Restore Habeas Corpus Now

[frankfrank]

Not to mention the unpleasant fate that would likely await them if they were handed over to the governments of Afghanistan or Iraq where the large majority of them were taken in arms.

Sometimes the detainees ARE "handed over to the governments" of countries like this, and tortured into giving utterly useless "confessions." It's called extraordinary rendition. An innocent Canadian (a Syrian native) was picked up changing planes in New York, and flown to Syria by "our" CIA where he was tortured for months.

And I'd like to know more about the "confession" of Khalid Sheik Muhammad. It's like he's confessing to everything, but the story seems to have vanished as fast as it surfaced a few days ago. It's like he confessed to everything except the 1994 Northridge earthquake and being on the "grassy knoll" when John F. Kennedy was shot - uh - maybe he just forgot about those? It almost sounds like the kind of "reliable confessions" that come out of torture, or from jailhouse snitches, etc. Yes, lhe's confessed to all this stuff. The mysteries have ben SOLVED!

The right of habeas corpus, as written in the Magna Carta, was intended to be ETERNAL and unconditional for all of mankind.

To paraphrase a quotation from SOMEBODY a few decades ago:
First they came for the unionists, but I didn't resist, because I wasn't a unionist.
Next they came for the Communists, but it was OK - I wasn't a Communist.
Next they came for the sick and infirm, but that was OK, because I was healthy.
Next they came for the Jews, but I didn't resist, because I wasn't a Jew.
Next they came for the Gays, and...uh oh...

 

[SixPackInBoxers]

This is the lead edotorial from today's Washington Post:


Spectacle at Guantanamo
The new legal system for holding and trying detainees produces a predictable mess.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007; Page A12


THE SUPREME Court's decision not to consider, for now, the denial of appeal rights for foreign prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, when combined with the results of the first criminal case held there, vividly demonstrates the folly of the legal scheme for detainees that Congress hastily approved last year. David Hicks, the 31-year-old Australian who was the first person to be brought before the special military commissions Congress sanctioned, escaped with a plea bargain that will free him after he serves nine more months in an Australian prison. Mr. Hicks pleaded guilty last week to a terrorism charge; a prosecutor described him as "an enemy" who was "trying to kill Americans."

Yet while Mr. Hicks goes home, nearly 300 Guantanamo inmates who almost certainly will never be charged with any crime continue to face indefinite detention, without the right to challenge their imprisonment under the ancient right of habeas corpus. Their only recourse is the review panels set up by the Pentagon, where they cannot be represented by lawyers and don't have access to the classified evidence that is often used against them. Some may be genuinely dangerous militants; some are almost certainly victims of mistaken identity or men who fit the description Mr. Hicks's lawyer gave of him -- a hapless "wannabe" who never tried to kill anyone.

Far from resolving the mess at Guantanamo, Congress's decisions and the Bush administration's use of them has deepened the quagmire. Senior al-Qaeda suspects formerly held in secret CIA prisons are finally being produced for quasi-public hearings -- but the administration is censoring their allegations of torture, which only strengthens suspicions that the CIA is covering up illegal activity.

The Hicks case has meanwhile demonstrated that the commissions can be politically twisted in a way that would be inconceivable in a credible court of law. Mr. Hicks's guilty plea was the result of a deal made by the Bush political appointee who oversees the commissions; to be returned to Australia, Mr. Hicks agreed to stipulate that he has "never been illegally treated" -- despite his previous allegations to the contrary -- and promised not to speak to reporters for a year. That means he will return home before the expected reelection bid of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a close ally of President Bush.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates was right when he told a congressional hearing last week that "there is a taint" about Guantanamo and that trials there "lack credibility" in "the international community." Mr. Gates said he'd like to see Guantanamo closed and Congress pass new legislation to govern those prisoners who must still be held. Those are good goals that may take time to reach. That's why Congress should take the immediate remedial action that is available: restoring habeas corpus appeal rights to all prisoners at Guantanamo.

 

[69Strat]

David Hicks, the 31-year-old Australian who was the first person to be brought before the special military commissions Congress sanctioned, escaped with a plea bargain that will free him after he serves nine more months in an Australian prison. Mr. Hicks pleaded guilty last week to a terrorism charge; a prosecutor described him as "an enemy" who was "trying to kill Americans."

