As they indisputably are. That’s the point: conversion to Islam–particularly nutso militant fundie Islam–is quite rare. 25,000 per year is nothing in a population of 280,000,000.
Thanks for raising my consciousness but if you’re going to cast aspersions, at least cast them correctly. “I hate Lutherans. They should all be deported.” isn’t “racism.”
**
For the record, to the extent I consider it at all, I do consider “converted Muslim” and “Hispanic American” to generally be separate categories. I consider the categories of “Hispanic American” and “people born into Muslim families thirty-plus years ago” to be mutually exclusive.
There are at least 6 million Muslims in the United States, but only 2.5 million Native Americans. By your logic it would be appropriate to say “he’s American but Indian.”
Did you misread my post? I didn’t accuse anyone of being racist. Does everyone think prejudice = racism??
This isn’t even an argument.
The fact is this administration has been treating the laws like a hindrance in their need to fight terrorism and they have been breaking them, if not from a purely technical POV (which I think is quite possible) at least they have been breaking the spirit of the law. Rather than treat the laws of the land as the valued principles which they are trying to defend, they are treating them as a hindrance in their work. In Irak you can be detained indefinitely at the discretion of the rulers. This should not happen in the US or in any civilised country.
The constitution is the supreme law and it does not provide for it to be suspended under any circumstances, much less on unsupported accusations of “being a terrorist”. Every single person is entitled to due process of law and that means everybody, everywhere, every time. When you try to skirt the great moral principles contained in the constitution by saying it does not apply if you are not an American citizen or it does not apply if you are in Guantanamo or it does not apply if the government thinks it should not apply, you are implying that the constitution is not a a great rule which should be interpreted as widely as possible but it is merely an obstacle to good government. The rule of law is what we are trying to defend in all this, it is not an obstacle to effective government. Governments are instituted to serve the people and not the other way around.
A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Period. That should apply to every single person on this planet on every single square inch of this planet. The US government is not and should not be free to decide when this rule applies.
Prisoners of war can be held prisoner but they are entitled to certain rights contained in the Geneva convention.
Those who say the great moral principles contained in those laws should be ignored when it is expedient to do so do not realise that they are defending what the US is supposed to be fighting against: the arbitrary and unlimited use of power by the state.
Murgatroyd Calling - Nay, ney and thrice nay. For sure, it’s the function of the Intelligence community to inform Executive decision-making. The problem here, for me, is that short-term political expediency appears to have overridden what would have been the normal reaction of the Intelligence community in a circumstance such as this: i.e use survellience and other means to see where they could go with this guy.
We can readily see how the party political interest was served in this matter but where was the national interest in arresting this guy before he did anything other than, ‘allegedly’ speak about the possibility of doing something. As we might say 'round 'ere; A little previous that, init ?
BTW, I thought Jimmy Carters’ EO No. 12333 was quite a nifty document:
http://www.odci.gov/cia/information/eo12333.html
- Nice document.
minty – How about using something a little more relevant. Like, for example, the men of minority groups born in working class inner city environments and within the prison system at the time of their conversion ?
Anyone know this guy’s IQ because, with the little info we have, he reads as if he could be pretty malleable.
Got news for you, sailor: breaking whatever you think the spirit of a law isn’t a crime. Actually breaking the law is. Just because you don’t like the way someone’s not breaking a law doesn’t give you proof that they’re breaking the same law.
That’s the rub, isn’t it? You’re accusing the administration of breaking the Constitution where it doesn’t apply.
Iraq. Actually, I kind of thought Iraq was a civilized country, well except for the dictator and his cronies.
Nor does it provide for its application to the entire planet. I agree that chucking a US citizen (or any other person) actually located in the US into jail just for the heck of it is unconstitutional.
I’d love for that to be so. Problem is the US Constitution doesn’t apply all over the planet to every person on the planet. There’s this nifty thing called sovereignty that most countries like to apply to themselves.
Simple fact: the US Constitution doesn’t apply to the entire planet to all residents of the planet. It does, on the other hand, apply to all persons within the sovereign territory of the United States. Guatanamo Bay is not located therein.
