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Supreme Court restores habeas to Gitmo, giving yet another setback to Bush (pg. 4)
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
That's a good question... tricky to answer because I believe in treating people fairly. But this is so much more complicated than a simple yes or no answer. I don't believe in extending constitutional rights of American citizens to people in other places around the world who are not citizens, and who are being detained as enemy combatants, or whatever catchy phrase used to classify them. They should not have access to American lawyers funded by taxpayer money, and given the same luxuries we have under citizenship. All of these detainees are going to get hearings before a US district judge, and they are going to be able to make the case that they are not enemy combatants. They're going to lawyer up, and they're going to have plenty of ACLU-type lawyers defending them on the content, in the sense that they're not enemy combatants, and then the judge decides. And if the judge says, "You know what, we think you're right, Sahib. You're not an enemy combatant," then he has to be released, and the US government has gotta release the guy, when technically they are prisoners of war captured on the "battlefield." Individual judges have been given the choice to decide whether or not they believe each person in the enemy. If you're gonna grant these people constitutional rights, at what point do you say, "Okay, those are all the constitutional rights you get." It's a slippery slope, you know? Are we gonna turn over more and more aspects of fighting a war to the Supreme Court and the US judiciary, or are we gonna leave it where it's always been constitutionally: in the executive, the commander-in-chief? |
I think it's interesting that you don't trust our justice system to be able to try terrorists, even though we use it to sentence our own citizens to death all the time. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
I think it's interesting that you don't trust our justice system to be able to try terrorists, even though we use it to sentence our own citizens to death all the time. |
Huh? Who said anything about a death sentence? That's a different issue all together. It is true though that my faith in our justice system isn't all that strong, but that's not what this is about. I'm saying we should not grant special privileges to these people under the protections of our Constitution that are made for American citizens. These are people who want to destroy our way of life, strap suicide bombs to women and mentally retarded people, and actually believe that it's their moral duty to kill us... I have no sympathy for them and do not think for a second we should give them additional opportunities and benefits they have no business having. There are too many soft people in this country that are more concerned with the welfare of these individuals who want to kill us than protecting our own people. If your brother or sister or parent was killed by one of them proclaiming it was their obligation to Allah or whatever, you'd change your tune pretty quick I think. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
I'm saying we should not grant special privileges to these people under the protections of our Constitution that are made for American citizens. |
then your values are meaningless/worthless. |
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
These are people who want to destroy our way of life, strap suicide bombs to women and mentally retarded people, and actually believe that it's their moral duty to kill us |
Allegedly. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
If you don't think that habeas corpus is important, you need to read this article:
| quote: | America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men
By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers
GARDEZ, Afghanistan — The militants crept up behind Mohammed Akhtiar as he squatted at the spigot to wash his hands before evening prayers at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
They shouted "Allahu Akbar" — God is great — as one of them hefted a metal mop squeezer into the air, slammed it into Akhtiar's head and sent thick streams of blood running down his face.
Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as "the worst of the worst."
But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo's Camp Four who hissed "infidel" and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn't: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.
"He was not an enemy of the government, he was a friend of the government," a senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. Akhtiar was imprisoned at Guantanamo on the basis of false information that local anti-government insurgents fed to U.S. troops, he said.
An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.
McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.
This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.
The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.
Prisoner mistreatment became a regular feature in cellblocks and interrogation rooms at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, the two main way stations in Afghanistan en route to Guantanamo.
While he was held at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base, Akhtiar said, "When I had a dispute with the interrogator, when I asked, 'What is my crime?' the soldiers who took me back to my cell would throw me down the stairs."
The McClatchy reporting also documented how U.S. detention policies fueled support for extremist Islamist groups. For some detainees who went home far more militant than when they arrived, Guantanamo became a school for jihad, or Islamic holy war.
Of course, Guantanamo also houses Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, who along with four other high-profile detainees faces military commission charges. Cases also have been opened against 15 other detainees for assorted offenses, such as attending al Qaida training camps.