Hicks will serve his nine months and be right back in business. IMO, he shouldn't be allowed back into mainstrean society.

Yet while Mr. Hicks goes home, nearly 300 Guantanamo inmates who almost certainly will never be charged with any crime continue to face indefinite detention, without the right to challenge their imprisonment under the ancient right of habeas corpus.

Untrue, some of the detainees have been released. Those that haven't, likely belong there. The solution to Quantanamo Bay is rather obvious, it's time for the International community to step up to the plate and build a detention facility where they can permanantly house and rehabilitate these misfits, with their money.

 

[Nishin]

It wasn't proven wrong, as there WERE enemy combatants captured on the battlefied with wpns, in addition to the other scenarios that have been mentioned; a no fucking brainer, btw.

My guess would be information obtained during interrogations, investigations, threat assessment relating to detainees, diplomatic and consulate channels, political pressure, medical reasons, etc.

Combining these two comments, I guess it safe to assume that according to you, all remaining detainees are guilty and that it can be proven...
So why are they not being trialed ? WHO are the enemy combatants ? What's their sentence? Can we see the proofs?

You are in no position to second guess the decisions that were made in a war zone and often under combat conditions.

And when we are not in position to second guess the decisions, YOU are in position to validate them?? Do you know something we don't?

You haven't spent any time gathering evidence in a war zone, so you don't know for sure if the intelligence was or wasn't good.

That's precisely the point, where are the gathered evidences so that we can know for sure if intelligence was or wasn't good?

Untrue, some of the detainees have been released. Those that haven't, likely belong there.

Likely?? Is this justice or lottery?? They're either guilty or not, if they're guilty, there must be evidences to prove it.

4. Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody.
This 86% of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.

Hello??? Are you not underestimating the power of greed?

"Legally", the CSRT (Combatant Status Review Tribunals) are supposed to determine if the detainees are "unlawful enemy combatants". It has been argumented that the CSRT are not compliant with the Geneva Conventions.
We should just blindly believe an administration that has been proven to lie and mislead??

But getting back on topic, is Habeas Corpus a universal right? The US administration, House and Senate decided it wasn't (Military Commissions Act of 2006), granting themselves the right to suspend habeas corpus for any alien determined to be an “unlawful enemy combatant" engaged in hostilities or having supported hostilities against the United States.
However:

55% of the detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the USA or its coalition allies.

Of course there is a trick... they don't have to be determined (aka proven to be, by a lawful tribunal) to be terrorists, they conveniently can only be "awaiting such determination"... indefinitly.

On January 17, 2007, Attorney General Gonzales asserted in Senate testimony that while habeas corpus is "one of our most cherished rights," the United States Constitution does not expressly guarantee habeas rights to United States residents or citizens.

As such, the law could be extended to US citizens and held if left unchecked.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic....DTL&hw=gonzales+habeas+corpus&sn=001&sc=1000

 

[69Strat]

Combining these two comments, I guess it safe to assume that according to you, all remaining detainees are guilty and that it can be proven...
So why are they not being trialed ? WHO are the enemy combatants ? What's their sentence? Can we see the proofs?

I've already said that I have no problem with military tribunals.

And when we are not in position to second guess the decisions, YOU are in position to validate them?? Do you know something we don't?

There is nothing for me to validate since I give the benefit of the doubt to the military personnel on the ground, including those in charge of the custody and control of the detainees. In your case, you are using emotional reasoning to approach an issue which you have no first hand information about, as you were not on the ground when they were captured or brought into custody.

"Legally", the CSRT (Combatant Status Review Tribunals) are supposed to determine if the detainees are "unlawful enemy combatants". It has been argumented that the CSRT are not compliant with the Geneva Conventions.

IMO, the Geneva Convention should be amended to better reflect the asymmetrical nature of terrorism and how this new war should be fought.

But getting back on topic, is Habeas Corpus a universal right? The US administration, House and Senate decided it wasn't (Military Commissions Act of 2006), granting themselves the right to suspend habeas corpus for any alien determined to be an “unlawful enemy combatant" engaged in hostilities or having supported hostilities against the United States.
However:

Of course there is a trick... they don't have to be determined (aka proven to be, by a lawful tribunal) to be terrorists, they conveniently can only be "awaiting such determination"... indefinitly.

