Guantanamo bay

[Dinner]

In a war zone all rights to habius corpus are none applicable. This is how it has always been and this is how it rightly belongs. You don't have to prove anything to anyone and anyone with a weapon who doesn't have a uniform on is automatically an unlawful xombatant who can be lined up against a wall and shot.

The US is has benovolently agreed not to shot them on sight and instead as agreed to hold them until Al Quada is disbanded.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by skywalker
STUPID. If they tell you what it is, don't you think that would get rid of the entire point of keeping it secret?!

Personally, I've never seen a good reason why they can not have reasonable trials under the evidence rules of the UCMJ.

[Whaleboy]

What makes you so special

Looks at crotch

That you must pass judgement on anything before it is true?

For something to be either conditional or indepedent evidence in a court, it has to be shown to be true. Thats pretty basic really.

No, the Geneva convention says they DON'T have to prove it.

They don't have to show that people captured are unlawful combatants?? If that is the case, then the US can throw people in this camp at their will, and ignore whether or not that is true because they dont have to prove it??!! That is outrageous!!

[Odin]

Here is a solution to the intellegence info problem: let the jury read it and have them swear under oath that they will not give any top secret info to the public.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by skywalker
No, the Geneva convention says they DON'T have to prove it

Where did you get this pile of ****?

In other such discussions I've quoted the Geneva convention several times where it points out that there should be an impartial and competent board which examines the case of each prisoner independently. An executive order from the POTUS which delineates the standards used to judge the status of the prisoners (other than those described by the Convention) limits by definition the competence of any board which hears cases. As well, the secret board returned its verdicts so quickly I doubt they spent any significant amount of time reviewing the individual cases, and more likely made mass decisions based on location/time of capture.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by elijah
Looks at crotch

For something to be either conditional or indepedent evidence in a court, it has to be shown to be true. Thats pretty basic really.

Sometimes it is harmful for the truth to be released. Why should your demand for the truth override the law?

They don't have to show that people captured are unlawful combatants?? If that is the case, then the US can throw people in this camp at their will, and ignore whether or not that is true because they dont have to prove it??!! That is outrageous!!

No. Yes. No, because if it is really abused, people will dislike it, and we live in a democracy, remember? Thus whether or not it is abused depends on the majority opinion.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by elijah
I'll dig out US history textbook and PM you.

Elijah: I am probably one of the best educated people you have ever met when it comes to US history. I really know that stuff in side and out and I'm telling you there is nothing in the Constitution which states violating a treaty like the Geneva Convention is constitutional. BTW no violations of the GC have even occured so shouldn't you be give spoecific examples of violations or exact quotes of the constitution before you tell everyone else they are wrong?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: Guantanamo bay

Originally posted by elijah
Firstly.. WHY???

How about your backyard instead?
They're not lawful combatants. The fact that we didn't summarily execute them means we've already gone beyond what is required.

Secondly... Why not ordinary civilian courts? Isn't there double standards when the only American citizen there is tried under civilian juries etc? Also the two British guys up for trial there look like they have some hope, though the Americans don't want the same legal opportunities given to the rest of the prisoners. Why not?

See above. They are unlawful combatants. They are not being held for "ordinary civilian" crimes, and they have no right to access to "ordinary civilian" courts. The reason the Brit citizen ******* prisoners are getting any slack at all is because we tossed Blair a bone.

Thirdly, and this takes the form of a question as much as anything else. I would like to know what people think about the presumption of innocence before guilt. I agree with it very strongly of course, but hearing other arguments is interesting.

If you arrest someone in their home, it's a bit different than capturing an armed guy in a war zone. There's no "presumption of innocence" at all - it's a presumption of "guilty of what?" We didn't bother with the transport of the aforementioned *******s for sport, or because we had a bunch of empty transport plains deadheading to Gitmo. These represent a small portion of those captured during combat operations, and subsequently interrogated. The vast majority of prisoners were either released, or held by the Afghani government and never shipped over to Gitmo.

Fourthly and on a slightly different note, Bush said that "these are bad people", referring to the two British men up for trial, and presumably the rest of the inmates. This of course either demonstrates that they are pretty much condemned, or that Bush is irrationally jumping to conclusions, or that he is operating on fallacious, absolutist principles of good and bad, without evidence to make those assumptions, pretty much except that these men were at the wrong place at the wrong time, thus got arrested in Afghanistan.

