Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Do you not believe that penalties should be enhanced for crimes involving terrorism?

You're thinking in the Pre-9/11 Mindset, Lizard, where it's a namby-pamby [fingers-in-air-parentheses] criminal justice problem [/fingers-in-air parentheses].

Like Skek's analysis of hate-crime legislation, when the correct default position is pain, torture and obliteration-as-the-tactical-nuke-destroys-your-hovel-in-Mosul, there's little need for enhanced penalties, now is there?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Gattigap
You're thinking in the Pre-9/11 Mindset, Lizard, where it's a namby-pamby [fingers-in-air-parentheses] criminal justice problem [/fingers-in-air parentheses].

Like Skek's analysis of hate-crime legislation, when the correct default position is pain, torture and obliteration-as-the-tactical-nuke-destroys-your-hovel-in-Mosul, there's little need for enhanced penalties, now is there?

Ah, so there are procedural differences.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Why, you didn't like the one you were watching?

FYI, this is from the Viacom (CBS and UPN) press release on the issue:

Originally posted by Josh Micah Slothrop

The memo says: "CBS/UPN Network policy precludes accepting advertising that touches on and/or takes a position on one side of a current controversial issue of public importance." It then goes on to say that the issue is exclusion of homosexuals and other minority groups and specifically references the president's call for a constitutional ban on gay marriage as reasons that the ad is "unacceptable."

CBS/UPN then adds the following. They "accept advertising from churches and religious organizations which deliver secular messages that are beneficial to society in general [but not] advertising that proselytizes on behalf of any single religion ... In our view, this commercial does proselytize."

(emphasis mine)

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Should we treat people who fly airplanes into buildings and those who support them the way we treat ordinary murderers?

I'm sorry, but the comment about treating people who fly airplanes into buildings makes me think about Ali G's probing question about why we don't use longer jail terms to deter suicide bombers.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
This only really works for the successful terrorists. You think the shoe bomber should be fined for smoking on an airplane?

He should be tried for attempted murder of 489 people. Again, same penalty as actual murder of 3000. The Air France gate personale that let him on the plane get the same penalty under a conspiracy theory.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Gattigap
You're thinking in the Pre-9/11 Mindset, Lizard, where it's a namby-pamby [fingers-in-air-parentheses] criminal justice problem [/fingers-in-air parentheses].

Heh. Actually, 2. One reason why declaring a "war" on terrorism is not just convenient but correct - it is subsantively different from "crime" and can't be dealt with using the same mechanisms purely from a practical p.o.v.

Now, the question of whether or when a "hate crime" might or should constitute "terrorism" is an interesting one. The analogy is quite apt in many ways.

Poll: was McVeigh dealt with correctly (in 20/20 hindsight, of course)? Should he have been tried by military tribunal (as saboteurs & spies caught in the US were dealt with during WWII, for example) and the members of organizations that had offered him practical and ideological support rounded up for, in effect, declaring war on the US? If not, why is it different than al Q? Is it just because McVeigh's co-ideologues are primarily domestic organizations made up of US citizens? Is it because McVeigh still seems like a mental-defective rather than the rational agent of a hostile political entity?

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
CBS, the network of "Touched by an Angel"? The "secularist bent not to promote religion" would have been an easier and cleaner way out than "Bush says gays can't marry, therefore a message of inclusion is too controversial."

I thought CBS was the network of godless commie Bush-hating pinkos. I'm just confused by the mixed message.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Heh. Actually, 2. One reason why declaring a "war" on terrorism is not just convenient but correct - it is subsantively different from "crime" and can't be dealt with using the same mechanisms purely from a practical p.o.v.

Now, the question of whether or when a "hate crime" might or should constitute "terrorism" is an interesting one. The analogy is quite apt in many ways.