You don't like the way the Bush administration or Congress handles things, which is your prerogative. Nevertheless, enemy combatants are not entitled to habeas corpus relief in American courts.

I am confident that in the case of a detainee being innocent that the system currently in place will address it. In light of the fact that some of the detainees have been released seems to indicate that it is working to a reasonable degree. Moreover, these detainees are not POWs under the GC and need not be treated as such.

 

[Kulindahr]

Some of them may, indeed, deserve our sympathy. But it's worth remembering that most, if not all, would do far worse to any of us if they had the chance...

That sounds very much like it's okay to punish the innocent so long as we keep some of the dangerous locked away.

??

 

[Kulindahr]

Let's see, enemy combatants captured on the battlefield carrying a variety of military wpns, along with the caches that are siezed. Yup, sounds like they're innocent.

That covers only a small portion of the detainees.

Or are you another who doesn't mind punishing innocent people as long as we get a bunch of guilty ones in the net?

 

[calvar]

That sounds very much like it's okay to punish the innocent so long as we keep some of the dangerous locked away.

??

Thanks for trying to twist my words. The point I was making is that the people detained in Guantanamo have received far better/fairer treatment than what they and their comrades have meted out when they're beheading journalists, flying airplanes into buildings, blowing up Iraqis and their families for joining the police and trying to building societies where it's OK to treat women like animals and kill gay people because it's part of 'God's law'.

But in a larger sense, there isn't a justice system anywhere in the world that hasn't seen mistakes made and innocent people punished. Human beings are flawed and even the best intentioned of us will make mistakes. There are thousands of people wrongfully imprisoned, even in coutries like Canada and the USA, with their only 'crime' they're being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In a perfect world, it wouldn't happen, but in a perfect world, people wouldn't fly airplanes into buildings filled with other people whose only crime was also to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Idealism is wonderful but making ideals work involves compromise with an imperfect world and even, sometimes, choosing the lesser evil. A justice system that, however unintentionally, punishes some innocent people is the price we pay for avoiding anarchy...

 

[Kulindahr]

Thanks for trying to twist my words. The point I was making is that the people detained in Guantanamo have received far better/fairer treatment than what they and their comrades have meted out when they're beheading journalists, flying airplanes into buildings, blowing up Iraqis and their families for joining the police and trying to building societies where it's OK to treat women like animals and kill gay people because it's part of 'God's law'.

But in a larger sense, there isn't a justice system anywhere in the world that hasn't seen mistakes made and innocent people punished. Human beings are flawed and even the best intentioned of us will make mistakes. There are thousands of people wrongfully imprisoned, even in coutries like Canada and the USA, with their only 'crime' they're being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In a perfect world, it wouldn't happen, but in a perfect world, people wouldn't fly airplanes into buildings filled with other people whose only crime was also to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Idealism is wonderful but making ideals work involves compromise with an imperfect world and even, sometimes, choosing the lesser evil. A justice system that, however unintentionally, punishes some innocent people is the price we pay for avoiding anarchy...

It looks like you're assuming from the outset that everyone there is guilty.

As for idealism, I'll stand with the Founding Fathers of the U.S. of A., holding that it is better to let a hundred (or thousand) guilty walk free than to punish one innocent person.

 

[calvar]

It looks like you're assuming from the outset that everyone there is guilty.

No more than I assume that everyone else imprisoned in Canada and the U.S. is guilty...

As for idealism, I'll stand with the Founding Fathers of the U.S. of A., holding that it is better to let a hundred (or thousand) guilty walk free than to punish one innocent person.

Ah yes, the USA's Founding Fathers, who with their 'idealism', were content to leave 1/5 of their fellow countrymen (and women) in bondage, based on the colour of their skin... sounds like letting the innocent walk free to me.

 

[69Strat]

As for idealism, I'll stand with the Founding Fathers of the U.S. of A., holding that it is better to let a hundred (or thousand) guilty walk free than to punish one innocent person.

If the FF's were around today, none of the captured detainees would have survived, much less made the trip to Quantanamo Bay.

