OH! It's Man-X? I like that! Sounds better then manx (pronounced manks) anyway.

That's where the US differs from Europe, I presume. We have MANY right-wing politicians talking about the right of safety, as opposed to the rights of criminals to privacy, for one thing.

I would assume that the Bush administration is holding these terrorists to make Americans safer. So that'd lead to the "right of safety" thing.

It was an example of how things can go wrong in the judicial system. Fact is, there instances where "obviously" guilty people go free because of their fame/money/connections, or simply because their lawyers are very, very good. There are also many examples of cases where people get convicted, and later proven innocent.

I have given examples of terror-trials in the Netherlands, and how they have failed to get a conviction, because there is so little firm evidence. After all, these terrorists usually haven't actually blown people up yet. All you can do is try and prove they were planning to do nasty things, something made very difficult by the nature of terrorism and terrorists. The evidence usually consists of extremists tapes and videos (free speech) and plans/photographs of supposed targets ("planning or been on a holiday"). As for witnesses... usually terrorists don't rat on their friends, and even if they do, they're known terrorists, trying to frame an innocent man - not very difficult to dismiss. In a non-jury trial, it is *very* difficult to convict people on the basis of that evidence.

Perhaps it's possible to give these people trials by jury, because that'd undoubtedly lead to a high proportion of convictions. But then again... the results would be mostly emotional, and we know how that works. The terrorists won't be getting a fair trial, they'll be assumed guilty from the start. Hey, but at least they'll have had a trial; it'll be okay to lock them up for life then, eh? So what if it later turns out that a lot of them were indeed innocent...

But go ahead, prove me wrong. Show me the errors. I'm always willing to learn, and if you have some insight into why terror trials would be both fair and would lead to convictions based on hardly any evidence... be my guest.

I'm not trying to prove you wrong in the sense you seem to be implying here.

What I am replying to is your apparent attitude toward accused persons. First of all, you have decided a priori that these people, along with other criminally accuses apparently, that they are guilty of something; but that it's now up to the courts to obtain the verdict in the most expedient manner. I don't feel the need to demonstrate to you that trials ought to be fair, lead to convictions, and be based on hardly any evidence. All three of those are your prerequisites for a suitable trial to obtain the verdict you have already decided upon. A fair trial in that schema would be a verdict of guilty.

The correct response, according to our legal system (and that is, after all, what we are discussing in the thread), would be that a fair trial could not be conducted based on "hardly any evidence." We ought to be discussing how someone could even be detained at all, much less for life with "hardly any evidence."

How did you determine accused terrorists were "obviously" guilty, yet went free, without attending their trials and combing through the evidence? My comment about such a crude method of analysis was based on the presumption that you gathered your information about OJ Simpson from the media. Perhaps I was wrong--did you attend the trial?

There are perhaps hundreds of cases of people who have been able to establish their innocence after a guilty verdict. Relatively few cases occur where the person's guilt is in question, yet the person is let free. All of this occurs while millions of accused are channeled through the criminal justice system in this country per day. But according to the way our system is set up, there has never been a case where a guilty person was judged to be "not guilty" and set free. The judge or jury decides and, regardless of what opinions bystanders might form from the media portrayals and their own ideology, "guilty" is a legal state--not a moral or objective one.

There are no provisions to curtail one's rights in regards to the offense one is accused of. If that were the case, then we would have set up different rights provisions for shoplifters as distinct from murderers. You have no grounds to suggest that the damage from a crime constitutes the level of legal protections an accused ought to have, other than your opinion. And in this particular instance, your opinion runs counter to both historical proceedure and what's best for society.

I claim it's opposed to what's best for society because your argument hinges on a few implicit arguments. One of them, the presumption of guilt (instead of the stateside demand for presumption of innocence) a priori, seems to be based on your notion that legal protections are established to protect the guilty. They aren't--they are established to protect the innocent. They aren't established to protect the criminals, as they often are portrayed, but the accused. The subtle shift in public rhetoric about how the accused are presumed to be guilty that has led to this faulty concept. It's a dangerous concept. Once public acceptance of a priori guilt is established, and that seems to be at least part of the result of the rights of victims discourse, then things like we are discussing here logically follow.

The only check we would have against abuse of such a system would depend on a well publicized case in the media. Finding cases where abuses occurred would only be possible if those cases became public. A more prudent and historical approach is to hold the state to show its people that limits exist to its power; not that they must show the state to have abused its power.

