Guantanamo judge drops charges against 15 year old

Nekulor · Post by **Nekulor** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 1:19 am

Meh, just hate here. I'm too apathetic for fear.

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:40 pm

And on a related note:

"Court overrules Bush 'enemy combatant' policy

Judges: President may not detain legal U.S. resident without charging him

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 2:00 p.m. ET June 11, 2007

RICHMOND, Va. - The Bush administration cannot legally detain a legal U.S. resident it believes is an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charging him, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The case involves a Qatari national and suspected al-Qaida operative who is the only person being held in the United States as an "enemy combatant."

In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act does not strip Ali al-Marri of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court. It ruled the government must allow him to be released from military detention.

In a major setback for the administration, the appellate panel ruled that the government's evidence afforded no basis to treat al-Marri as an "enemy combatant."

"The government cannot subject al-Marri to indefinite military detention. For in the United States, the military cannot seize and imprison civilians — let alone imprison them indefinitely," Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote.

Al-Marri has been held in a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., for about four years without any charges.

The ruling sent the case back to a federal judge in South Carolina with instructions to direct Defense Secretary Robert Gates to release al-Marri from military custody within a reasonable period of time.

The government can transfer al-Marri to civilian authorities to face criminal charges, initiate deportation proceedings, hold him as a witness in a grand jury proceeding or detain him for a limited period of time under the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law.

Jose Padilla, another U.S. citizen, was held as an enemy combatant in a Navy brig for 3 1/2 years before he was hastily added to an existing case in Miami in November 2005, a few days before a U.S. Supreme Court deadline for Bush administration briefs on the question of the president’s powers to continue holding him in military prison without charge."

[url]URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19172214/[/url]

Nekulor · Post by **Nekulor** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:04 pm

Darn. Here I was hoping we could detain people indefinitely before trial. Darn judicial process always gets in the way... honestly, we need to speed these trials up, even if they are by tribunal or "McDonald's style" express trial by jury. We can't keep them forever, and releasing them all is a stupid and unrealistic solution, so that is one of the only things we can do, change the process itself.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:41 am

Since I can't rationally respond to the above, I'll just post a tangentially related cartoon.

Nekulor · Post by **Nekulor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:59 am

What, you would release all of them mulu? I think more are guilty than innocent. That would be like reigning in half the evil people in the world, then giving them all amnesty for their crimes. I say we fix the process at Gitmo, since you seem to think my objection to releasing all of them is at least somewhat off.

I can't think of anything else you would be objecting to in that post, except maybe excessively speedy trials. Hell, the American citizens are the only ones who truly HAVE to have a trial by our laws. Not saying we should screw everyone else over, but we could prosecute the non-citizens differently if we wanted to. Just playing devil's advocate here.

Jeppan · Post by **Jeppan** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:23 am

Nekulor wrote:Just playing devil's advocate here.

No. You are not. You do not have the brains to do it I fear. You are merely showing off that you can type which is a miracle in itself given the trackrecord of your postings. Other than that the things you are typing are darwinistic missinformed stupidities that you have been taught to repeat by the government controlled television (pick one) or some other republican/nazi source.

Praeterea censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Mord · Post by **Mord** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 11:25 am

Nekulor wrote:What, you would release all of them mulu? I think more are guilty than innocent. That would be like reigning in half the evil people in the world, then giving them all amnesty for their crimes. I say we fix the process at Gitmo, since you seem to think my objection to releasing all of them is at least somewhat off.

I can't think of anything else you would be objecting to in that post, except maybe excessively speedy trials. Hell, the American citizens are the only ones who truly HAVE to have a trial by our laws. Not saying we should screw everyone else over, but we could prosecute the non-citizens differently if we wanted to. Just playing devil's advocate here.

You are a disgusting human being.

Nekulor · Post by **Nekulor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:12 pm

OK, let's say half of them are innocent, that is still no reason to release all of them, including those who have committed terrible crimes, upon the world again like nothing ever happened. I'm saying that we should give them fair trials, but they need to move much, much faster. We can't have thousands of inmates backed up without trials, because it simply drags on forever, and no one wins in that situation.

