Why Not Mirandize Them Too?! Oh Wait...
9:56 AM
by Nick Stone of Drawnlines Politics.
Sometimes it's unclear where to draw one's line in the sand. Other times it's as clear as black and white. This is one of those times.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Guantanamo detainees will get "at least some constitutional rights, particularly protection against the use of statements taken through coercive interrogations..."
That is hogwash!
To this writer, liberalism as an institution and as a context of reference can be often times burdensome and unsettling on domestic policy (though it is more often than not laughable). However, in foreign policy - and especially with regard to protecting our nation and her citizens - liberalism is downright angering and unsettling. We cannot treat terrorism or terrists as a criminal problem. The issue of terrorism is an issue of war. It is war, and we must never forget that it is a war against an enemy that has no state. It is a war against an enemy that lives in the shadows. Because of this, we must be able to (and willing to) take the war to them in the shadows. We must be willing to engage and win in the shadows. That requires a completely new way of waging war against the enemy. Like it or not, it requires exactly the mentality and approach to the war on terror that we undertook under President Bush. It took me 8 years of disbelief to come to that conclusion. Believe me, it took me eight years of hindsight but it is true.
As I wrote before (see response to reader, comment number 2 of 2),
It goes without saying to anyone who has actually bothered to read the constitution - or even peruse it - that constitutional protections apply solely to:
1) American citizens
2) American soil
We have absolutely no authority to impose our constitution on international or foreign soil. The prisoners in Guantanamo, strictly speaking, can check neither of these requirements (let alone both, as required to qualify for constitutional protection).
Let me start with the second qualification first. The entire point of us keeping the prisoners in Guantanamo as opposed to some supermax prison on US soil is simply that - legal experts from the Bush White House knew and advised the president that bringing the detainees onto US soil would be a judicial disaster. Much of the evidence acquired to try the detainees was gotten by shady means because we are fighting a shady element. That means that if we use US Justice law to prosecute, much of our evidence against them would be thrown out on it's own merit. When the evidence is thrown out of a US court where the defendants would stand trial, we would be obligated to let them free on US soil.
Typically we would extradite prisoners to the countries from which they came or to a third party if their homeland could not or would not accept them back. The problem is that we keep confronting extradited terror suspects again and again on the battlefield. The recidivism rate is staggering. Also, third parties either cannot or will not handle them. Al Qaeda however would gladly welcome them home with open arms. That would be unacceptable, to say the least.
Put plainly: we would have no choice but to let extremely dangerous BAD guys free to roam on US soil because the evidence we have against them would be inadmissable. That does not mean that these are actually happy people that would love America and sing kumbaya with us around the campfire and worship rainbows and unicorns. They would escape to the shadows from which they came and we wouldn't know where they had gone until we heard the ka-blooey. That's a historically proven fact, not hyperbole.
On point number one, the entire context of the US Constitution clearly implies that it regards only citizens of the United States. That's why the preamble so clearly points to the welfare of her people, domestic tranquility, and even starts off, "We the people of the United States". It couldn't be more clear.
If you need more proof, see Articles I and II defining the elegibility requirements to serve (or more broadly, what it means to be an American), the First or Fourteenth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause - you name it.
The United States Constitution protects American citizens on American soil. Period. You needn't be a constitutional law professor to grasp the clear intention of the founding fathers on that point.
Extending constitutional rights to detainees from foreign countries who are not on domestic soil makes our inner bleeding hearts feel better about ourselves. In the light of day however, it could not be more clear how dangerous the consequences and precedence of providing these rights to foreign terrorists will turn out to be.
It's bad enough that after the president mocked the idea that we would ever mirandize terror suspects as an extreme example lobbed by the Right of the president's weakness on the issue, it turned out that we would go ahead and mirandize them starting recently.
Can you imagine telling a terrorist captured on foreign soil, "you have the right to remain silent... anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...?" The problem of course is that they don't have the right to remain silent. We're now giving them that right for free. Worse yet, we desperately need them to talk so that we can thwart further attacks and find the heart of their organization. Their silence is precisely what led us to torture terror suspects in the first place.
In the words of Joe Scarborough, "I knew on the second day (of the Obama Administration) that America was less safe."
Sometimes it's unclear where to draw one's line in the sand. Other times it's as clear as black and white. This is one of those times.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Guantanamo detainees will get "at least some constitutional rights, particularly protection against the use of statements taken through coercive interrogations..."