I think your concept of jury systems is backwards, but I have no idea how much exposure you have to them or what they are like in the States even. From your statements, I would guess none. A jury conviction would be more difficult to obtain, not less. Faux commentary aside, juries take their deliberations very seriously. And instead of only one person deciding, depending on the type of law and state a trial is in, the numbers needed for a conviction range from 10 to all 12 members deciding a person's guilt.

I think that using a single example from millions per day, especially when less than 10% of all criminal cases even go to trial, isn't a very sound method to determine whether flaws exist in the system. There are better methods that depend less on hyperbole and mentally charged imagery, which I would prefer.

to add another element to smooth's eloquent post
you seem to also be concerned that such trials would become political, which puts aside the fact that they are political from start to finish--"terrorist" is a wholly political category---it is a manner of designating a particular style of opposition to the existing order, which comes with particular effects, some of which chomsky and herman have outlined quite nicely in their work of the 1980s (summarized in herman and o'sullivan's book "the real terror industry") that include the seperation of "terrorist" acts from any coherent political motivation. what seems to me to underpin your position, in addition to what smooth outlined above, is a certain level of anxiety about having this category of "terrorist" itself become problematic through the mechanism of due process.

well, the category *is* problematic.
problems of evidence are of a piece with problems of definition of the crime.
maybe it is something like the category of "witch" in the canon law of the 16th-early 18th centuries. contrary to what you might expect, in this context spain did not prosecute many people on this charge because the courts found that there could not be a standard of proof adduced for a crime the existence of which could not itself be demonstrated. this in a space with a highly elaborated inquisitorial structure no less, one geared toward prosecuting "heresy" and imposing the severest of sanctions on it.

the problem with arbitrary categories like "terrorist" may well lie here.
i am not at all sure that the defense of a problematic category is worth ditching due process, ruining lives and destroying political credibility on the part of the regimes that operate in this manner.

Jorgelito, your post is misguided. These are about terrorist suspects from other countries, the second they do this to US citizens I'd flip sides immediately.

Seaver,

I'm not to clear on what you mean. Which part do you feel is misguided?

Because can't some of the terrorist be from here too, like John Walker Lindh? I can't remember exactly but I thought there may have been a few more suspects that were US nationals. Is that what you are referring to?

If these are terrorists we caught in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever, is it not up to those governments to show their aid to us and prosecute those people? Or to hold them?

If these are "terrorists" within the US then should they not be deported to their countries to stand trial? Or stand trial here?

Supposedly Saudi has said they will prosecute all terrorists to the fullest. So let's give them the terrorists and see what they truly do.

Either way, these people deserve a trial and not to be just locked away forever. I always thought we were supposed to set the highest standards not discriinate and show we will violate human rights when we deem it "ok to".

When I see evidence that ANY American is held without trial I would 180 my position. Sorry but I dont believe I owe ANYTHING to these radicals who spurt "death to America". They are the same people who cut off the heads of innocents (aid workers HELPING them), and killed 3,000 of us in one day. Argue what you want about the moral high ground but we dont owe these bastards shit.

wasn't it Jose Padilla who was held for over a year and denied all rights in gitmo? Then we figured out he was a US citizen so we dropped all charges, took away his citizenship and deported him.

Here is the evidence you wanted

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.pht...e=Jose_Padilla

Seaver, I understand your sentiments about those that espouse "death to America" and whatnot. However, my contention was/is that people who don't believe/espouse that ideology get mixed in there by accident.

That's what I believe is one of the problems. How do we know who's who and stuff? It is a rather complex and multifaceted issue. You may have misread/misinterpreted my original post though. To put it another way, I would like nothing better than to prosecute to the full extent of the law those that harm or would do harm to us. But, rounding everyone up wholesale and throwing away the key is not the answer either.

On a side note, in a tip to your reference about the perps of 3000 deaths(9/11) why don't we get hardball with the Saudis? Considering how 19 of them were from there. It does seem like a lot of the perps are from there too doesn't it? I can't wait for us to invade there. I would definitely support that. All evidence points that way...

Anyways, let's prosecute those we have and get it done already. Instead, were making martyrs out of them.

Yes, we did have infinately more reason to invade and "restructure" Saudi Arabia then Iraq. Of course the Saudi royal family has been very good about laying down while our companies take their oil for amazingly low prices. Yes, we had more reason to invade Saudi Arabia. But should we have? That's probalby another thread.

Willravel,

I should probably clarify: I think we had/have more reason to invade Saudi Arabia than we did for Iraq (I'm still puzzled over that one).

Anyways, as you said, another thread (hey that rhymes!). Big can of worms and subject for debate....

