SCOTUS Grants Guantanamo Prisoners Habeas Corpus
 

Article here.

Personally, I think this will be a good thing in the long run.

I agree. A victory for the rule of law is a good thing.

If the bad guy's goal is to destroy our way of life, dismantling/ignoring/disrespecting our legal system is doing their work *for them*, right?

If they're a bad guy, then there should be evidence to prove it. If there isn't evidence to prove it then you can't say they're a bad guy. If you can prove it then you have no reason not to allow them a proper defence. If by allowing them a proper defence the evidence fails.....then so be it.

I can't agree more. Lets just bag the trials and send them all to their home countries immediately, whether they want to go there or not, and close the place. Burn it down.

Mark today on your calendar. DanaC and I agree on something. I agree with everything she said other than the spelling of the word "defense". These people should be taken to an American court and given access to American defense lawyers, and get all of the same due process as anyone born in America.

Yea, setting the first precident for illegals. But hey, now that the system is working in your favor you want to take advantage of it. What happened to the reams of discussion how the SCOTUS should not exist? But they have spoken. I support them in their decision making process.

Now this is something the Supreme Court has done right, alluding to a title on a thread on this board! If they ruled otherwise, Americans abroad, and every diplomat, is fair game for any despot, anybody who has a grudge. And the US couldn't do squat.

This is a third time that a Supreme Court has ruled against this administration on Guantanamo - and almost nothing changed.

Well something like 450 of the 800 prisoners in Guantanamo were released as innocent after being imprisoned without judicial review for many years. Question remains how many are guilty. Typical numbers are 14 of 800 were guilty. How will the White House again subvert a Supreme Court ruling?

Diplomats have diplomatic immunity because of treaty agreements. The most any foreign government can do to diplomats is expel them from the foreign government’s country.

Since Congress has not declared war on any country, I don’t know of any treaty that would be applicable to the inmates at Gitmo. But since Congress has the constitutional power to define and punish offenses against the law of nations and to make laws governing capture on both land and sea, anyone whom we have captured in Iraq or Afghanistan would be under the jurisdiction of U.S. courts (if we were legally at war, then the Geneva Convention would kick in but I don’t know if POWs would have automatic access to U.S. civil courts- we have tried enemy espionage agents in civil courts during times of war).

Furthermore, there is something inherently dangerous about any government that takes it upon itself to lock-up someone indefinitely without charge or trial. The rightwing media pundits that are hinting that the President/military should ignore the court and continue to keep people jailed at Gitmo are little different than the SS and Gestapo that routinely took criminal defendants into “protective custody” after they had been acquitted by German courts.

I loved Bush's comment on this. He said he agreed very strongly with the judges that dissented! lol

Did ya expect something different?:rolleyes:

An additional point. George Jr attempted to suspend the constitutionally guaranteed right of Habeas Corpus. That right can be suspended only during war. George Jr's presidential signings (that we know about) have essentially declared America at war. This Supreme Court ruling says the writ of Habeas Corpus has not been suspended - implying that America is not at war.

Interesting question remains: what will the administration do this time to subvert the court's ruling.

This court ruling has suspended the July trial of Hamdan. This court ruling comes with cheers from virtually the entire Military Judge Advocate corp who have been appalled at the perversion of American laws, military justice, massive violations of basic human rights, and routine use of torture.

Supporting facts please for "routine".

Habeas corpus is not an absolute right, and a declared state of war isn’t the only reason for suspending habeas corpus:

U.S. Constitution Article I

“The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

9-11 could be construed as an invasion and thus habeas corpus could be suspended. But the problem here is how do we know when the invasion is over? The way GWB is fighting his so-called war on terror means that victory parameters don’t exist. Thus we could theoretically be perpetually in danger and habeas corpus could be suspended indefinitely.

Does this means that you support occasional torture?

Any act of torture on the part of the U.S. or on behalf of the U.S. is deplorable.

Why bother? Your extremist wacko politics ignores facts anyway. You never provide supporting facts for what you post. You blindly believe what George Jr decrees. You have admited your intelligence does not comprehend anything beyond the first paragraph - sound byte logic. Why bother?

So TheMercenary still denies America was routinely performing torture and extraordinary rendition? Routine from anyone who worships George Jr.

Correct. You have no evidence of "routine" torture or "routine" extraordinary rendition. If you do post your original source documents.

You cannot support that satement either.