 

[SixPackInBoxers]

"The Constitution of the United States stands as a bar against the conviction of any individual in an American court by means of a coerced confession. There have been, and are now, certain foreign nations with governments dedicated to an opposite policy: governments which convict individuals with testimony obtained by police organizations possessed of an unrestrained power to seize persons suspected of crimes against the state, hold them in secret custody, and wring from them confessions by physical or mental torture. So long as the Constitution remains the basic law of our Republic, America will not have that kind of government."
US Supreme Court, 1944

This is just a reminder of one of the reasons that Americans and their Allies layed down their lives in the Second World War and should stand as an answer to those in this misguided Administration and their unfortunate believers, like 69Strat who never lets the facts get in the way of their misguided prejudices.

 

[calvar]

"The Constitution of the United States stands as a bar against the conviction of any individual in an American court by means of a coerced confession. There have been, and are now, certain foreign nations with governments dedicated to an opposite policy: governments which convict individuals with testimony obtained by police organizations possessed of an unrestrained power to seize persons suspected of crimes against the state, hold them in secret custody, and wring from them confessions by physical or mental torture. So long as the Constitution remains the basic law of our Republic, America will not have that kind of government."
US Supreme Court, 1944

This is just a reminder of one of the reasons that Americans and their Allies layed down their lives in the Second World War and should stand as an answer to those in this misguided Administration and their unfortunate believers, like 69Strat who never lets the facts get in the way of their misguided prejudices.

Yes, very nice. Except do remember that FDR willingly rounded up tens of thousands of Japanese Americans and interned them without charging/trying them. So did the Canadian government. Winston Churchill, when he came to power in the UK in 1940, ordered the arrest and imprisonment of over a thousand suspected Fifth Columnists. Some were soon released, but many were held for the duration of the war, again without charges.

Churchill and Roosevelt were both great believers and upholders of the principles of democracy and freedom. But it's foolish to pretend that they were not prepared to take whatever steps they judged necessary to preserve that freedom. If we today have the ability and luxury to sit and discuss these points, let us not forget that it's because FDR and Churchill fought and won their wars, often by being just as ruthless and resolved as their enemies.

Now, I'm certainly the last person who would try to exalt the current US President to the standards of leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt, nor do I come close to supporting everyting he's done. But I'm also very tired of hearing many of his critics sitting around and mouthing platitudes without offering workable alternatives of how to deal with people who are willing to die in order to bring an end to, not only our freedoms, but our very lives!

 

[SixPackInBoxers]

Fear, though, is what has allowed President Bush to do what he has been doing. Leave aside the failure of intelligence (or perhaps only wanting to hear what one wanted to hear), or the failure of diplomacy, the antagonising of so many of the US’s allies, even the unwillingness to learn the lessons of other nations’ history or to have any meaningful plan in Iraq to win the peace. Serious as those failures are there is something even more invidious involved here - the quiet ebbing away of democracy. Generations to come will find that even the fearful North American internment of the Japanese Americans during the second World War will not have inflicted so lasting a debasement of, nor will have done more violence to, Western democratic ideals than the precedent setting "Patriot Act" (even the name ‘is a refuge for scoundrels’). This allows for the intelligence agencies to work together but it was also designed for the unimaginable situation of the ‘Great Democracy’ permitting the detention of individuals secretly and indefinitely without knowledge of their being held or the most basic aspect of justice - access to a lawyer. This was bound to lead inexorably to further human rights abuses.

Edward R. Murrow, that very great American, broadcasting in 1946 to the British soon after the end of that War, which he had chronicled so brilliantly from their soil, shared these observations:

"I believe that I have learned the most important thing that has happened in Britain during the last six years. It was not, I think, the demonstration of physical courage. That has been a cheap commodity in this war. Many people of many nations were brave under the bombs. I doubt that the most important thing was Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain, El Alamein or Stalingrad, not even the landings in Normandy or the great blows struck by British and American bombers. Historians may decide that any one of these events was decisive.

