# Time to Kiss Habeas Corpus Goodbye **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 28, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517 "2006-09-28T18:16:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/361 "2006-10-01T06:54:23Z")
See what I mean **Mince**? It looks like the carry-all charge is going to be: [QUOTE=rjung] …anybody who has “purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.”… [/QUOTE] ---
**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:** [October 1, 2006, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/362 "2006-10-01T06:57:35Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] Sounds like Johnny Messageboardposter is fair game here. Though I’m sure the apologists will eagerly trot out the threadbare “you have nothing to fear if you haven’t done anything wrong” excuse next. [/QUOTE] Did you ever notice that that excuse only gets trotted out by the Right Wing when an alleged conservative party is in power in all 3 branches? ---
**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:** [October 1, 2006, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/363 "2006-10-01T06:59:21Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Did you ever notice that that excuse only gets trotted out by the Right Wing when an alleged conservative party is in power in all 3 branches? [/QUOTE] More to the point, can you imagine what the Right Wing reaction would be if 9/11 had happened on Clinton’s watch and _he_ were asking for the kind of powers that Bush is asking for? The moderate/liberal reaction to the current situation would look Zen-like in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/364 "2006-10-01T07:44:52Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] More to the point, can you imagine what the Right Wing reaction would be if 9/11 had happened on Clinton’s watch and _he_ were asking for the kind of powers that Bush is asking for? The moderate/liberal reaction to the current situation would look Zen-like in comparison. [/QUOTE] Or even _more_ to the point, can you imagine the Right Wing reaction if 9/11 had happened on Clinton’s watch and he responded to it with the same impotency he displayed in regard to the hundreds of other American lives that were lost due to terrorist attacks on his watch? He would likely have cautioned against over-reaction (again!) and found dozens of ideas why any real action would be a bad idea. Oh, he’d have thrown around lots of tough-sounding words, which our enemies would have laughed at (again!); issued more lame excuses about other countries being soverign and all that; perhaps tried to find some way to entice, bribe or impose sanctions on whatever governments his emaciated intelligence services told him were financing and/or protecting the terrorists responsible, and in general taken the position that it was essentially a _police_ problem – notwithstanding, of course, the fact that there were no _police_ anywhere capable of dealing with the problem in the first place! ---
**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:** [October 1, 2006, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/365 "2006-10-01T08:04:28Z")
Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton You know, that gets really old. You’d think that after six years of desperately striving to make your guy look good, you’d be able to pull out an actual argument that doesn’t have a referral to what Clinton did wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/366 "2006-10-01T08:14:40Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Or even _more_ to the point, can you imagine the Right Wing reaction if 9/11 had happened on Clinton’s watch and he responded to it with the same impotency he displayed in regard to the hundreds of other American lives that were lost due to terrorist attacks on his watch? [/quote] Right wing garbage. He accomplished more against terrorism than Bush, for certain. Hard not to, after all. [QUOTE=Starving Artist] He would likely have cautioned against over-reaction (again!) and found dozens of ideas why any real action would be a bad idea. [/quote] Lie. Clinton _warned_ the Bushites about Osama, and they ignored it; it’s Bush who has done nothing useful against terrorism. He’s done quite well at promoting and justifying it, however. From [Snopes :](http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm) > [@](#): > > On 26 February 1993, a car loaded with 1,200 pounds of explosives blew up in a parking garage under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring about a thousand others. The blast did not, as its planners intended, bring down the towers — that was finally accomplished by flying two hijacked airliners into the twin towers on the morning of 11 September 2001. > Four followers of the Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman were captured, convicted of the World Trade Center bombing in March 1994, and sentenced to 240 years in prison each. The purported mastermind of the plot, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, was captured in 1995, convicted of the bombing in November 1997, and also sentenced to 240 years in prison. One additional suspect fled the U.S. and is believed to be living in Baghdad. > > \< snip \> > > On 7 August 1998, powerful car bombs exploded minutes apart outside the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people and wounding about 5,000 others. Four participants with ties to Osama bin Laden were captured, convicted in U.S. federal court, and sentenced to life in prison without parole in October 2001. Fourteen other suspects indicted in the case remain at large, and three more are fighting extradition in London. > > \< snip \> > > In August 1998, President Clinton ordered missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan in an effort to hit Osama bin Laden, who had been linked to the embassy bombings in Africa (and was later connected to the attack on the USS Cole). The missiles reportedly missed bin Laden by a few hours, and Clinton was widely criticized by many who claimed he had ordered the strikes primarily to draw attention away from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. > > \< snip \> > > . . . the federal budget on anti-terror activities **tripled during Clinton’s watch** , to about $6.7 billion. After the effort to kill bin Laden with missiles in August 1998 failed — he had apparently left a training camp in Afghanistan a few hours earlier — recent news reports have detailed numerous other instances, as late as December 2000, when Clinton was on the verge of unleashing the military again. In each case, the White House chose not to act because of uncertainty that intelligence was good enough to find bin Laden, and concern that a failed attack would only enhance his stature in the Arab world. This nonsense about how Clinton was weak on terror is pure right wing lies. Note that _Clinton_ caught and convicted the head of the terrorists that attacked the WTC on _his_ watch, unlike Bush. Clinton used police methods because they _work_; Bush uses military methods because he’s a murderous screw up, who never does anything but fail and destroy. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/367 "2006-10-01T08:21:55Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton Blame Clinton You know, that gets really old. You’d think that after six years of desperately striving to make your guy look good, you’d be able to pull out an actual argument that doesn’t have a referral to what Clinton did wrong. [/QUOTE] Well, **jayjay** , you’re the one who brought up the hypothetical of an eager, forceful, doing-_something_ Clinton and posited the question of the right’s response in an effort to make those on the right appear hypocritical. I merely suggested that no such behavior by Clinton would have been likely in the first place, thus rendering your hypothetical (and the right’s likely response) moot. Further, I would suggest that if you replaced ‘Clinton’ with ‘Bush’ in this silly post of yours, you’d actually have the de facto motto for this board for the last six years. ---
**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:** [October 1, 2006, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/368 "2006-10-01T08:24:27Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Well, **jayjay** , you’re the one who brought up the hypothetical of an eager, forceful, doing-_something_ Clinton and posited the question of the right’s response in an effort to make those on the right appear hypocritical. [/quote] One rarely needs to make those on the Right “appear” hypocritical. One only needs to wait for them to be hypocritical. > [@](#): > > Further, I would suggest that if you replaced ‘Clinton’ with ‘Bush’ in this silly post of yours, you’d actually have the de facto motto for this board for the last six years. Except in that case my post would actually be accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/369 "2006-10-01T08:29:04Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Clinton _warned_ the Bushites about Osama… [/QUOTE] Thank you for illustrating my point about the impotent way Clinton went about doing things. I would have preferred a president who dealt with the problem himself rather than passing it off to the next guy! ---
**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:** [October 1, 2006, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/370 "2006-10-01T08:41:20Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Thank you for illustrating my point about the impotent way Clinton went about doing things. I would have preferred a president who dealt with the problem himself rather than passing it off to the next guy! [/QUOTE] All of you Righties who harp on this are acting like Clinton had a free hand and a cooperative Congress to do with whatever he liked. Not the case. “Wag the dog” mean anything to you? Maybe because it’s the accusation that Congressional Republicans made when Clinton DID bomb camps where Bin Laden was thought to be in residence? Were you even conscious during the Clinton administration, especially the late Clinton administration? Clinton couldn’t blow his nose without criticism and obstructionism from Congress. The Right has the audacity to criticise Clinton for being preoccupied with the Lewinsky scandal. But who, exactly, was making the Lewinsky scandal practically the whole business of the government in the first place? Who were the ones working up to an impeachment of the president during those days (which are now apparently considered by those same people critical to doing something about bin Laden)? Let me help out…it starts with an R, ends with an N, and has a bunch of assholes in the middle. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/371 "2006-10-01T08:43:21Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] One rarely needs to make those on the Right “appear” hypocritical. One only needs to wait for them to be hypocritical. [/quote] You know, I discovered long ago that there’s really no difference in the right and left in terms of behavior; we just come at things from different ends of the spectrum. The left is every bit as hypocritical as the right, and vice versa. The left is just as guilty as the right of just about any other type of human behavior you’d like to excoriate, too: bigotry; hatred; intolerance; the desire for violence against those who would thwart your will…you name it, it’s all there on the left, too. So you can come down off your high-horse anytime now. You aren’t fooling anyone but yourself and a few like-minded cronies. [QUOTE=jayjay] Except in that case my post would actually be accurate. [/QUOTE] Well…excruciatingly commonplace, anyway. