McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Quote:
Originally Posted by daihashi
You're right.. that is the great thing.. All the People of THIS country have due process and can have their voices heard.
This is a privilige of the American People not for people suspected of terrorism. The people at GITMO do not deserve American rights. They obviously need some process there, but giving them American rights is not the way to go about it.
Like someone else said earlier.. maybe something similar to being a POW or the like, but having equal rights to an American who pays his dues to his country through taxes or through serving is just insane!!! These people have contributed nothing to America and you want to give away our rights to them? :wtf:
I hear what you are saying but all they want is to have there case heard and to prove that they are innocent. You said it yourself suspected terriorism dont they have a chance to defend themselves. They arent getting every right you and me have in the constitution their just getting there voices headr to state there case thats all. From what I been hearing on the news your boy Mccain didnt have a problem with it a few years ago but I guess with age you tend to forget things like that.:rasta::rastasmoke::pimp:
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Guess McCain liked his treatment in Viet Nam as an 'enemy combatant!" People, right or wrong, should have rights. They took our rights away right along with those guys! Why arent' they looking more at all the new laws we have to obey as a result of the terroist policies! I'd like to be able to jokingly say, I'd kill for that, without worrying about going 2 jail!
Example: Was having a garage sell; someone kept stealing a sign. Put a note on it requesting they not do so and I'd look them up! No threat, etc. Police came and threatened to take me to jail. I laughed at him and he got madder. Now, can you threaten someon u don't even know the identity of? Anyway, tit 4 tat went on for days. His Sarg. would talk to him! As a taxpaper here, all my life, that was not enough and I still went for it! Nothing came of it. That creep even phoned me later on the phone and was threatening to come to my home and take me to jail. Who are the real terroists? :( I imagine, he is only one of a few--I would hope! But, my faith in protection was diminished. Glad, I was having a garage sell to move from that city.
I was glad to hear the ruling!!
If we don't stand up for everyone's right's, we will lose our own! The day of 'minding your own business', in the realm of politics, has to change! Protect your fellow mankind, give them a voice!:thumbsup:
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigWeed
I hear what you are saying but all they want is to have there case heard and to prove that they are innocent. You said it yourself suspected terriorism dont they have a chance to defend themselves. They arent getting every right you and me have in the constitution their just getting there voices headr to state there case thats all. From what I been hearing on the news your boy Mccain didnt have a problem with it a few years ago but I guess with age you tend to forget things like that.:rasta::rastasmoke::pimp:
No, McCain is against Guantanamo bay completely. As far as I recall he always has been always been against GITMO. What McCain was for was for giving them trials.. not giving them constitutional rights.
And yes.. they do have full constitutional rights in court.
They are not Americans and should not get our rights. There needs to be another process for them.
While some of these people are suspected terrorists a LARGE NUMBER of them have admitted to terrorism and are proud of the fact. Yet now these people who have admitted to crimes are going to get constitutional rights. We are having our own privildges turned against us. Using our own judicial system to stick it to us.
Please research what rights come to constitutional court rights; because if you're unaware it's alot of protection and rights and they get all of them.
Our rights are not for just anyone. Why don't we start giving random rights to people from russia and china and mexico. Let's invite them to come here and murder people.. then let's give them full constitutional court rights.
Do you agree with that scenario? Allowing people who come in and murder US citizens to have full constitutional court rights? Or should they be treated as an enemy combatant.
Do you at least agree that there should be a process set for them that was fair given the situation but not the same constitutional rights as us?
Even the habeas corpus act does not grant rights to people who commit Treason. I feel that, AT BEST, the people at GITMO should have no more rights than a person who has committed treason.
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Quote:
Originally Posted by daihashi
. . . .The people at GITMO do not deserve American rights. They obviously need some process there, but giving them American rights is not the way to go about it.
Like someone else said earlier.. maybe something similar to being a POW or the like, but having equal rights to an American who pays his dues to his country through taxes or through serving is just insane!!! These people have contributed nothing to America and you want to give away our rights to them? :wtf:
Yes, I'm saying we need to afford them the similar judicial rights. That's precisely what I'm saying.
As nonsensical as that may seem to some who cannot see past the hang-'em-high approach, it's not. Affording Gitmo's so-called enemy combatants the same due process Americans receive is the only logical approach we can take when we've spent all this time and money to inflict our American freedoms and democracy on their part of the world. If Bush and his cronies hadn't talked such a big game all this time and spent hours justifying the war(s) in the Middle East on the grounds that we're fighting the good fight to spread freedom and democracy, then this would be a totally different matter.
