I should start by saying that I know basically nothing of law. So yeah.

This would be the Supreme Court case that recently held in a 5-4 decision that prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps have a Constitutional right to habeas corpus and that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was an unconstitutional suspension of that right.

Scalia wrote a dissent, claiming that the decision will put the job of handling prisoners in the hands of the judiciary, the "branch that knows the least about the national security concerns that the subject entails", and John McCain called it "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country" which leads me to further believe that he's totally abandoned the John McCain of 2000 that I liked.

I was kind of surprised when the <a href="http://news.filefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/mca2.jpg">MCA</a> passed, and I think the handling of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has been abysmal (with many on the right screaming that we should lock them up and throw away the key, without actually determining if we have people who are terrorists) and the claims that the prisoners there have "no rights" because they're "not citizens" and "clearly enemy combatants" has always struck me as nonsense since things like due process <i>aren't</i> something that only citizens are entitled to and the fact that we're not actually conducting trials on a lot of prisoners there means we don't know if they're enemy combatants (although a recent investigation by McClatchy journalists has suggested that <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/40334.html">people who were not radicalized and who were either simply in the wrong place at the wrong time or were petty thugs with no connections to terrorist organizations left Guantanamo more sympathetic to groups like Al Qaeda</a>.

I, from what little I know, agree with the Court's decision, and think that conservative fears are probably <a href="http://reason.com/news/show/127090.html">overblown</a>. I don't know. The whole thing troubles me.

Thoughts?

Penis.

Thanks for your valuable insight. Now back to Spleen with you.

Yeh. The issue here is what the law is vs. the best way for the law to be with regards these people.

The point of habus corpus is precisely this sort of thing. An imediate hearing on the legal validity of holding soemone.

As far as I'm aware, Habus corpus is not a guarenteed release, mearly a claim to an expedited hearing and past precident and principle has had it appling to anyone. It is the right to have the law applied quick, somehting that potentially wreaks havok with gitmo however not a nail in the coffin.

That said, is it really a good idea to not allow the military some legal leaway in dealing woth foreigners it deams potentially dangerous?

I just finished reading Sofia Petrovna, a ~100-page novella about the wrongful detainment of thousands of loyal Soviets accused of terrorist activities during the Stalin era purges, and all throughout it, I couldn't help but compare it to the Gitmo situation. The way people talked, the accusations made, the demeanor...it seemed so similar, even if it was on a much larger scale. It makes absolutely no sense for us to detain people without properly charging them, and I completely agree the MCA is unconstitutional. One of the reasons we founded this country was because of Britain's practice of arresting people for undetermined crimes and undetermined amounts of time. To take foreign and domestic citizens and suspend their rights to habeas corpus is completely insane.

I also fail to see what the Supreme Court not being in the business of national security has to do with anything. This isn't about whether or not these people are a viable threat to national security. This is about whether or not they're being treated fairly under the constitution. I'd also be willing to bet anyone who is held unjustly and then is released is going to become a threat to national security, so I have no problem with the DOJ intervening.

Unless these individuals were picked up in Iraq or Afghanistan, they are not enemy combatants. Also, shouldn't detaining enemy combatants be covered under the Geneva conventions, not special legislation to get them turrsts? I think the powers that be need to get the story straight. If they are arrested in the United States, they need to be properly charged and granted the right of habeas corpus. If they were detained in Afghanistan or Iraq or any other combat situation, they should be treated as POWs, not as citizens subject to the laws and consequences of the US Constitution.

Giving the military any sort of judicial leeway is dangerous and could easily snowball into something more sinister. Remember that American citizen held at Guantanamo.

so is letting precedure and beuorocracy get in the way of removing threats.

It's a trade off.

No, it's not a trade off between bureaucracy & procedures and removing threats. It's a trade off between personal freedoms and security.

Incorrect.

The fact of the matter is that the ideal situation is that ememies of the west burn while citizens of the west remain safe.

Anyone who says different for the sake of the personal freedoms of those who would destroy us is as much our enemy as them.

Those who think it's not about picking sides obviously have their heads in the sand.

