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Some of you are going to claim that the Military Commissions Act only applied to non-citizens, and therefore was not in violation of our rights. I believe that there are 3 very important things that should be recognized by those of you following this line of thought.

Firstly, it is not our rights as outlined by the Bill of Rights that should be left unviolated by our government's actions; No, those are simply the express rights we make sure are on paper. Our government has NO power by default, and may only have power under the express permission of it's people. There are a great deal of powers given to our government, checks and balances withstanding, but the power to withhold one of the cornerstones of America, much less liberty is hardly one of them.

Secondly, the Bill of Rights, and the liberty that we stand for is not something exceptionally given to citizens of America. They are not privileged rights of a higher class, but instead are expected rights of human beings as a whole. Liberty is a concept of equality, not state superiority. To hold and try anyone without first finding them guilty of some crime is a direct offense of our nation's stand for liberty, and the rights we afford all of mankind.

Lastly, Habeas Corpus is a simple yet effective way from limiting our governments ability to unlawfully hold anyone against their will without finding them absolutely guilty, first. It does not create loopholes, means of escape, or sympathy. It simply holds a government responsible for its detainments. To lift this right is to admit guilts of inhumane detainments, mistaken sentences, and rights violations. There is no other reason to lift such a concept, even for non-citizens, than to carry out unlawful and inhumane actions without public or world interference.

(Also, I understand that this is only the Judiciary Committee, and that it will still have to pass in both the house, the senate, and be signed by the president (which it wont) and then be overruled, but I have no doubt that these things will happen. The rest of the MCA afforded some much-needed powers, and thus was passed despite it's habeas corpus slander. Very few Americans with any knowledge of the writ will disagree. 8/19 is still a frightening number, though.)

To reinstate Habeas Corpus is to redeclare and reassure this nation that liberty will prevail. I for one am hopeful.

[Haha, fixed link.]

lol having boidy

As a life long democrat, who has spent countless hours working with the party, this is the first thing in a long time that has given me hope for the party I really believe in and have slaved over for years.

tl;dr

This really isn't a party issue, though. Shame on liberals for misconstruing the MC Act as applying to all citizens, and shame on conservatives who would have ever seen habeas corpus threatened in the first place. That doesn't make it a party issue, though. Liberals would see a MORE liberal nation than the status quo, where conservatives would see a MORE conservative nation. Habeas Corpus is an expected and natural right and liberty, not a political promise.

I was actually very worried that the first act of a new democratic president would be to reinstate Habeas Corpus as some kind of statement, as opposed to a reinstatement of liberty. It's best done the legal way via the people (ie the senate/house) than via the illegal way in which it was taken.

You crazy latinboys and your burgers.

Wait...

The act is ambiguously written, and some of the provisions within the act do not say "alien enemy combatants", but merely "enemy combatants". it applies to anyone the government sees fit. They can certainly make a case to take private U.S. citizens to prison.

Although that's the great thing about it! You'd never hear about it! Your writ of habeas corpus is suspended and you can't seek relief from your imprisonment!

To say it's not a party issue is kind of blind. While the republicans controlled the Judiciary Committee and the Congress, they passed the MCA, when the democrats have control of the Committee, they have sought to restore Habeas Corpus. Your feelings of the parties withstanding, these are the facts. To call the motives into question may be a better argument, but when talking about the Democratic party and the Republican party, don't talk in terms of "conservative" or "liberal", those terms are antiquated and to a certain degree no longer apply to these parties.

What do you mean by "the illegal way it was taken", by the way? It was taken via a senate / house vote, and signed by the president, as dictated by the Constitution.

Also, this whole argument is moot anyway, it's going to be vetoed by Bush.

No no, I agree with you, I'm just saying it shouldn't be a "Habeas Corpus is a Democrat's ideal." Habeas Corpus is an American ideal.

And it was illegally taken because Habeas Corpus should be amended if removed/withheld, and thus heard by the supreme court.

Seems the Constitution defines it as a privilege.
[quote=Article 1. Sec. 9]"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."[/quote]
Our Constitution allows for the writ to be suspended. Although "invasion" is kind of a stretch, ja?

