(01-21-2009 06:22 PM)Jugnaut Wrote:  Well technically, they're just accused people. We need to have a trial .....

Blogo has only been accused yet the left wants to hang him without a trial. Seems the libs want it both ways.

(01-21-2009 08:39 PM)niuhuskie84 Wrote:  Well, good to know you're cool with shitting on the constitution.

Kev is correct. The Constitution does not apply to non-US citizens. It's when we declare US citizens "unlawful enemy combatants" and start shipping them outside the US to abuse rights they're suppose to have ... that we should become upset. Violations of the Geneva Convention should also be deeply upsetting.

REGARDLESS, we've already covered this here: The US Constitution is dead. The people of this country don't care about it anymore. The people in charge disregard it at every step of the way. And turning our back on the Constitution will ultimately be the downfall is this once great nation.

(01-22-2009 02:01 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(01-21-2009 08:39 PM)niuhuskie84 Wrote:  Well, good to know you're cool with shitting on the constitution.

Kev is correct. The Constitution does not apply to non-US citizens. It's when we declare US citizens "unlawful enemy combatants" and start shipping them outside the US to abuse rights they're suppose to have ... that we should become upset. Violations of the Geneva Convention should also be deeply upsetting.

REGARDLESS, we've already covered this here: The US Constitution is dead. The people of this country don't care about it anymore. The people in charge disregard it at every step of the way. And turning our back on the Constitution will ultimately be the downfall is this once great nation.

History shows us that ALL governmental systems suffer the same downfall...The slow creep of central power leading to tyranny. As good as our attempt was..it was doomed from the beginning. Government can NOT be controlled...Never has...Never will.

I am though not willing to give up on it. Our system is the best yet conceived and with amendments to the constitution that specifically target reduction in the size of the federal government, we might could give our experiment another couple of hundred years...but...again government will continue to grow from that point....It can NOT be stopped.

Well, if they close Gitmo, they have to "process out" the detainees, which includes taking their fingerprints and a photograph...

(01-22-2009 02:01 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(01-21-2009 08:39 PM)niuhuskie84 Wrote:  Well, good to know you're cool with shitting on the constitution.

Kev is correct. The Constitution does not apply to non-US citizens. It's when we declare US citizens "unlawful enemy combatants" and start shipping them outside the US to abuse rights they're suppose to have ... that we should become upset. Violations of the Geneva Convention should also be deeply upsetting.

The way I see it, theres something fundamentally wrong with operating these off-site prisons, and capturing people under the guise of "terrorism", and then somehow having the authority to hold them for an indefinite period of time without trial. Now yes, I realize most people there probably are guilty in one sense or another. But the fact remains that if someone is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and has been held for YEARS in solitary confinement away from family and outside contact, that is a gross human rights violation.

(01-22-2009 02:01 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(01-21-2009 08:39 PM)niuhuskie84 Wrote:  Well, good to know you're cool with shitting on the constitution.

Kev is correct. The Constitution does not apply to non-US citizens. It's when we declare US citizens "unlawful enemy combatants" and start shipping them outside the US to abuse rights they're suppose to have ... that we should become upset. Violations of the Geneva Convention should also be deeply upsetting.

The Geneva Conventions (I believe there are actually four of them) arguably do not apply in this case. Generally they define two classes who are covered, uniformed enemy combatants and non-uniformed civilians (presumed to be innnocent). Non-uniformed enemy combatants are an odd lot who are not directly covered. Under the common law of warfare, they were regarded as spies and could be killed at any time. Article 2 of the Conventions further provides that in a conflict between signatories to the Conventions and non-signatories, the signatory is bound until the non-signatory no longer acts in accordance with the Conventions. Terrorist organizations are clearly non-signatories, and their actions in violation of the Conventions were well documented early on.

