Habeas Corpus

They were American citizens. I think it is one of the shameful things we as a country have done. It was wrong and born out of fear.

 

Thanks for your thoughts and questions, Daisy. Here's how I see it:

Habeas corpus is for the protection of persons arrested for crimes within the territory of the USA so long as civil law is able to function within the land. As we all know, this is embodied in the Constitution. No one rots in jail waiting for charges to brought or a trail to be held.

Habeas corpus doesn't apply in war or with enemy combatants captured in war. We didn't write the Constitution or the Bill of Rights to apply it to our enemies. They're on the outside and we're on the inside.

Giving such protection to enemy combatants makes a mockery of our precious rights by giving them - wasting them - on people who threaten what we've fought so hard to attain and to keep.

Legitimate prisoners of war are afforded specific rights according to treaties to which we're a party and the laws made to implement those treaties. We've done that because we're a compassionate nation and people. We didn't agree to include terrorists in the category of people to which we'd afford these rights. Never the less, all in all, we haven't treated them badly either. We can keep them all imprisoned until the end of hostilities. We're not there yet.

The Constitution reflects our American way that puts great importance on the individual. The rights of individuals are supreme. (I must add that in today's society that seems to be rapidly giving way to the "common good" thinking of Communism and other failed systems.)

In war the rights of individuals lose their supreme standing and some must be put aside for the cause to be won. We require our citizens to give up the comfort of home, pick up arms, and go fight to the death if necessary. The needs of nation are then supreme. Winning is supreme.

The rights of our enemy - which are, in fact, none but those we want to give them in mercy - fall way down on the list.

In every war some people who may not be fully or even partly culpable are caught up in the acts of war and they are at the mercy of the victor. Some innocents are injured or killed and their property destroyed. Some innocents may be caught up among the enemy we've captured. We take care not to let this happen but we can't be distracted from winning a war by the fact that it likely will.

 

is there any reason that people inside the U.S. and are citizens along with their family should be afriaid they'd be kidnapped [technically] into guantanamo? are the right-wing states that intimidated? (of course, I'm only reassuring my paranoid self on this. no idea what God will do to torment me next)

 

No

No, people in the US are not being kidnapped and rushed to club guantanamo. I am a little paranoid that people in muslim countries want to kill US citizens though. I dont know why, just a hunch I guess.

 

i am also a little paranoid that Californians want to secede from the rest of the states...really my High School and Middle School teachers were advocating for us to become militia for the socicalists parties steadidly growing in my cities...and that soon it'l rise in a boil and i'll get caugt in the mess one way or the other....and i'll never achieve any of my goals or get the time to follow God's calling....oh nevermind, it's my fault for all this anyway....that's why i perfer if every country in the middle east was genocided

 

I dont see what your last post has to do with the topic. I also dont understand what California's standing in the Union has to do with what God is calling you to do.

And most important, calling for groups of people to be genocided [sic], is a very unchristian thing to do.

 

well most of the board members were harping on people being against this were paranoid....and all i added was the only one that needs to be paranoid is me

well i am tired so i probably am only posting these shelfishly...the civil war thing was no joke the air is so tense over here....ok sorry about this

 

But are these the enemy? We invaded Iraq, which had not declared war on us, to overthrow the government; we suceeded in that quickly. The current government enjoys our support (we are responsible for their being installed).

So who are the prisoners and what are they accused of doing? Is there any evidence they did anything against us? Simple questions.

That's all true but how many years should we hold people away from their country, their families, without informing them of the charges, without giving them a chance to confront their accusers?

Then, finally, there is the question of basic decency. To hold people in limbo - not a word to or from their families - indefinitely is inhumane, imho.

 

They made their bed. Let them lie in it.

 

We were already at war with Iraq since the 1st gulf war. We decided they violated the cease fire and we CONTINUED the fighting. They did not need to formaly declare war there actions violated the cease fire. One of these actions was shooting at our plains flying the no-fly zones.

The prisionars are not only from Iraq they are taken from the field of battle. They are the ones that we captured as opposed to the ones that we killed. They were fighting against our troops.

Again they were fighting against us on the field of battle. We do have evidence. We just dont want to give it to them. If they were Ameican citizens accused of a crime then this would be a problem. But they are not.

If we would have killed them instead of capturing them they would be away from their familys for much longer. It is not inhumane, our capturing them and treating them in a fairly respectful manner is a good ballance between protecting us while still being humain. We could have just killed them and took no prisoners, but that is not what we are about.

