My statement was too broad. The torture makes it very difficult to prosecute these people. Mohammed’s involvement with Al Qaeda is rather plain, but if there ever is a trial the government will still have its work complicated by the fact that he was tortured.
In court? He hasn’t been. That’s what the thread is about. The fact remains that he was a terrorist.
Yeah, but Bush’s presidency was like eight years worth of torture, but we can still call him an idiot.
And please correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that KSM is being held under preventative detention, which in effect (but not name) would be the same circumstances under which a prisoner of war would be held. (That is, to prevent return to the battlefield until such time as the hostilities have concluded.) One can disagree with that status/rationale, but it is a red herring to say that he’s being held as a convict or to penalize him for some reason. Obviously he hasn’t been convicted of anything.
Meh. People he implicated, maybe, but I seriously doubt that the Feds can’t find enough torture-independent evidence against someone as prominent as Mohammed.
It really wasn’t Obama’s fault-it was the brain-dead AG, Eric Holder.
Holder insisted in a NYC trial-which was abandoned when NYC didn’t want it.
I have a solution: release Khalid back to his home country-and monitor his activities.
When he starts planning bombings and murders again, you can decide how to charge him.
The Administration thought so, but he wasn’t allowed to be tried on it because apparently too many people thought he was going to break his chains and run amok in New York City like King Kong.
Chuck Schumer and Peter King don’t want it. I’m pretty sure the people of New York do.
Mohammed can’t be repatriated; he’s a Pakistani national, and there’s no way they’d take him back.
What a farce, you guys should just hang him like the Iraqis did Saddam.
Don’t fool yourselves by having a kangaroo court, embrace the fact that U.S “justice” at long last equals the likes of Iran, China and act accordingly.
Saddam got a trial.
No, he is explicitly not a POW. He’s being held as an unlawful enemy combatant.
That’s not correct. The DOJ did away with the “unlawful enemy combatant” designation a year and a half ago. Cite.
Please note that I acknowledged that they were not being called POWs. However, the end effect of the policy seems to be an acknowledgment that those 170-odd people still in Guantanamo are being held under some kind of “preventative detention” which seems to link their continued detention to the fact that hostilities are ongoing.
And even if we did want to give him back, we’d probably be prevented from doing so due to the Convention on Torture. We’d either have to let him loose within the US or find another country who would like to take him that doesn’t have a record of torturing people. Like either of those are going to happen.
OK. They stop using the name, but they haven’t changed the nature of the detention. But I don’t think it has much to do with “hostilities”. Rather, they claim those people have a substantial link to al Qaeda. Hostilities with al Qaeda will never cease.
That’s not the Administration’s reasoning. They claim that the authority to hold – uh, whatever these people may be called – is based on how international law informs the application of the AUMF. Out of curiosity, would it be your contention that the US and NATO are not allowed to take prisoners in Afghanistan?
Never? That’s a rather bold prediction. I’m trying to think of how many unconventional/terroristic wars have “never” ended, and I’d bet heavily on the status quo power winning eventually.
Yes.
No.
al Qaeda isn’t like anything we’ve seen before. They aren’t a terror organization operating within any defined borders. Instead, they are a world-wide terror network. But if you want me to temper the word “never”, that’s fine. Never in any of our lifetimes is probably still too short a time.
Bush claimed inherent powers derived from the constitution, while Obama claims they are derived from the AUMF. Unless the AUMF is ever repealed, I don’t see any operational difference.
Except the author of that piece DOES have conversations with Inside the Beltway types.
I’d agree if he were merely a blogger, you’d have some standing to say that you disagreed with the facts he was laying out. But the Post is a respectable news organization, so I don’t think you can dismiss their reporting with, “Oh, I disagree, but I have no evidence.”
Well, yeah, and so do I. But as I’ve said, I’m not sure how I provide evidence that the Post is, in my view, slightly mischaracterizing what I understand to be the current state of affairs. I suppose I’ll have to sit here in smug self-satisfaction of my own brilliant insights. 
Yeah, that’s fair. But let’s get real here: AQ will never win. They cannot. Their resources are nothing compared to that of their enemies, which is every government on the face of the earth, with a very substantial number of those committed to destroying the organization.
The only resource they have is zeal, which only goes so far. I think, by any objective measure, time has not been kind to Al Qaeda. The AQ leadership is isolated, cut off, and frightened of drone attack. AQ in Iraq, once the central battlefront against the US, is barely a shadow of what it was two years ago. The war in Afghanistan is really about the Taliban, not AQ. Global attitudes about AQ, even in the Muslim world, continue to grow more and more negative.
I’m not saying we’re on the verge of defeating AQ and its violent Salafist ideology. But the idea that this struggle is going to be sustained at this current high level of conflict for several decades more is just not realistic, IMHO.
He confessed to being a part of every high profile terrorist act AND of such James-Bond-movie-esque schemes as blowing up the Panama Canal?
Gosh, that sounds like the sort of laundry list a person would blurt out if he were being tortured.
You’re right! He’s OBVIOUSLY harmless. You should invite him to be your au pair.
There is a deeply embedded principle that enemy soldiers can be preventively detained until the “end of hostilities” / end of the war. It’s so strong, that it’s read into the AUMF; meaning, you won’t find any words saying Congress authorized preventive detention, but by authorizing war, you’re implying the right to preventively detain (Some, not enough, SC Justice’s did not agree and said Congress should have specifically spelled out preventive detention, and since they did not, the President should not be allowed to do it until Congress explicitly authorizes it; Obama agrees that it can be read into the AUMF).
So the President, through Congress, is given the right to preventively detain the enemy during this War/Armed Conflict.
But who exactly is the enemy that can be detained at Gitmo? Only people defined as Unlawful Enemy Combatants (now Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents). These people are labeled the enemy that the AUMF authorized war against if they have a substantial connection with Al Qaeda (among other ways).
Being classified an unprivileged enemy belligerent allows you all inclusive access to Gitmo. But how long do you stay there? Until the “end of hostilities” that the AUMF authorized the President to fight in. Whenever that is…indefinitely right now. Repealing the AUMF would be a start to ending hostilities. Stopping the funding of it would be another. The President declaring we are no longer at “war” with Al Qaeda another. Withdrawing troops. Not that any, nor all, of these would be conclusive proof of the end of hostilities. But they would be a good start.
Going further, KSM was never charged/arrested for a crime, so he has no right to a speedy trial (trial for what?). He isn’t being charged with violating US laws (was he ever charged when they brought him to NY?), he’s only being detained as an enemy soldier. Even if he was charged, it just means he’s guilty/not guilty of a crime; it doesn’t stop his classification as an unprivileged enemy belligerent and being detained until the end of hostilities.
It’s pretty messed up and convoluted because what he did, terrorism, was classic crime stuff. Not war stuff. But that’s changing.
As a point of clarification for myself and possibly other non-Americans, could I ask whether this is the political reality and if so, why?
Thanks.