But because the Bush administration set up Guantanamo under special rules that allowed indefinite detention without charges or federal court challenge, it's impossible to know how many of the 770 men who've been held there were terrorists.
A series of White House directives placed "suspected enemy combatants" beyond the reach of U.S. law or the 1949 Geneva Conventions' protections for prisoners of war. President Bush and Congress then passed legislation that protected those detention rules.
However, the administration's attempts to keep the detainees beyond the law came crashing down last week.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that detainees have the right to contest their cases in federal courts, and that a 2006 act of Congress forbidding them from doing so was unconstitutional. "Some of these petitioners have been in custody for six years with no definitive judicial determination as to the legality of their detention," the court said in its 5-4 decision, overturning Bush administration policy and two acts of Congress that codified it.
One former administration official said the White House's initial policy and legal decisions "probably made instances of abuse more likely. ... My sense is that decisions taken at the top probably sent a signal that the old rules don't apply ... certainly some people read what was coming out of Washington: The gloves are off, this isn't a Geneva world anymore."
Like many others who previously worked in the White House or Defense Department, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the legal and political sensitivities of the issue.
McClatchy's interviews are the most ever conducted with former Guantanamo detainees by a U.S. news organization. The issue of detainee backgrounds has previously been reported on by other media outlets, but not as comprehensively.
McClatchy also in many cases did more research than either the U.S. military at Guantanamo, which often relied on secondhand accounts, or the detainees' lawyers, who relied mainly on the detainees' accounts.
The Pentagon declined to discuss the findings. It issued a statement Friday saying that military policy always has been to treat detainees humanely, to investigate credible complaints of abuse and to hold people accountable. The statement says that an al Qaida manual urges detainees to lie about prison conditions once they're released. "We typically do not respond to each and every allegation of abuse made by past and present detainees," the statement said.
LITTLE INTELLIGENCE VALUE
The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren't "the worst of the worst." From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn't belong there.
Of the 66 detainees whom McClatchy interviewed, the evidence indicates that 34 of them, about 52 percent, had connections with militant groups or activities. At least 23 of those 34, however, were Taliban foot soldiers, conscripts, low-level volunteers or adventure-seekers who knew nothing about global terrorism.
Only seven of the 66 were in positions to have had any ties to al Qaida's leadership, and it isn't clear that any of them knew any terrorists of consequence.
If the former detainees whom McClatchy interviewed are any indication — and several former high-ranking U.S. administration and defense officials said in interviews that they are — most of the prisoners at Guantanamo weren't terrorist masterminds but men who were of no intelligence value in the war on terrorism.
Far from being an ally of the Taliban, Mohammed Akhtiar had fled to Pakistan shortly after the puritanical Islamist group took power in 1996, the senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. The Taliban burned down Akhtiar's house after he refused to ally his tribe with their government.
The Americans detained Akhtiar, the intelligence officer said, because they were given bad information by another Afghan who'd harbored a personal vendetta against Akhtiar going back to his time as a commander against the Soviet military during the 1980s.
"In some of these cases, tribal feuds and political feuds have played a big role" in people getting sent to Guantanamo, the intelligence officer said.
He didn't want his name used, partly because he didn't want to offend the Western officials he works with and partly because Afghan intelligence officers are assassinated regularly.
"There were Afghans being sent to Guantanamo because of bad intelligence," said Helaluddin Helal, Afghanistan's deputy interior minister for security from 2002 to early 2004. "In the beginning, everyone was trying to give intelligence to the Americans ... the Americans were taking action without checking this information."
Nusrat Khan was in his 70s when American troops shoved him into an isolation cell at Bagram in the spring of 2003. They blindfolded him, put earphones on his head and tied his hands behind his back for almost four weeks straight, Khan said.
By the time he was taken out of the cell, Khan — who'd had at least two strokes years before he was arrested and was barely able to walk — was half-mad and couldn't stand without help. Khan said that he was taken to Guantanamo on a stretcher.
Several Afghan officials, including the country's attorney general, later said that Khan, who spent more than three years at Guantanamo, wasn't a threat to anyone; he'd been turned in as an insurgent leader because of decades-old rivalries with competing Afghan militias.
