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Waas on Guantanamo

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 07:11:04 AM EST
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Murray Waas is blogging about Guantanamo, Colin Powell, McCaffrey, and Ignatius.

The New York Times reports Bush claims the Supreme Court backed him on Guantanamo.

"It didn't say we couldn't have done -- couldn't have made that decision, see?" Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Chicago. "They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo -- whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made."

Nice try, Mr. President, but Guantanamo wasn't the issue in the case -- the use of military tribunals was, and there was no approval of them.

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    Waas on Guantanamo | 21 comments (21 topical)
    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 07:37:27 AM EST
    What a friggin' thimble-dick. The guy is pathologically incapable of facing reality. Frightening.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 07:49:48 AM EST
    Nice try, Mr. President, but Guantanamo wasn't the issue in the case -- the use of military tribunals was, and there was no approval of them.
    Yes, but how does that connect to his actual statement here
    "They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo -- whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made."
    What about that is inaccurate? The central issue of the Hamdan was not Gitmo but had the SCOTUS felt it appropriate to comment on the situation, who honestly doubts they would have? TL is trying to put words into the President's mouth for no other reason to confuse his statement.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 07:55:33 AM EST
    TL is trying to put words into the President's mouth for no other reason to confuse his statement. No...You are spinning and tryng to put words in TL's mouth. And bush is spinning. Trying to make it seem that the Supreme Court said something it did not.
    The question of whether Mr. Bush had properly used Guantánamo Bay to house detainees was not at issue in the case. At issue was whether the president could unilaterally establish military commissions with rights different from those allowed at a court-martial to try detainees for war crimes.
    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#4)
    by squeaky on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 08:25:11 AM EST
    Yes croc_a_choda, you are right. They also did not tell Bush that he was wrong to continue reading My Pet Goat while the WTC was aflame. Or that he was wrong to eat a pretzel. The SC has approved 99.9999% of Bush's actions because they didn't mention them. What a fine record. I think the correct term is non-sequitur. Extra pathetic because he used it to squirm out of culpability.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 08:38:20 AM EST
    Did Hamdan suggest or imply Gitmo should not be used to detain enemy combattants or moreover, that it should be closed?

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#6)
    by Edger on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 08:40:10 AM EST
    More non-sequitur.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#7)
    by Sailor on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 09:41:53 AM EST
    speaking of non-sequiturs

