Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This is wrong. I'm not afraid at all that my government is going to slap me in a prison outside the country. Nor do I think the vast majority of Americans have anything to worry about in this regard. But I don't think we should limit habeas, and I'm willing to stand for that principle even if it means that I experience some notional, tiny increased risk from a terorrist attack. If any one is resting on fear here, it is the conservatives who say that we need to confer unbridled powers on the executive branch to protect us from foreigners who want to kill us.

when we killed that Cole bomber from the air there were a few guys with him in the car. when we killed Zarquawi there was a woman and a child killed.

All those others would be better off detained. Were we wrong to make those kills?




PS: in the ABC movie Atta meet Khalid- atta needs more pilots- khalid offers him moussawi. Did that really happen? I didn't think there was any direct link to 911 for ZM.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
when we killed that Cole bomber from the air there were a few guys with him in the car. when we killed Zarquawi there was a woman and a child killed.

All those others would be better off detained. Were we wrong to make those kills?

Not necessarily. Depends on the alternatives, I suppose. We don't have good ways of getting at people in rural Yemen. Capturing OBL in Afghanistan would have been better than launching $1 billion of cruise missiles to try to kill him, but the former wasn't option.

PS: in the ABC movie Atta meet Khalid- atta needs more pilots- khalid offers him moussawi. Did that really happen? I didn't think there was any direct link to 911 for ZM.

Sounds fictional to me.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Sounds fictional to me.

the books about the lead up don't mention it?

Think about this one. Mousssai probably has an appeal going. in theory he could get a new trial. now there's a movie saying he was the 5th pilot. impartial jurors harder to find?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Actually, it is in the Constitution:



The only other time in history the writ has formally been suspended was during the Civil War. Incidentally, another presedent from the Civil War era seems apporpriate today. In Ex Parte Milligan, 71 US 2 (1866), the Court held that the only lawful circumstances in which civilians may be tried by miliitary tribunals is when civilian courts have been suspended by war or insurrection.

So, with all due respect, you are wrong.

Wow - sometimes I think you must smoke a lot of crack.

We were talking about giving the Writ of Habeus Corpus to enemy combatants. We were also talking about giving the writ of Habeas corpus to non United States citizens being held overseas. No one was saying that US citizens, in the United States did not get the writ of Habeas Corpus under the Constituion.

So, with all due respect, I was not wrong.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
That sounds a bit like waffling. If there is a universal moral code, then we should be following it everywhere, irrespective of what other nations do with their nationals.

Right. So if we are in a war every prisoner taken should get the full rights of US citizens?

Or are you saying that the US government should enforce human rights every where in the world. So if Sudan infringes on its citizens rights we should immediately invade to make sure they respect such rights. I really don't think that is practical.

The first step in bringing rights to all human beings is to make sure that they live under governments that afford such rights. Until then making the United States government give all human beings on the planet these rights unilaterally would make it more difficult for the United States to influence the creation of more states that respect these rights.

Once all countries of the world respect these rights the US can change, but as long as we are fighting countries that don't respect such rights, forcing the US government to extend our constitutional protections to all human beings (but only limiting the US government not other governments) would only help totalitarian regimes in further abuse of their citizen’s rights.

If one would really like to see more human beings have rights they would support the US government’s endeavors to create government that respect such rights. As in the Iraqi invasion. The wrong way to go about extending human rights around the world is to force the United States to afford the protections under its constitution to every human being in the world (but the protections applied by the US government would only be against US government action and not against other government’s actions).

Such a move would gain a few inches and give up miles in the struggle for international human rights.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Yes, you are. Habeus corpus is a writ that directs the officer to present the matter to the Sovereign, and is actually designed for just this type of situation. The United States is holding someone outside of the US specifically in order to deny them rights they would have here within the jurisdiction. The writ requires these public officials to present in court the sole question of whether or not the individual is being lawfully detained. If the US is holding foreign nationals outside of US soil, a writ is appropriate to allow the court to determine, not whether the foreign national is innocent or guilty, but if our law allows the US government to hold someone without due process.

???????????. Here we go again. I don't know how to respond when Taxwonk makes such ridiculous comments like this. If anyone else on this board agrees with what Taxwond says, then I will explain why this is so obviously wrong, but until he gets a 2. I will leave it alone.

Anyone agree with him?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What's odd to me is that Spanky would just assume that the rights laid out in the Constitution are alienable -- somehow a privilege to which only Americans are entitled -- when we had just fought a war of independence based on quite different notions.

Of course they are inalieable. But that doesn't mean it is the US government jobs to enforce such rights for all human being. The Declaration of Independence gave people the right to rise up against governments that abuse rights. It did not place an obligation on US citizens to extend these rights everywhere.