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/372 "2006-10-01T08:58:31Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Thank you for illustrating my point about the impotent way Clinton went about doing things. I would have preferred a president who dealt with the problem himself rather than passing it off to the next guy! [/quote] Coming from a supporter of the man who’s going to hand Iraq and other disasters over to his successors that’s outright ridiculous. Bush unlike Clinton ( or most other people ) doesn’t deal with problems; he fails and fails and fails and fails and fails. Clinton dealt with any number of things, including the WTC bombers, as I pointed out. Of _course_ some things were left unfinished; did you think the world would pause for the handover of power, all problems erased ? The difference is, Clinton left some problems unfinished; Bush will leave _all_ of them, and I doubt he’ll try to give any advice to his successor. [QUOTE=Starving Artist] You know, I discovered long ago that there’s really no difference in the right and left in terms of behavior; we just come at things from different ends of the spectrum. The left is every bit as hypocritical as the right, and vice versa. The left is just as guilty as the right of just about any other type of human behavior you’d like to excoriate, too: bigotry; hatred; intolerance; the desire for violence against those who would thwart your will…you name it, it’s all there on the left, too. [/QUOTE] We are speaking of the Republicans and the Democrats, not some abstract right and left. And the Republicans are far worse than the Dems; more corrupt, more incompetent, more vicious, more malignant, more brutal; crazier and greedier and stupider. What’s really depressing is that they manage this despite the Democrats being rather disgusting themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/373 "2006-10-01T09:02:45Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Maybe because it’s the accusation that Congressional Republicans made when Clinton DID bomb camps where Bin Laden was thought to be in residence? [/quote] Perhaps they disapproved of his warning the camps beforehand. Most pubbies likely think that if you’re going to try to bomb someone, that they not…you know…_be told about it beforehand_. Were you even conscious during the Clinton administration, especially the late Clinton administration? Clinton couldn’t blow his nose without criticism and obstructionism from Congress. [/quote] Clinton had eight years…count 'em, eight! He chose to deal with the problem in the least provocative way he could get away with because to do otherwise would be, like, damaging in the polls and stuff. [QUOTE=jayjay] The Right has the audacity to criticise Clinton for being preoccupied with the Lewinsky scandal. But who, exactly, was making the Lewinsky scandal practically the whole business of the government in the first place? Who were the ones working up to an impeachment of the president during those days (which are now apparently considered by those same people critical to doing something about bin Laden)? [/quote] Well, given that I’m not one of those people you’re talking about, I couldn’t say. I don’t criticise Clinton for being preoccupied by the Lewinsky scandal. He’s a multi-tasker; I’m sure he could contend with both at once. But you know, once upon a time we had a president named Ronald Reagan who wouldn’t even enter the Oval Office without his suit coat on, such was his respect for the position he held and the office that went with it. Billy-boy chose to get blow-jobs from interns in the Oval Office and fuck 'em with cigars, and then when he got busted following lie after lie to the contrary, he had to deal with the consequences. Tough. But like I said, he’s a multi-tasker and I’m sure that had he wanted to deal effectively with bin Laden, he could have. [QUOTE=jayjay] Let me help out…it starts with an R, ends with an N, and has a bunch of assholes in the middle. [/QUOTE] And you are _how_ old? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/374 "2006-10-01T09:12:11Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > We are speaking of the Republicans and the Democrats, not some abstract right and left. And the Republicans are far worse than the Dems; more corrupt, more incompetent, more vicious, more malignant, more brutal; crazier and greedier and stupider. What’s really depressing is that they manage this despite the Democrats being rather disgusting themselves. Given that I lack the energy right now to argue with this kind of nonsense, I think I’m just gonna bail and hit the sack. 'Night, all. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/375 "2006-10-01T09:28:16Z")
Aww, darn it, he was just getting to the good part, where St. Ronnie of Bakersfield slays the Evil Red Dragon of Evil, and then begins to build the Magic Shield of Defense, which, to this very day, is just about ready to test, and then we’ll be safe and happy forever and ever, in our Shining Citadel on the Hill. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/376 "2006-10-01T09:33:38Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] …slays the Evil Red Dragon of Evil… [/QUOTE] Dammit! I was just about to doze off when I get a call from the Department of Redundancy Department asking about this dragon you’re talking about. I told them you didn’t hear about it from me. I imagine you’ll be getting a call. Now, back to bed! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/377 "2006-10-01T10:36:00Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Or even _more_ to the point, can you imagine the Right Wing reaction if 9/11 had happened on Clinton’s watch and he responded to it with the same impotency he displayed in regard to the hundreds of other American lives that were lost due to terrorist attacks on his watch? [/QUOTE] Wonder what _my_ reaction would be if, **SA** having abandoned trying to make this case a week ago in a thread where the subject was the comparative responses of Bush and Clinton to terror, decided to bring this subject up again in a quite different thread? I’d be pretty damned pissed, is the answer. If you want to discuss _habeas corpus_ and the potential for indefinite detention under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that Congress just passed, hang around. If you want to discuss Bush’s and Clinton’s responses to 9/11 and other attacks by ObL and other terrorists, I would ask you to kindly find another thread for that; you could even resurrect the one from a week ago. This thread’s stayed remarkably well-focused for over seven pages; we’ve even stayed away from the manifold other issues raised by the new Act, and let the GD thread cover that ground. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/378 "2006-10-01T13:34:55Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] But I’m still not clear that Congress has stripped statutory \*habeas \*rights since they can appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, per the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act. Wasn’t the issue in Rasul the fact that the deatinees weren’t even guaranteed any kind of hearing at all? So, these guys all get hearings in front of a military tribunal and then can appeal that result in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. No? They can’t petition their detention in US court before their hearing in front of the tribunal, but why shoudl they be able to do that? [/QUOTE] Habeas is a particular type of “appeal” rights; it is a challenge to being wrongfully imprisoned. [Here](http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/002D0381-7560-464E-84614349CC85EC47/alpha/H/) is a basic definition. As I said earlier, this statute does appear to allow appeals, but only appeals of a final judgment of a military commission. I’m not overly concerned with those who actually get a trial, but rather those who will be indefinitely detained without a trial. By not allowing habeas, this act allows the administration to keep people without trial forever, leaving them with no way to challenge their detention (or for that matter, to challenge any violations of the law including being tortured) in the judicial branch. And, as **uglybeech** pointed out, _Hamdan_ (and _Rasul_) are completely irrelevant. This isn’t an easy issue, in part because of the sheer number of detainees and history. There are currently thousands of people, many of them bad, evil men, who are being detained by the US military, either in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Guantanamo. And, as **Bricker** has pointed out, it has always been acceptable to detain people seized on the battlefield indefinitely. This is done as mainly a protection device, not allowing enemy soldier to return to the battlefield until the hostilities are over. The Geneva Convention, in part, created guidelines for how these people could be treated and what rights they were given. But one of the issues I have is when detentions are questionable to begin with, and have stopped being prophylactic, and the prisoners have no means to challenge their detention. But now, we’re in a “war” that has no end; without POW’s, and against an enemy that has no recognized borders, no central command to end hostilities, and no easily recognizable uniforms or command structure. The issue is what to do with these detainees. I’m not completely sure myself. But I am concerned that, by cutting off habeas relief for everybody, this Act will allow this administration to lock innocent people up forever, with no due process rights, and no way to challenge their detention or even to hold people who torture, abuse, or kill them accountable. It’s not an easy issue. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/379 "2006-10-01T14:04:27Z")
[QUOTE=Hamlet] It’s not an easy issue. [/QUOTE] No it isn’t, but I don’t think it is as hard as it is being made. I think one key way to hold terrorism to as low a level as possible is to demonstrate to the world that we are a nation that believes in and actually delivers justice. That is, we regard everyone as at least human and proceed against them only though methods that allow them an opportunity to adequately defend themselves against our charges. Our leaders are now publicly arguing for the right to hold prisoners indefinitely. They are also arguing for the right to subject them to degrading treatment or even physical torture I think the idea that we aren’t “the great Satan” who should be exterminated by any means possible suffers at least a serious setback. Legal niceties aside, as it stands now our leaders seem to be doing their best to prove to the world that those terrorists who say that we are evil are right. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517/380 "2006-10-01T14:34:03Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] No it isn’t, but I don’t think it is as hard as it is being made. I think one key way to hold terrorism to as low a level as possible is to demonstrate to the world that we are a nation that believes in and actually delivers justice. That is, we regard everyone as at least human and proceed against them only though methods that allow them an opportunity to adequately defend themselves against our charges. Our leaders are now publicly arguing for the right to hold prisoners indefinitely. They are also arguing for the right to subject them to degrading treatment or even physical torture I think the idea that we aren’t “the great Satan” who should be exterminated by any means possible suffers at least a serious setback. Legal niceties aside, as it stands now our leaders seem to be doing their best to prove to the world that those terrorists who say that we are evil are right. [/QUOTE] I think a key point to reiterate is that the battle for hearts and minds isn’t a battle for the hearts and minds of committed terrorists - we can assume we’ve already lost that one. But it’s a battle for hearts and minds in the _rest of the Muslim world_, for two reasons: 1. It’s a lot easier for terrorists to be invisible to us if they swim in a sea consisting of a populace that’s somewhere on the scale between apathetic and sympathetic. Muslims are going to tip our allies and agents off about bona fide terrorists only if they feel the terrorists are the bad guys, and we’re not. If we’re also the bad guys, why should they bother tipping us off to the next terrorist attack? 2. The more repugnant our behavior, the more Muslims will join up with the terrorists. Which can really be combined into this: The more repugnant our behavior, the more likely that Muslims will gradually move rightward along the scale that runs from being pro-U.S. to not viewing either us or the terrorists as morally superior, to disliking us and thinking maybe the terrorists have a point, to being pro-terrorist (without actually being one) to joining up with the terrorists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-kiss-habeas-corpus-goodbye/374517.md?page=20)