Well, you can say anyone who got arrested was obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time , but that doesn't address what they did before getting caught. Are you trying to claim these were innocent tourists? The evidence of their training with an avowed jihadi organization which has declared itself at war with the western world, plus their being captured in combat operations and security sweeps subsequent to those operations kind of makes the innocent tourist angle dicey.

Fifthly, to those that support Guantanamo, why? Isn't fair trials, innocence before guilt, and adherence to the spirit and letter of international conventions that the US signs up to, enshrined in your constitution? IMO, being patriotic at best is being loyal to that constitution, not to Bush or irrational sentiment based as much on revenge as anything else. Perhaps some of the arguments for Camp X-ray or whatever its called would be interested, because I may be missing something...

(a) Warfighting is an executive branch business (since the President is also Commander in Chief) and is not otherwise regulated by the Constitution.

(b) Unlawful combatants are not entitled to the status of EPW's, let alone to procedural rights enshrined in combatant nations criminal law systems. Their rights (such as they are) are very limited.

(c) Until I see some indication that there are serious defects in the form and makeup of these military tribunals, I'm not concerned with them being used for non-US citizen unlawful combatants detained in combat operations overseas. US citizens clearly have a different set of rights and obligations, and individuals arrested by law enforcement authorities in connection with non-warfighting criminal acts are a different story.

IF the military tribunals follow the form and general rules of US general court-martials, they they're procedurally as good for all practical purposes as the US Federal court system.

All that aside, I'm not really a big fan of Camp X-ray, as it seems inordinately expensive. I hope we've managed to extract as much intel of value as possible, because otherwise, it's a fairly big waste. Straightforward summary tribunals and summary execution back in Afghanistan would have been much easier and cheaper, and perfectly legal too, so don't complain too much about what these *******s have gotten so far.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Odin
Here is a solution to the intellegence info problem: let the jury read it and have them swear under oath that they will not give any top secret info to the public.

It's called a "military tribunal".

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Where did you get this pile of ****?

From what Oerdin posted earlier.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Oerdin
In a war zone all rights to habius corpus are none applicable. This is how it has always been and this is how it rightly belongs. You don't have to prove anything to anyone and anyone with a weapon who doesn't have a uniform on is automatically an unlawful xombatant who can be lined up against a wall and shot.

Untrue. The Geneva convention recognizes as lawful combatants (to be accorded the rights of POWs) militia formed quickly and individuals who take up arms at the approach of an invading army who have not had the time or wherewithal to equip themselves with a standardised uniform. The major test is that of bearing arms openly (in other words not trying to pass themselves off as civilians while still engaged in plans to fight).

[Kuciwalker]

YAY! MtG has joined this thread. Actual facts shall proceed soon

[Whaleboy]

Ah I cant be arsed to read the whole thing, read this...

http://www.llrx.com/features/ustreaty.htm

"B. U.S. Treaties and Agreements

"Domestically, treaties to which the United States is a party are equivalent in status to Federal legislation, forming part of what the Constitution calls 'the supreme Law of the Land.' Yet, the word treaty does not have the same meaning in the United States and in international law."1 The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties defines a treaty "as an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation."2 Under United States law, however, there is a distinction made between the terms treaty and executive agreement. "In the United States, the word treaty is reserved for an agreement that is made 'by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate' (Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution). International agreements not submitted to the Senate are known as 'executive agreements' in the United States."3 Generally, a treaty is a binding international agreement and an executive agreement applies in domestic law only. Under international law, however, both types of agreements are considered binding. Regardless of whether an international agreement is called a convention, agreement, protocol, accord, etc.; if it is submitted to the Senate for advice and consent, it is considered a treaty under United States law."

In other words, supreme law of the land (geneva and UN, as I believe the senate consented.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If the US signs up to a treaty, any violation by the US is henceforth a constitutional violation.

Not true at all. Congress may pass a law which abrogates a treaty. Treaties are the same as laws and can be replaced by a new law.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by skywalker


From what Oerdin posted earlier.

Snooze. Would you mind showing me where you got the pile of doodoo you just posted instead of referring me to another poster?