A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit interprets the Military Commissions Act not to apply to civilians who are seized within the United States.
SCOTUSblog reports:Under MCA, Judge Motz wrote, ... enemy combatant status must either be determined by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- the military administrative panels set up by the Pentagon -- or by some other "Executive tribunal." Neither has made such a ruling as to [Ali Saleh Kahlah] al-Marri, the decision said. (The CSRT panels are operating only for foreign nationals being held at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.)...
The Circuit Court found the government's claim of "inherent" presidential authority to order military detention of civilians to be "breathtaking," and was broad enough even to allow detention of U.S. citizens.
Orin Kerr has more:The court takes a very narrow view of the category "enemy combatant"; if I read the court correctly, it sees the category as basically limited to the catgeory of military opponent in battle rather than Al-Qaeda terrorist....
According to the Fourth Circuit, this left Al-Marri as a "civilian," and thus entitled to the Due Process protections of anyone lawfully in the United States. In other words, the AUMF just doesn't reach so far as to permit the military to detain a civilian terrorist suspect in the U.S. like Al-Marri.
Kerr predicts the court will be reversed, either by the Fourth Circuit en banc or by the Supreme Court.
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52 comments:
Key flaws with the majority opinion:
1. It pretends an alien is a citizen by misconstruing the laws of war;
2. It ignores SCOTUS clearly applicable precedent, as detailed in the dissent;
3. It ignores that the AUMF applies by inverting the constitutional avoidance doctrine;
4. It is long.
While not disputing Mort's comment, I saw this piece as leaving a gray area of aliens illegally here in the US, like a number of the 9/11 killers... but to preserve the rights of aliens like al-Marri, lawfully residing within the country with substantial, voluntary connections to the United States, for whom Congress recognized the Constitution protected the writ of habeas corpus."
I forgot one:
It also limits its application to those who receive Due Process protection. The problem is, Congress can set that minimum as low as it wants for non-citizens.
A visa -- and an appeals process for deportation -- doesn't mean you get rights equal to a citizen in all contexts. There is no gray area except what the court made-up.
Turley (the Georgetown guy) did make an interesting observation about the importance of habeas corpus..one that struck home to non-legal types like me; if you don't have habeas corpus, then all other rights are meaningless because you cannot bring yourself into a court of law to seek remedy.
I think that strikes a responsive chord and no matter what is argued en blanc, that is a tough fundemental issue that is hard to parse.
The predictions are that the two liberal Clinton appointees get overturned en banc or by SCOTUS. One is a far Left elite Vassarite who has come out strongly before for terrorist civil liberties. The other, Roger Gregory, is black and resides on the Maxine Walters end of the spectrum.
They stretched things considerably in trying to justify their position, basically claiming that 9/11 authorized the military to go after the Taliban and Al Qaeda openly bearing arms....but that the AUF NEVER INTENDED that the military go after Al Qaeda jihadi warriors anywhere else after 9/11.
Motz concludes that only the civilian justice system is legitimate for Jihadi warriors - who, by torturously picking and choosing from precedents - they claim are just civilians entitled to full Geneva protections unless they have broken some civilian law.
I admit that I am sick of the Left's effort to gain more terrorist rights, to maximize their legal protections, to pretend that such committed warriors willing to fight and die for an organization that declared war on us are civilians. And the AUF after 9/11 intends to limit our fight against them purely to Afghanistan - after Islamic combat teams have killed Americans - military and civilian here in America and in Bali, Kenya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Somalia, Egypt, killed allies in UK, Russia, India, Spain which had huge murderously large plots disrupted in the Philippines, Singapore, Italy, Albania, Bosnia, Germany,
is somehow, in the keen minds of such lawyers in robes who never were in the military - not a military organization of international scope, just limited in what they thought was Congress's mind - purely to Afghanistan
I'm sick of it and the irredeemable stupidity of judges like Motz...and sort of resigned to the fact that combat teams of the enemy will hit us again until the lessons written in blood finally shake up the enemy rights lovers of the Left and common sense comes into fashion again.
So I hope people understand my hope that if Americans have to be killed for PC, if they must die for enemy protections the Left demands --that the Blue State Lefties bear the heaviest burden in blood lessons...