Further you have not answered to your statement: So I would like you to post your facts surrounding this allegation. Like I said Tommy ole boy, put up or shut the fuck up. :D

Again TheMercenary denies that torture and extraordinary rendition was ongoing. After all, that is the George Jr administration line. His storm troopers will repeat that lie forever. Extremists - a threat to the American culture, American way of life, and stability of the world. TheMercenary is again exposed spouting Cheney's political agenda. Was America torturing in Guantanamo? Then when General Miller was transferred to Abu Ghraib, torture did not happen there - according to TheMercenary. Denial is the wacko extremist line that even includes changing the definition of torture to justify it. But why rehash well published history. TheMercenary is so wacko extremist as to still deny it.

ORLY - Proof please, again - We can't take all your unfounded accusations as gospel. You keep stating things as fact then never back them up.

Occasionally.

Wrong again, you are the wacko. I quoted you and as you have done with other who try to nail you down and get you to post original source supporting documents you have failed.

You have no evidence of "routine" torture or "routine" extraordinary rendition. If you do post your original source documents.

tw, note your use of the word ROUTINE. This is what I expect you to prove. Since you seem so sure of yourself it shouldn't be to hard.

You cannot support that satement either.

Further you have not answered to your statement:
So I would like you to post your facts surrounding this allegation. Like I said Tommy ole boy, put up or shut the fuck up. :D

What would be a reasonable amount of time that habeas corpus could be suspended due to war, invasion or insurrection?

If 9-11 is defined as an invasion and habeas corpus is suspended as a consequence, how could we alter the Constitution so that this invasion can be declared to be over so habeas corpus cannot be suspended indefinitely? As it stands now, what safeguards do we have to keep a president from using something like 9-11 as an excuse for suspending habeas corpus and locking up his political opponents?

Define 'routine'. If there are procedures in place for it and it is being done under the color of law, isn't that routine?

Everyone talks about Jack Bauer from '24'. If Jack Bauer needed to kill a 9-year-old girl to save a million lives, he might do it. Does that mean that someone needs to add a page to every manual on the methods and circumstances for killing 9-year-old girls?

The North Vietnamese were not signatories to the Geneva Conventions. In theory, US prisoners had the same rights we grant detainees, which is whatever we decide and think we can get away with. Any intelligence the North Vietnamese could get could save lives, including civilian lives, so they considered themselves justified in their behavior. Do we consider that an excuse? I don't, and I don't think anyone else does except the North Vietnamese and their allies.

At this point there are probably as many people in the world who agree with the U.S. interrogation/rendition/detention policy as agree with North Vietnam's treatment of American POW's, and for pretty much the same reasons. Of course these aren't the same people.

We've already released prisoners from Guantanamo without charges. This was either a huge security breach or an admission that there was not enough evidence to find the suspects guilty even under a military tribunal.

A few decades from now, history will judge us. Unlike the suspension of habeas corpus during the civil war and the Alien and Sedition Act, or the Japanese-American detentions, this is not an internal issue. It involves foreign nationals and affects our standing in the world.

I consider it simpler to allow prisoners and their lawyers to make nuisances of themselves than to give traction to the idea that America has lost it's values. A lot of talk has been made of civil suits. The fact is that the burden of proof is much lower in civil suits. OJ Simpson is an example of this. I can only assume that if we have detained these people for years, we must have enough evidence to at least deflect a civil suit. If this isn't the case, then the question becomes how flimsy was the case for their detention?

The mere fact that we can have a discussion about the legitimacy of torture as a law enforcement/national security tool in the United States shows how far America has sunk when it comes to respecting the Constitution and the rights and liberties that we have fought and died to maintain for hundreds of years. America is not long for this world.

:tinfoil:

Let's not confuse the civil rights of American citizens with the Geneva protections of prisoners of war, which is what these fellows are de facto. The Geneva Conventions protections are also what they are getting.

What SCOTUS did was, well, really bending over backwards. I'm not sure I see the need, myself. Looks like some Justices see it my way too.

GWB’s war on terror has no defined victory parameters so it is for all intents and purposes a perpetual war. Under the Geneva Convention being a POW is not supposed to be a life sentence.

Furthermore, the Geneva Convention requires that POWs be encamped in a region that resembles the climate of the battlefield where they were captured. I doubt tropical Cuba is all that similar to Afghanistan.

And the Geneva Convention requires any country that holds POWs to give them the same pay that they holding country pays its own military personnel of the same rank. Is the U.S. paying salaries to anyone it is holding at Gitmo?

And the Geneva Convention prohibits torture, so any act of torture on the part of the U.S. or by any other country at the behest of the U.S. violates the Geneva Convention.

