On 6/10/05, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gary Denton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On 6/9/05, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Gary Denton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > >Dr. Cole is right.
> >
> > IMHO, he amplifies and mirrors one of the worst tendencies of the Bush
> > administration: seeing adversaries as evil incarnate and not willing to
> > believe that their viewpoints can be opposed, except by evil.
>
>
> >We disagree.
>
> >I don't see him as amplifying that administration trait. The prison at
> Guantanamo was
> >expressly set up to circumvent laws the US had on how to treat prisoners,
> POWs and
> >other combatants.
>
> That isn't clear to me. What is clear to me is that they didn't want the
> complication of bringing prisoners taken in a war into the United States.
> Let's look back at a few wars. It is clear that the general Viet Cong
> (Nam), Chinese (Korea), German or Japanese (WWII) prisoners would be
> covered by the Geneva convention, but no one was arguing that they had a
> right to either a trial under the US court system or quick release.
> Further, there was summary justice practiced in Europe with lower level
> German officers found guilty of war crimes. I think it would be useful to
> see what the rules as well as the practices were in past wars.
>
> So, IMHO, going to Gitmo was initially defendable. Some of the prisoners
> (AQ)
> were clearly not protected by the Geneva Conventions. That was fairly well
> established on list at the time, by reference to the conventions. If you
> look at what was expected by a number of people, military trials within a
> few months, and then sentencing, it was not inherently unreasonable.
The Geneva Conventions does specify how to handle POWs and all other
prisoners. There was a campaign by the administration to deny this and to
deny that sections of our uniform military code of justice applied. This
recommendation by the administration and the White
House was vigorously protested by experienced State Department and senior
military JAG officials.
I know of no one who thought that these prisoners would be held just a few
months until military trials but I will admit I didn't ask you.
>That didn't happen. The administration now has prisoners there for 2.5
> years, and seems most willing to hold most of them indefinitely without
> trial. I think they are caught, having prisoners that they are sure will
> return to fighting the United States if released, but without sufficient
> evidence of criminal activity to convict, even in a military court.
Their justification is, at least, slightly based in reality. There is a
> war on terrorism, and they have caught AQ unlawful combatants in this war.
> They have the right to hold them until the war is over.
This is totally preposterous. This war on a vague dangerous sounding noun
will last how long?
Dr. Cole is correct, what you are arguing is that a class of people should
be held indefinitely without trial. This is known as a bill of attainder and
is expressly forbidden by Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution.
The difficulty with this rational is obvious. While the adversary(ies) we
> are facing are not simply criminals...they have had many of the resources
> available to nations at their disposal, the war on terror is not fixed in
> place and time as older wars have been. So, these men could be held until
> they die of old age because of the vague boundaries involved in the war on
> terror.
>
> I consider this wrong. But, I consider the idea that AQ is just a bunch of
> criminals that should be left to the courts to be wrong. I think we are in
> a new type of situation....one in which the rules need to be worked out.
> None of the old templates work. Hyperbola doesn't help this process.
OK, you do recognize the problems with this. However, your dismissal of "the
courts", not even recognizing the difference between military justice and
the right demonized "liberal court system" is troubling to me.
IMHO you also seem to be remiss in claiming this is a unique situation. Many
wars are not between governments with fixed boundaries.
>The administration set out to get and obtained from their lawyers advise
> >that the Geneva Accords were "quaint" and that the president was entitled
> >to authorize torture if he felt it necessary.
>
> IIRC, the question was more limited. It was whether the US president would
> have to forgo state trips to Europe because violations of the Geneva
> convention would be an arresting offence when he was there. The answer was
> no. It is somewhat germane, because a Spanish judge is looking at charging
> the American servicemen who fired a round into a hotel that they
> mistakenly
> thought was the source of shots fired at them.
This is a somewhat distorted argument IMHO. Gonzales was writing trying to
find some means that agents of the government violating the Geneva
Convention would not be subject to trial by a future administration, not by
foreigners.
Gonzales's answer was to take the most extreme of the new Federalist
arguments, that they would be lawfully obeying the President who can
authorize anything he wishes regardless of applicable law because the
Constitutional limit on the President is only that he is subject to be
impeached. As conservatives feel that the impeachment of Nixon was a liberal
conspiracy they did not learn the history lesson that should have been clear
- in America no man is above the law. The administration likes this
Federalist argument because with GOP majority Bush is not subject to
impeachment and so is above the law.
Gonzales's words: "It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and
independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted
charges based on Section 2441 (of the US code, the War Crimes Act). Your
determination [to bypass the Geneva Conventions] would create a reasonable
basis in law that Section 2441 does not apply, which would provide a solid
defense to any future prosecution."
>The actions by the administration violate the laws of the
> >military justice system and are legal and constitutional systems and have
> >only been possibly matched at the worst times in our history.
>
> I'd be curious to see examples of the established laws of military justice
> system has handled captured combatants that have not been covered by
> treaty
> on this. I think part of the challenge for the Supreme Court is that this
> is new legal ground....so they are being careful where they step.
Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocol
II apply to prisoners regardless of the status of the legal standing of
their organization. Common Article 3 also applies to government clashes with
armed insurgent groups.
In addition the 4th Geneva Convention ("Geneva Convention relative to the
Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War") lays out separate
protections for civilians, including so-called "unlawful combatants."
Article 4 of the 3rd Geneva Convention sets out six distinct categories of
prisoners whom the convention defines as POWs.
The Constitution states that all treaties that the United States have signed
have the full status of law.
I would not call the administration being careful.
(Just curious - are you like John getting your news and analysis from
Scaife's NewsMax or Murdoch's Fox News?)
I won't consider 19th century cases, because I think that would be like
> shooting fish in a barrel....besides being part of a very different time.
> I
> can think of a number of 20th century cases that are worse than this, so I
> don't see how you can say only matched at the worst time in our history.
> The cases I'm thinking of span about the first 2/3rds of the 20th century.
>
> 1) Lynchings of 30,000 blacks in the first 30-40 years. 1000 lynchings per
> year is a large number.
>
> 2) The internment >100k Americans as a result of their ethnic background
> (Japanese) during WWII.
>
> 3) The legality of segregation.
>
> 4) The legality of Jim Crow laws
>
> All of these are examples of extensively practiced denial of the US
> constitutionally guaranteed freedoms for Americans.
Yes, and were what I was thinking of as examples of the worst times in our
history that
could not be supported today.
There are other things that our military has done, that were wrong but not
> unconstitutional.
>
> 1) The firebombing of cities with minimal military value.
>
> 2) The treatment of prisoners in our regular prisons. Prison rape is
> winked at by government officials on both sides of the aisle. There is no
> national outrage concerning this. You may think it is an outrage, as do
> others of us on this list, but it really is off the radar.
>
> 3) It's probable that all the German and Japanese women who had children
> with GIs were not in totally consensual relationships. I rather suspect
> that, if we go back in time, we'll find that the government wasn't too
> worried about prosecuting GIs for sexual assault.
>
> 4) The record of abuse of prisoners by the military had improved
> remarkably....or the taking of prisoners for that matter. Omar Bradly
> issued orders that no German snipers be taken prisoner. Our present
> record, with all the blemishes we see, still represents a significant
> improvement over WWII.
>
> >All of those instances in the past had been subsequently denounced.
>
> Some of the worst instances I mentioned have been. Others have not...at
> least not by the general consensus of American opinion.
Which ones have not?
>I don't believe only evil people support this, many frightened people do.
>
> OK, I stand corrected, evil people and the emotionally immature people
> they
> dupe. :-)
>
> I think a better vantage point is that our standards have changed over the
> years....mostly for the better. But, I see very little recognition of this
> in Dr. Coles comments. Further, I see denial of the complexity of the
> situation. Instead I see a black and white description of the Republicans
> as a combination of the evil and their witless dupes and courageous
> freedom
> loving people like him trying to save the nation from evil.
Well, I think Dr. Cole has been more temperate than I have been, you might
recheck which were his comments and which are mine ;-)
Not all or even most of the GOP is evil. I am working for a conservative GOP
candidate now. But the de facto leaders of the GOP combine corporate
cronyism, American-style authoritarian power grabs, and support for a new
Reconstructed United States Under God.
It also seems clear to me that he considers Republicans a far greater
> threat to the US than AQ. In one real sense, the difference between his
> views and Bush's revolve around unspoken assumptions about the nature of
> the world. For example, I see a tacit assumption on Cole's part that the
> US is so powerful that they only way it can be seriously harmed by others
> is if it does evil...because then it will reap what it sows. Bush, on the
> other hand, sees a very significant risk to the US, and a number of folks
> who would rather spend their time nit-picking the US than facing this
> risk.
I think the big push to rollback liberties is not a reaction to 9/11 but
using 9/11 as an opportunity. The attack on Iraq was not a reaction to 9/11
but pre-planned before the election and the public documents indicate they
were hoping for some event they could use to justify it. See the Project For
a New American Century.
The Downing Street memo by the head of the UK secret service only
acknowledges what anyone with eyes open already knew -
1. By mid-July 2002, eight months before the war began, President Bush had
decided to invade and occupy Iraq. (Actually earlier but this is when he
visited.)
2. Bush had decided to 'justify' the war 'by the conjunction of terrorism
and WMD.'
3. Already, 'the intelligence and facts were being "fixed" around the
policy.'
4. Many at the top of the [U.S.] administration did not want to seek
approval from the United Nations (going 'the U.N. route').
5. Few in Washington seemed much interested in the aftermath of the war. "
Do you feel the head of the UK secret service is not a credible witness? Or
do you think the question of another war based on lies like Vietnam is
nit-picking.
I find it difficult to discern if Bush is afraid of those evil bad guys in
the world or just wants us to be.
I see something in the middle. Even before 9-11, Sen. Kerry of Nebraska
> was speaking out about the significant risk from terrorism that existed.