Or, even better, the civilian courts claim jurisdiction over all AQ terrorists caught outside Afghanistan, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the 9/11 Mastermind, Binalshibh the Euro Team coordinator for 9/11, and Binnie if we ever get him from the Pakis...get it...then we find we have to release them all as free men unable to be tried as criminals on improper confessions and lack of a formal evidentiary process.
That would be known as the week US Courts were burned by mobs
"One is a far Left elite Vassarite who has come out strongly before for terrorist civil liberties. The other, Roger Gregory, is black and resides on the Maxine Walters end of the spectrum." [emphasis added]
Charming.
1. Why Gitmo will never close.
Sorry Colin Powell, but this one ought to wake you up in the morning.
The other, Roger Gregory, is black and resides on the Maxine Walters end of the spectrum.
It's Maxine Waters.
The only way the left would get serious in fighting terrorists would be for Bush to adopt the Obama/Edwards Kumbaya philosophy of national defense. In other words, it's no more than domestic politics to them. Bush is a victim of his own success. If al qaeda had been successful in bringing death and destruction to our shores post 9-11, we wouldn't be hearing this bullshit from the left now.
hdhouse - Turley (the Georgetown guy) did make an interesting observation about the importance of habeas corpus..one that struck home to non-legal types like me; if you don't have habeas corpus, then all other rights are meaningless because you cannot bring yourself into a court of law to seek remedy.
I think that strikes a responsive chord and no matter what is argued en blanc, that is a tough fundemental issue that is hard to parse.
The unfortunate elephant in the room that Lefties have twisted themselves in knots in Ramsi, Hamdan to avoid is the unanimous Ex Parte Quirin decision which held that unlawful enemy combatants on a mission from a foreign power to kill Americans and blow up things - Have No Habeas Corpus Rights.
The 10 Nazi saboteurs, including 2 US citizens, were held to be an enemy military force inserted in America with the sole purpose of killing, damaging the US war economy and helping win the conflict for the Nazis - so they were outside not only civilian court, but also Geneva and Hague protections being captured as spies and saboteurs out of uniform. (Which is a centuries- honored interpretation of the customary dire status of spies, saboteurs, and enemy combatants caught out of uniform facing military tribunals.)
Thus the court ruled they had no civilian redress in civilian court despite them wanting trial for civilian crimes only....No habeas rights. William O Douglas, the "Lion of Civil Liberties" said later in a 1962 interview that denial of habeas and all other liberties was "A complete no-brainer. The Nazis, American and German, knew the price they'd pay if captured."
Unbelievable. If futures for nations were traded on a stock exchange, the US (and the West, for that matter) would be trading at low prices.
The rules we willingly choose to hamstring ourselves in this "war" are laughable; sadly, we won't realize as much until we get hit, hard, again. Half the nation thinks the enemy justified and in need of appeasing; our cause unjust; our means excessive, so therefore we deserve everything we get. If we're lucky, the instruments of government necessary to fight the war at that point will not have been destroyed too, although we'll always have the "save yourselves, quit now and surrender caucus" to overcome.
It's always September 10th in some parts of America.
Though, Tim, I will point out that the closest BY FAR this country has come to being destroyed, it was rescued from the abyss (in part) by much greater infringements of civil liberties than anyone has seen in our lifetimes (or that of our grandparents), by a President whose contemporaries were unbelievably contemptuous of. Makes one wonder how much more vile the response would be if we had a modern day Vallindigham situation. Actually, I don't wonder at all, insofar as numerous individuals in our day and age have said far worse than warranted the treatment that Lincoln afforded Clement. The tragedy (and farce) is the number of people who deify Lincoln while simultaneously vilifying Bush. For the record, I think Lincoln was easily the greatest President we have had (or will have).
So Ann, where do you con down on this?
Is it with this one? "It's always September 10th in some parts of America."
Or this one? "Charming."
Are you afraid, or are you sensing that the time for the rule of law being trampled is over?
Inquiring minds want to know.
cedarford: I admit that I am sick of the Left's effort to gain more terrorist rights, to maximize their legal protections, to pretend that such committed warriors willing to fight and die for an organization that declared war on us are civilians
Then you'll love this one [via Instapundit]:
"In 2004, CIA operatives in Iraq believed that they had identified the signatures of 11 bomb makers. They proposed a diabolical -- but potentially effective -- sabotage program that would have flooded Iraq with booby-trapped detonators designed to explode in the bomb makers' hands. But the CIA general counsel's office said no. The lawyers claimed that the agency lacked authority for such an operation..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060802405.html
My concern is that all this over-lawyering will create a backlash after the next succesful terrorist attack, and that the reflex will be to throw the civil rights baby out with the bathwater.
