). This is not binding customary international law, though…yet One day I’m sure it will be. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/208 "2010-11-20T02:20:01Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I see, you’re stuck on the word authorization. The Geneva Convention does not authorize anything, it only regulates and proscribes. So I find it very odd that this is the line of debate you have chosen. I’ll expand on this a bit. The Geneva Convention does not authorize anything because it has no sovereign authority whatsoever. The Geneva Conventions are just a series of agreements between states (actually several different series of agreements.) These agreements are essentially “compacts” between sovereign states that the signatory parties agree to adhere to during any and all hostilities. That Geneva Convention _does not_ authorize the United States Military to capture and hold Prisoners of War. What it does do, is lay out a list of regulations and proscriptions, if the United States wishes to remain in compliance with its GC obligations it has to follow them. Meaning, if the United States wishes to remain in compliance it has to agree to accept the surrender of enemy soldiers, it has to agree to hold as “Prisoners of War” (as defined by the GC) any prisoners who meet the criteria laid out by the GC. It also has to adhere to standards of behavior. However, that still does not mean the GC is authorizing the United States to take prisoners of war, that is far beyond the scope and power of the GC. When the United States takes prisoners, when the UK takes prisoners, when France takes prisoners, it is the _sovereign governments of those states_ which give the military of those states the authority to do so. Generally there are big fat books of statute and military regulations and military laws that spell out these things. In the case of the United States, our military policies and the laws behind them at various points specifically mention adherence to the GC (this is a method of actually _implementing_ compliance, above and beyond the simple act of the President signing the treaty and the Senate ratifying it.) Authority for anything the military does flows from the sovereign state that controls it. For this reason, the GC does not authorize lots of things: -It doesn’t authorize shooting and killing the enemy -It doesn’t authorize taking prisoners of war, lawful or unlawful -It doesn’t authorize sinking ships -It doesn’t authorize shooting down aircraft -It doesn’t authorize occupying defeated belligerents -It doesn’t authorize destroying transportation infrastructure -It doesn’t authorize destroying industrial infrastructure However, it also doesn’t prohibit any of those things. All the GC really says about captured belligerents is: If they meet X criteria, they are to be held as Prisoners of War. Prisoners of War must be treated in X manner. If they fail to meet X criteria they do not **have** to be given POW status (but they can be treated the same as POWs if the sovereign state chooses to do so), however if they fail to meet X criteria they are still to be treated in Y manner. Y is different than X but still provides for basic humanitarian standards of treatment. Nothing in any of this specifies how long persons who are not Prisoners of War can or cannot be held, meaning that how long the United States holds people at Guantanamo Bay is something that is simply not addressed by the Geneva Convention, period. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743/209 "2010-11-21T16:40:37Z")
I’ve really enjoyed the contributions of **Martin Hyde** and **CoolHandCox** in this thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khalid-sheik-mohammed-can-be-held-indefinitely-without-trial-says-obama-administration/560743.md?page=10)