Poll: was McVeigh dealt with correctly (in 20/20 hindsight, of course)? Should he have been tried by military tribunal (as saboteurs & spies caught in the US were dealt with during WWII, for example) and the members of organizations that had offered him practical and ideological support rounded up for, in effect, declaring war on the US? If not, why is it different than al Q? Is it just because McVeigh's co-ideologues are primarily domestic organizations made up of US citizens? Is it because McVeigh still seems like a mental-defective rather than the rational agent of a hostile political entity?

To answer the poll first: McVeigh was dealt with correctly, and he is no different from Al Q. They are criminals. Bad, bad criminals. Why they are being treated differently is beyond me.

In my view, there are two, and only two, legitimate types of prisoners: criminals (and suspected criminals), and prisoners of war. One is legitimately held under one construct or the other; a country can not legitimately choose features of each, while ignoring the protections it finds inconvenient. For example, holding people indefinitely without charge, yet not giving those same people access to the rights granted to them under the Geneva convention.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by baltassoc
To answer the poll first: McVeigh was dealt with correctly, and he is no different from Al Q. They are criminals. Bad, bad criminals. Why they are being treated differently is beyond me.

So what, in your mind, does it take to be a POW, rather than a criminal?

Flashback: Isn't this the topic that triggered the first of many AG meltdowns?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by baltassoc
To answer the poll first: McVeigh was dealt with correctly, and he is no different from Al Q. They are criminals. Bad, bad criminals. Why they are being treated differently is beyond me.

In my view, there are two, and only two, legitimate types of prisoners: criminals (and suspected criminals), and prisoners of war. One is legitimately held under one construct or the other; a country can not legitimately choose features of each, while ignoring the protections it finds inconvenient. For example, holding people indefinitely without charge, yet not giving those same people access to the rights granted to them under the Geneva convention.

I have a slightly different view.

McVeigh as a US citizen living in the US had to be treated like a criminal. That said, those militia organizations that supported him should have been treated as terrorist organizations having declared war on the US, and broken up in any manner possible.*

Al-Qaeda should be treated as an organization that has declared war on the US and dealt with through every means available, including every military means.** I agree that military prisoners should be given the benefits of the Geneva Convention, though those benefits would be seriously limited to persons not actually serving a government and in uniform.


*Of course, that couldn't happen when they had active supporters like Helen Chenoweth in Congress. Or when all the people who got so up in arms over Waco were still so prominent. (The response of conservatives to the attack on Waco was so deeply repugnant. If the Waco wackos had been AIM or the Panthers these same people would have demanded a tactical strike by the Air Force.)

**This excludes going to war on countries that don't support al-Qaeda.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Poll: was McVeigh dealt with correctly (in 20/20 hindsight, of course)? Should he have been tried by military tribunal (as saboteurs & spies caught in the US were dealt with during WWII, for example) and the members of organizations that had offered him practical and ideological support rounded up for, in effect, declaring war on the US? If not, why is it different than al Q? Is it just because McVeigh's co-ideologues are primarily domestic organizations made up of US citizens? Is it because McVeigh still seems like a mental-defective rather than the rational agent of a hostile political entity?

Is the difference in your answer for the treatment of US militia groups vs., say, the Mafia back in its heyday tied to the former's expressed desire for US regime change (or secession, or refusal to pay income taxes, or whatever it is that those fuckhead groups wanted)?

The line needs to be both bold and bright, because otherwise the military will be cooking with real gas on those entrees that used to be limited to the menu for US Attorneys armed with RICO.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by sgtclub
So what, in your mind, does it take to be a POW, rather than a criminal?

Flashback: Isn't this the topic that triggered the first of many AG meltdowns?

Flashback first: yes.

As to the question, I can readily see that there is a gray area where one could be classified either way. It would be a multifactored analysis that would be very situation dependant.

That answer is a bit wishy-washy, but here's how it gets more solid: I am willing to concede it is within the rights of the captivating nation to choose which system applies to a given individual. But it has to pick one. Either one. And only one of the two, unless the change is deliberate and essentially permenant (i.e. we discover that a heretofor POW took active part in the 9/11 planning, and so move him from POW status and give him criminal status). There should be no denying access to the Red Cross on the one hand and to legal representation on the other.