"For the record, I think Lincoln was easily the greatest President we have had (or will have)."
Strictly limited to considering the man as president in office, I'd agree with Lincoln. But the greatest American to ever have been president, and giving great weight to his term as president, George Washington, hands down.
Without Washington, Lincoln doesn't get to be president, or get to save his country.
And, peripherally related to your comment, while every death is tragic, after four years of war in Iraq, we have yet to reach the level of KIA's on one day, D-Day, in WWII; nor have we reached even seven percent of the KIA's suffered by both sides over three days in Gettysburg, PA. It would have been better, of course, if the battles resulting in those deaths had never needed to be fought, but history isn't about wishes.
Except, it seems, for too many for whom the price for our freedom is unbearable - yet they squeal the loudest, as if squealing will make the burdens of history retreat.
So let's put the GITMO inhabitants close to their defenders - in the Speakers and Senate Majority Leader's offices. Undoubtedly they will be cared for greatly.
I'm not a lawyer, but this decision seems to ratify the Harry Reid Doctrine: once you're over the border you're an Undocumented American.
"...and that the reflex will be to throw the civil rights baby out with the bathwater." Seems like that's history's usual course. Think of the mayhem that could have been avoided had the world listened to Churchill early on.
How hard is this to understand. If you are a foreign national within the US illegally, you have no HC nor Constitutional Rights. If you are a foreign national/foreign fighter (uniformed or otherwise) and you are caught/arrested/detained on the field of battle, you have no HC rights nor Constitutional Rights. I don't care how the courts slice and dice it, it's just that simple. The Constitution applies to American Citizens only and provisionally to legal and permanent residents. Why is this even an issue, other than the fact that the leftists want to constraint and obfuscate what is already understood to be true.
It's as if redefining the Geneva Conventions somehow allowed them to come in through the back door with decisions like this. It's nonsense.
Pardon my saying Methadras but you are totally out to lunch. Foreign nationals are arrested and tried in our courts all the time. The courts subject them to our laws and our way of conducting court business.
If you READ the decision you will see that the President has taken a position that he can designate any one to be an combatant. Just last week there was one of these mock trials (the first) and the military court tossed the case because, primarily, of poorly written law giving it (the court) no jurisdiction. The government wants to appeal that but no members have been appointed to the appeals court. Now we come to this decision where it says, basically, you cannot deny habeas corpus - giving the fundemental right to, for instance, within the rules of the court, see the evidence before you because you don't even have a right to be in court.
If you were visiting a hostile country as an American and grabbed off the street and put in jail and the official explanation from that foreign country was, we won't even confirm that we have emprisoned the person and NO there will be no trail and even if we do have a trial someday, you won't be able to see the evidence, get a lawyer, even present your own defense because we won't let you call a witness....well as an American you would be screaming bloody murder....and you would think of that country as a fifth rate banana republic with a monarch.
Now what don't you get? The courts have repeatedly said Gitmo isn't right. What more do you need?
"grabbed off the street and put in jail and the official explanation from that foreign country was, we won't even confirm that we have emprisoned the person and NO there will be no trail and even if we do have a trial someday, you won't be able to see the evidence, get a lawyer, even present your own defense because we won't let you call a witness"
Hdhouse, you've more or less described the procedures for detention of terror suspects under the laws of FRANCE.
Doesn't the left believe that the US should conform to the human-rights standards set by the morally superior Europeans?
no tjl....i had a family member grabbed in Russia in the 60s. You remember, the nation that you loved to hate?
Why do you want the US to be perceived as the USSR was (the best of a bad lot)? Why do you hate America so much you want it to be so regarded? Do you spit on the flag? Do you use the constitution for toilet paper?
Why are you soooo full of hatred for this country?
Foreign nationals are arrested and tried in our courts all the time. The courts subject them to our laws and our way of conducting court business.
Correct, however, some of us see the difference between trying a foreign national for say, armed robbery or drunk driving as opposed to being part of a terrorist organization bent on mass murder.
