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These were the worst of the worst?
There was not even evidence suitable to justify the detentions.
These were the worst of the worst?
To be honest, Congress already passed, back in 2006, the law that implemented these 'enemy combatants' system along with the military tribunals, and in it they made distinctions when it came to citizen vs non-citizens. (here is a link with a story about it from back then).
The thing is, I don't think it can hold up in court. It actually been stripped of the prohibition of Habeas Corpus already, and I'm not sure if anything else has been challenged yet. Again, there was no reason to do this. As you said, spies have been tried in military courts before. The problem here is that they don't want to give them a trial. They want to just imprison them without one.
It's not a matter of language of the Cons ution. It's a matter of respecting separation of powers. There's a perfectly working civilian system more than capable of administering a fair trial. There's also a perfectly working military justice system more than capable of administering a fair trial. They're both in perfectly good working condition, and they could have both addressed and tried all those Gitmo cases for the past whatever years (6+ by now?). The government do not want a trial. They want a conviction, period.
There's a big distinction here. In the case of spies or non-uniformed civilians, they have been declared a military enemy ipso facto, and accordingly tried by a military court. Again, the government *could* have done that to these detainees a long time ago. The problem is that a military trial will still involve discovery of evidence, and a bunch of basic rights, such as the defendant knowing what he's being accused of, etc. Things this administration and the previous one do not want to grant. This is exactly why military courts have been largely avoided.
Wo vs Hopkins
Answer my question: Did the government sit on their ass for 10 years with enough evidence to convict this guy to life or the death penalty? Whose fault is it?
I already have a lawyer, but really, thanks...
Except those persons are classified as de facto military personnel, and tried by a military court, with all the rights a military trial provides?
Which is not the same set of rules applied to these detainees...
All the rules had to be made up. Some of the terminology might be similar, but that's about it.
Ex Parte Quirin appeals superficially, but now that we know US citizens can be targeted too, the facts are veering in the direction of Ex Parte Milligan.
It is essential to the safety of every government that, in a great crisis like the one we have just passed through, there should be a power somewhere of suspending the writ of habeas corpus. In every war, there are men of previously good character wicked enough to counsel their fellow-citizens to resist the measures deemed necessary by a good government to sustain its just authority and overthrow its enemies, and their influence may lead to dangerous combinations. In the emergency of the times, an immediate public investigation according to law may not be possible, and yet the period to the country may be too imminent to suffer such persons to go at large. Unquestionably, there is then an exigency which demands that the government, if it should see fit in the exercise of a proper discretion to make arrests, should not be required to produce the persons arrested [p126] in answer to a writ of habeas corpus. The Cons ution goes no further. It does not say, after a writ of habeas corpus is denied a citizen, that he shall be tried otherwise than by the course of the common law; if it had intended this result, it was easy, by the use of direct words, to have accomplished it. The illustrious men who framed that instrument were guarding the foundations of civil liberty against the abuses of unlimited power; they were full of wisdom, and the lessons of history informed them that a trial by an established court, assisted by an impartial jury, was the only sure way of protecting the citizen against oppression and wrong. Knowing this, they limited the suspension to one great right, and left the rest to remain forever inviolable. But it is insisted that the safety of the country in time of war demands that this broad claim for martial law shall be sustained. If this were true, it could be well said that a country, preserved at the sacrifice of all the cardinal principles of liberty, is not worth the cost of preservation. Happily, it is not so.