Ok nice point. I have to admit my own ignorance on Padilla. I was paying more attention to the other traitor (Walker) at the time. Was Padilla arrested in a foreign country under combat conditions like Walker or was he picked up here in America?

If it was the first, let him rot. If the second I agree he deserves a trial. And if he gets off on some technicality follow him like a dog following a steak.

They had nothing to charge him with. The only evidince that they had is some guy they tortured mentioned his name. So in the end they knew they couldn't try them and they knew they couldn't charge him so they just deported him.

The government can and will hold citizens illegally. Just ask Kevin Mitnick.

Ummmm... no trial? Isn't that just a little... dunno... unconstitutional? And frightening to anyone other than me?

Pedilla crimes aren't civil or common, he was arrested as an illegal combatant. His status was challenged, he was let off, the system worked.

I shouldn't have come back to this thread, but nobody here get's it, I feel like Mugatu in Zoolander, everyone is taking crazy pills... Illegal Combatants are not afforded constitutional protection, they are not afforded Geneva protection, they are not afforded any civil or common protection.

SCOTUS

Mojo you arent getting it. Nothing causes a citizen to forfit his rights. It doesn't matter what name you give him he still deserves it. 2 years in jail without access to attorneys is NOT a system that is working.

SCOTUS

He wasn't arrested as a citizen, he wasn't arrested under common law statutes or protection. Was he not arrested in a foreign country in a time of war, as an illegal combatant, under the jurisdiction of our military?

If I get arrested for dispencing medical marijuana in California, a state where it is legal, by the federal gov., the state can't help me.

Likewise as an illegal combatant, you are not afforded constitutional protection when you are arrested as such, by the military. It is an issue of jurisdiction, and the military's jurisdiction trumps civil protection (in a time of war, in the context of all this jazz) until deemed otherwise by the courts, which happens on a case by case basis.

My question in Padilla was as follows.

Was he arrested as a combatant (I.E. arrested in a war zone)?
Or was he arrested doing day to day things because someone just name-dropped him?

Those two things differ greatly. If he was arrested under combat conditions IMO he forfits his rights (never have PoWs been given trials to see why they were fighting against us). If he was arrested for the second then yes he deserves a trial.

Rekna, that's hitting the nail on the head. Rights are rights, regardless.

It's not about 'owing' the terrorists anything. It's more what we 'owe' ourselves, and that is to maintain the government's responsibility to respect our rights. When we grant the government the power to ignore our rights, we undermine our own liberty.

This nation's government was built on the premise that it was incumbent upon the government to respect the rights of the citizens. Our founders understood that to do so meant restricting the government's power, and not making it okay to respect rights unevenly, but instead enshrining those rights and protections in the Constitution.

On a seperate note, I would reject the notion that terrorists are more dangerous to us than 'normal' criminals. Far more people are killed by 'normal' criminals than by terrorists. We have lost less than 4,000 between Oklahoma and 9-11, but how many in the last decade have been killed by guns, drugs, and domestic violence? Never mind drunk drivers and all kinds of other criminals who endanger us. The idea that terrorists are more dangerous is an illusion not unlike the illusion that leads so many to fear flying despite the fact that its the safest method of transportation going. The nature of terrorist acts make them stick in our heads, and the motivations behind them enhance the fear factor, while murders, ODs, drunk drivers, and drive-bys are mundane, explicable, and able to be written off as part of the landscape.

When it seems like everyone around you is crazy in the same way ... that might tell you something.

You have posted atleast a dozen times some information which supports your claim that all this holding people indefinitely is "legal".

When are you going to justify (your claim of) the legality of it?

Why should it be legal?

As far as I see it now an illegal combatant is someone who goes to another country to defend his ideals that are attacked by someone elses ideas. Just like 1000's of people did from all over the world in WW1, the war against fascisme in Spain, WW2 and Korea. I can remember one of my all time favourite authors (Hemmingway) fighting in Spain as an American citizen as well as Dutch, Brittish and many other nations alike.

No I am not saying these guys were terrorists (before some go mental on me), but there are several cases where citizens of countries went to fight abroad without concent of their government. Should they loose their rights as well?

It would seem the issue here is not one of legalities of detention, or justification concerning length of detention. It has become obvious to me we are debating the term, "Illegal Combatant".
The U.S. government can do with these people as it sees fit, and do so legally. So who decides where this label gets placed.....would the unibomber be labelled as such?

If we allow this label to be used with relative abandon....do we not erode our own rights?