I’m not a lawyer but I what I see as the difference here is that too many people are still viewing this as a law enforcement matter instead of a war. To me it is simply incomprehensible that we’re going to open up our criminal court system to try every Tom, Dick and Abdul that is picked up off the battlefield. If that’s the case we may as well throw in the towel now. In other words, lets forget trying to obtain intel from them as we won’t be able to interrogate them when they ask for a lawyer and put them up in our now over crowded prison system because Gitmo is bad.
Now what don't you get? The courts have repeatedly said Gitmo isn't right.
The courts said at one time that human beings could be considered another man’s property too. The courts have also said that terrorists who do not meet a single iota of what constitutes a POW as defined by Geneva, nevertheless should be granted POW status. Even a non-lawyer who can comprehend 8th grade English has to scratch their head on that one.
Clearly the laws as they are now do not adequately deal with the terrorist threat. Putting terrorists through our criminal court system is simply ludicrous. Perhaps Congress needs to work on meaningful legislation that recognizes the threat that Islamic terrorism presents to this nation and work on developing laws that will allow us to effectively combat them as well as guaranteeing our principles.
"Why do you want the US to be perceived as the USSR was"
No, no, no, hdhouse, in this respect I'd rather we were perceived as France has been. The French know how to project an air of enlightened progressivism while in fact doing whatever they have to do to protect their interests. Unfortunately, our government has seldom been nimble enough to accomplish this.
I'd rather we were perceived as France has been.
When it came to terrorism, the French and Brits are a far cry from the benevolent, civil liberty champions that outsiders, particularly liberal Americans view them. The Brits wielded an iron hand in Northern Ireland and were not at all above targeted assasinations and ahem, coerced interrogations.
The difference is that unlike the Brits, we don't have an Official Secrets Act and don't air our 'dirty laundry' on CNN.
Like anything else, liberals point to Europe as an enlightened continent yet cherry pick the aspects they like. France has wonderful health care yet nuclear power plants dot the countryside, something that would not be tolerated here. Imagine the wails of 'mercenaries!!' if we created the American Foreign Legion.
Its like the saying goes, the grass is always greener.
Why do you want the US to be perceived as the USSR was (the best of a bad lot)?
Am I reading this correctly? The USSR was the 'best of a bad lot?' Wow.
"...but I what I see as the difference here is that too many people are still viewing this as a law enforcement matter instead of a war."
Right. Applying Moynihan's oft-noted summation that the Left is "defining deviancy down", so too is the Left with actors of terrorism - they are nothing but criminals and their acts crimes, so therefore all the laws applying to crime and all the protections guaranteed criminals apply.
It's all part of the effort to take the heat off the terrorists. As that great Democrat thinker, John F. Kerry so eloquently stated for Democrats across the nation, " We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance. . . As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise." "We have to get back to the place we were" - September 10th. It is the enduring fantasy of the Left that we can, should, must return to September 10th.
Democrats like Kerry are entirely comfortable with tolerating and allowing space for terrorists. Defining acts of war down to acts of crime is part and parcel of their ever-so-sophisticated, nuanced approach toward terrorism. You know, the approach Kevin Drum thinks is so easy to articulate, but has yet to ever be articulated in any convincing manner anywhere by anyone.
Cedarford is absolutely right about the political leanings of the judges in the majority. If you know the affiliation you know the outcome, when it comes to Democrat appointees. Although there are too many examples to mention, I refer readers to the "Magnificent Seven" just for reference. Also here.
Apparently Jacob disagrees, but offers no reasoning. Also typical of the Far Left.
I'm with Orin Kerr: This decision will be reversed.
Jim said...
Cedarford is absolutely right about the political leanings of the judges in the majority. If you know the affiliation you know the outcome, when it comes to Democrat appointees.."
Jim. You are just full of shit.
Well, I agree. And, I liked our country better when we stood for freedom, not for rolling back such basic tenets of justice like habeas corpus.
Habeas corpus was first won in the 14th century. I know Republicans yearn for some mythical "good old days," but this is ridiculous.
It would be nice if Ann Althouse held forth an opinion on this, rather than just report the case. That's what blogs do best.
In other news, a European commission reports US forces have been abducting children in Bush's misbegotten "War on a Noun."
"Also according to Mohammed, he and Majid were detained in the same place where two of Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s young children, ages about 6 and 8, were held. The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs, and were denied food and water by other guards. They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding."
We needn't make ourselves into beasts over this thing. Doing so damages our image and makes it harder to prevail.
Story
Report
Here's another quote from one of the judges:
“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, “even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country.”