The foregoing discussion may all be renedered moot by the decision taken unilaterally by the US (and presumably the coalition) to treat all captured personnel in accordance with the Geneva Conventions for uniformed enemy combatants. The strongest rationale given for doing so at the time was the expectation that the terrorists would treat any of our troops that they captured in like manner. That didn't work out so well, did it?

I think that decision was a mistake. Without it, all that these terrorists would have been entitled to under international law is a proper funeral. If we ever had any plans actually to win the war, that's probably the way we should have gone on this. I know that's harsh, and arguably inconsistent with my own aversion to the death penalty in criminal matters. But I make a distinction between criminal litigation and warfare, and I believe that we should have pursued terrorism under a warfare model rather than a criminal justice model.

Not saying it's the only way to look at it. You may well have a different take. But that's mine.

(01-22-2009 02:01 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Kev is correct. The Constitution does not apply to non-US citizens.

I think that even this statement is overly broad. Clearly, non-citizens that are here legally should be protected under habeas corpus and other constitutional provisions.

(01-23-2009 03:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  But I make a distinction between criminal litigation and warfare, and I believe that we should have pursued terrorism under a warfare model rather than a criminal justice model.

Not saying it's the only way to look at it. You may well have a different take. But that's mine.

That is really the most important distinction between the new administration and the old one. I'm just waiting for the news that KSM has been released because his due process was violated.

(01-23-2009 04:02 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(01-22-2009 02:01 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Kev is correct. The Constitution does not apply to non-US citizens.

I think that even this statement is overly broad. Clearly, non-citizens that are here legally should be protected under habeas corpus and other constitutional provisions.

(01-23-2009 03:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  But I make a distinction between criminal litigation and warfare, and I believe that we should have pursued terrorism under a warfare model rather than a criminal justice model.

Not saying it's the only way to look at it. You may well have a different take. But that's mine.

That is really the most important distinction between the new administration and the old one. I'm just waiting for the news that KSM has been released because his due process was violated.

Exactly, some provisions of the constitution apply to "people" and others to "citizens." Anybody in U.S. custody is subject to habeas corpus.

I have a buddy who was an MP in Afghanistan and he said most of these people are just random people. They're not "captured on the battlefield." They're just people who someone says is a terrorist in exchange for money. It's the same as if I said my neighbor was an enemy combatant for money. Does that make it true? NO!

Additionally, a good portion of these people have no relation to U.S. war zones. A group of Serbians who were cleared by their supreme court were turned over to America and put in Gitmo. The U.S. supreme court let them out.

This whole situation is no different than the inquisition. We're torturing people into confessing. Those confessions are unreliable.

You're either a soldier or a criminal. The Geneva conventions or criminal protections apply. That said, these people should be tried in the country they're captured in. Why did we bring them to Cuba? Why not just turn them over to Afghan courts?

As for finding some of them fighting against the U.S. after they were released, that doesn't prove that they were guilty when they were captured. It merely shows that they want to fight now. Maybe it was our years of torture that made them want to fight against us now! If you were innocent and tortured for years then released, wouldn't you want payback?

Two things.

1) Jose Padilla WAS an American citizen that was HELD without habeus corpus.

20 Try them as spies and kill them then. Locking them up forever is no way to go either. **** or get off the pot. Either your in or your out. If you believe that they are non uniformed enemy combatants put them to death. Gitmos was a sham. Bunch of ******* who want it both ways and want the next guy take care of it.

Quote:Exactly, some provisions of the constitution apply to "people" and others to "citizens." Anybody in U.S. custody is subject to habeas corpus.

I have a buddy who was an MP in Afghanistan and he said most of these people are just random people. They're not "captured on the battlefield." They're just people who someone says is a terrorist in exchange for money. It's the same as if I said my neighbor was an enemy combatant for money. Does that make it true? NO!

Additionally, a good portion of these people have no relation to U.S. war zones. A group of Serbians who were cleared by their supreme court were turned over to America and put in Gitmo. The U.S. supreme court let them out.