Ghalib Hassan was an Interior Ministry-appointed district commander in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, a man who'd risked his life to help the U.S.-backed government. Din Mohammed, the former governor of that province and now the governor of Kabul, said there was no question that local tribal leaders, offended by Hassan's brusque style, fed false information about him to local informants used by American troops.
The Pentagon declined requests to make top officials, including the secretary of defense, available to respond to McClatchy's findings. The defense official in charge of detainee affairs, Sandra Hodgkinson, refused to speak with McClatchy.
The Pentagon's only response to a series of written questions from McClatchy, and to a list of 63 of the 66 former detainees interviewed for this story, was a three-paragraph statement.
"These unlawful combatants have provided valuable information in the struggle to protect the U.S. public from an enemy bent on murder of innocent civilians," Col. Gary Keck said in the statement. He provided no examples.
Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, until recently the commanding officer at Guantanamo, said that detainees had supplied crucial information about al Qaida, the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
"Included with the folks that were brought here in 2002 were, by and large, the main leadership of al Qaida and the Taliban," he said in a phone interview.
Buzby agreed, however, that some detainees were from the bottom rung.
"It's all about developing the mosaic ... there's value to both ends of the spectrum," he said.
Former senior U.S. defense and intelligence officials, however, said McClatchy's conclusions squared with their own observations.
"As far as intelligence value from those in Gitmo, I got tired of telling the people writing reports based on their interrogations that their material was essentially worthless," a U.S. intelligence officer said in an e-mail, using the military's slang for Guantanamo.
Guantanamo authorities periodically sent analysts at the U.S. Central Command "rap sheets on various prisoners and asked our assessment whether they merited continued confinement," said the analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "Over about three years, I assessed around 40 of these individuals, mostly Afghans. ... I only can remember recommending that ONE should be kept at GITMO."
'WAR COUNCIL' REWRITES DETAINEE LAW
At a Pentagon briefing in the spring of 2002, a senior Army intelligence officer expressed doubt about the entire intelligence-gathering process.
"He said that we're not getting anything, and his thought was that we're not getting anything because there might not be anything to get," said Donald J. Guter, a retired rear admiral who was the head of the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps at the time.
Many detainees were "swept up in the pot" by large operations conducted by Afghan troops allied with the Americans, said former Army Secretary White, who's now a partner at DKRW Energy, an energy company in Houston.
One of the Afghan detainees at Guantanamo, White recalled, was more than 80 years old.
Army Spc. Eric Barclais, who was a military intelligence interrogator at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan from September 2002 through January 2003, told military investigators in sworn testimony that "We recommended lots of folks be released from (Bagram), but they were not. I believe some people ended up at (Guantanamo) that had no business being sent there."
"You have to understand some folks were detained because they got turned in by neighbors or family members who were feuding with them," Barclais said. "Yes, they had weapons. Everyone had weapons. Some were Soviet-era and could not even be fired."
A former Pentagon official told McClatchy that he was shocked at times by the backgrounds of men held at Guantanamo.
" 'Captured with weapon near the Pakistan border?' " the official said. "Are you kidding me?"
"The screening, the understanding of who we had was horrible," he said. "That's why we had so many useless people at Gitmo."
In 2002, a CIA analyst interviewed several dozen detainees at Guantanamo and reported to senior National Security Council officials that many of them didn't belong there, a former White House official said.
Despite the analyst's findings, the administration made no further review of the Guantanamo detainees. The White House had determined that all of them were enemy combatants, the former official said.
Rather than taking a closer look at whom they were holding, a group of five White House, Justice Department and Pentagon lawyers who called themselves the "War Council" devised a legal framework that enabled the administration to detain suspected "enemy combatants" indefinitely with few legal rights.
The threat of new terrorist attacks, the War Council argued, allowed President Bush to disregard or rewrite American law, international treaties and the Uniform Code of Military Justice to permit unlimited detentions and harsh interrogations.