> We were very lucky that the death toll was as low as it was. If the first
> plane didn't strike until the second plane did, we might be talking about
> tens of thousands of casualties. There is a real possibility of a
> bioweapon, or a small nuclear devise being detonated in the US. I'd rate a
> serious attack (>10k dead) as at least a 50-50 chance during the next
> decade.
Sen. Kerry of Massachusetts probably did more to stop terrorism than any
actions by this administration through his investigation of BCCI, something
other members of his party as well as the GOP opposed. Many other Democrats
had been urging more actions against terrorists groups before 9/11 when the
administration was far more concerned about implementing SDI and those
lucrative contracts for their supporters.
One of my arguments with the GOP is they don't take WMDs seriously. They cut
all funding for securing nuclear material in Russia out of one of Bush's
first budgets. The White House outed a CIA agent who had for years worked to
keep WMD material out of the hands of terrorists and unfriendly governments
for petty revenge against her husband. Both of the administration officials
charged with coordinating actions against terrorist groups resigned charging
the administration was not taking the threat seriously. The administration
merely cloaks their actions in Orwellian/Straussian/Machiavellian
strategies, attacks on the patriotism of others where words mean what they
want them to mean and any actions they undertake are for defense of God and
Country. Any critics of their policies are accused of undermining their
fight.
One of the biggest problems I have with overstatements on both sides of the
> argument is that they tend to take attention away from what is a very
> difficult question. How do we engage in a conflict with enemies that are
> not really nations, but have been strong enough to control nations? What
> risks are inherent in the lowering price of weapons that can kill tens or
> hundreds of thousands in one attack? What changes are required to assure
> our security, and which are overkill or a risk to liberty?
When one sees one side becoming the Nehemiah Scudder long predicted in
American politics it is a grievous error not to point this out.
Your questions are the appropriate ones and I asked long before the Bush
administration. - The biggest changes that I feel are necessary are toward
more democracy, not less, toward more international cooperation - not less,
toward more efforts creating an America to be admired - not despised.
I feel you are going to take that as another example of overheated rhetoric.
Actions have consequences - the subverting of the code of military justice
has lead to the failures at Gitmo, in Abu Ghrab, in Afghanistan. As we
already know from the stories in Guantanamo, many of the prisoners were sold
or turned over to the Americans by Afghan warlords with an agenda. They were
not guilty of anything:
Here are the consequences the Arab street knows about - have you read it?
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers
> continued to torment him.
>
> The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was
> hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at
> around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American
> base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was
> present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and
> his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his
> cell for much of the previous four days.
>
> Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators,
> Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first
> he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner
> fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison
> scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the
> water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.
>
> "Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as
> the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"
>
> At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his
> knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days,
> could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a
> doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his
> cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to
> the ceiling.
>
> "Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
>
> Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr.
> Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be
> many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most
> of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply
> drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
Read the whole article. This man's story is relayed in full detail as well
as others who were kicked in the genitals, arms chained to the roofs of
their cells for days on end, threatened with rape and other "interrogation
techniques."
The main unit consisted of body builders who were called "the testosterone
gang." They decorated their tents with the confederate flags. There seems to
have been almost no supervision of the 21 year olds who were "leading"
interrogations. These guys were not a bunch of scared kids on the front
lines fighting for their lives. They were a bunch of guys just "blowing off
steam." I'm sure Rush would just love to have been there. They were having
quite the party.
Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally
> disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate
> himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the
> legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air,
> Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy,"
> after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One
> of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the
> cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.
>
> Eventually, the man was sent home.
>
> Military spokesmen maintained that both men had died of natural causes,
> even after military coroners had ruled the deaths homicides. Two months
> after those autopsies, the American commander in Afghanistan, then-Lt. Gen.
> Daniel K. McNeill, said he had no indication that abuse by soldiers had
> contributed to the two deaths. The methods used at Bagram, he said, were "in
> accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques."
Actions have consequences - by letting an administration unconcerned with
the rule of law take whatever actions they feel like we are engaged in a war
against terrorism by turning some of our soldiers into terrorists.
Note that the original article was from the New York Times, a paper so
"liberal" it is like the Washington Post only describing the new judges the
President has pushed through only after they are confirmed. This latest
judge feels that "liberal democracy is the the same as slavery."
Do you feel that way? Do you think this administration feels that way?
I think there can be a very intelligent discussion on these questions, with
> room for reasonable people to differ. Gitmo was a failure, on a number of
> levels. I have no argument with that. I do find argument with statements
> that the administrations actions are so vile that they are "only possibly
> matched at the worst times in our history. I simply can't see the basis
> for such strong statements.
I do, but I am often passionate about liberty and my country.
Late news, on a hearing on this very issue of Gulags and how far should we
erode our liberties under Patriot Act 2 the GOP head of the Congressional
committee stormed out of the room after refusing to listen to critics.
--
Gary Denton
Easter Lemming Blogs
http://elemming.blogspot.com
http://elemming2.blogspot.com
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