“We refuse to recognize a claim to power,” Judge Motz added, “that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.”
Strong words. And spot on.
So this guy has been abducted and thrown in a military brig for four years and stripped of his Constitutional rights.
"Mr. Marri was charged with credit-card fraud and lying to federal agents after his arrest in 2001, and he was on the verge of a trial on those charges when he was moved into military detention in 2003."
It's funny how conservatives, who don't think that government can do anything right, assume that the government only nabs bad guys and never the innocent.
Conservatives reject "innocent until proven guilty" and practice the perverse "guilty with no chance to prove innocence."
Clearly, modern conservatives now believe government can do no wrong.
On my failure to express an opinion: I have to read the case more closely. It's long, and I don't have time right now to do it properly. This does represent an opinion that I think the issue is difficult. I don't have a readymade opinion to treat you to, because I'm not an ideologue.
"An alien captured and detained within the United States... has a right to habeas corpus protected by the Constitution's Suspension Clause."
I often wondered about that Roswell creature. OK he was dead at the time, but did he really want to be here?
Maybe I just assumed the piece was going to say "Hey look, even an alien would have rights so why not foreign nationals?"
It's funny how conservatives, who don't think that government can do anything right, assume that the government only nabs bad guys and never the innocent
I think you're getting confused. Most conservatives I think want little government involvement in thier daily lives, that is, no nanny state. I think few conservatives would disagree that the government's obligations are to defend the national security.
Are innocent people being nabbed? Probably. The fact of the matter is that the concept you seem to be embracing is that every one picked up on the battlefield is provided a trial. That's ridiculous. If we nab say 50 Taliban in a raid, you are seriously contemplating that we set up trials in our criminal court system?
Hoosier...you are quite wrong. The oath of office is to support and defend the constitution of the united states.
you are mixing the "provide for the national defense" from the preamble to the constitution.
i wish you looneytunes on the rightwing would get your stuff right for once.
Hdhouse,
I'm really impressed by your response to my post. Ad hominum attack but no response to the substance of my post.
No comment on the "Magnificent Seven" or their activities? Want more from Democrat judges? Try Anna Diggs Taylor, Denny Chin, Mark Bennett, and John Koeltl. If you respond, I'll provide the details on cases decided by these judges as well. But the PowerLine link has alot of details and has never been refuted.
Democrat judges do not respect the rule of law in political cases. That's my premise and you've seen my supporting arguments.
How hard is this to understand. If you are a foreign national within the US illegally, you have no HC nor Constitutional Rights.
Pretty hard, considering it conflicts with the text of the Constitution.
How hard is this to understand? The President may not deprive a lawful resident of the United States of his Constitutional rights based on his sole and unreviewed designation of such person as an enemy combatant?
Ann says:
"I don't have a ready made opinion to treat you to, because I'm not an ideologue."
I see. It's a bad thing to have formed views on issues that have been discussed for several years now. That means you're a bad person - an ideologue.
I understand your process to establish your views would be much more rigorous than mine, based on law, precedence and maybe even the Constitution and all that.
But that's your type of answer whenever it comes up, if you answer the question. I hope at some point you'll lay off calling others who have formed views names and put your own views together - before this Long War is over.
Me, I don't think the AUMF implies jack about repealing habeas for anyone. I consider our legal traditions not to be a weakness but a strength.
And flouting the Constitution is weakening our nation by weakening our moral standing. Security is about more than brute force.
And I don't trust our government to incarcerate the right people all the time. Gitmo has proved that.
For those who care, Jim Taranto of OpinionJournal.com has a comment on this case here. BTW, he refers to the majority judges as "Clinton nominees."
Why is it always "Clinton nominees?"
"This makes clear the perversity of the court's reasoning. By its logic, alien terrorists are entitled to all the constitutional rights of civilians provided that they manage to stay out of Afghanistan and do their planning in America. The 9/11 terrorists, had they been caught, would have enjoyed more rights under this scheme than some low-level Taliban foot soldier."
Jim...your arguments remind me of the story of the boy who pissed in the lake. I forgot what the point of that story was but suffice it to say your "arguments" are equally outside the realm of memory.
You made NO substanative arguments. You presented no logical theory. You are, unfortunately, hot air. There is no proof whatsoever to your theory nor any factual basis to it either. Mostly it is just rightwing bullshit, just more moan and groan.