Mord, I never said we should deny them of all human rights and convict them on a whim. I simply think we have to speed up the process, and one of the only things we can do about that is cut down the appeals process for those detainees at gitmo after a conviction. Cutting down on appeals would save months or years of work, total, and would allow more cases to be seen as it would free up a number of judges there. The limited judicial staff at gitmo also needs to be expanded so the trials can proceed more quickly. Considering these are war crimes and these are mostly foreign citizens, I see no reason for them to fly juries from the US, because even if they wanted them, it would do them no good because you won't find a sympathetic jury anywhere in the states. I don't think my suggestions are terrible or unreasonable, I think you simply misconstrued my intentions. They should still be given fair trials, because, honestly, fair trials are the right thing to do in this case, even if many of those who are guilty at gitmo want to see America destroyed. I simply think, like the courts have decided, that the process must be quickened to keep things from getting backlogged and that people can't be held indefinitely.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:32 pm

We don't lack the resources to give them all a fair trail in federal court. There are federal courts all over this country. The reason the US govt hasn't tried to prosecute the vast majority of them is the simple reason that they have no evidence of guilt. This is yet another problem that simpleton Bush will pass on to the next guy (or gal). In the meantime, some percentage of those folk (we'll probably never know exactly how many, since any information on them is a "state secret") are innocent yet detained for years. If it was your sorry ass in Gitmo for no good reason other than your ethnicity and a vague suspicion of guilt, I bet you'd have a lot less bravado about it, especially after year five.

A technique that has worked for me on students trying to decipher the vagaries of ethics is something called Original Position. Imagine that you are pre-born, but sentient and aware of the world. You don't know who you are going to be born as, you don't know what your ethnicity or country of origin will be, you don't know the religion of your parents, or their wealth. Maybe you'll be a rich American, maybe a poor American, maybe a Somalian, maybe you'll be born into war torn Iraq. From *that* perspective, not knowing which rules are going to apply to you or where you are going to be socially or religiously, what system of rules would you want to be in place? Would you want foreigners suspected of hostilities to get a fair trial? Remember, it could be your dad in Gitmo. Well, your uncle anyway....

Nekulor · Post by **Nekulor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:39 pm

From that situation, I'll stick with the logical extension of the suggestions I made: If you have the evidence, prosecute them. If not, send them home. Use federal court jurisdictions if necessary.

Mord · Post by **Mord** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:56 pm

Given your amazingly extensive track record of appalling comments in this thread, I'll let myself off the hook for quite justifiably misconstruing your intentions with the above post.

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:05 pm

Nekulor wrote:If you have the evidence, prosecute them. If not, send them home.

I'm pretty sure that this is something all here can agree upon. The fact that you seem to ignore is that folks are being held indefinitely without any concrete proof of guilt. Unless of course you think being named Ahmed is some sort of proof.

This sort of behaviour doesn't make Bush any better than the evil terrorists he declared war on.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:30 pm

Mulu wrote:We don't lack the resources to give them all a fair trail in federal court. There are federal courts all over this country. The reason the US govt hasn't tried to prosecute the vast majority of them is the simple reason that they have no evidence of guilt. This is yet another problem that simpleton Bush will pass on to the next guy (or gal). In the meantime, some percentage of those folk (we'll probably never know exactly how many, since any information on them is a "state secret") are innocent yet detained for years. If it was your sorry ass in Gitmo for no good reason other than your ethnicity and a vague suspicion of guilt, I bet you'd have a lot less bravado about it, especially after year five.

ROFL. Hang Bush from a gibbet but put Bill Clinton back in the White House (via Hillary)? That's your idea of ethics? BILL CLINTON was responsible for the creation of the rendition program in the first place. What about HIS crimes against humanity?

And you can't speak definitively about the intentions of the US government. You provided a link earlier to a more than compelling explanation as to why they would torture terrorists. Extrapolate from there a reason why they would not prosecute.

Nekulor · Post by **Nekulor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:54 pm

Mordekai wrote:Given your amazingly extensive track record of appalling comments in this thread, I'll let myself off the hook for quite justifiably misconstruing your intentions with the above post.

Appalling to you. I can feel that way about people who commit acts of terrorism if I want. For some reason, their suffering just doesn't strike any emotions with me. I dunno, maybe it has something to do with their crimes against humanity? Just a guess. When we're talking about appalling people, I feel the right to make appalling comments about them. Sorry I don't feel empathy for people who target civilians as viable targets in a guerrilla war.

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:08 pm

Nekulor wrote:
Mordekai wrote:Given your amazingly extensive track record of appalling comments in this thread, I'll let myself off the hook for quite justifiably misconstruing your intentions with the above post.
Appalling to you. I can feel that way about people who commit acts of terrorism if I want. For some reason, their suffering just doesn't strike any emotions with me. I dunno, maybe it has something to do with their crimes against humanity? Just a guess. When we're talking about appalling people, I feel the right to make appalling comments about them. Sorry I don't feel empathy for people who target civilians as viable targets in a guerrilla war.

You also don't seem to feel any sort of empathy for the innocents that are being held in those prisons for their allegedly involvement with terrorism.
You know who also doesn't care if innocents get hurt if they can hurt their enemies? Terrorists.
I wouldn't give a flip if you could get a suicide bomber and put him in a secret prison in the middle of nowhere for God knows how long. But people get arrested without a shred of proof I tend to be a tad upset.