As far as the obligations of the US government they are alienable. That is why the US government doesn't have to go around enforcing such rights all over the world every time another govenrment abuses them.

Jefferson did send the marines to Tripoli. Do you think that all the "world citizens" that our armed forces faced off against when we invaded Tripoli were given the full protections of the US constitution as if they were US citizens, or that Jefferson expected our armed forces to extend them such protections?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
BTW, did you know the Italians killed Jesus?

Good point. And what is being done about that?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I don't see the relevance of whether or not the framers thought of this particular issue. They clearly thought that it was important that the judiciary have the power to review the lawfulness of a detention by the executive branch. That is the issue in a writ of habeus corpus; the basis on which the petitioner claims the detention is unlawful shouldn't matter.

So you really think that all prisoners of war taken by the United States should have the same rights as US citizens under the constitution?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
Wow - sometimes I think you must smoke a lot of crack.

We were talking about giving the Writ of Habeus Corpus to enemy combatants. We were also talking about giving the writ of Habeas corpus to non United States citizens being held overseas. No one was saying that US citizens, in the United States did not get the writ of Habeas Corpus under the Constituion.

So, with all due respect, I was not wrong.

You said the Constitution said nothing about habeus corpus. That was wrong. The provision I quoted from the Constitution also says nothing about whether the writ is available only to citizens, nor does it say it is only available to petitioners in the US. If you read it again, you'll see that it is the ability of the executive to suspend the writ that is limited by actions in the US. So, you are again, wrong.

The conversation was also about foreign persons under custody of officers and agents of the United States, which is subject to the Constitution no matter where it operates. Finally, I was responding to a statement you made where Ty had clearly stipulated the petitioner was innocent. Once again, that would make you...wrong.

Maybe if you spent less time thinking about my drug use you might be better able to keep track of the conversation.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Spanky
???????????. Here we go again. I don't know how to respond when Taxwonk makes such ridiculous comments like this. If anyone else on this board agrees with what Taxwond says, then I will explain why this is so obviously wrong, but until he gets a 2. I will leave it alone.

Anyone agree with him?

we can kill people by targeted assination, but we can't hold on to them while we decide if we should kill them?

I ain't a smart man spanky, and these guys make my head hurt when I try and read their posts. I guess I should feel better that they confuse you too.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
Right. So if we are in a war every prisoner taken should get the full rights of US citizens?

Or are you saying that the US government should enforce human rights every where in the world. So if Sudan infringes on its citizens rights we should immediately invade to make sure they respect such rights. I really don't think that is practical.

The first step in bringing rights to all human beings is to make sure that they live under governments that afford such rights. Until then making the United States government give all human beings on the planet these rights unilaterally would make it more difficult for the United States to influence the creation of more states that respect these rights.

Once all countries of the world respect these rights the US can change, but as long as we are fighting countries that don't respect such rights, forcing the US government to extend our constitutional protections to all human beings (but only limiting the US government not other governments) would only help totalitarian regimes in further abuse of their citizen’s rights.

If one would really like to see more human beings have rights they would support the US government’s endeavors to create government that respect such rights. As in the Iraqi invasion. The wrong way to go about extending human rights around the world is to force the United States to afford the protections under its constitution to every human being in the world (but the protections applied by the US government would only be against US government action and not against other government’s actions).

Such a move would gain a few inches and give up miles in the struggle for international human rights.

You were asserting that the US need not respect basic human rights of foreign persons unless a treaty required it of us. That sounds like waffling to me. It doesn't matter to me whether foreign states respect the human rights of their citizens and I was not saying we should force every state to enforce human rights. All I was saying is that it is a bit inconsistent for you to assert simultaneously that human rights are based on a universal moral code but that the US need not respect the human rights of people if their own government doesn't.

You don't find those two positions at odds?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Worst-case? It's a worst-case scenario to consider that someone might be behind bars for the wrong reasons? It happens all the time. For whatever reasons, prosecutors make mistakes. And so on. The notion that government institutions don't work perfectly has always been pretty central to conservatism -- why is it so unimaginable here?

The problem, like I said before, is we don't want to make it more difficult for the Executive brank to fight the war on terror. That is why I think it would be better to just have congressional review but not have judicial review. Judicial review would muck up the system to much.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
You said the Constitution said nothing about habeus corpus.

I never said that. When did I say that?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
So you really think that all prisoners of war taken by the United States should have the same rights as US citizens under the constitution?

They aren't prisoners of war. If they were, then they would have to have been released when Bush declared formal hostilities against Iraq over. That's required by the Geneva Convention.

Furthermore, I'm not saying that all hostile combatants are entitled to the full range of protections of the Constitution. What I said was, that the executive branch of the US government cannot avoid its obligation to follow the laws of the US and the Constitution simply by carrying out actions that would be unlawful here on foreign soil.