That is hogwash!
To this writer, liberalism as an institution and as a context of reference can be often times burdensome and unsettling on domestic policy (though it is more often than not laughable). However, in foreign policy - and especially with regard to protecting our nation and her citizens - liberalism is downright angering and unsettling. We cannot treat terrorism or terrists as a criminal problem. The issue of terrorism is an issue of war. It is war, and we must never forget that it is a war against an enemy that has no state. It is a war against an enemy that lives in the shadows. Because of this, we must be able to (and willing to) take the war to them in the shadows. We must be willing to engage and win in the shadows. That requires a completely new way of waging war against the enemy. Like it or not, it requires exactly the mentality and approach to the war on terror that we undertook under President Bush. It took me 8 years of disbelief to come to that conclusion. Believe me, it took me eight years of hindsight but it is true.
As I wrote before (see response to reader, comment number 2 of 2),
"Bush fundamentally changed the way we protect our citizens. I stand firmly in the belief that Bush's so-called "cowboy diplomacy" gave pause to the world. That they were scared of us made every tribal leader, every sleeper cell leader, and every foreign government leader abroad a reason to think twice before acting foolishly, for fear of reprisal. Agree or disagree, the point is worth something. But more importantly, the broad and largely secret measures that Bush took behind the scenes to enhance our intelligence-gathering and other clandestine operations put us on a level playing field against our nameless enemies for the first time in decades if not centuries.
So, as an American I'm offended that the government can come into my home and raid my computer and personal files while I'm at work without me ever knowing about it.
But I'd be exponentially more upset with a Boeing 757 being flown into my husband's office while he's working. I'd be much more devastated to learn that it was my child at the school that just had a bomb explode. And I'd like to think that you feel the same way."
It goes without saying to anyone who has actually bothered to read the constitution - or even peruse it - that constitutional protections apply solely to:
1) American citizens
2) American soil
We have absolutely no authority to impose our constitution on international or foreign soil. The prisoners in Guantanamo, strictly speaking, can check neither of these requirements (let alone both, as required to qualify for constitutional protection).
Let me start with the second qualification first. The entire point of us keeping the prisoners in Guantanamo as opposed to some supermax prison on US soil is simply that - legal experts from the Bush White House knew and advised the president that bringing the detainees onto US soil would be a judicial disaster. Much of the evidence acquired to try the detainees was gotten by shady means because we are fighting a shady element. That means that if we use US Justice law to prosecute, much of our evidence against them would be thrown out on it's own merit. When the evidence is thrown out of a US court where the defendants would stand trial, we would be obligated to let them free on US soil.
Typically we would extradite prisoners to the countries from which they came or to a third party if their homeland could not or would not accept them back. The problem is that we keep confronting extradited terror suspects again and again on the battlefield. The recidivism rate is staggering. Also, third parties either cannot or will not handle them. Al Qaeda however would gladly welcome them home with open arms. That would be unacceptable, to say the least.
Put plainly: we would have no choice but to let extremely dangerous BAD guys free to roam on US soil because the evidence we have against them would be inadmissable. That does not mean that these are actually happy people that would love America and sing kumbaya with us around the campfire and worship rainbows and unicorns. They would escape to the shadows from which they came and we wouldn't know where they had gone until we heard the ka-blooey. That's a historically proven fact, not hyperbole.
On point number one, the entire context of the US Constitution clearly implies that it regards only citizens of the United States. That's why the preamble so clearly points to the welfare of her people, domestic tranquility, and even starts off, "We the people of the United States". It couldn't be more clear.
If you need more proof, see Articles I and II defining the elegibility requirements to serve (or more broadly, what it means to be an American), the First or Fourteenth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause - you name it.
The United States Constitution protects American citizens on American soil. Period. You needn't be a constitutional law professor to grasp the clear intention of the founding fathers on that point.
Extending constitutional rights to detainees from foreign countries who are not on domestic soil makes our inner bleeding hearts feel better about ourselves. In the light of day however, it could not be more clear how dangerous the consequences and precedence of providing these rights to foreign terrorists will turn out to be.
It's bad enough that after the president mocked the idea that we would ever mirandize terror suspects as an extreme example lobbed by the Right of the president's weakness on the issue, it turned out that we would go ahead and mirandize them starting recently.