We've been talking the freedom-and-democracy talk now for years, however--and insisting, after the greatly embarrassing Abu Graib situation, for instance--that we must be exemplary in treating their prisoners in our U.S.-overseen Iraqi military jails with humanity and respect and due process. That being the case, then we damn well better set the example--just like we agreed to do under the Geneva conventions in our approach to torture and insistence that Americans not be tortured as war criminals in other parts of the world--and lead the way as examples of the freedom, democracy, and due process when we're holding alleged criminals or combatants in our jails.
We need to look, too, to what I mentioned earlier, which is the huge effort we're making to implement American-style judicial processes in both Iraq and Afghanistan through our provincial reconstruction efforts. Your tax dollars are doing that work this very minute and will be for many decades to come. If we're going to bring those parts of the world and their people out of the dark ages, then we need to lead the way with our exemplary treatment of their citizens in our detention facilities.
It's worth reminding everyone here that you first have to understand the basic differences between alleged criminals and convicted ones.
What I want to know is what makes you hang-'em-high/waterboard-'em-deep types think that we have possibly been 100% accurate in identifying and jailing only guilty combatants at Guantanamo. Because we say so? Well, that's a laugh a minute. We said we were going into Iraq on the basis of WMDs and we'd only be there for a year or 18 months. Then we said mission accomplished. Ooops! Then we said we weren't inciting further ire in that part of the world and weren't stirring up terrorists, but you've seen how accurate we were in our claim there by how subdued Al Qaeda in Iraq has been (to be read as sarcastic). Ooops! Then we said we could withdraw troops and begin a draw down. Then we had to about-face on that and do a surge instead. Had to replace the top guy at Defense along the way. Ooops! We promised adherence to the Geneva conventions and insisted that Americans not be tortured, yet we had those troubling photographs at Abu Graib and the convictions of those amazing American soldier-humanitarians (again, to be read sarcastically) who were their jailers. Ooops! I'm sorry, but if you're really so gullible as to think that our intelligence has been so infallible as to only result in the detention of 100% guilty parties at Gitmo, then I have some swamp land for sale in Florida.
If we hadn't made all the claims about spreading freedom and democracy and if we weren't working so hard to instill our justice freedoms in the Middle East, then judicial due process to the Gitmo detainees wouldn't be such an issue at all. I daresay there are probably plenty of real dangerous terrorist creeps in detention at Gitmo who don't deserve due process, but since we've been pretending with great piety for these years to be the arbiters of goodness and freedom and democracy in the world, then we pretty much have to give it to them so we can avoid the allegation of hypocrisy on this topic (even if we can't avoid it on many many others).
Here's some homework. No one will do it, but it'd still be worth your while:
1. Read about Iraqi and Afghanistan reconstruction efforts. There are provincial reconstruction teams and embedded provincial reconstruction teams. It's the ePRTs who're doing most of the legwork on justice, under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Use Google to do this.
2. Familiarize yourselves with the third and fourth Geneva conventions. Then read the first and second after that. Good agreements, those.
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Quote:
Originally Posted by birdgirl73
What I want to know is what makes you hang-'em-high/waterboard-'em-deep types think that we have possibly been 100% accurate in identifying and jailing only guilty combatants at Guantanamo. Because we say so? Well, that's a laugh a minute. We said we were going into Iraq on the basis of WMDs and we'd only be there for a year or 18 months. Then we said mission accomplished. Ooops! Then we said we weren't inciting further ire in that part of the world and weren't stirring up terrorists, but you've seen how accurate we were in our claim there by how subdued Al Qaeda in Iraq has been (to be read as sarcastic). Ooops! Then we said we could withdraw troops and begin a draw down. Then we had to about-face on that and do a surge instead. Had to replace the top guy at Defense along the way. Ooops! We promised adherence to the Geneva conventions and insisted that Americans not be tortured, yet we had those troubling photographs at Abu Graib and the convictions of those amazing American soldier-humanitarians (again, to be read sarcastically) who were their jailers. Ooops! I'm sorry, but if you're really so gullible as to think that our intelligence has been so infallible as to only result in the detention of 100% guilty parties at Gitmo, then I have some swamp land for sale in Florida.
Were you talking down to me that entire reply? Because it sure felt like it. You treat me as if I'm uneducated. Furthermore you've judged me?? I'm a hang'em high / waterboarder am I?
Have you seen any of my posts on the forum aside from the politics forum?
I'm a chill lay back guy.. I definitely am not gung ho hang'em high and I don't support torture.