Are you an adult? do you have all your brain or did you loose part of it by accident or disease? its ok of you did because it would explain a heck of a lot but don't pass that weak shit off here as argument or proof.
Is that the best cheese you got?
I fail to see why illegal aliens believe they should have rights under our Constitution...
If you haven't signed onto the Constitution by becoming a US citizen, it doesn't apply to you. Simple enough.
hdhouse - Now we come to this decision where it says, basically, you cannot deny habeas corpus - giving the fundemental right to, for instance, within the rules of the court, see the evidence before you because you don't even have a right to be in court.
Nonsense.
You are stuck on stupid, in the sense that you are part of the contingent that tries force-fitting civilian law onto enemy combatants trying to kill us.
A hostile enemy cannot only be denied habeas, they may be killed without trial.
Their non-combatant support element may be killed without trial even if unarmed and not presently threatening anyone - in the field. Civilians near enemy forces may be killed without trial if their "side-effect destruction" is necessary to defeat the enemy forces or resources critical to the enemy.
Enemy seeking to infiltrate their force disguised and out of uniform for espionage, sabotage, terror may be killed without trial (we did it routinely in the Civil War then sporadically in WWII, some in Korea, watched Korean MPs execute infiltrators on the spot, watched the ARVN and VC do it in Vietnam)
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Despite efforts by the Left to work around the unanimous verdict of Ex Parte Quirin or undermine it with claims "International Law" trumps it, Quirin still stands.
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Alphalib - Habeas corpus was first won in the 14th century. I know Republicans yearn for some mythical "good old days," but this is ridiculous.
And when it was created in Europe, and ever since, in France, in UK, whatever - it never applied to people of groups designated as violent enemies of the State. Be they pirates, civilian Rudolf Hess parachuting in, IRA terrorists, volunteers or involuntary draftees of the enemy military or enemy civilians working for enemy military.
They were held without trial until war concluded or prisoner exchanges were arranged with the enemy.
One area Al Qaeda and other Islamoids are somewhat negligent on. We would probably happily exchange the likes of which Diana Motz and her liberal cabal blubbers over for Nick Berg, US soldiers AQ has abducted, WSJ reporter Perlman. Unfortunately, Islamoids don't believe in keeping prisoners alive..let alone without true physical torture and terror infliction...
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hdhouse to tjl - Why do you want the US to be perceived as the USSR was (the best of a bad lot)? Why do you hate America so much you want it to be so regarded? Do you spit on the flag? Do you use the constitution for toilet paper?
Why are you soooo full of hatred for this country?
People that seek to defend American citizens from foreign or traitorous US unlawful enemy combatants do not hate this country. They know the greatest deprevation of civil liberties is through murder or enemy soldier slaughter of your own people.
The most odious of all humans are those that side with, give comfort to such lethal threats, hdhouse.
Your insinuation that those that oppose your love of enemy killers rights are the true traitors that "spit on the Flag" and other unpatriotic things only bespeaks to your inner fear that the history books will one day assign to the enemy rights loving Left the same revulsion for sedition and undermining the nation as they give those who collaborated with the Muslims in their occupation of Spain and were expelled with them. the Copperhead Democrats, the Bolsheviks.
hdhouse - no tjl....i had a family member grabbed in Russia in the 60s. You remember, the nation that you loved to hate?
By the 60s, the Russians had recognized an elite enemy within, utterly disloyal to Russia. In it only for themselves. The Cosmopolitans, or Transnationalist Trotskyite revanchists they were called. A dilemma for the Russians because they wanted that group gone for the good of the nation, but the group was in many critical job positions. The 60s started the harassment campaign to reduce their power and clout over Russia.
Were you referencing a Cosmopolitan relative, hdhouse?
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alphalib - So this guy has been abducted and thrown in a military brig for four years and stripped of his Constitutional rights.
"Mr. Marri was charged with credit-card fraud and lying to federal agents after his arrest in 2001, and he was on the verge of a trial on those charges when he was moved into military detention in 2003."
In your zeal to defend the enemy whose "rights" you cherish so much, you admit from your "credit card" story the facts that the Islamoid attended 2 terror camps in Afghanistan, had a dozen phone calls or emails to KSM the 9/11 Mastermind while he was in the USA, and reffused to defend himself or account for the money he got from abroad.
Yeah, yeah, I know! You would say" HOW DARE the USA snoop on his private phone calls and emails to AQ operatives!!!