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 09:52:28 AM EST
    Hamdan is explained pretty well in a video over at C-Span's "Capital News" where law professors and constitutional law experts explain it at Georgetown University. Hamdan nixed *'s big ideas that he can do whatever he wants, legal or not, shot a big hole in his "unitary executive" game. Hamdan also makes them stick to the Geneva Conventions. It means they can't torture and humiliate and waterboard prisoners anymore. So, yes, in a real sense, Hamdan implies Gitmo, as we know it, as it has been used, should be closed, even if it remains a place where we detain people. It is the first powerful, real, push-back on the torture and other abuses of prisoners by this administration. It also means there will be much less legal cover for interrogators who use, and have used, these methods. Hamdan shot a big smoking hole in both of *'s defenses: inherent authority, and authority from the authorization to use force. So, yes, * and his stinking little band of use-the-reliance-on-counsel-defense-to-break-the-law lawyers just got a good smack in their collective kissers.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#9)
    by Dadler on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 11:35:30 AM EST
    Agent99, Bravo.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#10)
    by Officious Pedant on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 06:34:27 PM EST
    PBRMan, While I appreciate a good argument (assuming a position), there are certain things that must be part of it for it to have value. Facts would be good for a start. According to the reviews produced by the government for the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, only 11% of the detainees were taken under arms against the US. That's 56 people taken under arms. The majority, 66%, were taken in Pakistan, as a result of bounties offered in conjunction with leaflets like this: Get wealth and power beyond your dreams....You can receive millions of dollars helping the anti-Taliban forces catch al-Qaida and Taliban murders. This is enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people. So, would you say being taken from your home and sold to the US, which imprisoned you for years without trial or legal redress (not to mention kept in a cage and questioned), because a poor neighbor or enemy might collect a bounty, isn't torture? What about the folks like Padilla, taken on American soil, who are never charged with the crimes that got them arrested (and the SCOTUS drops the case when that becomes true, preventing the question of detention from coming before the court)? I didn't see anything about conspiracy to detonate a dirty bomb in the charges filed against him, after all. Or, as is more likely in my opinion, are you totally incurious about who is actually imprisoned and being subjected to "American justice" at Gitmo, so long as some nitwit in a suit tells you they are the "worst of the worst" (shades of Abu Ghraib that, right up until they let several thousand of them go) often enough? I was going to ask you what binary world you live in that asking for the guilt or innocence of these individuals to be determined amounted to having a soft spot for them, but that would be a total waste of time, I think. Perhaps a refresher on the Constitution would be in order, PBR, as you seem to have missed some of the important bits. For example, the total lack of usage of the word "citizen" in the Bill of Rights.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#11)
    by jondee on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 08:35:37 PM EST
    Unless they were left-leaning liberals. Hard enough to imagine Pabst having "sympathy" for anyone.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#12)
    by Officious Pedant on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 09:13:19 PM EST
    Wow, PBR, you're reading impaired, too. First, I said they were taken in Pakistan, and that the bounties played a role. To wit:
    The majority, 66%, were taken in Pakistan, as a result of bounties
    That information was derived from the reports generated for the tribunal at the link you didn't read.
    I take it to be a fact that 558 detainees have had their status examined by a lawfully convened and lawfully constituted Combatant Status Review Tribunal, and of these 520 have been duly found to be enemy combatants.
    Wow. Pretty broad assertion, though blatantly false. On 31 January, Washington federal judge Joyce Hens Green ruled that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals held to confirm the status of the prisoners in Guantánamo as "enemy combatants" were "unconstitutional", and that they were entitled to the rights granted by the Constitution of the United States of America. The Combatant Status Reviews were completed in March 2005. 38 of the detainees were found not to be combatants. On March 29, 2005, the dossier of Murat Kurnaz was accidentally declassified. Kurnaz was one of the 500-plus detainees the reviews had determined was an "enemy combatant". Critics found that his dossier contained over a hundred pages of reports of investigations, which had found no ties to terrorists or terrorism whatsoever. It contained one memo that said Kurnaz had a tie to a suicide bomber. Judge Green said this memo: "fails to provide significant details to support its conclusory allegations, does not reveal the sources for its information and is contradicted by other evidence in the record." Eugene R. Fidell, who the Washington Post called a Washington-based expert in military law, said: "It suggests the procedure is a sham, If a case like that can get through, what it means is that the merest scintilla of evidence against someone would carry the day for the government, even if there's a mountain of evidence on the other side."[74] Another detainee, Fawaz Mahdi, was determined by a CSRT to be an enemy combatant despite the fact that the CSRT itself (and also Fawaz' lawyer and he himself) observed that he suffers a form of mental illness, and that the only evidence for determining his status was his own statement.[75]
    It is noteworthy that, among other such incidents, six former detainees are being tried in France for "associating with criminals in relation to a terrorist organization"; two are being detained in Moscow on "suspicion of preparing terrorist acts."
    Hmm. Let's see. On July 27, 2004 four French detainees Mourad Benchellali, Nizar Sassi, Imad Kanouni and Brahim Yadel were repatriated and remanded in custody by the French intelligence agency Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire.[50] You know what that doesn't say? Convicted. And they have been charged with "associating" with suspected terrorists. Oh, and counterfeiting. AI Index: EUR 46/035/2005 (Public) News Service No: 238 2 September 2005 Russia: Former Guantánamo detainees released by Russian authorities Two former Guantánamo detainees who were believed "disappeared" by the Russian authorities were released this morning. Airat Vakhitov and Rustam Akhmiarov were released without charge at 10am (Moscow time) and are now at liberty in the town of Naberezhnie Chelni in the Republic of Tatarstan. 38 released so far. Many of the tribunals' findings found to objectionable, if not outright false, and they have been held for 3-5 years. Among those held were children. And you didn't, as I knew you wouldn't, respond to my inquiry about how wanting their guilt or innocence determined was being sympathetic to the "worst of the worst". Well done.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#13)
    by Sailor on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 10:53:02 PM EST
    actually, 85% weren't taken by the US so we don't really know where they came from.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 11:38:22 PM EST
    Think of it as the post-judgment counterpart of a post-enactment signing statement.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jul 09, 2006 at 01:56:09 AM EST
    Is it okay to wish PBR would go soak his head?