This whole situation is no different than the inquisition. We're torturing people into confessing. Those confessions are unreliable.

You're either a soldier or a criminal. The Geneva conventions or criminal protections apply. That said, these people should be tried in the country they're captured in. Why did we bring them to Cuba? Why not just turn them over to Afghan courts?

As for finding some of them fighting against the U.S. after they were released, that doesn't prove that they were guilty when they were captured. It merely shows that they want to fight now. Maybe it was our years of torture that made them want to fight against us now! If you were innocent and tortured for years then released, wouldn't you want payback?

What he said....

(01-23-2009 04:16 PM)Jugnaut Wrote:  

(01-23-2009 04:02 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(01-22-2009 02:01 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Kev is correct. The Constitution does not apply to non-US citizens.

I think that even this statement is overly broad. Clearly, non-citizens that are here legally should be protected under habeas corpus and other constitutional provisions.

(01-23-2009 03:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  But I make a distinction between criminal litigation and warfare, and I believe that we should have pursued terrorism under a warfare model rather than a criminal justice model.

Not saying it's the only way to look at it. You may well have a different take. But that's mine.

That is really the most important distinction between the new administration and the old one. I'm just waiting for the news that KSM has been released because his due process was violated.

Exactly, some provisions of the constitution apply to "people" and others to "citizens." Anybody in U.S. custody is subject to habeas corpus.

I have a buddy who was an MP in Afghanistan and he said most of these people are just random people. They're not "captured on the battlefield." They're just people who someone says is a terrorist in exchange for money. It's the same as if I said my neighbor was an enemy combatant for money. Does that make it true? NO!

Additionally, a good portion of these people have no relation to U.S. war zones. A group of Serbians who were cleared by their supreme court were turned over to America and put in Gitmo. The U.S. supreme court let them out.

This whole situation is no different than the inquisition. We're torturing people into confessing. Those confessions are unreliable.

You're either a soldier or a criminal. The Geneva conventions or criminal protections apply. That said, these people should be tried in the country they're captured in. Why did we bring them to Cuba? Why not just turn them over to Afghan courts?

As for finding some of them fighting against the U.S. after they were released, that doesn't prove that they were guilty when they were captured. It merely shows that they want to fight now. Maybe it was our years of torture that made them want to fight against us now! If you were innocent and tortured for years then released, wouldn't you want payback?

I don't agree with any of that, not the least of which is the "innocent and tortured for years" assertion. Every nation that has a prison system has imprisoned someone who's innocent, and I am sure that some of those sent to Guantanomo Bay were too. Is it your assertion that everyone who was wrongly imprisoned for murder is released and goes out to commit murder? That everyone wrongly imprisoned for rape goes out to commit rape? I am certain that the ass-raping that seems pervasive in US prisons is worse than the treatment that nearly everyone in Guantanamo Bay receives. At most, I believe there were three prisoners who were subjected to water boarding.

Relocated from a desert to tropical paradise with a koran, prayer mat, and Halal meals makes you a terrorist? Compared to the treatment in Sadaam's Iraq, the Taliban's Afghanistan (much less Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan)?

Maybe it's just that they're Islamists and we're not?

I45,

Wow, I'm not real sure what you mean up there but I think your trying to say that it's ok innocents get caught up in it. It's ok that we hold them forver in legal limbo....................... woooooh I just shake my head.

(01-23-2009 04:20 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Two things.

1) Jose Padilla WAS an American citizen that was HELD without habeus corpus.

20 Try them as spies and kill them then. Locking them up forever is no way to go either. **** or get off the pot. Either your in or your out. If you believe that they are non uniformed enemy combatants put them to death. Gitmos was a sham. Bunch of ******* who want it both ways and want the next guy take care of it.

Mach, I agree with you on both counts. The Bushies really did want it both ways and they ended up with a major problem. I don't know whether I agree with what Obama has done or not. I don't think we're better off for his having done it, but I don't know what other option he has. Just a colossal mistake.