The group further argued that detainees had no legal right to defend themselves, and that American soldiers — along with the War Council members, their bosses and Bush — should be shielded from prosecution for actions that many experts argue are war crimes.
With the support of Bush, Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the group shunted aside the military justice system, and in February 2002, Bush suspended the legal protection for detainees spelled out in Common Article Three of the 1949 Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, which outlaws degrading treatment and torture.
The Bush administration didn't launch a formal review of the detentions until a 2004 Supreme Court decision forced it to begin holding military tribunals at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court ruling last week said that the tribunals were deeply flawed, but it didn't close them down.
In late 2004, Pentagon officials decided to restrict further interrogations at Guantanamo to detainees who were considered "high value" for their suspected knowledge of terrorist groups or their potential of returning to the battlefield, according to Matthew Waxman, who was the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, the Defense Department's head official for detainee matters, from August 2004 to December 2005.
"Maybe three-quarters of the detainees by 2005 were no longer regularly interrogated," said Waxman, who's now a law professor at Columbia University.
At that time, about 500 men were still being held at Guantanamo.
So far, the military commissions have publicly charged only six detainees — less than 1 percent of the more than 770 who've been at Guantanamo — with direct involvement in the 9-11 terrorist attacks; they dropped the charges in one case. Those few cases are now in question after the high court's ruling Thursday.
About 500 detainees — nearly two out of three — have been released.
During a military review board hearing at Guantanamo, Mohammed Akhtiar had some advice for the U.S. officers seated before him.
"I wish," he said, "that the United States would realize who the bad guys are and who the good guys are."
HOW FOOT SOLDIERS, FARMERS GOT SWEPT UP
How did the United States come to hold so many farmers and goat herders among the real terrorists at Guantanamo? Among the reasons:
After conceding control of the country to U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, top Taliban and al Qaida leaders escaped to Pakistan, leaving the battlefield filled with ragtag groups of volunteers and conscripts who knew nothing about global terrorism.
The majority of the detainees taken to Guantanamo came into U.S. custody indirectly, from Afghan troops, warlords, mercenaries and Pakistani police who often were paid cash by the number and alleged importance of the men they handed over. Foot soldiers brought in hundreds of dollars, but commanders were worth thousands. Because of the bounties — advertised in fliers that U.S. planes dropped all over Afghanistan in late 2001 — there was financial incentive for locals to lie about the detainees' backgrounds. Only 33 percent of the former detainees — 22 out of 66 — whom McClatchy interviewed were detained initially by U.S. forces. Of those 22, 17 were Afghans who'd been captured around mid-2002 or later as part of the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, a fight that had more to do with counter-insurgency than terrorism.
American soldiers and interrogators were susceptible to false reports passed along by informants and officials looking to settle old grudges in Afghanistan, a nation that had experienced more than two decades of occupation and civil war before U.S. troops arrived. This meant that Americans were likely to arrest Afghans who had no significant connections to militant groups. For example, of those 17 Afghans whom the U.S. captured in mid-2002 or later, at least 12 of them were innocent of the allegations against them, according to interviews with Afghan intelligence and security officials.
Detainees at Guantanamo had no legal venue in which to challenge their detentions. The only mechanism set up to evaluate their status, an internal tribunal in the late summer of 2004, rested on the decisions of rotating panels of three U.S. military officers. The tribunals made little effort to find witnesses who weren't present at Guantanamo, and detainees were in no position to challenge the allegations against them.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38773.html
It's infuriating that Scalia, a strict constructionist, would deliberately go against the intent of the document in order to fear-monger. No shame. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
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yeah, that was pretty much my point. the manner in which so-called "enemy combattants" were captured left much to be desired and the assumption that those in gitmo are necessarily the "worst of the the worst" seems pretty misplaced to me. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
then your values are meaningless/worthless. |
LOL... why, because I want our country's constitution to apply only to those who it was intended for? Because I believe judges should focus on interpretation of the law rather than using it to enact social policy based on personal beliefs? If anything is worthless, it's your statement. Who are you to make that claim about my personal values? Maybe you believe we can all sit together, hold hands, and sing "We Are The World," and tell them how much we want them to like us and understand us, and that will work. They'll see how compassionate we are and say, "forget this jihad thing... these are good people... let's pack up and go home." |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
LOL... why, because I want our country's constitution to apply only to those who it was intended for? Because I believe judges should focus on interpretation of the law rather than using it to enact social policy based on personal beliefs? |
wow, good job at utterly missing the point.