Jose Padilla was arrested as he exited a plane in CHICAGO. He was a US citizen picked up on a tip about a dirty bomb, no evidence that was ever presented to a judge, and incarcerated in a federal facility. When his detention was challenged because of the government having no evidence to charge him he was labeled an enemy combatant and transferred to a military brig.

How does the saying go, if a million people hold a stupid idea, it's still stupid right?

I don't have to justify the legality of anything. I think it's justified by the fact that our country has signed treaties atesting to the illegal status, as well as by our own articles of war and conduct signed by congress. I think it's justified by the fact that the constitution has granted the president and the congress certain powers, especially powers in war time.

Since when do you have to justify why something is legal? Why is abortion legal? Why can't I buy liqour even though I can vote, be tried as an adult or be drafted? Why must I pay taxes on wages I earn? Why must I obey the speed limit? Why can't I walk around carrying a gun in open arms despite never being convicted on any crime? Why must I apply for a license to even own said gun?

You may not like something, but that doesn't make something illegal. And as stated just because something isn't moral doesn't make it illegal, hello abortion!

This is the problem. I don't think it's square that the federal government be able to slap this label on someone state side. But as it goes, spies or enemies who hide as such (i.e. terrorists) fall under the status of illegal combatants. Maybe it's time the government be forced to redefine the term, or at least define it in terms so it is applicable in this new day and age.

i am becoming increasingly baffled about why you are taking such a narrow view of this matter, mojo. the conversation has shifted into broader areas--the politics of the term terrorism, the problems of evidence, the reasons that might follow from that for a state to refuse due process...all of which you seem to want to bypass, cast as irrelevant, because you are convinced (for reasons that i have read through but do not find compelling mostly because i do not and cannot follow you in seeing this in such truncated terms) that indefinite detenetions without trial are legal.

one of the virtues of common law tradition is that you cannot arbitrarily exclude political considerations. the weight that precedent has in this tradition makes the tradition adaptable to changing political situations, to history. you are not working in a civil law tradition, in which it is assumed that law as written from the outset is more or less perfect, precedent has no particular de jure weight (de facto is another matter, but tant pis), judges are sinple functionaries who applyt the letter of the law, etc. i assume that your basic philosophy of law comes from a neocon position, maybe looped through the federalist society/"original intent" type nonsense, which tries to use bitching about "judicial activism" as an excuse to lobby politically for a shift out of common law toward civil law in the name of adherence to the "spirit" of a late 18th century document--a "spirit" that is, of course, arbitrary, rooted in the dispositions particular to a conservative political movement that would have no particular weight--nor any possibility of weight--were the system within which is operates not rooted in common law.

woudl you care to explain your basic relation to these questions? it would make for a more interesting conversation with you than seems currently possible, and maybe enable all of us to avoid recourse to ben stiller films as if they functioned to explain or enlighten.

RB, I'm not coing from some "neocon" legal position. I'm all for constitutional rights and protection as they properly apply.

My main contention is that the majority of the detractors here do so merely because they don't like Bush, and because Ideally this is an ugly situation. Idealism has no real place in politics, I find it often negates workable and practical answers to reality.

My only interest is how this situation applies in the context of the thread, Guantanmo Bay detainee's labeled deemed illegal combatants, not being afforded the same protection as a proper citizen of the United States. A

A number of us have written some pretty strong arguments for why we hold our position.

I haven't seen anyone in this thread say that he or she holds his or her position because of some personal animosity toward George Bush.


Responses like the one you posted above encourage vociferous personal attacks, attacks I've resigned myself not to make. Yet, you resorted to what I interpret to amount to a personal attack on my position--as if it were groundless and irrational.

I take exception to that. I wish you wouldn't drag the discussion down in this way. It was looking like we could have outlined some heavy thought.

Would you be so kind as to refresh me, and show me one legitimate counter point to any of the one's I have brought up? Can you please? Perhaps that actually has some legal merit to it? Simple saying that "Bush can't do that" and "Rights are rights" doesn't fly because it simply isn't true.