What I find odd is that no one looks at the Democrats. The democrats approved Afghanistan.. they approved Iraq and they approved guantanamo bay!!! The problem occured on both sides of the coin.
Just so you know I don't disagree with you on any of your points made in your thread. I don't like the Bush administration and I never have... I felt we never should've been in Iraq at all... I do feel we were right in going to afghanistan but feel we should've finished our job there and not left to go to Iraq.
I agree that the people at GITMO need to have some sort of process. While there are some people who are suspected terrorists there, remember that there are also many many more admitted terrorists there. People seem to ignore this fact as well.
I honestly found your post a little condescending. Maybe it's just the way I interpreted it but it was not appreciated. As a moderator I would think that you would practice better tact than that. If I'm simply misinterpreting the tone of your reply then I sincerely apologize. It simply feels that way since you quoted me.
ps: did you see the part where I said that I pretty much agree on you on all things? It's just from a different point of view, that's all. We're on the same side here. :thumbsup: :hippy:
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Daihashi, if you read my "attitude" as directed at you, please accept my apologies. It was not, I assure you, but as I look back and see that I quoted your question at the top, of course you would have read it that way. My first sentence and then the first two full paragraphs were in response to you, and then I went off in a general scoffing direction at the hypocrisy of the war itself. I have respect for you and you do seem to be better read on this stuff than most. You're also clearly literate and verbal, which is wonderful! The attitude you picked up on was a combination of disrespect I have for some of the other attitudes that have been allowed to go unchallenged too much in this particular area mixed with a huge amount of disdain and bitterness about the hypocrisy of an unjustified, lies-based war. All the "Oops!" comments were about that.
Normally during the school year, I don't have time to argue here, but I wish I did. When i do, though, I can be rough and I know that. I care a heck of a lot more about this stuff than I let on during non-vacation times. Please know that I wasn't directing my attitude at you, though, and try to forgive me if you can. These are important discussions we're having here. You're fairly new to these boards in comparison to some of the old stuff under the bridge here!
Lucky enough for everyone here, I have exactly one more week of vacation before I begin my third-year med school rotations. When that happens, I'll go back into "political remission" and you and Dragonrider and others will have to speak for reason and thorough understanding on much of this stuff and encourage people to base their arguments on facts and history rather than on editorial opinions and small electronic newsbytes. I'll be off starting to do pipsqueak medical procedures on patients at Parkland Hospital!
Peace? Here, at least? We aren't going to have peace in the Middle East for a long, long time to come. I have two cousins over there in the Army and an old law school friend from 23 years ago who's spent six years working on legal reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I feel this stuff more keenly than I should, I'm sure, because I get direct info from folks who're in the thick of it all every single day. We all need to be very concerned about the legacy we're leaving in Iraq. And we need to be very aware that the re-Talibanization of Afghanistan is a burgeoning problem as well. That's a topic for another thread, however.
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Here's a Weekly Standard editorial, just published a couple of hours ago. My own opinion is that we have been spared more attacks thanks in part to the interrogations at Gitmo, so for this alone I would agree with Matthew Continetti. All the legal and political mumbo-jumbo (can't wait for a reaction to that expression :jointsmile:) in the world won't convince me that it wasn't worth keeping the detainees there.
The Gitmo Nightmare
Matthew Continetti
Fri Jun 13, 11:15 PM ET
It's hard to summarize a decision as long and complicated as the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling last week in Boumediene v. Bush. But we can try. Unprecedented. Reckless. Harmful. Breathtakingly condescending.
The Court, in an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, ruled that non-citizens captured abroad and held in a military installation overseas--the remaining 270 or so inmates at the terrorist prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba--have the same constitutional right as U.S. citizens to challenge their detention in court. Furthermore, the current procedures by which a detainee's status is reviewed--procedures fashioned in good faith and at the Court's behest by a bipartisan congressional majority in consultation with the commander in chief during a time of war--are unconstitutional.
The upshot is the prisoners at Camp Delta can now file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. district courts seeking reprieve. Hence lawyers, judges, and leftwing interest groups will have real influence over the conduct of the war on terror. Call it the Gitmo nightmare.
As it happens, some of the most effective arguments against Boumediene come from the decision itself. For example, Justice Kennedy wrote that in cases involving terrorist detention, "proper deference must be accorded to the political branches." Then he overrode them.
Kennedy further noted that "unlike the President and some designated Members of Congress, neither the Members of this Court nor most federal judges begin the day with briefings that may describe new and serious threats to our Nation and its people." They had better start, because the courts are about to be flooded with petitions to release terrorists sworn to America's destruction.
