Politics As Usual

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
I just wanted to see this one more time.

Why? I was upfront about the fact that I don't know all the intricacies of this are of the law at the beginning of my post.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Treason defined:

quote:
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Treason. A breach of allegiance to one's government, usually committed through levying war against such government or by giving aid or comfort to the enemy. The offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance; or of betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power. Treason consists of two elements: adherence to the enemy, and rendering him aid and comfort. Cramer v. U. S., U.S.N.Y., 325 U.S. l, 65 S.Ct. 918, 9327 89 L.Ed. 1441. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 2381. A person can be convicted of treason only on the testimony of two witnesses, or confession in open court. Art. III, Sec. 3, U.S. Constitution.
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Wait I'm confused. Is this part of the Clinton thread or the Padilla thread?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
The WPA doesn't lend that power to the Executive, and if it did it would likely be unconstitutional. It delegates the power to "introduce[] into hostilities" the armed forces in the absence of a congressional declaration of war when certain criteria are met, but it doesn't make what the President does "war" or "declare war."

Indeed, the text of the WPA tends to support the view that Congress saw a difference between introducing the American armed forces into hostilities on the one hand and declaring war on the other. And well they should --- their President was telling them there was a difference.

What do you call the prisoners that are taken by US forces that were introduced into hostilities under no official declaration of war? Like Vietnam. Were the Viet Cong we captured considered POWs? If so, if a US citizen had gone to Vietnam and fought for the Viet Cong and was captured, would he get a lawyer to represent him or would he be treated as a POW?

Now what if the Viet Cong had attacked the US on US soil and a US citizen had participated in the attack. Would that be merely a crime or would the US citizen have been committing an act of war?

The most important issue to me is that AQ has declared war on us, not that we have declared war on them. The fact that they think they are in a war is good enough.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Not Me
The GC has a specific definition of what types of POWs fall under the protections of the GC. My understanding is that AQ types don't fit that defintion.

I consider him an enemy POW, who can be held until the war is over and some sort of truce has been declared or a surrender or whatever the end of this war will be like and the terms of release of the POWs have been settled.

Whether the GC applies to him or not is determined by the language of the GC. Not every enemy POW falls within the GC. Only those enemy POWs that are defined by the GC as falling within the GC. If the countries signing onto the GC wanted to include AQ terrorists as having protection, they could have written the GC to include terrorists. My understanding is that the GC does not define terrorists organizations as falling under its protection.

There are two kinds of prisoners: criminals and POWs. You're either one or the other. Pick one and act accordingly. Either you can be held until the end of the war (and no longer) under a specified set of conditions and monitored by the Red Cross, or you can go through the judicial process and be held for the time appropriate to the sentence following conviction.

The British before us have run afoul of trying to muck up this system, and went from a terrorist problem in Northern Ireland to a substantial minority completely fucking pissed off problem in Northern Ireland in nothing flat. It took decades of work to rectify the damage in Northern Ireland, if one can even call it fixed. To this day, the Catholics in the North strongly suspect that they could be incarcerated at any minute for Walking While Catholic.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
How is what you've just described not treason (or, "Beyond Treason")?

(I understand that this is "really bad" treason that pisses us off, but I think -- notwithstanding that cogent argument -- treason it remains.)

Is a charge of treason the exclusive remedy the government has against the person? Can't the government opt not to try the person for treason and hold them as a POW instead?

My thoughts are that regardless of whether we have declared war on AQ or not, they have declared it on us and are waging war against us. When we capture their combatants, they are POWs simply because they are waging war against us. The fact that a person is a US citizen does not change their status as a POW if they are waging war against the US and attacking or attempting to attack the US on US soil.

Whether the AQ POWs come under the GC is a matter of interpreting the GC, which from all I have read, the GC does not include terrorist organizations.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by baltassoc
There are two kinds of prisoners: criminals and POWs. You're either one or the other. Pick one and act accordingly. Either you can be held until the end of the war (and no longer) under a specified set of conditions and monitored by the Red Cross, or you can go through the judicial process and be held for the time appropriate to the sentence following conviction.

That is if the GC applies to the particular group of people you are talking about. I don't think the terms of the GC apply to terrorist organizations. The countries who signed onto the GC could have written it to include terrorist organizations waging war but did not.

I don't think the terms of the GC apply to how a country treats its own citizens during a war. I could be wrong on that, but if our soldiers desert or switch sides, are we bound by the GC in how we treat them if they are our citizens?

I thought the GC only applies to how you treat the citizens of other countris, not what you can do to your own citizens.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I suppose next you'll be saying that accused criminals have forfeited the protections of the Bill of Rights by virtue of their transgressions?