 

How do you know who made the bed or who is lying in it? Without charges, we don't know where the bed comes from.

 

That is nonsense. If that were true, Bush wouldn't have needed to pretend that they had nuclear capabilities or that the UN resolutions had anything to do with it. They were no threat to us and had restarted compliance with the inspectors.

Even in the first Gulf War, Iraq did not attack us. "We have no interest in disputes between brothers", we told them when they let us know in advance of their plan to attack Kuwait. Fooled them, heh, heh, heh.

Actually, I think Bush Sr. did the right thing in destroying their nuclear capabilities and putting a halt to their WMDs.

About 5% of them are, but that leaves 95% who were not. Many were turned in for the bounty, for revenge, for their land, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No, they were not, for the most part.

How do you know that?

Ok, forget the evidence, how about just letting them know the charges as a first step?

The Supreme Court has ruled otherwise.

Yeah, that would really be "liberating" them, wouldn't it?

 

Yes, they are the enemy. They were captured in a war that's still not over. Their presence in the war zone as suspected combatants, collaborators, etc. is reason enough for us to detain them.

We can hold them as long as we want. We are the captor and they are the captives. They aren't persons who've been arrested and charged with a crime here at home. They don't get a hearing before the local judge. They don't get to choose a lawyer and have one present for all their questioning. They can't post bail. They can't request their case be thrown out because the state didn't read them their rights or get a warrant for searching them and their property. They can't demand a trail by their peers because their peers are either being held with them or next on the list to be killed or captured. They have been confronted by their accuser - our warriors - and that accuser is their captor.

This is, no doubt, difficult on the persons being held and their families. Even grossly evil men like Hilter had feelings for those he cared about. But these people's actions - not ours - are what brought them into captivity and they are fully responsible for it.

We should show mercy to our enemies but, having come to the point of a justified war, we should show that mercy only when there is not the threat of actions such as those which caused the war in the first place. Mercy can be show to a defeated enemy but it is just that - mercy - and not a legal right on the part of the captive. Warriors would be much more inclined to show more mercy and better treatment to enemy warriors of an organized uniformed force who'd focused their attacks against their armed forces. They could at least respect them as true warriors. Warriors find terrorists and such to be the bottom of barrel deserving of no respect. Yes, we've bound ourselves by treaty and law to certain requirements in handling prisoners but these are not inherent rights of the captive but rather agreements on mutual treatment of prisoners between nations who choose to follow them. Terrorists didn't and don't fit into those treaties and we can, and should, deal with them differently.

The Constitution merely records some of the key rights that our citizens believed were inherent to them and they wanted in writing to make sure the government couldn't tread on those rights. The government didn't give us those rights. We just refused to give them up. The people decided they had rights - rights to be free, rights to be individuals, rights to pursue happiness, etc. - and they fought to secure them. Our enemy is not inherently entitled to these same rights from us. They have no right to demand any rights from us. They can not be permitted to share in what they would gladly destroy given the chance. Habeas corpus is not even a term that should be used relative to these captives.

 

Actually, that war is over. We won, Saddam's government lost.

We are friends and allies of the new government - not to mention the primary financers and military protecters. Can we support the government and consider the citizens who elected it the enemy?

It's tough luck if they happen to live in a war zone.

And we are the 800 lb gorilla of the world. As the world's only super power we can do whatever we want - but is this what we want?

The majority of them were not captured so much as turned in by informers for money, land, etc. The bounty offer was a lot of money.

That is contrary to documented fact (for most of them, not all). Since most of them were not captured in battle, what did they do and how do we determine it? Why would we want to hold people who did not do anything against us? I don't understand why you are opposed to having some sort of hearing to determine why we're holding them and whether it's appropriate.

I agree with you on terrorists, but not so much on insurgents. After all, if the US were invaded, would you despise men not in uniform who took up arms against the invader? Maybe you would, but I would not.

Again, we should determine which individuals we have imprisoned are and which are not our enemies. Isn't it a bother and an expense to hold those who were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time or who were sold down the river?

 

You live in a fanitisy world. We are not at war with the citizens or the current Iraq goverment. We are at war with remaining factions of the old goverment and terrorists from other countries who are trying to topple the current goverment that was electied. And we are doing it with permision and at the request of the current elected goverment.

If the war is over, I guess we are just running aroung shooting unarmed citizens. Right, is that what you think.