AMERICANS ARE AT IT AGAIN.

JOB WELL DONE.

BURGERBOYS.

I don't understand the logic behind that. Not everyone is an American, and should not be afforded the rights of an American.

Guantanamo is a POW camp, if you will, but people seem to be too ignorant to recognize that fact because those detained do not bear a nation's uniform. They are illegal combatants, and are not protected by the Third Geneva Convention because they VIOLATE THE TERMS OF THE CONVENTION. You can debate or berate this as much as you want, but it is a simple truth. The MCA was enacted to define rights and the process to obtain rights since these people are not protected under the Third Geneva Convention.

At any rate, this whole motion is stupid, because the President can veto this bill, should it pass (and why wouldn't he?). The Supreme Court has upheld the right for the terms of suspension of habeas corpus (it's in the constitution itself) which allowed the MCA to be enacted. It has been upheld in appeals made by illegal combatants because they have no rights until being classified.

Anyway, your ignorance about the MCA is laughable. The MCA was enacted further define illegal combatants under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. The MCA clearly states that only an "alien" detained by the US has no right for any appeals to any court of jurisdiction until he has been properly classified in a Combatant Status Review Tribunal. Any US citizen cannot be tried under this act because they are citizens.

So, if you're going to try and restore Habeas Corpus to any enemy douche bag, you need to go back further and have earlier acts revoked. I don't know why you'd want to do that, in all honesty, because the MCA defines rights for those who legally have NONE.

It does not clearly state that. There are multiple sections within the act where it only specifies an "enemy combatant", and not an "alien enemy combatant", thus it can be easily construed that it applies to legal United States citizens, and that could hold up in court because of the ambiguity of the act.

No one is doubting that there's bad people in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're arguing that there are alot of people that are being wrongly imprisoned, these people should have every right to defend themselves before some sort of court, instead of being left to rot having done nothing wrong.

The reinstation of habeas corpus, even to enemy combatants, is not because it's legal....

It's because it's the right thing to do

It's because it's AMERICA.

Why do you have a problem with giving enemy combatants fair trial?

BECUZ THEY R EVIL TERRISTS

TERRISTS!

DHEY TUK AR JABS!

Please allow me to explain the viewpoint of those of us from other countries.

The issue here isn't the fact that you are capturing, imprisoning, trying and then sentencing your enemies. This is reasonable and inarguably a necessary process.

What we object to are the various inhumane and unjust methods Americans use in order to apprehend these so-called 'illegal combatants.' Extraordinary rendition? Please. Your government uses the CIA to abduct private citizens from their own soil, even when your government has an extradition treaty with ours, because you know you don't have any proof. You cart them off to countries like Syria where they have no laws against torture and then you ship them off to Guantanamo Bay so they can't tell the press about it.

The American people have scruples. Your elected officials do not. Bush's military tribunal laws weren't meant to "give rights to people who have none," they were made to keep the American people - good people - in the dark so they can't object to the evils of your elected corporate-sponsored sociopaths.

VERY much what Jon`C said, and what I tried to touch on. To withhold parts of Habeas Corpus from ANYONE is an attempt to avoid public admittance of unlawful and illegal activity's. Be that torture, murder, or accidental and unwarranted detainment, it is against Habeas Corpus, which protects ALL individuals; not just ones with 6 years residence in our country. There's absolutely NO reason that anything you (blood asp) said can't still happen while habeas corpus, the entire writ, is available to detainees. We can still fight a war, we can still have POWs and we can still use almost any means necessary to obtain information that could save lives. All within the bounds of Habeas Corpus.

I am positively delighted that someone as enlightened and gifted as you would choose to disagree with me.

"Enemy combatants" who do not wear uniform should not be kept in camps and put in the same category as terrorism suspects. If you fight that dirty and in a way that uses civilians as cover, you should be simply shot on the spot. That's the way thing have been done for the last hundreds of years of military warfare and there's no reason for that to change now.