Please try not to string unrelated items into the next list of “or” constructions. This last one of yours is actually almost a valid point. There are, after all, a group of jurists who consider the Constitution to be ironclad and thus not to be interpreted liberally (“Constructionists”) and another group who consider the same document to be quite open to interpretation (“Interpretationists?”). Both sides see the same document as being the great law it is. They merely differ on how it is to be interpreted.
And I’m not aware of any input whatsoever, any voting rights, any application of the rule of the US Constitution to any foreign resident still residing outside the sovereign territory of the United States.
Except for the little, but quite important, matter of sovereignty.
[list=a][li]The United States of America has not declared war.[/li][li]The detainees in Guatanamo Bay are not prisoners of war.[/list][/li][ol][li]They are unlawful combatants, because[/li][li]They did not belong to an armed military force as designated in the Geneva Conventions.[/ol][/li]
I’m not saying that the Constitution should be ignored. I am saying, unlike you, that it does not rule the entire population of this planet. There is, in case you haven’t noticed it yet, the issue of sovereignty.
monty
This point is a bit of a hijack. However, I think you’re missing sailor’s point. Sailor is a child of the enlightenment. He knows that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t apply in foreign countries, however, he thinks that the principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution represent fundamental human rights that everyone should have, even if they don’t. When the U.S. government argues that people it has captured or arrested have no rights at all so long as they aren’t, technically, on U.S. soil, they create a very bad precedent.
U.S. Government: Hey, tin-pot dictator! Stop arresting and detaining people incommunicado without a hearing. That violates basic human rights!
Tin-pot dictator: What are you talking about? These people are terrorists! They want to overthrow the government! They have no rights. You do exactly the same thing yourself, when it suits you.
Did I miss where it was re-spoken that this guy is in the United States and not a foreign country? Fuck.
Secondly, and this is a question asked for clarification, but I always thought the Constitution was meant to limit what the government may do period. We must give everyone a fair trial, citizen or not, if they come under our power.
You didn’t miss it, eris. As is wont on this board, sailor and I are talking about a bit of a hijacked, yet related, topic: the detainees on GITMO.
Truth Seeker: I disagree that such a precedent is set by the US government.
So, by that logic, did Japanese soldiers on Tarawa deserve a trial, rather than a flame thrower?
The problem here is everyone wants to treat illegal acts of war as criminal matters – the first WTC bombing was treated as such, and disastrously so. At least we can observe that the government sometimes learns from its mistakes.
I see, Monty.
Ted, I said nothing about war. Congress also has the power to declare war. Either the government’s behavior is limited by the constitution, or it is at war.
Congress did not declare war. By any logic.
And even at war it is still limited by the constitution in many respects.
monty, I know full well that the US Constitution applies only to the US. My point is that it should apply in letter and in spirit. The US respecting the letter at home and applying contrary principles in Guantanamo which may not be technically US territory but is, in effect, under US control is a very bad thing. It means “we do not do this at home because there is a law which prevents us from doing it, not because we believe in the spirit which inspired the principles of the law”. I suppose, technically, you could have slavery and torture in Guantanamo and it would not be illegal but it would still be immoral and contrary to the spirit of the US constitution. The US government should try to expand and promote those principles everywhere, not limit them and erode them. Is it enough for the US government to just barely respect racial antidiscrimination laws and get away with what discrimination it can? Or do we expect it to fully assume the spirit of the laws and fully promote the values on which the laws are founded?
It is my opinion that the establishment of military tribunals and now these detentions of American citizens do in fact violate the letter of the law but I am not here to argue their illegality, I am here to argue their immorality. I am not a lawyer but I know right from wrong which is more important. The USA doing things which are morally wrong on the grounds that they are legal does not enhance the moral standing of the US. When the USA scolds China for human rights abuses the Chinese can say “fuck off and leave us alone because here it is legal” to which the US may say “it may be legal, but it ain’t right”. My whole point is that, even if what the US is doing is legal, it ain’t right.
During the cold war many people saw just two equal blocks striving for dominance but many people saw the US and the west as morally superior and that is invaluable. The US should live up to that morality. If the USA is a country with no morality, only ends that have to be achieved at any cost, moral or immoral, then the USA is no better than the Soviet Union and is not worth defending.
>> the US Constitution doesn’t apply all over the planet to every person on the planet. There’s this nifty thing called sovereignty that most countries like to apply to themselves.