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Hoosier Daddy - I agree more than disagree with you. But let me disagree with you on France and their superb nuclear power program. Non-polluting, CO2 and particulate free nuclear power is considered helpful in aiding France's world-best health care system by reducing chronic diseases. (Awaits the usual attack by jingoistic conservatives that claim America's system is the greatest, like all our stuff is..(if you happen to be very wealthy))
Just found this while reading news elsewhere and thought I'd share with the Althouse community:
“It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they’re doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”
Nuremberg prosecutor says Guantanamo trials unfair
I hope this brings some moral clarity to the issue. We need to put our trust in principles and laws, not frail humans.
I fail to see why illegal aliens believe they should have rights under our Constitution...
If you actually read the Constitution you might see why. Let me know if you find any "except for illegal aliens" clauses in the Bill of Rights.
At any rate, your point is irrelevant, because al-Marri isn't an illegal alien.
Cedarford, it really shouldn't take so many words to say "RRRGGHH! I hate liberals!! The President should be able to indefinitely detain whoever he wants as long as he wants!!" You seem to think the "war on terror" metaphor justifies anything - do you feel the same way about the "war on drugs"? How about the "war on poverty"?
You guys are treating the accusations as facts. You're comparing soldiers of nation states captured on the battlefield to civilians captured in public or otherwise abducted.
These things are not the same. If we abduct civilians who are not in committing violent acts, we need to presume innocence, hold a trial, and show the world the strength ands the justice of our way of life - NOT toss our values into the ash can as too inconvenient.
At root we seem to have a very flaccid support for American principles of jurisprudence on the right. I say that with sincere sadness that we no longer have a consensus of what it means to be American. These values are what that "freedom" Bush keeps repeating is all about.
I miss my country.
Yeah, cedarford, thanks for the exchange, but brevity is the stuff eloquence. Or something like that.
alpha liberal - Yeah, cedarford, thanks for the exchange, but brevity is the stuff eloquence. Or something like that.
Sorry, your sedition and near-treason don't lend themselves to zippy one-liners. Even military tribunals or superior officers ordering summary executions of unlawful combatants tend to use more than a few sentences...
alpha lib - You guys are treating the accusations as facts.
I noticed that you were careful to omit his dozen calls to the 9/11 mastermind. You just mentioned that the poor Islamoid was arrested for credit card fraud then "whisked away by the Gov't without "trial"." Nice piece of duplicity on behalf of your Islaoid ally.
alphalib At root we seem to have a very flaccid support for American principles of jurisprudence on the right.
Again you confuse jurisprudence with warfare..
I miss my country.
The Soviet Union is gone. Sorry. But you still have Cuba.
Joshua - If you actually read the Constitution you might see why. Let me know if you find any "except for illegal aliens" clauses in the Bill of Rights.
That is the problem with most Lefties. Reading the document ass backwards, insisting no other documents or laws guide us and inform our nation. Ignorance that any element of the Constitution exists besides very selected portions of the Bill Of Rights and the stupid in the absence of context "Congress shall declare war" boilerplate Lefties that hate military love to recite. (Lefties omit the 2nd Amendment, parts of the 1st, 5th, all of the 9th and 10th...and claim the right to divine the 1st as absolute on freedom of speech and the 14th as having all sorts of hidden meanings like the Constutional Rights to gay marriage and cornholing..)
Obviously, if such anti-Americans ever start from the beginning, they will notice it begins We the People of the United States. Not "We the People plus all the wretched refuse of other countries teeming shores invading against our laws."
It didn't mean "The People" back in 1793 included the British Empire, the Viceroyalty of Mexico, various cannibals and savages of the 3rd World. It took the 13th Amendment to fix it so the slaves were brought in under the Constitution. I haven't seen an Amendment that did what the 13th did and add illegal Mexicans or enemy Islamoid combatant teams coming in.
You all will just have to either forgive or ignore Cedarford..he get's crazy every once in a while (or sane rarely..not sure though) and rants on for a bit, calls everyone traitors, puts on his little brownshirt and goosesteps around his basement apartment...then he finds his pills and disappears for a while.
You'll get used to being called either a commie or a traitor (like there is a vast communist conspiracy - probably in his closet). But pay him no mind. He is on the sinking ship "Bush" (better known as the good ship lollipop) and realizes that he will have to compete with the rats and mice who are traditionally (other than Captain Bush) the last to leave the sinking ship. Gutten Nacht Herr Cedarford.