And under the Geneva Convention POWs are not required to give anything but their name, rank and serial number. They are not supposed to be interrogated for intelligence purposes. If the people we have locked up at Gitmo are really POWs, then we have no right to interrogate them about past, present or future terrorist operations.

I'm not sure these guys are getting full Geneva protections. If I remember correctly, the administration argued their status as 'enemy combatants' did not afford them full protection. Waterboarding is not allowed under the Geneva protocols.

If the Supreme Court ruled otherwise, diplomatic immunity, Geneva conventions, treaties, etc are considered null and void, under the banner 'unlawful combatant.'

Let the record show that none of the anti-Guantanamo faction here -- anywhere really -- has any likelihood of winning the war any better if they do it their way. Which seems neither to be a way, nor a doing.

If the Democrats have a better war plan than the Republicans, it's a well kept secret. The leftists are explicit in their desire that the nation lose the war so they, the irresponsible left, could say we would and that we should have listened to them. As part of this, they're trying to con people into thinking that it's criminal to conduct foreign policy while being Republican, in conditions of war and conflict.

Crazy.

I think tw is gwb in disguise. I think it's all a plot to see what he can get away with among a group of 'readers'.

Geneva Convention applies to soldiers representing foreign countries and fighting for them. Which country is Osama bin Laden and company representing? What climate conditions represent the home country of an international band of murderers? Geneva doesn't apply to anarchists who murder and torture their own countrymen as well as everyone else.

I thought all the romantic creative writing in this genre was in the Cold Warrior Nominations thread, Ali! ;)

I don't think I've read that one.

Cold War Warrior of 2008 nominations. I'm trying, with little success, to stay out of that one. So far all I'm managing is to avoid is any substantive remark that might, um, influence the selection process. :cool:

I've just read it. So far you're the only official nominee. I think someone should nominate Radar personally.

A Supreme Court ruling in this country would not keep a U.S. diplomat from being expelled from a foreign country if he violates the law. And whether or not a U.S. diplomat is an enemy combatant or a criminal in another country depends on what that country's courts say, not ours.

How can you lose a war when the people that are in favor of fighting it haven’t determined what constitutes victory? Will the war be won if we manage to pacify Iraq- or would the GWB’s the world find another country to invade in the name of fighting terrorism?

As long as we fight “terrorists” we will not win. Our enemy is not terrorists, but rather Islam, which is inherently hostile to American ideals. Killing a terrorist will simply mean another Moslem is waiting to take his place.

It isn't the POW's home country's climate that must be duplicated, but rather the climate of the place where the POW was captured. Germany is neither subtropical or arid, but some places in the Mediterranean are so the U.S. had POW camps for Germans in subtropical Florida and the arid West.

Chances are the closest classification that someone like Bin Laden could have under the U.S. Constitution is pirate. Congress can make laws to punish piracy as well as laws to both define and punish offences against international law. It can also make laws regulating captures made on land and water. Some of Congress’ power has been delegated to the Geneva Convention by treaty. If our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are considered acts of war under international treaties that the U.S. has signed, then the people we capture in Afghanistan and Iraq are POWs as far as the international community is concerned. But if these people don’t have POW status, then they are under the regulation of Congress because of Congress’ enumerated powers. This status would put them under the jurisdiction of U.S. courts and this would give them U.S. legal due process rights.

Excellent point. All 1 billion or so followers of Islam are basically just terrorists-in-waiting. Let's switch to indiscriminately killing "moslems" until they all decide to love America.

How quick we are to deny rights to others.

I would rather the US take the moral high ground instead of gerrymandering around who deserves rights and who doesn't.

Placing the blame on all members of a particular religion didn't work out so well for the Nazis.

Yes. I know about Godwin. It's still a valid analogy.

Why does a group who purposely murder innocent women and children deserve the same rights as a soldier engaged in battle, defending his country, and following orders from his legitimate government? They especially do not have the same rights as U.S. citizens. There were even wimps here in this country who didn't want us shipping them out to other Moslem countries, for fear their brethren would execute the poor dears.

Because that's one of the principles that America was founded on. You don't know that any given person incarcerated in Guantanamo is guilty of murdering anyone unless and until they have a chance to a fair trial.

It often seems to me that those who are loudest in wanting to protect our country are the quickest to forget what made it worth protecting in the first place.

Actually, the wimps here would be the people who would be afraid to try them openly in a court of law. Either you have evidence against them or you don't.

Like O.J.

I realize there's no context here in this quote, but I want to ask, do you mean they don't have the same 'inallienable' rights as US citizens, or do you mean the same 'legal' rights? The two are obviously very different and need some clarification.