Putting Americans citizens in places like Guantanamo with out a trail is really bad though. Anything even close to that needs to stop ASAP. Safety is one thing, but if that's what you have to do to get it you really aren't safe any more. Fortunately, I think that no matter who wins the election, it will stop just about as soon as he/she is elected.

...describes most of SOCOM operators that hide in civilian populations.

Yeah but we get ****ing pissed when Johnny Recon gets strung up and chopped apart in some dirthole because he was wearing a mandress and not so much as a pair of dogtags.

That attiude works if we are willing to enfore a tremendous double standard. We can execute your guys for being sneaky, but god damn, if you want to mess with OUR improperly uniformed guys who are breaking international law, THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY!

You wacky liberals!

Spook makes a fantastic point. We consider videotaped beheadings of 1st world country soldiers to be horrendous, and we cry Geneva Conventions until our face goes blue. We get a hold of one of their guys, and suddenly it's "Just cap that stupid ****er in the back of the head!" I don't care how blindly militant or what religion-that-wants-to-see-all-Americans-dead s/he is, I want to live in a country that knows exactly why they're killing someone, and it better be a goddamned good reason, too.

The question is, do you really trust the US government enough to believe that everyone in Guantanamo deserves to be there? But, hey, the government has never violated the people's rights and has always respected non-Americans, so I guess we have nothing to worry about.

People have been released, so some obviously did not deserve to be there. However, there have been some reported cases of detainees that were released only to be captured yet again in battle, soon finding themselves back in Guantanamo. Honestly, how can you win in this situation?

Outside of that, the US has to protect it's own people first. It is one of the many duties of our government. If our troops come under fire from combatants, we have a right to capture and detain them. We have to know what is being planned, who is involved, etc. I would rather see a detainee go through some uncomfortable times and live than for us to kill him outright and have more of our troops die from the lack of potential intelligence that detainee could provide.

I don't understand why our politicians raise such a stink over POWs in a detainment camp from outside pressures. These detainees are there because they were captured or are suspected of terrorist activities. They will receive a trial or be released. Why should we have to guarantee them a right to a speedy trial when he don't have all the information to try them fully? We don't detain our own people for trial because in most circumstances (there are many exceptions) we build a case against the accused, then apprehend and try them. We don't have that luxury in times of war. We cannot just process and release a suspected terrorist and then pick him or her back up when we are ready for a hearing.

These people receive better treatment in our facilities while being detained than most Americans citizens get domestically in our own prison system. We are viewed as the bad guys because we are seeking a means for protecting our citizens through relatively humane treatment. We are not the ones beheading captives and sending video tapes of the events to the media worldwide. We guarantee a right to an eventual trial, not a bullet to the back of the head.

We are better than the fanatics because we do adhere to a list of standards when there is no legal reason to do so. Our own soldiers are so badly restrained by the ideals of political correctness that they cannot fully perform their duties. Often, they are killed or wounded because they cannot fire at anyone unless fired upon first. How ****ed up are we to say that things aren't progressing fast enough when we make our own people sitting ducks in armed conflict? To top it off, we bastardize our own because they can't get it done quickly enough for our taste (or foreign taste, for that matter) within the guidelines we've imposed upon them.

Military personnel operating at or behind enemy lines out of uniform have always been considered spys and been shot. I would expect no less if I were caught in such a situation. It's just one of the dangers of that particular job. Even so there is a difference between being shot and tortured to death by fanatical morons.

The difference between what they do and we do, is that they wear civilian cloths in regaler battle, not just to go undetected, but also take advantage of our desire not to harm civilians. They intentionally endanger the lives of civilians to protect them selves. Recon is one thing, that's quite another.

Because they don't play by the rules, we shouldn't play by the rules? Yes, that's going to really cause change and a more progressive war.