The discipline necessary to the efficiency of the army and navy required other and swifter modes of trial than are furnished by the common law courts, and, in pursuance of the power conferred by the Cons ution, Congress has declared the kinds of trial, and the manner in which they shall be conducted, for offences committed while the party is in the military or naval service. Everyone connected with these branches of the public service is amenable to the jurisdiction which Congress has created for their government, and, while thus serving, surrenders his right to be tried by the civil courts. All other persons, citizens of states where the courts are open, if charged with crime, are guaranteed the inestimable privilege of trial by jury. This privilege is a vital principle, underlying the whole administration of criminal justice; it is not held by sufferance, and cannot be frittered away on any plea of state or political necessity. When peace prevails, and the authority of the government is undisputed, [p124] there is no difficulty of preserving the safeguards of liberty, for the ordinary modes of trial are never neglected, and no one wishes it otherwise; but if society is disturbed by civil commotion -- if the passions of men are aroused and the restraints of law weakened, if not disregarded -- these safeguards need, and should receive, the watchful care of those intrusted with the guardianship of the Cons ution and laws. In no other way can we transmit to posterity unimpaired the blessings of liberty, consecrated by the sacrifices of the Revolution.
Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war.
Been meaning to get to this for a while. It raises some good points, even if it rather pointedly ignored answering my question.
If Obama continues to detain these people without any fair open trial, then he is wrong, and we will continue losing this particular figth on the battleground of ideas.
The point is that we move to do things in a more open, and fair manner. I personally don't think that detaining ANY of them is worth it in the long run, whatever damage they might try to do us in terms of future attacks.
If they really are that dangerous, release them into the wild again, keep tabs on them and make Bad Things happen to them after a few months. Do some real spy .
http://washingtonindependent.com/853...-major-setbackLast night the House Armed Services Committee finished this year’s bill authorizing $567 billion worth of defense spending and another $159 billion for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars for the fiscal year beginning in October. Following an administration budget plan announced in February by Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale, the Afghanistan war request contained a vague provision — indeed, not even carrying the words “Guantanamo Bay” — called a “transfer fund” to authorize the purchase of the Thomson Correction Center in Illinois. The administration wants to buy Thomson in order to have a secure facility on U.S. soil to house those Guantanamo detainees it designates for military commissions or indefinite detention without charge. Once the federal government buys Thomson, it can shut down Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay.
Or that was the plan. The actual bill hasn’t been released yet. But buried at the bottom of an extensive summary the committee released last night is an express prohibition on the use of any Defense Department money to buy a new detention facility. According to the bill summary, the bill now requires Defense Secretary Robert Gates to give Congress a report that “adequately justifies any proposal to build or modify such a facility” if it wants to move forward with any post-Guantanamo detention plan.
“The Committee firmly believes that the construction or modification of any facility in the U.S. to detain or imprison individuals currently being held at Guantanamo must be accompanied by a thorough and comprehensive plan that outlines the merits, costs, and risks associated with utilizing such a facility,” the summary text read. “No such plan has been presented to date. The bill prohibits the use of any funds for this purpose.”
Buzz up!
of course everything costs money. Welcome to goverment 101
Nvm... a day late and a dollar short.
But wait, there's more:
While the bill doesn’t renew the current Congressional ban on transferring detainees from Guantanamo into the U.S. — set to expire in October — it requires President Obama to submit a “a comprehensive disposition plan and risk assessment” for any future detainee transfer. Congress would then get “120 days to review the disposition plan before it could be carried out.” Additionally, Congress would get a 30-day review period for the proposed transfer of any detainee from Guantanamo to a foreign country in order to check against a detainee inflicting violence against the U.S. or its interests. The summary instructs Gates to tell Congress that any such foreign transfer meets “strict security criteria to thoroughly vet any foreign country to which a detainee may be transferred...
...But beyond the closure of the detention facility itself, the prohibitions now contained in the bill have policy implications for the dispensation of justice for detainees remaining at Guantanamo, a burning political issue all through this year. Those “abhorrent” prohibitions, Warren said, “essentially prohibit the executive from moving forward with its cons utional and human-rights obligations to try people [and] creates a paradigm where the operative default mechanism will be to detain people without trial.”
Is Gitmo still open?
Nevermind.
I found a clock by using google.
http://www.gitmoclock.com/
What if Gitmo isn't closed and that money is used for jobs and/or the economy? Wouldn't that be a better idea?
Socialism!