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#16)
    by kdog on Sun Jul 09, 2006 at 06:31:11 AM EST
    Those of you who instinctively feel a soft spot in your hearts for these murderers and would-be murderers
    I've got a soft spot for freedom and due process. The word of PBRman or GDub is not enough for this lover of freedom...I prefer evidence of murder or other crimes before I throw a human being in an offshore cell never to be seen again. Freedom is dangerous...but worth it.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#17)
    by soccerdad on Sun Jul 09, 2006 at 07:56:01 AM EST
    Is it okay to wish PBR would go soak his head?
    How about a little water boarding? They would probably think it was fun though.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jul 09, 2006 at 08:09:17 AM EST
    PBR - likely, taken to the woodshed. and he hides under the qualifier, likely. It is likely humans are born with two legs. Not guaranteed, but, likely. I suppose in your world, likely is likely 51%. In this world, likely is likely closer to 100%.

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#19)
    by Edger on Sun Jul 09, 2006 at 08:42:40 AM EST
    I suppose in your world, likely is likely 51%. In this world, likely is likely closer to 100%. In his world it's 'likely' that when confronted with facts they'll isolate one minor detail out of an argument and focus on it instead of the point made since, as we all know, it invalidates the whole argument...

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#20)
    by Officious Pedant on Sun Jul 09, 2006 at 03:50:11 PM EST
    Interesting approach, what with the whole cake-and-eat-it-too concept. It seems that the CSRT is under no obligation to provide legal counsel, can use hearsay and secret evidence against the accused, and can prevent the accused from facing his accuser. The CSRT being the government's end run response to the SCOTUS ruling that gave detainees access to the rights embodied under the writ of habeas corpus, and which has been found by more than one judge and legal expert to be unconstitutional and "a sham". But, hey, if you say legally constituted it must be so, huh? Re: French and Russians: Then why bring them up? What happened here was you posted this to give the impression that these men were wrongly released, and then backpedalled with some kind of awkward gotcha involving the CSRT's decisions being correct. Interesting. As for authority, how about: Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the majority opinion for the Court, "as critical as the government's interest may be in detaining those who actually pose an immediate threat to the national security of the United States during ongoing international conflict, history and common sense teach us that an unchecked system of detention carries the potential to become a means for oppression and abuse of others who do not represent that sort of threat." The Court noted in its decision that the government had admitted in its oral arguments before the Court that if a U.S. citizen were being held at Guantanamo Bay, the habeas corpus statute would apply. "The habeas statute," the Court said, "does not discriminate between U.S. citizens and foreign nationals, therefore, a foreign national being held at Guantanamo has just as much right to invoke the habeas corpus statute as a citizen of the United States." As for the question of jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay, the Court concluded that the original agreement between Cuba and the U.S., dating back to 1903, granted the U.S. "complete jurisdiction and control" over the naval base, permanently if the U.S. so desires. Kind of makes it difficult to argue that they have Article 1 rights extended to them, but not those of the Bill of Rights, huh? Unless you intend to argue that they are not people in the classical sense, I mean. This is pretty clear, PBRMan, they are either "illegal combatants" and subject to the criminal statutes of the US, or they are Prisoners of War and entitled to Geneva Protections. Either way, an independent body is required to determine their status. And the CSRT, conducted by the military at the NCA's behest, is not it. (And, well, the President doesn't have the authority in any case. Constitutionally, COngress has authority over captured prisoners and their treatment.) Lastly, while you did respond to my rhetorical question (though, oddly, you opted to use the straw man of not living there, as though their having been born and raised there makes them foolish for "deciding" to stay), you didn't answer the real question. Again. How does wanting their status to be fairly determined imply that I have a soft spot for terrorists? Aren't we, as a nation founded on the Rule of Law, obligated to ensure that those that fall under our jurisdiction are treated fairly under whatever law applies to them when their status has been fairly adjudicated? Or are we saying that that process should be set aside for "those people"? I mean, it's well known that once you set it aside for one group, that precedent is never used against another group, right?

    Re: Waas on Guantanamo (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 10:33:20 AM EST
    The President's remark sounds as if he was present at a discussion where someone asked about the implications of the ruling for the Guantánamo enterprise, someone else, a lawlerly type, responded that the ruling was "silent" on the matter of Guantánamo, and the the President,in his simple way, understood that the ruling, in not requiring the closure of Guantánamo, "accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made." I think he truly thinks that the SCOTUS has ok'ed Guantánamo.

    Waas on Guantanamo | 21 comments (21 topical)