Can you imagine telling a terrorist captured on foreign soil, "you have the right to remain silent... anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...?" The problem of course is that they don't have the right to remain silent. We're now giving them that right for free. Worse yet, we desperately need them to talk so that we can thwart further attacks and find the heart of their organization. Their silence is precisely what led us to torture terror suspects in the first place.
In the words of Joe Scarborough, "I knew on the second day (of the Obama Administration) that America was less safe."
Posted by Nick Stone
on 9:56 AM.
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If President Obama wants them taken care of so well and on American soil maybe he should make room on the white house grounds for them. Maybe set up a nice little hotel like holding area just outside of the west wing. If he expects that any American should be comfortable with them in our city or in our states prisons or just running about, maybe he should have to put up with them being in his back yard for a change.
I fundamentally disagree with pretty much everything you just wrote.
The people who are being held at Guantanamo have never been convicted of a crime. Never even charged with any wrongdoing. They are simply held, indefinitely. Can you imagine if one of our citizens was kidnapped overseas and kept there, without so much as right to counsel or the proper diplomatic channels? We'd throw a fit as a nation. We simply can not throw out our values and morals, simply because we believe that one person may be associated with terrorist entities.
Even the Supreme Court rebuked many of the Bush policies related to Bush's indefinite detention of suspects. Obama froze the military tribunals until they could figure out the legality of them, and reinstated them at a later date, with a number of changes added.
Nobody is suggesting sitting down and giving Guantanamo detainees full Miranda warnings. However, even military tribunals must have some standards of evidence, otherwise they would be entirely unfair and biased towards the government. Therefore it seems only reasonable that a prisoner should have SOME protections afforded under international law and other treaties. They are already essentially guilty, until proven innocent.
Also, do you really think that Obama is just going to let potential terrorists out onto the streets? This idea that we're going to bring people to this country and then let them go when they're acquitted at trial is just ridiculous. No American President would do such a thing or take that chance.
That being said, do you have so little faith in our justice system that we can't handle suspected terrorists? Our conuntry already has some of the most draconian punishments of industrialized nations, not to mention we keep more of our population locked up, percentage-wise, than any other civilized country.
In case you were unaware, we keep numerous terrorists locked up on American soil, Nick. In case you were unaware, the people who bombed the World Trade Center in the 1990s, along with the Unabomber, the 20th 9/11 hijacker and others, are being detained in Colorado and Illonois. We didn't feel the need to ship them off to foreign soil for a trial and waterboard them to illicit false information. No, they were tried and convicted under the same standards that all criminal defendants in the United States receive. These folks were just, if not more, dangerous as the detainees at Guantanamo, because they ACTUALLY PARTICIPATED IN A TERRORIST ACT. They were not just "suspected" of having terrorist ties.
Also, your Scarborough quote is selective. He also said that Obama is the first foreign policy realist since Bush the 1st.
In one sense, I do agree with afucfguy18. Those fine folks being held at Guantanamo have never been convicted of a crime. The “problem” with POWs is that at some point the war comes to an end and it has to be decided what is done with them. This time is now. Whether the war is over is irrelevant because we're not fighting a war but rather a non-war. I don't believe in a "war on terror" as such. It's a battle that can't be won not because it doesn't exist but because in such general terms it's always existed and always will. It needs to be better defined. It was U.S. propaganda, doubtless.
It really doesn't matter how great the treatment at Guantanamo is. I have little doubt that it's a fine facility, but a prison is a prison. It's not right to the innocent that reside there that they be treated in such a way indefinitely. I'm undecided with respect to what priveleges they should have while there, but the direction in which we're moving should be to evaluate their innocence and deal with them accordingly.
The problem is that you, excuse me, we have a president that is as wishy-washy and selective as they come. Promises aren't actions. I can't expect him to truly set people who deserve it free because he believes in the tyranny of big government. He's not a foreign policy realist. He's a foreign policy warbler more bound to rhetoric than accomplishments. You lead by example, not words. If he's going to be a non-interventionalist, he should be it whole-heartedly instead of trying (and failing) to not get involved in Iranian internal affairs while having no problem stepping on Israeli settlements (and rightly so).
I have no faith in Obama to do the right thing in this or many other situations. Truthfully, he scares me. His comments on the subject of William Ayers were lukewarm at best. Ayers wasn't suspected of having terrorist ties, he ACTUALLY PARTICIPATED IN A TERRORIST ACT. Measured respones are okay, but trickle-out foreign policy is never consistent, realist, or welcome. Neither having friendly ties nor "palling around with" terrorists are welcome either.