>> Simple fact: the US Constitution doesn’t apply to the entire planet to all residents of the planet. It does, on the other hand, apply to all persons within the sovereign territory of the United States. Guatanamo Bay is not located therein.
I am not asking the US to go into other countries to enforce this principle. I am asking the US to respect it where it has effective control like in Guantanamo. Slavery is illegal and wrong on US soil and if the US allowed it on land where it would be, technically, not illegal but under US control, I would call that pretty shameful, even if legal. In Cuba it may be legal to hold people without cause and I will criticise this and tell Castro what I think of him for doing this. But in Guantanamo it is the USA who has efective control and who is responsible for what happens there.
>> And I’m not aware of any input whatsoever, any voting rights, any application of the rule of the US Constitution to any foreign resident still residing outside the sovereign territory of the United States.
I am not saying that legally it does, but I am saying that the principles contained in the Constitution should be respected and promoted by the US government, not skirted as soon as they can get away with it. It may not be illegal in China to hold someone and torture them but legality is not the ultimate yardstick; morality is. The US constitution represents some moral principles and when the US breaks those principles it loses moral authority before the rest of the world and before itself.
>> The United States of America has not declared war.
Totally irrelevant. War is war whether declared or not. The North Vietnamese could say in all truth that the USA had not declared war so the US prisoners were “illegal combatants”. It was still wrong for them to torture them.
>> The detainees in Guatanamo Bay are not prisoners of war.
>> They are unlawful combatants, because
>> They did not belong to an armed military force
>> as designated in the Geneva Conventions.
Again, I am not here to argue legality but morality. I am not going to argue specifics about these detainees because I do not know enough about their cases but, if they were denied humane treatment, and a fair judicial process, then that is wrong. It is wrong if China does it and it is wrong if the US does it even though it may well be technically legal in both cases. I am not arguing specific cases of specific people, I am arguing principles. The establishment of military tribunals was wrong, holding civilians indefinitely without any process of law is wrong. The US has great moral standing around the world as a nation that, although sometimes mistaken, stands for what is fair and right and this gives it great moral authority. To lose this for short term expediency would cause great damage in the longer run. When the US acts like this it just proves right all those who accuse the US of being hypocritical.
You cannot defend right by doing wrong, you cannot defend the truth by lying, you cannot defend morality by immoral means. What we are defending is right from wrong, and if the US does wrong then it is just at the level of its attackers and not worth defending.
sailor: One can’t define “morality” as it applies to law without defining “legality.” There are other laws (such as treaties), besides the Constitution, which prevent slavery from being practiced on GITMO.
Yeah, I am sorry if I involuntarily went a bit off a tangent. I did not mean to sidetrack this to the issue of Guantanamo which I have covered extensively in earlier threads. What I was trying to do is widen the scope to show why I believe this particular act mentioned in the OP is wrong. So, to counterbalance my earlier posts I will remind everybody we are discussing American citizens on American soil.
Regarding war, there are also rules. It is not Ok, just because it is war, to needlessly kill innocent civilians. Those here who argue that in war anything goes I suppose are ready to defend Palestinian terrorists because “that’s the only way they have of defending themselves”. Sorry but I do not share that feeling.
A Japanese enemy soldier can be subject to killing as long as he is fighting, but once he is no longer fighting and in custody he cannot be killed for no reason without committing the crime of murder. Even WWII people understood this and it is appalling that some people here would not understand this. The difference between the allies and the axis was that the allies took war prisoners to camps and treated them humanely while the Japanese and Germans tortured their prisoners. There is a huge moral divide there. That war was not just two sides equally right fighting for supremacy. It was right against wrong. And the US should continue to stand for right not for doing anything to achieve its ends.
You could’ve summed up that last post with:
“The Axis Powers didn’t follow the Laws of War; however, the Allies did.”
Monty, you might want to explain that to Tedster who does not seem to understand the difference between a fighting soldier and a prisoner. My post was a commentary on his flamethrower comment. But thanks for your editing anyway. If I ever think of becoming a writer I’ll ask for your advice. 
Tedster’s not the only one who doesn’t understand the difference between a fighting soldier and a noncombatant: look at the suicide/homicide bombers in the MidEast.
So, could you justify not reporting a terrorist who planned to attack US citizens because you felt his rights might be violated by our government?