"But I am persuaded that the most important thing that happened in Britain was that this nation chose to win or lose this war under the established rules of parliamentary procedure. It feared Nazism but it did not choose to imitate it. The government was given dictatorial power but it was used with restraint and the House of Commons was ever vigilant. Do you remember that while London was being bombed in the daylight the House devoted two days to discussing conditions under which enemy aliens were detained on the Isle of Man? Though Britain fell there were to be no concentration camps here. Do you remember two days after Italy declared war an Italian citizen, convicted of murder in the lower courts, appealed successfully to the highest court in the land, and the original verdict was set aside? There was still law in the land, regardless of race, nationality or hatred. Representative government, equality before the law survived.

"Future generations who bother to read the official record of the proceedings in the House of Commons will discover that British armies retreated from many places but that there was no retreat from the principles for which your ancestors fought. The record is massive evidence of the flexibility and toughness of the principles that you profess. It will, I think, inspire and lift men's hearts long after the names of most of the great sea and land engagements have been forgotten. It was your answer to the question that was asked all around the world in the decades before that Sunday in September 1939. The question was "What has happened to the soul of Britain?" Your answer was conclusive. And I have been privileged to see an entire people give the reply to tyranny that their history demanded of them."

It was his and our lesson from that terrible conflict. It sums up the essence of the legacy left to us by the men and women of so many nations who fought and gave their lives for something they believed was more important to the world than themselves. Murrow’s words are an eloquent reminder that the democracy handed on to us is but a strong distillation in a fragile vessel. In unsteady hands it can easily be shattered. A similar question to the one Murrow posed over sixty years ago is facing the American people today. Upon their answer in 2008 much of the future freedoms of the world will lie.

 

[calvar]

I'm sorry, but I see little difference now to Murrow's points in '46. Are not elections still held? Isn't Congress sitting? Appeals courts hearing cases? Anti-War demonstrations permitted? Dissent freely expressed every day on Television, Radio and the Internet?

You invoke the judgement of posterity with great certainty and, I believe, far too much ease. Future generations may indeed make judgements lamenting the actions already undertaken this decade, or they could be indoctrinated/terrorized into daily praises of Caliph bin Ladin and his successors.

But I certainly don't agree with your assessment that the impact of 300 detainees in Guantanamo can be judged far more debasing than the detention of tens of thousands in the 1940s. Nor do I see the Patriot Act as any more precedent-setting than the Offical Secrets Act or the War Measures Act that were invoked and constantly used in Britain and Canada in the 1940s to detain people on mere suspicion (without evidence or charges), to shut down newspapers, impose censorship, prohibit assemblies and, in Great Britain, override the limits placed on the length of parliament to function without recourse to the people through a General Election.

You have eloquently condemmed the power of fear and the reprehensible reprecussions it can have on our freedoms. But it is also possible to invoke fear of those loss of freedoms to such an extent as to inihibit or prevent those charged with defending us to do their job effectively from the possible future of a Caliph bin Laden and his successors.

 

[Kulindahr]

The sort of abuse of power we are watching in Washington, D.C. is, as several have noted, hardly unique to this administration. It has been exhibited also by many whom we now arguably consider praiseworthy, including not only those named above, but others such as Lincoln -- the tradition of trampling on the Constitution in the name of liberty or of the Republic is a long one.
Let those gone before, at least, generally remembered that ours in America is a Republic first and foremost, not a democracy. Rights and liberties are higher than the will of the people, and that, as Benjamin Franklin so rightly argued, is the hallmark of the Republic, where the well-armed lamb may stand against the vote where the wolf majority determined what to have for dinner.
Nothing must supersede rights and liberty, neither the will of the people, not "safety", nor "this present danger", nor anything else. If, for a time, it is deemed necessary to act in more arbitrary a fashion than is proper, those who so decide must stand ready to make amends and restitution, else our ideals are hollow at worst, tarnished at best.
Nor is the blame entirely that of the administration which acts arbitrarily; it lies also with those who handed over the authority to do so, or at the least which is used as an excuse to do so. In the current situation, all those who stormed onto the bandwagon of the so-called "USE PATRIOT" Act are guilty of collusion, and any of those number who campaign for the office now abused, without pledging to undo all which has been established with the result of making these thing possible are guilty of conspiracy in the acts themselves.
It is not enough to complain or decry; words are cheap. Where is the one who will pledge to tear down the walls of secrecy, the bastions of arbitrary power, the citadels of privileged authority?