I believe it was Reagan's Attorney General Ed Meese who suggested that the police only investigate the guilty, obviating the need for due process protections.*


* It took me a while to find it, but it's actually: "You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect."

I also came across this gem: "A Supreme Court decision does not establish a "supreme law of the land" that is binding on all persons and parts of government, henceforth and forevermore."

[juan, usmc]

Originally posted by Not Me
What do you call the prisoners that are taken by US forces that were introduced into hostilities under no official declaration of war?

I know that a hata' like you means the peoples of colour. Like mi hermano Juan Padilla. Why are you such a hata? The arabs, the mexicanos etc? What axe do you have to grind against the strong forces of the black man and the latino hombre and sus chicas? Your hooha must be so whitebread.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I also came across this gem: "A Supreme Court decision does not establish a "supreme law of the land" that is binding on all persons and parts of government, henceforth and forevermore."

That is true. Future courts can overrule prior precedent as we have just seen in Lawrence v. TX overturning Bowers v. Hardwick.

So the decisions of the Supreme Court are not binding "forevermore." Future courts can overturn them.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I'm not sure I see a difference between someone in US controlled waters and US controlled land. Is there something special about land?

I see none, either. I was making the point that this occurred in territory where there is no doubt that U.S. law/Consitutiton governed.

I have no time to craft a detailed or thoughtful response -- on to another meeting, but . . .

Originally posted by sgtclub
You seem to site this as a throw away. I view this as the paramount factor.

Its not a throw-away. It is the background, and I propose a particular approach that could accomodate many/most of those concerns.

Originally posted by sgtclub
Yes, is is. It is not "our" civil liberties, it is the civil liberties of a handful of people who have sought to bring down the very free society that we cherish. I can't get all worked up about this given the limited application to US citizens and the alleged conduct of those citizens.

Holy shit. Wow. Your faith in the good intentions and infallibility of our law enforcement and intelligence services is almost touching, in a naive sort of way. So . . you'd make one heck of juror, Hmmmm?

S_A_M

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Not Me
That is if the GC applies to the particular group of people you are talking about. I don't think the terms of the GC apply to terrorist organizations.

Okay, you've made your choice. Criminals they are.

From the rest of the world's standpoint, we can do whatever we want to with them as part of our criminal justice system. We're the one's who decided that criminals get due process. But those rules apply to everybody.

And re: treason. Treason isn't enough? What's deficient about it, the penalty? You can't get any more dead than dead. Should we execute the person twice?

Treason is the mechanism the drafters came up with the deal with this situation. Switch sides in a war and it's treason. Two witnesses and you're dead. Literally. But the two witnesses must have been an important part, 'cause they included it there where it hasn't been included for other crimes. Perhaps the framers were concerned that treason might be the type of crime that one should be very, very careful about accusing.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Okay, you've made your choice. Criminals they are.

From the rest of the world's standpoint, we can do whatever we want to with them as part of our criminal justice system. We're the one's who decided that criminals get due process. But those rules apply to everybody.

No, no, but these are special criminals who don't get treated like regular criminals. The Admin said so.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
So they are going to put panties on his head?

If that's all they do, they're not really keeping up:

• The first day they put me in a dark room and started hitting me in the head and stomach and legs.
  They made me raise my hands and sit on my knees. I was like that for four hours. Then the Interrogator came and he was looking at me while they were beating me. Then I stayed in this room for 5 days, naked with no clothes. . . . They put handcuffs on my hand and they cuffed me high for 7 or 8 hours. And that caused a rupture to my right hand and I had a cut that was bleeding and had pus coming from it. They kept me this way on 24, 25, and 26 October. And in the following days, they also put a bag over my head, and of course, this whole time I was without clothes and without anything to sleep on. And one day in November, they started different type of punishment, where an American Police came in my room and put the bag over my head and cuffed my hands and he took me out of the room into the hallway. He started beating me, him, and 5 other American Police. I could see their feet, only, from under the bag.
  A couple of those police they were female because I heard their voices and I saw two of the police that were hitting me before they put the bag over my head. One of them was wearing glasses. I couldn't read his name because he put tape over his name. Some of the things they did was make me sit down like a dog, and they would hold the string from the bag and they made me bark like a dog and they were laughing at me. . . . One of the police was telling me to crawl in Arabic, so I crawled on my stomach and the police were spitting on me when I was crawling and hitting me. . . .
  Then the police started beating me on my kidneys and then they hit me on my right ear and it started bleeding and I lost consciousness. . . .
  A few days before they hit me on my ear, the American police, the guy who wears glasses, he put red woman's underwear over my head. And then he tied me to the window that is in the cell with my hands behind my back until I lost consciousness. And also when I was in Room #1 they told me to lay down on my stomach and they were jumping from the bed onto my back and my legs. And the other two were spitting on me and calling me names, and they held my hands and legs. After the guy with the glasses got tired, two of the American soldiers brought me to the ground and tied my hands to the door while laying down on my stomach. One of the police was pissing on me and laughing on me. . . . And the soldier and his friend told me in a loud voice to lie down, so I did that. And then the policeman was opening my legs, with a bag over my head, and he sat down between my legs on his knees and I was looking at him from under the bag and they wanted to do me because I saw him and he was opening his pants, so I started screaming loudly and the other police starting hitting me with his feet on my neck and he put his feet on my head so I couldn't scream. . . . And then they put the loudspeaker inside the room and they closed the door and he was yelling in the microphone. . . .
  They took me to the room and they signaled me to get on to the floor. And one of the police he put a part of his stick that he always carries inside my ass and I felt it going inside me about 2 centimeters, approximately. And I started screaming, and he pulled it out and he washed it with water inside the room. And then two American girls that were there when they were beating me, they were hitting me with a ball made of sponge on my dick. And when I was tied up in my room, one of the girls, with blonde hair, she is white, she was playing with my dick. . . . And they were taking pictures of me during all these instances.