(01-23-2009 04:45 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I45,

Wow, I'm not real sure what you mean up there but I think your trying to say that it's ok innocents get caught up in it. It's ok that we hold them forver in legal limbo....................... woooooh I just shake my head.

And this guy is a "poor innocent victim" of a US Dragnet


CAIRO, Egypt – A Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaida branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.

The announcement, made this week on a Web site commonly used by militants, came as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year. Many of the remaining detainees are from Yemen, which has long posed a vexing terrorism problem for the U.S.

The terror group's Yemen branch — known as "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" — said the man, identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo about a year ago and from there went to Yemen, which is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home.

The Internet statement, which could not immediately be verified, said al-Shihri was the group's second-in-command in Yemen, and his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372.

"He managed to leave the land of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia) and join his brothers in al-Qaida," the statement said.

Documents released by the U.S. Defense Department show that al-Shihri was released from the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in November 2007 and transferred to his homeland. The documents confirmed his prisoner number was 372.

Saudi Arabian authorities wouldn't immediately comment on the statement. A Yemeni counterterrorism official would only say that Saudi Arabia had asked Yemen to turn over a number of wanted Saudi suspects who fled the kingdom last year for Yemen, and a man with the same name was among those wanted. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press and would not provide more details.

Yemen is a U.S. ally in the fight against terror, but it also has been the site of numerous high-profile, al-Qaida-linked attacks including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors.

Yemen's government struggles to maintain order. Many areas of the California-size country are beyond government control and Islamic extremism is strong. Nearly 100 Yemeni detainees remain at Guantanamo, making up the biggest group of prisoners.

Al-Shihri's case highlights the complexity of Obama's decision to shut down the detention center within a year despite the absence of rehabilitation programs for ex-prisoners in some countries, including Yemen. The Pentagon also has said more former ex-detainees appear to be returning to the fight against the U.S. after their release.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who heads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said the reports about al-Shihri should not slow the Obama administration's determination to quickly close the prison.

"What it tells me is that President Obama has to proceed extremely carefully. But there is really no justification and there was no justification for disappearing people in a place that was located offshore of America so it was outside the reach of U.S. law," she told CBS's "The Early Show."

But Rep. Pete Hoekstra, of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the executive order Obama signed Thursday to close the facility as "very short on specifics."

Interviewed on the same program, he said there are indications that as many as 10 percent of the men released from Guantanamo are "back on the battlefield. They are attacking American troops."

The militant Web statement said al-Shihri's identity was revealed during a recent interview with a Yemeni journalist. That journalist, Abdelela Shayie, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that a 35-year-old Saudi man had joined the kingdom's rehabilitation program after his release and got married before leaving for Yemen.

Shayie said al-Shihri told him that several other former Guantanamo detainees had also come to Yemen to join al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is an umbrella group of various cells. Its current leader is Yemen's most wanted fugitive Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi, who was among 23 al-Qaida figures who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006.

Since the prison break, al-Qaida managed to regroup. It set up training camps, has attracted hundreds of young men and launched dozens of bloody attacks against Westerners, government institutions and oil facilities. Most recently, gunmen and two vehicles packed with explosives attacked the U.S. Embassy in Yemen in September, killing 17 people, including six militants. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to the Defense Department, al-Shihri was stopped at a Pakistani border crossing in December 2001 with injuries from an airstrike and recuperated at a hospital. Within days of his release, he became one of the first detainees sent to Guantanamo.

Al-Shihri allegedly traveled to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, provided money to other fighters and trained in urban warfare at a camp north of Kabul, according to a summary of the evidence against him from U.S. military review panels at Guantanamo.

He also was accused of meeting extremists in Iran and briefing them on how to enter Afghanistan, according to the documents.