With terrorists, or more genericly, people taken captive in our war on terror, I tend to think the correct structure is the criminal one. This is not a war; this is organized crime.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I agree that military prisoners should be given the benefits of the Geneva Convention, though those benefits would be seriously limited to persons not actually serving a government and in uniform.

That's the rub, isn't it - if you say, I think correctly, "either domestic criminal law applies or the law of war/geneva conventions apply," when you apply the Geneva Conventions you discover that they expressly deny protections to terrorists, spies, and others not meeting certain criteria (including people serving in fighting forces that do not have clear lines of command and responsibility, and people serving in forces of gov'ts that do not themselves comply with the Geneva Conventions, fighters trying to blend into or hide in civilian populations, etc.). In which case, it is very hard to argue that the G has done anything wrong by dumping everyone in Guantanamo (the treatment at abu grahib is of course another matter). In fact, it is pretty consistent with the USG's treatment of spies and saboteurs captured during WWII, except this time we aren't executing them after military hearings.

If one decides one doesn't like that and domestic criminal law must apply, we can't take action against terrorists until an illegal act has been committed, and our ability to detect non-public precursor illegal acts is severely limited.

eta: Gatti - I dunno. That's why I'm asking. I agree a bright line would be nice, but is probably unrealistic. Where the line is almost certainly depends on how people at a given historical moment comparatively weight the risks of eviscerating contsitutional (or other) protections v. risking the safety and lives of our citizens for the sake of our principles. That balance, obviously, swings back and forth all the time, and perhaps that is the way it should be.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
That's the rub, isn't it - if you say, I think correctly, "either domestic criminal law applies or the law of war/geneva conventions apply," when you apply the Geneva Conventions you discover that they expressly deny protections to terrorists, spies, and others not meeting certain criteria (including people serving in fighting forces that do not have clear lines of command and responsibility, and people serving in forces of gov'ts that do not themselves comply with the Geneva Conventions, fighters trying to blend into or hide in civilian populations, etc.). In which case, it is very hard to argue that the G has done anything wrong by dumping everyone in Guantanamo (the treatment at abu grahib is of course another matter). In fact, it is pretty consistent with the USG's treatment of spies and saboteurs captured during WWII, except this time we aren't executing them after military hearings.

If one decides one doesn't like that and domestic criminal law must apply, we can't take action against terrorists until an illegal act has been committed, and our ability to detect non-public precursor illegal acts is severely limited.

The Geneva Convention does not have to apply to combatants from non-signatory countries, but that doesn't mean that we should not still apply it.

As for the rest, criminal law is perfectly capable of taking care of these actions. Spying is illegal. Committing terrorist activities is illegal, usually both the underlying action and doing so for terrorist purposes. The issue is not whether there are mechanisms which could apply, it's that our government apparently doesn't like its two options, and would prefer to hold people indefinitely without charge and deny them representation.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Flashback first: yes.

As to the question, I can readily see that there is a gray area where one could be classified either way. It would be a multifactored analysis that would be very situation dependant.

That answer is a bit wishy-washy, but here's how it gets more solid: I am willing to concede it is within the rights of the captivating nation to choose which system applies to a given individual. But it has to pick one. Either one. And only one of the two, unless the change is deliberate and essentially permenant (i.e. we discover that a heretofor POW took active part in the 9/11 planning, and so move him from POW status and give him criminal status). There should be no denying access to the Red Cross on the one hand and to legal representation on the other.

With terrorists, or more genericly, people taken captive in our war on terror, I tend to think the correct structure is the criminal one. This is not a war; this is organized crime.

Do you remember when we blew up a car in Yeman because a guy from the cole bombing was in the car? Was that okay? Does it depend on whether he was a criminal or an enemy combatant? Because we need to be able to just kill them when we know where they are.