Actually, the Supreme Court ruled about a 150 years ago that civilians even under the employ of the military COULD NOT be subject to military justice. That it would be a violation of the constitution. The Supreme Court has already ruled that part of the Act was unconstitutional, and it should be noted that the Act explicitly states that anyone can be declared an unlawful enemy combatant - including citizens. As a matter of fact, there is Jose Padilla - a U.S. Citizen, who is still being held as an unlawful enemy combatant. The act isn't even military justice - which is a code that isn't being followed for these guys in Gitmo - you still have certain rights under military code that is not being given to detainees. I say, give these guys there day in court. This is our system. If we don't have faith in our system, then the charter that is the American Constitution has already died and we are just a shell of a nation. Perhaps other nations truly are the standard bearer of freedom and justice for all.
Are you sure about that? According to the military's own site it says this about the Uniform Code of Military Justice: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm#802. [rquoter] ART. 2. PERSONS SUBJECT TO THIS CHAPTER (7) Persons in custody of the armed forces serving a sentence imposed by a court-martial. (8) Members of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Public Health Service, and other organizations, when assigned to and serving with the armed forces. (9) Prisoners of war in custody of the armed forces. (10) In time of war, persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field. (11) Subject to any treaty or agreement which the United States is or may be a party to any accepted rule of international law, persons serving with, employed by, or accompanying the armed forces outside the United States and outside the Canal Zone, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. (12) Subject to any treaty or agreement t which the United States is or may be a party to any accepted rule of international law, persons within an area leased by or otherwise reserved or acquired for use of the United States which is under the control of the Secretary concerned and which is outside the United States and outside the Canal Zone, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. [/rquoter]
NPR: Lindsey Graham destroys Holder: [rquoter]Would U.S. Need To Read Bin Laden His Miranda Rights? 2:26 pm November 18, 2009 By Frank James Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to give a federal court trial instead of a military commission hearing to five Guantanamo detainees the government has linked to the 9/11 attacks has led to criticism that the Obama Administration is transforming the war on terror from a military to law-enforcement affair. This has led some critics to wonder if captured terrorist suspects would have to be read their Miranda rights on being captured by U.S. military or law enforcement representatives. In one of the highlights of Wednesday's Justice Department oversight hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, attempted to put Holder on the spot with the question: would U.S. officials need to Mirandize Osama bin Ladin if it captured him, including telling the al Qaeda leader that he had the right to remain silent? Holder essentially said no, not necessarily. It would depend on the tack the U.S. government decided to take after capturing the terrorist leader. Graham clearly wasn't persuaded by Holder's answer. The exchange started with Graham stumping Holder with a question one would have thought the attorney general would have been prepared for: <object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sG7lm8Sfbo4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sG7lm8Sfbo4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object> GRAHAM: Can you give me a case in United States history where a (sic) enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court? ATTY GEN. HOLDER: I don't know. I'd have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I've made -- SEN. GRAHAM: We're making history here, Mr. Attorney General. I'll answer it for you. The answer is no. ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, I think -- SEN. GRAHAM: The Ghailani case -- he was indicted for the Cole bombing before 9/11. And I didn't object to it going into federal court. But I'm telling you right now. We're making history and we're making bad history. And let me tell you why. If bin Laden were caught tomorrow, would it be the position of this administration that he would be brought to justice? ATTY GEN. HOLDER: He would certainly be brought to justice, absolutely. SEN. GRAHAM: Where would you try him? ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, we'd go through our protocol. And we'd make the determination about where he should appropriately be tried. SEN. GRAHAM: Would you try him -- why would you take him someplace different than KSM? ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, that might be the case. I don't know. I'm not -- SEN. GRAHAM: Well, let -- ATTY GEN. HOLDER: I'd have to look at all of the evidence, all of the -- SEN. GRAHAM: Well -- ATTY GEN. HOLDER: He's been indicted. He's been indicted already. (Off mike.) SEN. GRAHAM: Does it matter if you -- if you use the law enforcement theory or the enemy combatant theory, in terms of how the case would be handled? ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, I mean, bin Laden is an interesting case in that he's already been indicted in federal court. SEN. GRAHAM: Right. ATTY GEN. HOLDER: We have cases against him. (Off mike.) SEN. GRAHAM: Right, well, where would -- where would you put him? ATTY GEN. HOLDER: It would depend on how -- a variety of factors. SEN. GRAHAM: Well, let me ask you this. Okay, let me ask you this. Let's say we capture him tomorrow. When does custodial interrogation begin in his case? If we captured bin Laden tomorrow, would he be entitled to Miranda warnings at the moment of capture? ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Again I'm not -- that all depends. I mean, the notion that we -- SEN. GRAHAM: Well, it does not depend. If you're going to prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that the moment custodial interrogation occurs the defendant, the criminal defendant, is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent. The big problem I have is that you're criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden tomorrow, we'd have mixed theories and we couldn't turn him over -- to the CIA, the FBI or military intelligence -- for an interrogation on the battlefield, because now we're saying that he is subject to criminal court in the United States. And you're confusing the people fighting this war. What would you tell the military commander who captured him? Would you tell him, "You must read him his rights and give him a lawyer"? And if you didn't tell him that, would you jeopardize the prosecution in a federal court? ATTY GEN. HOLDER: We have captured thousands of people on the battlefield, only a few of which have actually been given their Miranda warnings. With regard to bin Laden and the desire or the need for statements from him, the case against him at this point is so overwhelming that we do not need to -- SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Attorney General, my only point -- the only point I'm making, that if we're going to use federal court as a disposition for terrorists, you take everything that comes with being in federal court. And what comes with being in federal court is that the rules in this country, unlike military law -- you can have military operations, you can interrogate somebody for military intelligence purposes, and the law-enforcement rights do not attach. But under domestic criminal law, the moment the person is in the hands of the United States government, they're entitled to be told they have a right to a lawyer and can remain silent. And if we go down that road, we're going to make this country less safe. That is my problem with what you have done. You're a fine man. I know you want to do everything to help this country be safe, but I think you've made a fundamental mistake here. You have taken a wartime model that will allow us flexibility when it comes to intelligence gathering, and you have compromised this country's ability to deal with people who are at war with us, by interjecting into this system the possibility that they may be given the same constitutional rights as any American citizen. And the main reason that KSM is going to court apparently is because the people he decided to kill were here in America and mostly civilian, and the person going into military court decided to kill some military members overseas. I think that is a perversion of the justice system. ATTY GEN. HOLDER: What I said repeatedly is that we should use all the tools available to us: military courts, Article III courts. The conviction of Osama bin Laden, were he to come into our custody, would not depend on any custodial statements that he would make. The case against him, both for those cases that have already been indicted --- the case that we could make against him for the -- his involvement in the 9/11 case -- SEN. GRAHAM: Right -- ATTY GEN. HOLDER: -- would not be dependent on Miranda warnings -- SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Attorney -- ATTY GEN. HOLDER: -- would not be dependent on custodial interrogations. And so I think in some ways you've thrown up something that is -- with all due respect, I think is a red herring. SEN. GRAHAM: Well -- ATTY GEN. HOLDER: It would not be something -- (inaudible) -- SEN. GRAHAM: With all due respect, every military lawyer that I've talked to is deeply concerned about the fact that, if we go down this road, we're criminalizing the war and we're putting our intelligence-gathering at risk. And I will have some statements from them to back up what I'm saying. SEN. LEAHY: Senator Graham, I -- SEN. GRAHAM: My time is up. I look forward to talking to you. ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Sure. SEN. LEAHY: And I -- SEN. GRAHAM: We can -- there are some issues we can agree on. ATTY GEN. HOLDER: One thing I would say: that, with regard to those people who are captured on the battlefield, we make the determinations every day as to who should be Mirandized, who should not. Most are not Mirandized. And the people who are involved in that decision involve not only lawyers and agents but also military personnel who make the determination as to who should be Mirandized. But again, the notion that a conviction of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would depend on his getting Miranda rights is simply not accurate.[/rquoter]
Eric Holder knows: The 9/11 attacks were both an act of war and a violation of our federal criminal law, and they could have been prosecuted in either federal courts or military commissions. and it looks like i know more than you as well.
My god, squatty - I don't even know what you are trying to say here. Is this the acutal "Yemen defense" itself? To confuse people by being completely nonsensical and nonresponsive? The only thing we know for sure about the latest iteration of Military commissions is that they have yet to be "approved by the courts" - (or rejected by them, like their predecssors.) Not surprising of course, as the latest version has been around for all of 2 weeks. Something you didn't now until I told you.
enjoy, squatty. This one is on the house. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2390005/posts This is true of a huge number of your copy pastes.
From Sam's link: Of all the cliches and generalizations thrown at either party, I continue to be struck by the great disparity in photochop skills between conservatives and liberals. that is one of the worst chops I have seen since the invention of Photoshop.
what i've been saying since the beginning of the thread: KSM could be tried by a Military Tribunal You said you didn't know if that was the case Holder and I agree You don't know squat.
Serious question: Why haven't you been? Somehow you rarely or never listen to Beck, Rush, visit the Freerepublic site, etc. but you hold all the same ideas as these guys. Given the posts you make, it seems like you'd enjoy all of them.
Like usual, that's a big-ass lie on his part, akin to his lie that the MCA has been "approved by the courts" . Just look at the front page of the D&D. All of basso's blog post/threads show up on google search of the freeper forums/site congressional districts that don't exist: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2388360/posts the bow: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/obama/index harvard med school dean on health care: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2388984/posts Surprising...and by that I mean not at all.
I can actually believe basso's never been to Free Republic, just because the wingnut echo chamber is so tight that the exact same issues get repeated, often word for word, in multiple outlets.
If he isn't lying he should go. Because as you have illustrated they share the same sensibilities. So do basso and Beck, Malkin, Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity etc. From his posts here, he would find a lot of enjoyment and what passes for insight in his mind in those places.