And blood asp, you seem to misunderstand what Habeas Corpus is. You're arguing with no one in this thread right now. Habeas Corpus guarantees a trial, period. It's intended to insure that we've got the right guy, or that we've got the right to hold him against his will. It doesn't afford them the right to leave their camps, nor does it stop intelligence gathering. Habeas Corpus is an optional writ that someone who believes they're being held unfairly can opt for. There's NO reason to opt for it if there's overwhelming obvious evidence against you, so it's barely practiced. Simply having the writ in practice is what makes our military detain morally.

I agree with you on a lot of what you said, too. I think our military should be given the proper ability to carry out the task at hand. Shoot before being shot, etc. I don't think we should be able to hold anyone we want without the proper check in place, however.

The Constitution was purposely given contradictory stances on who gets implicit powers. The supremacy clause states that any powers not expressly stated in the Constitution is the domain of the federal government while the 10th Amendment says that all powers not expressly given out are the domain of the States or people. I believe this was done this way so that later generations could come to their own conclusions about which implicit powers the federal government has and which implicit powers the State and people have. This is really neither here nor there concerning your overall point, though. Just a technical clarification. I agree with the rest of your post. If our rights are supposed to be inalienable and endowed upon us by our Creator, doesn't that transcend nationality and citizenship? Personally, I think "enemy combatants" held on US soil(this includes Gitmo) should have the right to due process. Even from the cold-hearted fiscal perspective, why continue to pay to hold prisoners that show no substantial evidence to harm you?


....a priviledge that is not to be suspended unless in cases of rebellion of invasion, as you pointed out. Neither are happening right now.

And then we reduce ourselves to the ruthless killers we claim to be fighting.

No, they won't. Current policy does not, in practice, give them the guarantees of ANY kind of trial, much less a fair and speedy one. I believe it is this way because of the lack of substantial checks on the policy.

I have no problem with being ruthless in the heat of battle, as dictated by how ruthless the enemy themselves want to be and how exploitive they are of our original ROE. But when things settle down, in legal matters, that's another story. I'm not sure if I'm agreeing with you or half-agreeing. I think it's the former.

Here's something fun: how about you go prove that? You know why it's fun? Because you can't, especially for SOCOM operators.


Yes, at least until recon turns into that other thing. Which has happened plenty of times before, and will happen plenty of times again.

What are you talking about? Why would you have to be a SOCOM operator to know that?

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

Read article four. POWs have uniforms. If not they are considered spys, and spy are usually shot.

Reason being, the government should bear no enmity toward the average grunt. He's just doing what he's told, and often forced to fight. That's just the way it goes. Killing them after they surrender would just be murder. People who use the general population as cover do not fall under that catagory, and aren't really in a position to expect such mercy. Is it war, after all.




I'm pretty sure that the idea of a progressive war is an oxymoron. Wars for killing people that you can't reach an agreement with. I don't think it gets any less progressive than that.

Your views are frightening.

We're in a war where the enemy doesn't wear uniforms. If a uniform makes a difference in what rights and human mercy you afford a person, then you're kind of ruing the concept of human rights in the first place. "We're at war, so disclosure of inhumane treatment towards enemies who don't all wear the same color makes sense." If you can't see why the summary frightens me, you're breathing too much American air. Stop thinking it's a republican's duty to withhold the rights of our enemy. You're offending your own party.

You realize that the guys I'm talking about aren't normally deployed against forces that follow Geneva, right?

Yeah. Also, consider that all this business about Geneva Conventions and Hague Accords is really poppycock. God I love that word.

Those resolutions were made when we were fighting a different kind of war. They are fast becoming outdated. War is not conventional like it used to be. More and more often our forces are doing the same thing that our enemy is doing; Throwing on a mandress to blend into the crowd.

And don't anybody DARE to tell me I'm wrong, because I KNOW. And I'm not even SOCOM or any sort of SF. Regular infantry has and will continue to do thing like dressing up in civilian clothing and disappearing into crowds. Hell, the line between combat and SASO is getting blurred more everyday. The line between conventional and unconventional nearly does not exist.

The way we classify prisoners of war is outdated and needs to be refigured. Period.

EDIT:Also, they aren't POWs, they're EPWs. POWs are our guys, EPWs are guys we are holding. The media always ****s it up.

What he said.