Oh cute, Copperhead hdhouse invokes Godwin.
At root we seem to have a very flaccid support for American principles of jurisprudence on the right. I say that with sincere sadness that we no longer have a consensus of what it means to be American. These values are what that "freedom" Bush keeps repeating is all about.
So let me ask this question. Do you think that a suspected terrorist should have access to classified intelligence as part of evidence sharing? Because that is exactly what they would be entitled too under civilian trials. Further, are you suggesting that every combatant captured on the field be given a civilian trial? So some goat herder turned Taliban captured in Afghanistan get’s shipped to a Federal prison so he can get a trial?
Sorry guys but that completely flies in the face of reason. Cedarford was exactly right in that while habeous corpus has been around awhile, no nation which had adopted it ever applied it in times of war (conventional or irregular) mainly because it was impossible to implement let alone, self-defeating.
This is just a dead horse anymore because Alpha, HD and the like see the terrorists as individual criminals such as bank robbers and not as part of an organization with a central ideology and goal of destroying our society. So while you can be sincerely sad that we don’t know what it means to be American, please remember your history and realize that we’ve been down this road before under Lincoln, Wilson and FDR who did far worse than Bush has even thought of.
I just wanted to share this one. Glenn Greenwald studies the opinion, has an opinion.
Here's one of his points:
"Absent suspension of the writ of habeas corpus or declaration of martial law, the Constitution simply does not provide the President the power to exercise military authority over civilians within the U.S."
Is it martial law yet?
"Hoosier Daddy" (wait, now I get it! "Who's your daddy?")sez:
"HD and the like see the terrorists as individual criminals such as bank robbers and not as part of an organization with a central ideology and goal of destroying our society. "
No. I see the accused as accused. I don't doubt these groups want the ends you describe. If we dismantle our Constitution, however, they are succeeding in destroying our society, with help from our "leadership."
Remember when they said Jose Padilla wanted to blow up a dirty bomb? Funny, they didn't charge him with that. These guys politicize everything and are not to be trusted.
"Do you think that a suspected terrorist should have access to classified intelligence as part of evidence sharing?"
I'll trust the system let the judges decide what can be shared and what cannot be shared.
cedarford, if you think yu have all the evidence and that people should be locked up based on newspaper reports and leaks from investigators and prosecutors, then you're a dangerous idiot.
And calling people who disagree with you traitors (words to that effect) is childish. Especially when the actions you advocate undermine our national values.
The bottom line is that the right wing doesn't care how many innocent people they kill or torture. Whether it's in Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, or here in the United States.
Al qaeda is by no means as dangerous as Hitler. And if we're in a war for our very survival, why don't we have someone else besides military families sacrificing? Why didn't Bush get Osama bin Laden?
What a bunch of sorry, twisted bullshit.
Reading some of the bizarre comments here, I'm struck by how little the right wing supports our system of government that they will toss it away in fright from a band of thugs in caves.
But while American conservatives would happily shred the Constitution...
.. they won't go after the Saudis funding the terrorists. It's not that important.
...they won't insist on improved fuel economy standards so we reduce our funding of the enemy.
...they won't step back from their keyboard and serve.
...they won't repeal tax cuts for the wealthy to help pay for the war.
American conservatives want to suspend Constitutional safeguards indefinitely in a "war" with no end, no way of knowing when it ends and no incentive on the behalf of the President to say "we won" (and thereby relinquish power).
George Washington must be spinning in his grave.
On my failure to express an opinion: I have to read the case more closely. It's long, and I don't have time right now to do it properly. This does represent an opinion that I think the issue is difficult. I don't have a readymade opinion to treat you to, because I'm not an ideologue.
Your commenters seemed to have ignored you so far. It shows that you are simply the fishwoman feeding her tank occupants. That you post something without having read it, and excuse your doing so because of time constraints is insulting to those who actually produce something every day and blog too.
Why not honestly say when you link to this or that that you are just looking for a topice that will set off your comment section?
If you haven't had the time to read the opinion, as a law professor, how can you copy and paste the opinions of others without evaluating the quaility of their analysis?
Please just admit that this blog is nothing more than the random thoughts in your head and that you offer little analysis of topics that you are not intimately involved in?
I know you get published in the NYT. So? There was this woman named Judy who did too. NBD.
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