Some level headed writing from the WaPo Holder's reasonable decision By Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith Friday, November 20, 2009 Reasonable minds can disagree about Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 perpetrators in a Manhattan federal court. But some prominent criticisms are exaggerated, and others place undue faith in military commissions as an alternative to civilian trials. Mohammed is many things: an enemy combatant in a war against the United States whom the government can detain without trial until the conflict ends; a war criminal subject to trial by military commission under the laws of war; and someone answerable in federal court for violations of the U.S. criminal code. Which system he is placed in for purposes of incapacitation and justice involves complex legal and political trade-offs. A trial in Manhattan will bring enormous media attention and require unprecedented security. But it is unlikely to make New York a bigger target than it has been since February 1993, when Mohammed's nephew Ramzi Yousef attacked the World Trade Center. If al-Qaeda could carry out another attack in New York, it would -- a fact true a week ago and for a long time. Its inability to do so is a testament to our military, intelligence and law enforcement responses since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In deciding to use federal court, the attorney general probably considered the record of the military commission system that was established in November 2001. This system secured three convictions in eight years. The only person who had a full commission trial, Osama bin Laden's driver, received five additional months in prison, resulting in a sentence that was shorter than he probably would have received from a federal judge. One reason commissions have not worked well is that changes in constitutional, international and military laws since they were last used, during World War II, have produced great uncertainty about the commissions' validity. This uncertainty has led to many legal challenges that will continue indefinitely -- hardly an ideal situation for the trial of the century. By contrast, there is no question about the legitimacy of U.S. federal courts to incapacitate terrorists. Many of Holder's critics appear to have forgotten that the Bush administration used civilian courts to put away dozens of terrorists, including "shoe bomber" Richard Reid; al-Qaeda agent Jose Padilla; "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh; the Lackawanna Six; and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was prosecuted for the same conspiracy for which Mohammed is likely to be charged. Many of these terrorists are locked in a supermax prison in Colorado, never to be seen again. In terrorist trials over the past 15 years, federal prosecutors and judges have gained extensive experience protecting intelligence sources and methods, limiting a defendant's ability to raise irrelevant issues and tightly controlling the courtroom. Moussaoui's trial was challenging because his request for access to terrorists held at "black" sites had to be litigated. Difficulties also arose because Moussaoui acted as his own lawyer, and the judge labored to control him. But it is difficult to imagine a military commission of rudimentary fairness that would not allow a defendant a similar right to represent himself and speak out in court. In either trial forum, defendants will make an issue of how they were treated and attempt to undermine the trial politically. These efforts are likely to have more traction in a military than a civilian court. No matter how scrupulously fair the commissions are, defendants will criticize their relatively loose rules of evidence, their absence of a civilian jury and their restrictions on the ability to examine classified evidence used against them. Some say it is wrong to give Mohammed trial rights ordinarily conferred on Americans, but a benefit of civilian trials over commissions is that they make it harder for defendants to complain about kangaroo courts or victor's justice. The potential procedural advantages of military commission trials are relatively unimportant with obviously guilty defendants such as Mohammed, but they help explain the attorney general's related decision last week to consign five men accused of attacking the USS Cole to a military commission. Holder indicated that he was doing so in part because the Cole was a military target outside the United States, but that reason does not hold up. The Pentagon was a military target, many aspects of the Sept. 11 attacks were planned abroad, and the Cole attack is already the subject of a federal indictment in New York. It is more likely that Holder decided to use a commission system still learning to walk because the Cole case is relatively weak and will benefit from the marginal advantages the commission system offers the government. It is also likely that the Justice Department will decide that many other terrorists at Guantanamo Bay will not be tried in civilian or military court but, rather, will be held under a military detention rationale more suitable to the circumstances of their cases. These decisions have already invited charges of opportunistic forum shopping. The Bush administration, criticized on similar grounds, properly explained that it would use whatever lawful tool worked best, all things considered, to incapacitate a particular terrorist. Holder's decisions appear to reflect a similarly pragmatic approach. Of course, the attorney general made a different call on Mohammed than did the Bush administration. The wisdom of that difficult judgment will be determined by future events. But Holder's critics do not help their case by understating the criminal justice system's capacities, overstating the military system's virtues and bumper-stickering a reasonable decision. Jim Comey, a deputy attorney general and U.S. attorney in Manhattan during the Bush administration, is general counsel of Lockheed Martin Corp. Jack Goldsmith, an assistant attorney general during the Bush administration, teaches at Harvard Law School and is on the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law.
uncertainty? Legal challenges? wait I thought they had been "approved by the courts"? I actually had a class with goldsmith back in the day, if he's going to butt heads with Professor Basso and the yemen defense, I want my money back.
Why doesn't basso want the terrorists to get the maximum punishment possible? If the military commissions have ended up in lighter sentencing, why is basso pushing for this?
Because our regular system of justice is just a bunch of rigged "show trials" that don't do real justice and also always set guilty people free.
OMG, DID YOUS SEA OJS GOZ FREAAAEEA I can't believe one of the members of congress questioning Holder on this subject actually mentioned OJ