Greenwald skewers Obama:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...e-close-gitmo/The excuse-making on behalf of President Obama has always found its most extreme form when it came time to explain why he failed to fulfill his oft-stated 2008 election promise to close Guantanamo. As I’ve do ented many times, even the promise itself was misleading, as it became quickly apparent that Obama — even in the absence of congressional obstruction — did not intend to “close GITMO” at all but rather to re-locate it, maintaining its defining injustice of indefinite detention.
But the events of the last three days have obliterated the last remaining excuse. In order to secure the release of American POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the Obama administration agreed to release from Guantanamo five detainees allegedly affiliated with the Taliban. But as even stalwart Obama defenders such as Jeffery Toobin admit, Obama “clearly broke the law” by releasing those detainees without providing Congress the 30-day notice required by the 2014 defense authorization statute (law professor Jonathan Turley similarly observed that Obama’s lawbreaking here was clear and virtually undebatable).
The only conceivable legal argument to justify this release is if the Obama White House argues that the law does not and cannot bind them. As do ented by MSNBC’s Adam Serwer - who acknowledges that “when it comes to the legality of the decision [critics] have a point” – Obama has suggested in the past when issuing signing statements that he does not recognize the validity of congressional restrictions on his power to release Guantanamo detainees because these are decisions assigned by the Cons ution solely to the commander-in-chief (sound familiar?). Obama’s last signing statement concluded with this cryptic vow: “In the event that the restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees in sections 1034 and 1035 operate in a manner that violates cons utional separation of powers principles, my Administration will implement them in a manner that avoids the cons utional conflict.”
Both Serwer and a new Washington Post article this morning note the gross and obvious hypocrisy of Obama and his Democratic loyalists now using Article-II-über-alles signing statements to ignore congressionally enacted laws relating to the War on Terror. Quoting an expert on signing statements, the Post – referencing Obama’s Bush-era condemnation of signing statements — sums up much of the last six years of political events in the US: “Senator Obama had a very different view than President Obama.”
Eyup.
Now, what do we do about Obama breaking this law?
can't imagine DOJ would touch it. impeachment could happen after the midterms if the GOP wins the Senate, but it would be on other charges.
Congress hasn't the guts to close GITMO and the Dems are ok with the abuse of power so long as they're the ones who have it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5507126.htmlThe debate over whether to send one of the prime suspects in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi to Guantanamo Bay following his capture this weekend seems to have ended as soon as it started. Obama administration officials quickly ruled out the idea that Ahmed Abu Khattala would be brought to the detention site in Cuba for an undefined period of interrogation.
“Some have suggested that he should go to GTMO,” said National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. “Let me rule that out from the start.”
“Not a chance,” a U.S. official told The Huffington Post.
But even if the administration has ruled out the possibility of Guantanamo Bay, those who support the idea are pushing it and keen to make a political issue of it. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called a stint at Guantanamo the most logical option available for Abu Khattala. So too did Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
"Khatallah is a foreign terrorist, captured by our special forces overseas for his violent attack on a U.S. facility," Cruz said in a statement. "He belongs in Guantanamo and in the military justice system, not in the U.S. civilian court system with the cons utional protections afforded U.S. citizens."
The argument has baffled some in the legal world, who note that federal courts have had far greater success rates in trying terrorist suspects than military tribunals have had. Among those confused are the chief prosecutor at the military commissions in Guantanamo between September 2005 and October 2007.
Col. Morris Davis, a U.S. Air Force officer and lawyer, told The Huffington Post that “other than to score a superficial political point,” he did not see any advantage to taking Abu Khattala to Guantanamo.
"make a political issue of it."
The Repugs and tea baggers have been, will always be OBSTRUCTING, POLITICIZING EVERYTHING any Dem, esp The Negro, tries to do.
so much for the GOP wanting to get to the bottom of Benghazi. Obama caught the ringleader and the GOP wants to send him to Gitmo.
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