Also as far as me throwing you personal dislike into the situation, it has merit. Too many of you the man could cure the blind and heal the sick and you wouldn't give him props. Likewise because you don't like him, when the man does something unfavourable to you, you harp on it.

but why your particular position on this particular matter?
it is not as though the bush administration has not engaged in some curious legal reasoning--take the question of torture, for example--consider not only the 2002 memo prompted by gonzalez. but the "clarification" of the justice department's position that was released a couple days ago (again prompted by gonzalez, two days before his confirmation hearings for ag were to start)---in the first, torture was defined in such a narrow way as to legitimate almost anything--in the second, torture was defined more broadly in order to limit political damage: the wind on this blows from several directions--which way do you go?

it should be obvious that these shifts are politically driven, not based on matters of principle. in both memos, the arguments were structurally the same: given a definition of torture x, the following outcomes are "legal"---would you find yourself in a position of having to shift ground under the cover of the same kind of argument along with this shift in position on the part of the administration?

same question could obtain for the definition of "illegal combattant"--it seems obvious that the administration is coming under increasing pressure on this question as a function of the persistence of its policies not only in guantanomo, but in iraq, in outsourcing torture, etc etc etc. i would expect this policy--and the definitions that underpin it--will change as well. will your position shift along with it?

in other words, are you simply applying the letter of the bush administration's current positions and acting as though these positions represent definitive legal interpretations?
if so, why would you then accuse those who argue in opposition to you as having somekind of de facto monopoly on political motivations?

My standing is if it wasn't signed into law by congress, as allowed by the constitution, then the President isn't acting in "good faith". If they are pulling narrow definitions for torture out of their ass that override the legal ones that we all know exist in law as signed by congress in both foreign treaties of war conduct and our own, then it is to be stopped. Also I could give two shits if some pinko liberals in Europe get up in arms about this unless it involves their citizens such as the case with the Britons. We had every legal and moral right to lay waste to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they can deal with it.

I don't know enough about these torture memo's to say with any bit of certainty, so I won't try to spout like I do.

My position will change with the law yes. Personally I could give a shit if Omar Bin-Shek Mohammed (as opposed to the American Joe Sixpack) who got caught up with Al Qaeda or the Taliban or (insert terrorist group here) doesn't get afforded the same rights as me, in my country. But if congress ratifies the articles of war to include a more conclusive and precise definition, then I will accept it.

Also I'm not accepting the Bush Admin's actions or words as gospel, everything that I have put forth has happened way before anyone there was ever in the picture. I don't think that they are acting illegally in the vast majority of all of this, so in that I will defend there actions. The courts have yet to speak out and rule Gitmo illegal. I think all men held there should stand in before a tribunal, as the law properly affords them, with or without counsel (I'm not clear if they have that right under their status), and have their status challenged. But again if you are asking me if I think that someone determined to be an illegal combatant who was properly detained by our military on the field of battle should be afforded Habeas Corpus or be protected by amendments 4-6 and 8, then no absolutly not.

mojo: thanks for explaining your position.
sadly, three-dimensional life beckons at the moment......there are things in your post that i would take issue with, but they would require more consideration (time) than i have at the moment, so i'll defer. but i do appreciate your forthrightness.

as do I, mojo.

hopefully I'll be able to get back as well.

In the meantime, I just found out that John Yoo will be speaking at my university very soon. My legal reasoning professor is an acquantance of his and will be requesting his presence in our seminar.

That should be interesting. Roachboy, and others, please post or pm any questions you might like me to ask him.

Ok well I can admit when I am wrong.

I was unaware of the specifics of the Padilla case. He is a citizen who was arrested on American soil thus deserves the rights he is granted. Since they dont have the evidence to take to court, though, I would put a permanent team of FBI/CIA to watch this guy like a 14 year old with his first porn vid.

It appears to me that on this matter some approach it as merely a legal question, while others see it as a fundamental question regarding the status of our rights as human beings. The two are not compatible debates.

Laws are written and enforced by the government. Government violations and infringements on rights are almost always legal, in that it is the government that can write, change, and interpret the law to fit its behaviour. Germany's concentration camps and many of Saddam's behaviours were legal by their respective nations' codes, but obiously egregious violations of the rights of their citizens.

Thus, I look at the question from a more fundamental view of liberty. If laws are unnecessarily opposed to liberty, then they should be re-written.

I do not support allowing the government to not recognize our rights on the basis of government-contrived categories for people. Simply creating a category and then claiming that it does not have to recognize the rights of the people placed there on the mere basis that they are within that category is a fundamental violation of the sanctity of the rights of all people whether in that category or not. Allowing the government to do so undermines our own safety, in that it tears down the very protections for our rights that 200+ years of Americans have worked to build and maintain.

Well, after 3.5 years in custody, Citizen of the United States (born here) Jose Padilla has been charged with a crime. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...648667,00.html

I consider myself conservative, right wing, socially liberal and generally hating both parties.

But I'm really pissed off at this one. 3.5 years. Citizen.

Yea, this guy is a scumbag who deserves to be locked up.

but sometimes I want to cry for my country.

Consorting with an enemy of the constitution and it's citizens the executive is sworn to protect bears it's own cross.