Either you think the american constitution is an admirable legal construction designed to protect those in your country from the long arm of your law(s), or you don't. either you think that those kidnapped from their country of residence should have a right to challenge their incarceration according to the rights prescribed by the law of the land you brought them to, or you don't.
are you really going to argue that the US can (and does) whatever the they want outside their own borders, but are not bound by general decency because "oh, these people fall outside our constitutional framework" so essentially they can treat them any how they choose?
If you do believe that then your great american values (you know, the ones youre spreading all over the middle east at the minute) are worthless.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Who are you to make that claim about my personal values? |
please highlight the part where I commented on your own personal values.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Maybe you believe we can all sit together, hold hands, and sing "We Are The World," and tell them how much we want them to like us and understand us, and that will work. They'll see how compassionate we are and say, "forget this jihad thing... these are good people... let's pack up and go home." |
are you trying to look like an idiot or is it just coincidental? |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
wow, good job at utterly missing the point.
Either you think the american constitution is an admirable legal construction designed to protect those in your country from the long arm of your law(s), or you don't. either you think that those kidnapped from their country of residence should have a right to challenge their incarceration according to the rights prescribed by the law of the land you brought them to, or you don't.
are you really going to argue that the US can (and does) whatever the they want outside their own borders, but are not bound by general decency because "oh, these people fall outside our constitutional framework" so essentially they can treat them any how they choose?
If you do believe that then your great american values (you know, the ones youre spreading all over the middle east at the minute) are worthless.
please highlight the part where I commented on your own personal values.
are you trying to look like an idiot or is it just coincidental? |
Every time you turn into a super cynical jerkoff when trying to give one of your holier than thou retorts, you end up looking like the idiot.
Now such people are being "kidnapped" from their country of residence? I DON'T think people taken in as enemy combatants should be allowed to challenge their incarceration in a U.S. court, funded by taxpayers, when they have never been on U.S. soil and are not citizens... what's so f*cked up about that? Wake up... it's during a time of war on the battlefield where they are getting scooped up. Why are you defending the decency of those who would stab you through the heart the second you set them free, for no other reason than you aren't a muslim? I can see you're one of those that think it's admirable and all the rage to blame US policy for all the ills of the world... maybe if you grew up here and lived here, you'd have a different perspective.
And, you just said "values/morals"... you didn't specify American national values or personal, and I took it as personal... simple misunderstanding there due to vagueness |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Every time you turn into a super cynical jerkoff when trying to give one of your holier than thou retorts, you end up looking like the idiot. |
being called an idiot from some random neocon is quite the compliment. at least i dont hide behind some alt when expressing my opinion.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Now such people are being "kidnapped" from their country of residence? |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
If you don't think that habeas corpus is important, you need to read this article: |
did you even read that report? what would you call the removal of a citizen from their country against their will but with absolutely ZERO evidence to support the charge you are taking them for? until you provide me with a better word than "kidnapping" i shall continue to use it.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
I DON'T think people taken in as enemy combatants should be allowed to challenge their incarceration in a U.S. court, |
but somehow its ok for your country to kidnap foreign citizens without having to prove anything against them?
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
funded by taxpayers, |
what has that got to do with anything? your army is funded by tax payers and i dont see you complaining about their use as guardsmen at gitmo.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
when they have never been on U.S. soil |
ooooh, i love this point the most.