He also wrote that now the "political branches can engage in a genuine debate about how best to preserve constitutional values while protecting the Nation from terrorism." But that is precisely what Congress and the president were doing when they passed legislation laying out a process for detainee review, one that in fact addressed concerns previously raised by the Court. The Court now says this process is inadequate. What would be adequate? Kennedy's answer: I'll get back to you on that.
In his opinion, Kennedy conceded that "before today the Court has never held that non-citizens detained by our Government in territory over which another country maintains de jure sovereignty have any rights under our Constitution." Inventing rights seems to be what some of today's Supreme Court justices do best. In 1950 the Court ruled in Johnson v. Eisentrager that foreign nationals held in a military prison on foreign soil (in that case, Germany) had no habeas rights. But, without overruling Eisentrager, Kennedy said the Guantánamo detainees are different from the German prisoners 58 years ago.
Why? Kennedy wrote that Eisentrager had a unique set of "practical considerations," and the United States did not have "de facto" sovereignty over Germany as it does over Guantánamo Bay. That territory, "while technically not part of the United States, is under the complete and total control of our Government." But these slippery distinctions only raise more questions. Doesn't the United States government exercise "complete and total control" over its military and intelligence facilities worldwide? If so, what's to stop foreign combatants held in those locations from asserting their habeas rights?
And what precise form will these habeas hearings take? What standards of judgment are the courts to apply? Will plaintiffs' attorneys be allowed to go venue shopping and file their petitions in the most liberal courts in the nation? Will they conduct discovery? Will they recall soldiers and intelligence agents from the field to testify? What happens when the available evidence does not satisfy judges who are used to adjudicating under the exclusionary rule? Will the cases be thrown out? Will the detainees be freed, able to return to the battlefield? That, after all, is what some 30 released detainees seem already to have done.
The Supreme Court does not worry about such things. Instead it piously reminded the people that "the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times." No kidding. Has anyone ever argued otherwise?
Kennedy's sanctimony points to the ultimate tragedy of the Boumediene mess. In their visceral, myopic hatred of President Bush, liberals will see the ruling as a blow to the president and not the broad, foolish, and dangerous judicial power grab it is.
The New York Times's editorialists wrote that "compliant Republicans and frightened Democrats" allowed Bush to deny foreign enemy combatants during wartime "the protections of justice, democracy and plain human decency."
Give us a break. One day soon Bush will be gone. But thanks to the Court, we'll still all be living the Gitmo nightmare.
--Matthew Continetti, for the Editors
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Quote:
Originally Posted by birdgirl73
Daihashi, if you read my "attitude" as directed at you, please accept my apologies. It was not, I assure you, but as I look back and see that I quoted your question at the top, of course you would have read it that way.
No worries, that's why I asked because it seemed like it was directed at me because of the quote but at the same time it seemed like you were talking to a general group and not specifically me. That's why I was a little confused.
Sorry for the confusion. :hippy:
ps: I have fairly thick skin, no harm done here. We're all friends here on cannabis.com even when we Agree and/or disagree. That's the beauty of being human; we're all different :thumbsup:
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
It's about human rights, not american citizen rights. Gathering information through water torture doesn't stand up in a real court which is why they wanted them trialed in a military tribunal where they could be sentenced to death and not appeal. Justice was served, you're wrong McCain.
McCain blasts Supreme Court's Guantanamo ruling
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reefer Rogue
It's about human rights, not american citizen rights. Gathering information through water torture doesn't stand up in a real court which is why they wanted them trialed in a military tribunal where they could be sentenced to death and not appeal. Justice was served, you're wrong McCain.
I have to say first off I don't necessarily agree with torture; just incase someone wants to try to lash out at me.
The reason why habeas corpus was granted because in the court system they had in guantanamo the detainees were subjected to things such as having evidence brought out that they were not aware of. Not being allowed to see the evidence.. etc etc.
Previously to this they already had limited Habeas rights.
The problem is that these people are considered "enemy combatants" by our government. Which if you ask me sounds like a POW. They're in our prison camp, they're an enemy combatant and therefore should fall under the guidelines of POW.
Everyone is lashing out at McCain when McCain was one of the few people on both the Republicans or Democratic side who were against Guantanamo since DAY 1!!!
McCain is right, these people should not receive our rights... they should fall under the guidelines of POW which have their own set of rules.
but that's just my interpretation/opinion on it. :hippy:
