LOL - the other day I saw one of those old clips of Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan prior to 2001 - they were wearing masks and climbing around on jungle gyms and monkey bars - OOH MONKEY BAR SOLDIERS! YOU SCARE ME! Then you know how the gullible people who still read your posts and take them seriously must feel.
Shouldn't there be a definition? Isn't that what Bush did? Yes, we are fighting a different kind of war, which no one disputes, in that even though they are soldiers, they aren't soldiers of a given nation. Didn't the Bush administration, rightly or wrongly, enact policy to account for this difference/lack of definition, resulting in the labeling as an enemy combatant, detention at Gitmo for those captured on the battlefield by the military, to later be tried by military tribunals. Correct? And yes, I'm aware that we have caught, tried, and convicted many terrorists via our judicial system....but how does this apply to someone like KSM, and why is he being tried in civilian court and what is the rational for doing so? Was he not captured by the military?
Except that bringing up that Bush kept us safe is making it a GOP thing. Now you might not have started it but you certainly are prolonging it. I will grant you that you aren't specifically blaming any President and I apologize that I might've mixed you up with another posters who did blame Clinton in particular. In regard to if I'm pointing figures I will say my own personal view is that I don't hold any president responsible for 9/11. What I will though respond to is the idea that the GW Bush Admin actually kept us safe. I find that very questionable in regard to what has happened since 9/11.
Actually John Walker Lindh plead guilty and was sentenced under the US civillian courts. He was held initially by the NOrthern Alliance and then by the US military but transferred to the US justice system. The DC sniper said he was motivated by Al Qaeda for that matter so have those people who were arrested for planning on blowing up the Sears Tower also claimed to be motivated by Al Qaeda. They have taken up arms against the US government to serve the interests of a foreign entity. For that matter givent hat Al Qaeda isn't an organization where they issue membership cards what if a group of US Citizens started "Al Qaeda in America" and undertook terrorist activities would that still mean under your defintion they are treated as illegal combatants? Also the Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was held and tried under the US justice system even though he was a member of Al Qaeda and a foreign national. Your argument doesn't hold given how inconsistent the standards are applied.
Personally none but Bush didn't kill any personally either. Under Obama though many Al Qaeda and Taliban have been killed considering that the Taliban have admitted that drone strikes since Obama has taken office have killed many of their leaders. Also a CIA drone strike just last week killed an Al Qaeda leader in Yemen. At the sametime Obama has not just continued the Afghanistan campaign but put in more troops.
Then here's my question to you. Show me in the COnstitution where it says that the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to non-citizens.
Really? I don't know that it does. Then again, I don't know that it doesn't, either. So you think the Underoos Bomber should have the same rights as an American citizen? All right, if you say so. We'll have to agree to disagree there, though he has been given those rights already, so there's really not much to argue about. Yet at the same time, the questions I posed to Sam up above were meant to elicit some clarification as to this, even though I said that I'd personally rather see him in the hands of the military.
I am curious. Did you tell your CO and/or other superior officers what you did? I am in no position to judge what you did but from my understanding of military law you have been admitting to what are court martial offenses. Not knowing more about the situation I can't say what you did was right and or honorable but if this is something that you did not make your superiors of aware of I'm not sure that would meet what is generally considered honorable in the military. I'm not a solider but I understand that on a battlefield few things are black and white. I can fully understand why soldiers often find themselves in situations where very tough decisions have to be made and they have to go beyond what the regulations are. From what I have heard from other soldiers though things like that aren't things that they are proud of. A man I respect very much served in the Marines in Vietnam, he was the youngest US soldier to make Major since WWI, and he won't talk much at all about what happened there. I once met a Marine who served in Guaudalcanal and Iwo Jima and he told me that they did many brutal things to the enemy. He wasn't telling me this because he was proud but because it haunted him ever since. To bring this back on subject. Personally I can see situations where torture might need to be used. I can't rule out a very extreme situation where there is no alternative. The problem though is such situations are rare by nature and I think it would be a huge mistake to make policy based on such situations. We are tried by our peers for a good reason and if such an extreme situation would arise it should be left up to a trial by peers to determine if such actions were appropriate. If we make torture though standard practice, where we just use it for fishing expeditions, we get into trouble for a huge reason. There is a reason why many military officers and former members of the military oppose torture. We would never accept an enemy using those tactics on our soldiers so it undermines our justification to prosecute, both in law and by war, an enemy for those tactics when we use them ourselves.
Its not so much what I think as what the Constitution says. The Constitution is the law of the land so if your argument is that the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to non-US Citizens you should be willing to support that rather than just say "well lets agree to disagree." And yes the underwear bomber has been given due process rights because that is what the Constitution dictates. In the case where others held in US custody hasn't the USSC under Hamdi has slapped down the idea of holding them without due process. Also since you brougth this up earlier. Gitmo wasn't a compromise created by the last Admin. to grant due process. There is a reason why Gitmo was chosen which was the idea that it wasn't US territory and under US sovereignity, essentially a lawless place, to get out of Constitutional and treaty restrictions on the prisoners. Again the USSC has slapped down that idea which is why eventually the Bush Admin. set up military tribunals.
Sorry for the rapid fire post. A lot to respond to. Not really. There were guerilla fighters, infiltrators and very unclear battlefields in WWII. In Vietnam given the Vietcong and widespread NVA sympathy in the South determining friend or foe was probably even harder there than it has been in Afghanistan and Iraq.
All right. Since it's the Constitution of the United States, I'd say that pretty much means it applies to United States citizens, unless it specifically says otherwise. And I'm not trying to be argumentative as if it does say that I am unaware of it. If that is what the law says, then fine. I don't know as I agree with the law, but if that is the law, then so be it. That isn't what I said. What I said was that enemy combatants were held at Gitmo awaiting trial by military tribunal, not due process to result in trial in civilian court. If the tribunals were instituted as a result of the SC slapping down Gitmo, then I wasn't aware of that as I thought the tribunals were the idea all along. If I was wrong, well....all right then.
Consider the implications of this, though. If it didn't apply to non-citizens, that suggests that if a Mexican immigrant robs a store, they wouldn't have a right to a fair trial? Or the government could make religious restrictions on non-citizens, etc.