cite (see n.8)

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If that's all they do, they're not really keeping up:

Psst, keeping the "panties" thing going may cause NM to be hoist on its own petard. Or however that goes.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
If that's all they do, they're not really keeping up:

• The first day they put me in a dark room and started hitting me in the head and stomach and legs.
  They made me raise my hands and sit on my knees. I was like that for four hours. Then the Interrogator came and he was looking at me while they were beating me. Then I stayed in this room for 5 days, naked with no clothes. . . . They put handcuffs on my hand and they cuffed me high for 7 or 8 hours. And that caused a rupture to my right hand and I had a cut that was bleeding and had pus coming from it. They kept me this way on 24, 25, and 26 October. And in the following days, they also put a bag over my head, and of course, this whole time I was without clothes and without anything to sleep on. And one day in November, they started different type of punishment, where an American Police came in my room and put the bag over my head and cuffed my hands and he took me out of the room into the hallway. He started beating me, him, and 5 other American Police. I could see their feet, only, from under the bag.
  A couple of those police they were female because I heard their voices and I saw two of the police that were hitting me before they put the bag over my head. One of them was wearing glasses. I couldn't read his name because he put tape over his name. Some of the things they did was make me sit down like a dog, and they would hold the string from the bag and they made me bark like a dog and they were laughing at me. . . . One of the police was telling me to crawl in Arabic, so I crawled on my stomach and the police were spitting on me when I was crawling and hitting me. . . .
  Then the police started beating me on my kidneys and then they hit me on my right ear and it started bleeding and I lost consciousness. . . .
  A few days before they hit me on my ear, the American police, the guy who wears glasses, he put red woman's underwear over my head. And then he tied me to the window that is in the cell with my hands behind my back until I lost consciousness. And also when I was in Room #1 they told me to lay down on my stomach and they were jumping from the bed onto my back and my legs. And the other two were spitting on me and calling me names, and they held my hands and legs. After the guy with the glasses got tired, two of the American soldiers brought me to the ground and tied my hands to the door while laying down on my stomach. One of the police was pissing on me and laughing on me. . . . And the soldier and his friend told me in a loud voice to lie down, so I did that. And then the policeman was opening my legs, with a bag over my head, and he sat down between my legs on his knees and I was looking at him from under the bag and they wanted to do me because I saw him and he was opening his pants, so I started screaming loudly and the other police starting hitting me with his feet on my neck and he put his feet on my head so I couldn't scream. . . . And then they put the loudspeaker inside the room and they closed the door and he was yelling in the microphone. . . .
  They took me to the room and they signaled me to get on to the floor. And one of the police he put a part of his stick that he always carries inside my ass and I felt it going inside me about 2 centimeters, approximately. And I started screaming, and he pulled it out and he washed it with water inside the room. And then two American girls that were there when they were beating me, they were hitting me with a ball made of sponge on my dick. And when I was tied up in my room, one of the girls, with blonde hair, she is white, she was playing with my dick. . . . And they were taking pictures of me during all these instances.

If that story is remotely true, heads should roll and people should be taken down.

But I cannot help noticing towards the end - how the tone completely changes and the prisoner starts speaking (in non-broken english, for that matter) about his "ass" and his "dick"

In the back of my head, i keep hearing Christopher Walken speaking to a "little man" about his birthright and "my son. jim"