We can't close GITMO because we engaged in war crimes..

[mdmc]

I heard President Obama answer why we can't close GITMO at his presser today.
Basically he said that we have some very dangerous people at GITMO. We can't let them go, because they would be a threat to the USA. We can't bring them to trial because after 9-11 we did some things that basically will not stand up in the court of law.

We tortured people that are now in GITMO and therefore cannot bring them to court. And we cannot release them, because they are a threat.

GITMO will always be a recruiting tool used against us. We don't have any war crime charges. Something needs to be done to undue this damage.

[WinkyDink]

1. Disregarding Habeas Corpus is the mark of a dictator, under whatever aegis or guise.

Runnymede, anyone?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. In strictly constitutional terms congress can authorize the suspension of HC

just asyin'

I honestly do not know how much it does or does not apply in these instances.

I believe HC also does not apply to those taken on fields of battle as no nation could honestly be expected to try every POW and I believe POWs are immune from trial unless there is a specific crime they are accused of, i.e. rape. This is to protect conscripts and lower ranks from being vindictively prosecuted by captor nations.

I do not know if international law would count detainees taken from the Afghan theater of war to be POWs. It's hard to say since Taliban do not wear uniforms or answer to a national command authority.

[FiveGoodMen]

17. During the run-up to the Iraq invasion I heard many people debating whether Bush had the authority

to start the war.

Lost in those conversations was any thought of whether we should attack people who hadn't harmed us.

Lost was any consideration of what kind of monster would contemplate such a thing.

The framing was all about the legalities.

Just sayin'

[Nuclear Unicorn]

21. Well, they elected people who represented their side of the argument..

and we got ours.

And did we ever.

As to Gitmo, though, who does decide whether or not those detained ought to be detained? If someone is a genuine threat and/or has perpetrated an attack it obviously would be foolish to risk innocent lives be releasing them and there would be political hell to pay.

If you think the GOP was bad in 2003 wait and see what they would be capable/enabled to do if there was a major attack by someone released without scrutiny.

So that gets us back to: who scrutinizes?

If we say the courts then we also ask: has congress suspended habeas corpus so as to allow the military to do it?

If congress did then the fault isn't with the president. It would be foolish to expect a president to NOT use a power at their disposal. Our protests must return to congress and apparently none of them seems likely to undo what they have done.

Should they?

I dunno. I am having serious reservations about trying actual terrorists in civilian courts. I'm not sold on the idea that is the best policy. I don't believe international law grants them the same protections as actual soldiers (nor should it because they deliberately target civilians) so we aren't "sinning" by having our legal inquiry mirror the international code, i.e. not required to have civil trials.

That brings us right back to a military system.

Has congress authorized that system?

[FiveGoodMen]

25. Your view of right and wrong seems to be entirely about strategy and not about ...

well...

right and wrong.

[enough]

2. Well said. k&r (nt)

[FiveGoodMen]

3. What would ANYONE here have said if that came from Bush?

????

No, stop and think a little.

That's right, we'd be calling for his head.

Tell me again why it's okay when Obama does it.

[Capitalocracy]

9. It's not. Not at all. Not in the slightest.

It's not even unofficial anymore. Democracy Now today said Obama's planning to sign an executive order officializing indefinite detention with no charges or trial in Gitmo, the place he said would be closed within a year of his taking office.

I'm done with that shit. Primary him in 2012. Primary everyone. Put him in jail with Bush.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. "Put him in jail with Bush" is right.

[Capitalocracy]

19. Just occurred to me that...

I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to say that on DU.

[FiveGoodMen]

20. We probably are NOT supposed to say it.

But it needs to be said.

[treestar]

26. Bush would not have said it, as he actively supported his own

methods! He would be putting even more people in there.

Just another quagmire Bush started, Obama has to attempt to handle, and the left starts to blame Obama for the whole thing!

President Obama wants to try these people! It is not a normal situation. It is a legal FUBAR that BUSH created.

[sarcasmo]

4. The War machine marches on.

[phleshdef]

5. Yea, I was saying this before Obama was ever elected.

Bush put us in a tough situation. Anyone that wants to handle this with respect to rule of law is screwed either way they turn on it. They don't want to let unquestionably dangerous people go but they also have a bunch of evidence tainted by torture.

[Capitalocracy]

11. These people do not represent a threat to our democracy

Our politicians who keep them in jail do.

And as for the safety issue, yeah, it sucks, and I don't want to be the one who gets blown up after they're released, but there's no undo button here. It's better to let these potentially dangerous people go than to let them be a recruiting tool for thousands of new dangerous people.

[phleshdef]

14. All I know is I'm glad I'm not tasked with making the decision either way.

[bemildred]

6. Yep, we are fucked, or disgraced, or whatever.

But denial will not ever make it better.

[EFerrari]

7. In a nutshell. And I haven't heard that the black site at Bagram is out of business. n/t

[FormerDittoHead]

12. Well, it's not like he said he was going to close it or anything like that...

:sarcasm:

Quite frankly, while the "professional left" may be motivated by the handful of prisoners who are detained there, many of them honest to goodness terrorists, I really don't think most Americans give a shit.

Point is that he would have netted better had he simply weaseled his way around Guantanamo than make a flat-out promise.

Now it's the stain that won't come out. Out damn spot!

[markpkessinger]

13. This is what happens when . . .

This is what happens when we declare war on a tactic instead of an enemy. When we try to fight a war on "terror," as opposed to an entity or state, we start the ball rolling down a fairly steep hill, one in which virtually anyone who does anything we don't like can be defined as a "terrorist." Once that happens, anybody can also be defined as an "enemy combatant," and hence find himself beyond the scope of the legal system. At that point, Presidents can target American citizens for assassination (as Obama has done) on the ground that the citizen is a "terrorist." It becomes easier to define someone like Julian Assange as a "spy," or as someone who is "aiding and abetting terrorists." There's virtually no end to it -- and that has been the reality of the fraud that is the "Global War on Terror" from day one.

[phleshdef]

15. Or this is what happens when we don't follow the rule of law to begin with.

If the Bush administration hadn't tortured these guys, then we'd have no trouble prosecuting the truly guilty and this would all be history all ready.

[FiveGoodMen]

18. Giving a president the power of a king is the total undoing of the American revolution

As such it is the highest treason there is.

[struggle4progress]

16. Does anybody have any idea how to solve the political problem?

Congress keeps tying the Administration's hands on this matter

[treestar]

27. If people really cared, they'd be pressuring the members of Congress involved.

Instead of doing this civic duty, they just blame Obama that congress has power too.

[Angry Dragon]

22. I wrote to the president the other day and told

him I needed someone from Justice to contact me so I could file suit against former administration officials for war crimes.
I told him that we the people were the government and if he was not going to do his job then the people would have to do it for him.

[Capitalocracy]

23. Careful

With letters like that, you might just make the List.

[Angry Dragon]

24. At this point in time I really do not give a damn