Al-Shihri, however, said he traveled to Iran to buy carpets. He said he felt bin Laden had no business representing Islam, denied any links to terrorism and expressed interest in rejoining his family.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_o...n_al_qaida

(01-23-2009 04:02 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(01-23-2009 03:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  But I make a distinction between criminal litigation and warfare, and I believe that we should have pursued terrorism under a warfare model rather than a criminal justice model.
Not saying it's the only way to look at it. You may well have a different take. But that's mine.

That is really the most important distinction between the new administration and the old one. I'm just waiting for the news that KSM has been released because his due process was violated.

Actually, no. This new administration clearly looks at it as a criminal justice exercise. The problem is that the prior administration didn't look at it as a warfare model. They kind of mixed warfare and criminal justice, apparently thinking they could get the best of both, trying to play it both ways as Mach noted. By going that route, they brought it inevitably under the criminal justice system.

I simply cannot imagine what they thought they were going to accomplish. Other than leave their successors a mess.

(01-23-2009 04:02 PM)I45owl Wrote:  I'm just waiting for the news that KSM has been released because his due process was violated.

KSM is still under a conspiracy indictment for the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.

His nephrew is Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade Center Bomber. KSM is also under indictment for the Bojinka Plot (Blow up 6 airliners flying over the Pacific Ocean simultaneously.

Ramzi is doing life at the SuperMax.

They can try him on those charges. Sounds kinda like "Al Capone" though.

(01-23-2009 04:45 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I45,

Wow, I'm not real sure what you mean up there but I think your trying to say that it's ok innocents get caught up in it. It's ok that we hold them forver in legal limbo....................... woooooh I just shake my head.

No, just that it's mind-numbingly stupid to say that the head of al-Qaeda Yemen was a peasant from Saudi Arabia that was hired by goat herders in Afghanistan to mow their lawn, but was fingered by a jealous neighbor and got snapped up into US custody, spent 6 years at Gitmo only to join al Qaeda and ascend to the Yemeni leadership in a triumphant story of human endurance. The modern day Les Miserables (though it probably would be a best-seller in France).

**** - see what you guys have done - you've turned me into Tripster II.

(01-23-2009 05:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-23-2009 04:02 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(01-23-2009 03:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  But I make a distinction between criminal litigation and warfare, and I believe that we should have pursued terrorism under a warfare model rather than a criminal justice model.
Not saying it's the only way to look at it. You may well have a different take. But that's mine.

That is really the most important distinction between the new administration and the old one. I'm just waiting for the news that KSM has been released because his due process was violated.

Actually, no. This new administration clearly looks at it as a criminal justice exercise. The problem is that the prior administration didn't look at it as a warfare model. They kind of mixed warfare and criminal justice, apparently thinking they could get the best of both, trying to play it both ways as Mach noted. By going that route, they brought it inevitably under the criminal justice system.

I simply cannot imagine what they thought they were going to accomplish. Other than leave their successors a mess.

The problem lies in the conflict between the State Department and the DoD that dominated the first Bush Administration. Powell wanted the detainees to be treated under the smae standards as a POW under the Geneva Convention. Rumsfeld wanted to go to the "enemy combatant" route.

Rumsfeld won.

Then Hamdi and other detainee cases started going through the Federal Court system.

In mid 2004 the Supreme Court came down with Hamdi and later Lyndee England and her buddies at Abu Graib hit the news. Things changed and more rights were afforded to stem political pressure.

So based on external historical events, it became a hybrid system with the worst characteristics of both.

I think the original decision to base them at Gitmo was based on the 1990's Haitian Refugee debate. They housed the Haitians at Gitmo because for Immigration Law purposes, being held at Gitmo isn't the same thing as making to the US proper, where different laws apply.

(01-23-2009 09:49 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Well, if they close Gitmo, they have to "process out" the detainees, which includes taking their fingerprints and a photograph...

Damn Fine Politically Correct Terrorist Camera there !!!!!!!!! :ncaabbs:

.