Because you are a right wing toady of the Republicans, who doesn’t believe for one moment any of this will ever apply to you, and has zero ethics.
You are if the Administration says you are; they won’t because you are a toady. “Unlawful enemy combatant” is a meaningless phrase, designed solely as an excuse for denying our prisoners all rights; not those of a POW, nor those of a criminal, nor any others.
I don’t believe you, and you are assuming a fair trial instead of a kangaroo court, and you are assuming there will ever be a trial.
What is the distinction between an unlawful enemy combatant, and a lawful one? Since the distinction was spelled out, I’m a) presuming there is one, and b) the definition of such is also spelled out somewhere.
"By universal agreement and practice the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.
Such was the practice of our own military authorities before the adoption of the Constitution, and during the Mexican and Civil Wars…
By a long course of practical administrative construction by its military authorities, our Government has recognized that those who during time of war pass surreptitiously from enemy territory into our own, discarding their uniforms upon entry, for the commission of hostile acts involving destruction of life or property, have the status of unlawful combatants punishable as such by military commission. This precept of the law of war has been so recognized in practice both here and abroad, and has so generally been accepted as valid by authorities on international law that we think it must be regarded as a rule or principle of the law of war recognized by this Government by its enactment of the Fifteenth Article of War."
It wasn’t the best phrase for me, but your argument still is a bit of a strawman, more of a circular argument, really.
Are you trying to make the argument that we are okay with “an alien unlawful enemy combatant engaged in hostilities or having supported hostilities against the United States” being accorded the same rights as your average American citizen? If you are, then that’s a strawman. Our argument is that you can’t tell if someone is “an alien unlawful enemy combatant engaged in hostilities or having supported hostilities against the United States.”
But I should have more precisely called it a circular argument, because it definitely assumes its conclusions.
Bricker, I’ve got to ask – why shouldn’t enemy combatants, whatever they are, be entitled to habeas corpus? Because it’s inconvenient? To me the rights of the accused are one of those things you either believe in or you don’t. The idea of dividing humanity into those deserving of rights, and those not, is incredibly bizarre to me.
A hypothetical. Suppose the President were a scoundrel? Suppose said President knows or suspects that any number of the detainees currently under our protection are, in fact, essentially innocent. Suppose said President would prefer that this fact not become common knowledge.
What protection, if any, does the innocent detainee have? If the President quietly lets it become known that any military tribunal member who thwarts his will had best find another career track, what’s to stop him? Presumably, a confession might be offered as evidence. What provision is made for the victim…excuse, detainee…to challenge the means by which such a confession was obtained?
I would specificly inquire of friend Bricker: do you believe that all the detainees are guilty? If you were invested with the responsibility to defend a detainee that you believed were innocent, by what legal means under these provisions, could you sustain that? Do you believe that these provisions provide an adequate and fair means for such representation?
And finally, do you really believe, in your heart of hearts, that The Leader is above chicanery and connivance, and injustice, in order to obtain his goals?
Lie. We haven’t given these people trials; many were just grabbed because we paid bounties for accusations. There is no reason to believe that most of them are anything but random people we grabbed.
That’s argument ad hominem. It’s of course permitted, this being The Pit, but it is still a logical fallacy.
No. It is a phrase that is defined and has a specific meaning.
I don’t lose sleep worrying about whether you believe me or not, and the legislation we are discussing mandates a trial. If you are arguing agianst the legislation because you believe there will be no trials, your position is untenable.
No. My argument was more precisely drawn: that your side in this debate is attempting to use the processes of internal criminal law and apply them to warfare situations. Specifically, this thread bemoans the rejection of the habeas corpus process to detainees captured in armed conflict. I argue that this is wise.
If Bricker can demonstrate that the OP was incorrect on a narrow legal issue related to the applicability of habeas corpus, and that the legislation in question was passed pursuant to the internal logic and mechanism of the American legal process, then that is all the answer we need on this issue.
Messy moral questions, such as whether this system (legal or not) is actually fair and just, become mere irrelevancies, trivia to be debated by Chomsky-reading chardonnay swillers in their Upper West Side co-ops. Principles such as “innocent until proven guilty,” and “having the right to confront one’s accuser” are not, as some naifs believe, to be universally applied in the spirit of true justice and compassion. They are there for those lucky enough to be residing in God’s Country. And when The Leader says that our aim is to spread American principles to all peoples, he doesn’t mean all of those principles, and you can be sure that he’s the only one qualified to determine exactly which people.
Because “the rights of accused” is a phrase that applies to people arrested in the ordinary criminal context, not people captured on a battlefield. Just as soldiers don’t have to read Miranda rights to captured prisoners before they are interrogated, so, too, do those prisoners not have the right to demand a court review their captivity. The writ of habeas corpus has a long history, and it has never been applied to captured wartime combatants.
In short – these are not “accused” in the sense of criminal wrongdoing. They are enemies. They are not deserving of criminal justice protections, because they are not part of the criminal justice system.
