“I’m sure that none of us want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said about al-Qaida’s former third in command.eral appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.
First, could I reiterate a point I made at least once before: a writ of habeas corpus is not a “get of jail free card” and therefore to present the situation as such is dishonest.
Second, even if it can be demonstrated that a prisoner should be released for lack of evidence, we have already seen in the case of the Uighurs, it may not mean release and it certainly doesn’t mean release onto the streets of the United States.
Third, even suggesting that the ruling could lead to the release of Khaild Sheik Mohammed is fear-mongering of the worst sort. And really: are we really to believe that we lack sufficient evidence to use against him?
The fact that the administration continues to be unable to discuss these issues with the American people is a straightforward way is why I find it impossible to take them seriously on the subject.
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And I love how they keep saying that this ruling will allow people captured on a battlefield to go loose. We’ve known for years now that most of the people at GITMO were not captured on the battlefield, yet I heard President Bush say something to this effect the other day.
How can so many members of the press sit and listen to this constant stream of misinformation, b.s. and lies? Don’t they have some sort of threshold where they can’t take it anymore?
John Cole captured the absurdity of it
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=10768
I can’t quite express how disheartening I find it to here so many Americans express the belief that the Great Writ of habeus corpus is a threat to their liberty and security.
“The Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume.” - Thomas Jefferson to A. H. Rowan, 1798
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1520.htm
Comment by Hume\’s Ghost — Friday, July 4, 2024 @ 10:20 pm
: a writ of habeas corpus is not a “get of jail free card” and therefore to present the situation as such is dishonest.
Of course, in the case of many of these detainees, it actually might function in this way.
I’m not a lawyer, but wouldn’t a habeas proceeding require the government to produce evidence that it is rightly holding someone prisoner?
There is much evidence to suggest that many Gitmo detainees were rounded up on hearsay, information gleaned from torture, and other “evidence” unlikely to hold up to judicial scrutiny.
The reason that Bush is so antagonistic to this basic legal right is because he recognizes that his administration rounded up people willy-nilly.
Likely, many of these folks will be set free.
Comment by Ratoe — Saturday, July 5, 2024 @ 10:05 am
I’m not siding with the Bush administration on this, but I think it’s important in dealing with AQ and other T groups to define the word “battlefield” in a rather broad sense; if we are to say that a “war” on terrorism will be fought through military action, intelligence operations, and domestic security and law enforcement all working together, then the “battlefield” can be a lot of things other than the traditional trenchs and foxholes that typically come to mind when the word is uttered.
And Dr. T’s basic point is well taken. Habeas rights don’t amount to an easy out. You can have a huge mountain of evidence stacked against you in the commission of a crime here in the US, have no possible hope of not going to jail; but you still have habeas rights. All we’re really saying by “having the body” is that we can demonstrate that there is some body of evidence linking the person to the actions they are accused of. It can be weak, it can be strong - the courts battle that stuff out. But you have to have some “corpus” of evidence and you have to be able to show it.
Really, unless they were caught on US soil, though, it doesn’t matter a whole lot from the detainee’s point of view. If they’re caught here, they are subject to the legal process; elsewhere, they are a combatant subject to the tribunal review process, which stinks. It doesn’t work fast enough, and it doesn’t produce good results.
To date 501 people have been released from Gitmo, with only about 271 remaining. It’s worth noting that 73 of the released prisoners were either killed or recaptured in Iraq or Afghanistan within months of their release.
This is not to say we shouldn’t release anyone; it’s just a reminder that releases DO happen, and the fact that a significant number end up back on the battlefield underscores how poor our system of evaluating the disposition of our prisoners is.
One also has to wonder if some of those killed or recaptured after Gitmo were in fact on the battlefield because they were so PO’d about their imprisonment. I know that it would make me fighting mad if I was held for a few years without having done anything wrong.
On the other hand, the system is so bad - they could well have been dangerous combatants that shouldn’t have been released in the first place.
Comment by Captain D — Saturday, July 5, 2024 @ 10:22 am
The Bush administration certainly has a broad understanding of the battlefield, given that Jose Padilla was held for years as an “enemy combatant.” “Battlefield” - for the Bush administration, apparently means the entire planet, including US domestic soil.
Comment by Hume’s Ghost — Saturday, July 5, 2024 @ 11:44 pm
[...] On Habeas and Scare Tactics [...]
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Pingback by Cuba » Travel The World Free As A Travel Writer. — Sunday, July 6, 2024 @ 3:35 am
I think people on both sides - the Bush side and the “Hume’s Ghost” side - are making the battlefield out to be black and white, when it’s really a lot of shades of gray.
Saying that a guy captured on U.S. soil could NEVER be a combatant is saying that if we were invaded militarily by a foreign power - let’s say Canada decides (I know it’s hypthetical) to annex the state of Maine - we would have to treat Canadian soldiers captured on the battlefield in Maine as criminals, and give them access to the courts, rather than treating them as prisoners of war and subjecting them to the rules of the Geneva Conventions and the interal policies of the U.S. military.
Clearly this would be completely nuts. A person can be a combatant if captured here. The problem is not so much the global reach of the combatant status but the LACK OF A SOLID WAY OF DETERMININING RAPIDLY AND ACCURATELY IF A PERSON REALLY IS A COMBATANT OR WAS JUST IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME. We had no such system in place going into the conflict and still haven’t developed one.
The battlefield is gray, and the rules (the Geneva Conventions and others) were drawn up in a time when the battlefield was black and white, and when war was either on or off. The times have changed, the nature of war has changed, and the rules have not kept pace.
Comment by Captain D — Sunday, July 6, 2024 @ 6:42 pm