Allowing the military to be efficient in this carries an implicit risk that innocents will get caught up.

Keeping our own loyal citizens safe from our own forces requires beurocracy and procedure.

So there is the trade off.

But it does know the most about the constitution. Scalia's a fascist fuck that needs to be at the end of a rope.



McCain's trying to make himself like Bush to win the support of the bushbots. Little does he know they all hate him more than Hilary. McCain doesn't remember 2000.



They are a group of people lower than Pedophiles. Nobody gives a shi'ite about them. Be they US citizens or not, they still have rights under the US and the US government will be found in violation of those rights in the future. You'll see.



Conservatives are pretty much afraid of everything. Gay marriage, immigrants, Gregor, etc.

There's a bit of a difference between "some legal leeway" and what's going on at Guantanamo, which seems to be the wholesale abandonment of due process, which would actually <i>help us</i> determine who is dangerous and who is not, as well as helping the US in terms of world opinion and decreasing (or at least not <i>increasing</i> as the McClatchy report found) the number of people who want to blow us up.


Since when did you become a talk radio show host? This absurd "we must remove all semblance of freedom because otherwise the boogeyman will get us" sentiment goes directly against the founding principles of the United States, ignores the fact that affording due process can actually help determine who's <I>actually</i> a threat and who was turned into the military because they were pissing someone off/because someone wanted the reward for terrorist-connected individuals and knew we weren't going to check up on that.

Frankly, the whole "Oh gee willickers! If we don't give up everything that makes us <i>us</i> the <i>scary men</i> will get us!" doesn't do much for me. The military seems to do its job pretty well when it's obeying things like the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions. Forcing the US to change its founding principles because it's scared when it doesn't even help us all that much doesn't strike me as the thing to do.

Tangentially, it always struck me as funny that the Bush administration sold the War on Terror as "they hate our freedom" and then said the appropriate response was to give up our freedom through abolishment of due process (at Guantanamo Bay, but applicable to basically anything) and stomping all over the Fourth Amendment with the warrantless wiretapping jive.



False. It is possible, through military intelligence, to at least determine who you've got. We're currently skipping this step not in the name of efficiency, but in the name of expediency and wanting to seem as though we're doing something.

And yet, what you seem to be proposing in the last few posts is that we eliminate procedure and just let the military detain whoever it wants, reasonable cause or no, which not only means the capture of innocents, but their radicalization, the unwillingness of the rest of the world to help out because we're running a detention camp and the production of <i>more</i> people who want to hurt us.

I'm suggesting nothing, mearly stating the posibility. Idealy yes due process can make sure the daangerous get caught, in practical terms, however, it slows protection down. But speeding protectin up gets catches those who shouldn' be caught.

it just depends where you'd draw the line.
But you know I'd happily commit genocide to ensure not another westoner is killed in the name of islam.

No, the ideal situation is that we keep Americans safe under the protections of the Constitution, and remain a shining example of a solid democracy in the hopes that it will spread throughout the world.

That's an opinion, not a fact. I think denying them freedoms is hypocracy, so I fully support granting them fair treatment under the Geneva Conventions. Failing to provide fair treatment, as has already been demonstrated in this thread, perpetuates the cycle.

No, it doesn't. The military can be incredibly efficient without risks to the general population. I could cite personal experience, specific cases, et cetera, but we've been down this road before, and I really don't see the point.

Not really. It requires respecting and abiding by the governing system they've selected and support. A set of rules...ie freedoms. I guess you could call them procedures. I'm going to continue to call it the Constitution. I'm still not sure why you think bureaucracy is specifically required for this situation.

So would Stalin, Milosevic, and Hitler in this situation.

I'm not going to wade all the way in here yet, but I would like to ask why. Why is it that you see the lives of people from a certain country or set of countries as worth somehow less than the lives of those born in Western countries? I'm seriously asking, because this is a way of thinking that you frequently encounter the results of, but less so the willing admission. So, when I encounter someone who is willing to admit that they view geography and an accident of birth as somehow significant in assigning worth and value to human lives, I'd really like that person to explain why.

They're not human, they're Muzzies. And they are a threat to the British way of life. You know, cruppets, drinking and won't let the British exploit their natural resources.

I mean, Westerners have McDonalds, cars and green lawns, what do the muzzies have? Dirt and bombs. As you can clearly see, a western life is worth much, much more than a Muzzie's.

the two are not mutually exclusive, except the expectation that other nations will take it up just through shining example.

Democracy comes about when people get fed up with being shit on by the powerful. It stops existing when democratic people get fed up being shit on by minorities, The glorious democratic examples of other places have negligable effect.
So you are protecting their freedoms for the sake of your countrymen's. That's a different thought process.
I'm really, really, really going to want that backed up.
anyhting where accontability exists and increses increses beurocracy.

So esentially you're agreeing with this point, just changing the names to make it look like it doesn't exist. Ah the American Way.
That's so beside the fucking point it's unbelivable.

They aren't my people. It's as simple and as complicated as that. I have no connection to them and at best they are a competator for resources. So they are the enemy. Human life is intrinsicly worth nothing to me, except my own and those of people I care about. All those people are westerners, their rights can be protectd through the protection of westerners. Non westerners are someone else and until they become part of the same capitalist driven, english speaking, low moral cultural hodge podge that is the west we remain with nothing real in common. As such they are the enemy.

And on top of that many of them hold a religious phiosophy directly at odds with our capitalist driven, english speaking, low moral cultural hodge podge.

And if you think significant proportions of them wont treat you the same way just because you hold an olive brance you've another thing coming. I'm not saying it's us or them, or anything as vitrolic as that, but essentially why not put them over a barrel and fuckem for all their worth? Really? "Becasuse they're people too" doesn't cut it for me.

"Becasuse they're people too" represents common ground. It's preotecting oneself and ones comunity by proxy and alogory (don't hurt them, because the situaton that can hurtthem can hurt us too). But with large portions of the non western world there is no alagory, no proxy. There is just nothing in comon. We have protections they don't (eg. nato). We have diferent philosophies and ways of life. So why not fuckem of to remove compition if nothing else? We've only got about another 10 years or less to do so before we hit another imperial age and we regret not laying all the foundations we could while we could (China, Russia and India are going to become as powerful as the U.S. The E.U. is likely to become more of a cohesive block that can stand up to the U.S. should the need arise. The two are likely to be close allies but E.U. is going to build a much bigger dick to swing through pooling of resources. Brazil is also on the boom in the same way as india was a few years back, but in a bigger way if that is at all possible. It's also now an oil nation. This changes the dynamic from what it was recently where everyone worth giving a shit about was in Nato so we were all safe and could get everything they way we wanted to seriously hightened international comptition where everyone is already laying colonial foundations).

I never said they were. The fact that they have something in common doesn't make yours right, though.

The same could be said for practically any system of government. How do you think Communism came to be? I also fail to see how having a strong democracy has a "negligible" effect in swaying countries to adopt it. Furthermore, it instills the confidence in our own people that we have a strong government and do not need to revolt against it.

No. I'm doing it for both my countrymen AND those accused, even if they're foreign citizens. It's the right thing to do, and it has been shown that it behooves us in the long term anyway. According to your statement, that makes me a terrorist.

Then look at the other threads where you've maintained that you know what's best for the American military, despite never serving in it and knowing absolutely dick about it. I know we did this recently...was it the Waterboarding thread? Regardless, you're claiming once again that you know what will and will not make the military efficient without any real testimony as to why. I served in US Military Intelligence for 4 years, and I had to be intimately familiar with all the rules to ensure they weren't violated. I also have friends still serving in the intel community, and, guess what, they're still getting the job done efficiently. So, Sid, I'm dying to hear how tearing down all the rules and giving the military free reign is really going to make things more efficient, and why it isn't an efficient process now.

Again, I still fail to see why you think bureaucracy exclusively is necessary to this situation. Also, we're talking about a trade-off between security and personal freedoms. You're talking about a trade-off between security and procedures. They're not the same thing.

Not really. You're sitting here, preaching how you'd like a strong, autocratic government would just crush them just like Stalin, Milosevic, and Hitler did, while we're here trying to convey the fact that America is a democracy and cannot execute such tyranny on its own people. I'm providing an example of why your way of doing things is so ridiculously absurd. Doesn't seem beside the point to me...

Indeed. This is besides the point.
because societies are inward looking more than outward. If they feel they need a change they will change to what they feel they need.

Russia for, example, is moving away from democracy because it blames it for ecemomic weakness.

Afganistan regected democracy in favor fundamentalist government. As do many arab nations. With or without America's shining example.
In my eyes it makes you a trator. A terrorist is something specific. But siding with potential enemys for the sake of their rights and abstraction is pretty much the definition of a traitor.

in actual fact I belive stating that the organisiations themselves were the best judges of efficiency, that I myself was claiming no knowledge beyond that. Essentially I refused the wsdom of limiting their freedom on the grounds of some internet yahoo who claims some experiance. And I'm doing the same now. It may well be that armed forces can act efficiently while protecting the rights of everyone they cross. This is counter intuitive however as one would assume that the most efficient tactic is the proverbial nuking the site from orbit, killing everyone which we don't do to protect the innocent. AS it is counter intutive i want it backed up in away that doesn't involve me taking your word for it.

Freedoms come about through procedures.

If one is unsure who is an enemy and who isn't the most efficient way of killing the enemys is killing them all, assuming one has the means to do so (unless I'm wrong here, but that just seams like maths). But feedoms stop that, so you intitute procedure one has to follow to ensure one is not a combatant. Due process it's called. This is a procedure and it slows down the killing of the enemy for the sake of ensurign only the enemy are killed.
I said nothing about doing things to it's own people. I like having civil liberites.

regards the rest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum

Who did something is not the mark of it's validity. It's validity is determined on it's own grounds. If the only way you can show something to be invalid is by giving me examples of people you don't like who did it perhaps you should be re-examining who you don't like and why.

That and it breaks Sid's law of debating, areference to Argumentum ad baculum,

If disagreeing with an argument has political consequence beyond loosing the discussion that argument has no place in a rational discussion as it is designed to bully the oposition into agreement through political ends rather than actually get to logical truth of the matter.

By that argument the E.U. would be nothing more than tribes of Franks and Saxons going at each other with axes. Why not have seperate unions for all the Anglos, Celts, Danes, Jutes and Swedes? Obviously these peoples reached a form of cultural understanding and unity to form the concept of the "Westerner" - you being a good Scotsman would've probably thought the English to be worse than Arabs 800 years ago but England was and still is very much a part of the West, yes?

You don't have to butcher everyone to survive. Try seperating xenophobia from political pragmatism.

while this is true, the concept of the westerner still exists as the develpoed nations of the word have a lot in common. The greatest cultural boundry at the moment is between capital west and islamic east. It's making the disagreements with communism look like dinner party debate.

Then why did you say it?

So they'll completely disregard any systems that are already in place and working well? That makes loads of sense.

No.

Ok. Let's say we do allow the military free reign in intelligence gathering. They start arresting people that are innocent, unfairly interrogating them, and coercing confessions to crimes that they never committed. This, as history shows, is common practice when you remove the constraints on intelligence and military organizations. The rules are there not just to protect the people, but to provide reliable information as well. You've still yet to provide to me some evidence that military organizations actually need this freedom, though.

While we're on the subject, would you feel better if I used a third party like Murphy to verify my credentials? I mean, clearly you don't believe that I know what I'm talking about, so maybe I should provide a document to back it up.

Due process I read that as more of a right than a process. But hey, call it whatever you want, Sid.

Yet you're supporting the activities at Gitmo, which include violating the civil liberties of citizens. Which is it, Sid: kill all them ferrners and give everyone in the country, including domestic terrorists, rights, or strip the rights from everyone and commit the same atrocities on your own people?

I'm just going to go ahead here and call bullshit. I'm sorry if you don't like the comparison I'm making, but it is valid. It has absolutely nothing to do with who I do and do not like.

Americans live in a democracy, founded on the idea that this is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Oppressing our people by denying their rights has NO place in our system of government.