So what youre really saying is that the US can take anyone they like (which is basically how it worked in afghanistan) and as long as they keep them away from some arbitrary line on a map, then they can be treated differently to everyone else. That basic human rights only apply to a few people, and only when we say that they do. I'm glad such decisions are ultimately decided by legal experts rather than populist law breakers that you seem to support.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
and are not citizens... what's so f*cked up about that? |
well where does one start? Once you capture the enemy, they become YOUR responsibility and are governed by YOUR rules and regulations. Please explain why you think otherwise.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Wake up... it's during a time of war on the battlefield where they are getting scooped up. |
nice choice of word there, "scooped". makes it sound rather random and arbitrary doesn't it. so, when someone declares a time of war they are suddenly absolved of any and all responsibilities with how they conduct that war? they can grab anyone inside the supposed "war zone" and are guilty by virtue of their place of birth? gotcha.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Why are you defending the decency of those who would stab you through the heart the second you set them free, for no other reason than you aren't a muslim? |
because its that quality that makes me (and western society) better than they are.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
I can see you're one of those that think it's admirable and all the rage to blame US policy for all the ills of the world... |
just goes to show what a clueless wit you are then doesn't it. nothing can be further from the truth, but its nice to see you fall into the tried and tested position of "with us or against us". george junior would be really proud.
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
maybe if you grew up here and lived here, you'd have a different perspective. |
yeah, a much more limited and insular perspective no doubt. no thanks, im much happier in a country who's democratic principles are the best in the world. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
being called an idiot from some random neocon is quite the compliment. at least i dont hide behind some alt when expressing my opinion.
did you even read that report? what would you call the removal of a citizen from their country against their will but with absolutely ZERO evidence to support the charge you are taking them for? until you provide me with a better word than "kidnapping" i shall continue to use it.
but somehow its ok for your country to kidnap foreign citizens without having to prove anything against them?
what has that got to do with anything? your army is funded by tax payers and i dont see you complaining about their use as guardsmen at gitmo.
ooooh, i love this point the most.
So what youre really saying is that the US can take anyone they like (which is basically how it worked in afghanistan) and as long as they keep them away from some arbitrary line on a map, then they can be treated differently to everyone else. That basic human rights only apply to a few people, and only when we say that they do. I'm glad such decisions are ultimately decided by legal experts rather than populist law breakers that you seem to support.
well where does one start? Once you capture the enemy, they become YOUR responsibility and are governed by YOUR rules and regulations. Please explain why you think otherwise.
nice choice of word there, "scooped". makes it sound rather random and arbitrary doesn't it. so, when someone declares a time of war they are suddenly absolved of any and all responsibilities with how they conduct that war? they can grab anyone inside the supposed "war zone" and are guilty by virtue of their place of birth? gotcha.
because its that quality that makes me (and western society) better than they are.
just goes to show what a clueless wit you are then doesn't it. nothing can be further from the truth, but its nice to see you fall into the tried and tested position of "with us or against us". george junior would be really proud.
yeah, a much more limited and insular perspective no doubt. no thanks, im much happier in a country who's democratic principles are the best in the world. |
Things you are 100% wrong about, but assume anyway:
1) That I am a neocon
2) That I am an ALT... what would I be hiding from?
3) That the evil USA is kidnapping foreign citizens for no good reasons.
Of course I have no problem having a military funded with taxpayer money... why would I?
I'm not saying it's ok to go take anyone they like... you are putting words in my mouth. It sounds like, until you hear the detainees side of the story, who have all the reason in the world to lie in that circumstance, you refuse to believe there was a reason to be taken into detention.
If boundaries on maps are just arbitrary lines, what's the point of any nation having any sovereignty?
Since when do prisoners of war equal instant citizens? That's too easy to explain.
Nitpicking my use of the word "scooped" is going too far... your argument on that point is adding words and meaning where nothing was said and nothing was meant in the way you are assuming.
Great... by Western society virtues, you're better than they are. Score! Hope you enjoy feeling that superiority when you're dead after they don't give a f*uck about your virtues and kill you anyway.
Dude you are the king of thinking you can pick apart anyone's thoughts that disagrees with you, and showing them how stupid they are and how smart you are once they read the magic that comes from your explanations. It comes off as pure condescending arrogance... not that you don't already know this. It must be lonely at the top man. |
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