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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (20410)	12/18/2003 7:39:11 PM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (10) \| Respond to of 793689

LB, Just to let you know. My brother called earlier today to let us know he was in a group of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital this morning that had their Purple Hearts presented to them by GWB. He was very happy to have this happen. He will be discharged from the hospital Saturday to return to the 4th ID home base at Ft Hood, Texas to finish his recovery and physical therapy there. We were glad to hear no more surgery will be necessary. We expect him here for dinner Sunday. I can't wait to pick his brain. He spent most of his time covering SF night OPS...some no doubt similar to the one that got #1. In fact he told me his unit ran that OP. He was in both Gulf wars...both times in Iraq...so he has perspective. uw

To: LindyBill who wrote (20410)	12/19/2003 4:03:40 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793689

A BIG DAY FOR ENEMY COMBATANTS The other big win for enemy combatants today, this one in the 9th Circuit. Again, I'm not a lawyer, so I'll leave the legal issues to Volokh and the boys (I'm still trying to figure out what an Appeals Court is doing hearing a case when the Supreme Court has already granted cert, frankly.) But there are policy and rhetorical issues to be considered, and this is one of those instances (like presidents attending funerals) where they are one and the same. These people at Guantanamo are not criminals. All along, whenever news reports have pointedly inserted the phrases "and they have yet to be appointed council" or "and they have yet to be charged with any crime" those stories have implicitly indicated a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation, and who those detainees are. To suggest that they have a right to lawyers, or that they should be charged with something, suggests that they ought to be in the normal criminal justice system. That system is punitive, it is retributive, rehabilitative, and deterrent and it functions within the framework of the rule of law and due process, where there is a presumption of innocence. That simply is not the framework within which these people are being held because those are not the reasons why these people are being held. They aren't criminals. They are not members of a society who have broken faith with the rules and laws of that society -- they are the enemies of the society who stand outside its rules and laws and reject the notion that those laws and the very framework within which those laws and the system of justice that enforces those laws have any validity or meaning whatsoever. They are not being held, therefore, for violating the society's laws but for threatening the society's very existence. Just as in any other war, when a combatant's warrior's are captured, they are held for the duration of combat because civilized societies do not kill those who have been taken alive on the field of battle but smart societies recognize that releasing warriors who can still fight while the war is ongoing means that they will make their way back onto the field of battle again. They don't need lawyers because they haven't broken any laws. The idea of putting them into the criminal justice system is just absurd. Some of them may have violated the laws of war: those specific individuals may need lawyers, but even if they are found innocent of those charges -- they still ain't goin' anywhere until the war's over. If found innocent, that just means they may be going somewhere when the war's over. The situation of the people found in Guantanamo is complicated by the fact that they are being treated as if they are Prisoners of War, but they are not being granted the status of Prisoners of War. Why not? What's the big deal? Again, I'm not a lawyer. But as a practical matter, this is a huge deal. The biggest bright line between a soldier and a terrorist is that solidiers fight combatants. They never knowingly, willingly, kill innocents except in those rare circumstances when there is no other way of accomplishing a mission and the proportional benefit is such that the greater good demands it (the "proportionality" critiera from just war theory) Innocents are never the explicit target simply for the purpose of killing as many innocents as possible. Doing so crosses a line that transmutes them from the honorable "soldier" to the dishonorable "murderer" and "war criminal." Terrorists, on the other hand, are trying intentionally to kill non-combatants. To label the terrorists at Guantanamo "Prisoners of War" is to give them the status of captured soldier. It is to concede that the argument theymake -- that there is no status difference between American men, women, and children, in uniform and out, because we all support the same government -- is a legitimate one. We cannot do that under any circumstances. So we cannot dump these people into the criminal justice system and treat them as if they were "criminals." They are not. And we cannot label them (as opposed to treating them as) Prisoners of War. They are not. rantingprofs.typepad.com