My reason for suggesting this is that if it's inallienable rights you're talking about, then surely every human being has the same rights. It's just that some nations/religions/races don't acknowledge them.

Sigh. 'Unlawful combatant' status override diplomatic immunity. The way the Bush administration had it, once you are declared an unlawful combatant, no diplomatic immunity, no US citizenship, nor right to habeas corpus can save you. The SC at least granted a hearing regarding habeas corpus.

I don't care one bit whether or not the Moslems love America as long they fear America to the point that they do not attack America or its allies.

BTW: Following the American Revolutionary War this country's first military encounter (apart from fighting Indians and a quasi-war with revolutionary France) was with the pirates of the Barbary Coast, i.e., Moslems.

The Nazis classified Jews according to their ethnicity, not their religion. If you had so much as a single grandparent that was Jewish you were considered to be Jewish under German law regardless of what religion you practiced.

The Arabs are the only people that could possibly have an ethnic beef against the Jews (and this is assuming that the Arabs are really descended from Abraham through Ishmael). Islam is not limited to Arabs, but Moslems in general the world over tend to hate the Jews (and by extension the U.S.). The Arabs, “Palestinians”, Syrians, Iranians etcetera are anti-Semitic and anti-American not because they are Arabic, “Palestinian”, Syrian or Iranian, but because they are Islamic.

Would you like to comment on the allied fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo? Women and children are often legitimate targets in a defensive war. The trouble with Islamic terrorists is that they believe they are fighting a defensive war.

U.S. Constitution
5th Amendment
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”

The Constitution makes no distinction between a citizen of the United States and all other persons. If we are holding the people at Gitmo under a treaty that the U.S. has signed, then these people must be treated in accordance with the treaty. If we are holding these people under U.S. law, they are entitled to the same legal due process that our own citizens are entitled to.

You do realise you have a sizable moslem community in the US right? Do you think they hate the US as well?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Declaration of Independence makes no distinction between American citizens and everybody else. Americans cannot claim rights from God that we won’t allow others to have without being the biggest hypocrites on earth.

Back in the 1980s my neighborhood was becoming a majority black neighborhood and Moslems began infiltrating the black churches in the neighborhood with the full intent of preaching hatred for all things America in hopes that someday there would be a black/Muslim uprising in this country.

I’ve seen it claimed on the internet that Barak Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, used to be a Muslim. And let’s not forget the Islamic Louis Farrakhan.

Ok. Hmmm. I'm starting to think you are just flinging stuff on the wall to see what will stick.

All of the above has nothing to do with categorizing people strictly based on their religion -- which you did in your original post, nor with my analogy, which was mostly to say "it's bad to do that".

First of all, Arabs and Jews are ethnically the same. As Bobby Fischer said when asked if he was anti-Semite, 'I'm not anti-Arab.'

The radical Muslims are beyond fearing anybody. They are in the 'I don't give a fuck' mode.

Anyone with basic intelllgence has read the numerous facts that the United States government authorized torture. Today, another source states facts again and cites names - senior George Jr administration officials. From the Washington Post of 17 Jun 2008: Haynes was General Counsel for the Defense Department and Rumsfeld. Wacko extremists approve of extraordinary rendition, torture, and even lie about it. TheMercenary, for the glory of his political agenda, again denies what was well known. Personal attacks on anyone who challenges their immorality is also expected since TheMercenary never has facts (that would also require an education).

Nobody decent doubts what the Senate investigation again confirms. Wacko extremists will deny it to defend a despicable George Jr. Since torture and other civil rights violations were authorized by the mental midget administration, wacko extremist must deny another report that says same. To dispute the Senate investigation, wacko extremists (ie TheMercenary) must again attack the messenger.

I know that I categorized Moslems according to their religion, and I meant to do so. But when you said that the Nazis categorized the Jews according to their religion, you are flat wrong.

Other than historical tradition, your proof that Jews and Arabs are the same ethnicity is what?

I disagree. Singapore is an Islamic country but they do not display a great deal of anti-American sentiment. The Middle-Eastern countries have a beef against Israel and this can often lead to a wider sense of anti-semitism. Their problem with Israel is based, however, on a territorial dispute.

I find it rather disturbing that you feel so confident in ascribing specific, racist views to a religion which is so widely followed in the world. There are many moslems who are anti-semitic. There are many Christians who are anti-semitic. There are also many of both who are not.

You accuse them of anti-semitism and in doing so display your own anti-islamic prejudice.