Actually, they are all potential Americans and as for competition, America is a far greater competitor for resources than Arabs. Should the Americans be your enemy as well.




You've just rendered yourself obsolete. I wouldn't hire you or do business with you unless I had to. If you only look out for yourself, what good are you to society? I vote you off the island.



So are conservative moral non-english speaking Europeans your enemy as well?



Have you ever lived in the middle east or in a muslim nation? They what do you know about how "They" will react, only based on your limited interactions with them?



Godwin's law; That's what the NAZIs thought of the Jews. They contribute nothing to the world right?

I wouldn't count on NATO. what do you have that Americans want, besides a cute little accent?



Do you think the Americans will let you lay a foundation? You're competition. America's already laid a foundation. Why do you think China is so powerful? Now sit back and wait for the impending socialism to form. Because America needs natural resources more than you do. And they will take them by force if need be.

WTF?

That it also happens with comunism is besides the point, not that it happens with democracy.

shit.
Not totally, but to a large extent.

Assuming large groups of people bent on change are intelligent is not the way to go. General rule of thumb, people in numbers get dumb. They're also focused on their own situation rather than the situaitons of others.

uhm yeh. That was a huge reason russions gave for voting for putin recently, that they wanted to be told what to do because democracy brought the poor economy (it doesn't matter whether it did or not, that they blame it is enough).
need, no.

But so long as they are operating on foreign soil, which the prisoners from gitmo are from, they're only hurting foreigners, and if they round up everyone suspicious they're bound to catch some tuna in with the dolphins.
unless you were director of intel I don't give a shit about your credentials. One emloyee doesn't provide reliable information. However a verifiable third party would be apreceated yes.

it's both. It's a proecss that grants roghts. Like I've been saying. You want the rights, you have to accept a process comes along woth them to ensure they are upheld.

The former, the domestic terrorists require rights becasue there is the danger of your own people getting caught up. Extend to one's allys, no need to piss of your friends, but there is no reason not to cause foreign colateral in contries that were never going to ally with you anyway.

that's fine, call it undemocratic all you like as a reason for it's invalidity. That's diffrent from saying it's bad cos hitler would have liked it.

Let me retort by saying it's only undemocratic if you turn it on your own people.
they're more of a threat, more in common and can be worked with, so probably not.

some of the best cooperation happens when each side recognises the other is only out for themselves. The good I am is that I can be useful even if I am only beiong useful because I'm getting somehting out of it. To disregard that on the basis of my motivation is short sighted.

in some sense. In others we get on fine.

You're unaware of the term jihad?

you have to display it's invalid in another way. Simply displaying that it was something the Nazis did doesn't cut it. Hitler was also fond of dogs and small children. Does this make being fond of dogs and small children wrong too?
WTF Virgil? You obvioulsy have no concept of the U.S's actual place int he world. Nato exists because the U.S. and Europe are more than capable of holding each other up or tearing each other down and have enough comon ground to do the former rather than the latter.

They'll let the U.K and Europe before others and it can't take the whole world on.

We'll see how that one goes, but not stamping on the middle east with the U.S. while we can is not the smart move.

Didn't take long for this topic to be Godwin'd. I stopped reading after Sid's reply to being called a radio host.

Golden/Iron triangle: you can have two of the three in a service/product/whatever: It can be done fast, it can be done well, it can be done cheaply.

G-Bay (hur) is done fast and cheaply, not well (or even decently, in my opinion). It's easy enough to do background checks on people. If a gun store owner can do it within a few weeks then the bloody government can as well. Bureaucracy, while a great lumbering beast, still gets things done allt he same, so it stands to reason that this situation never should have occured.

We were scared and now we're paying the mad piper, as you will. Because every human being has equal rights, whether they give the same rights to us or not. People are scared of all sorts of things, and the usual reaction is to crush the offending spider, snake, or in this case person into non-existence. That's the worst possible idea ever in the history of bad ideas. Nationalism (GO USA), xenophobia, FEAR, greed... these are the reasons hasty national policies are developed and the result is gonads and strife.

substanitate that.
And do so without quoting the U.N. because all that is is a consensus that refuses to hold when it matters.