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Senate Republicans Block Legislation For Terrorists Rights
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| Senate Republicans Block Legislation For Terrorists Rights
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| VacateTheWord |
Senate rejects detainee legislation
Terrorism suspects would have gotten right to protest imprisonment
WASHINGTON - The Senate narrowly rejected legislation yesterday that would have given military detainees the right to protest their detention in federal court.
The 56-43 vote fell four shy of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican.
Human rights groups had said that a ban on habeas corpus petitions could lead to the indefinite detention of people wrongfully suspected of terrorism.
President Bush and conservative Republicans countered that the ban, enacted last year, was necessary to stem the tide of legal protests flooding civilian courts.
Among the 56 senators voting in favor of expanding detainees' rights were six Republicans, Specter of Pennsylvania, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Richard Lugar of Indiana, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Gordon Smith of Oregon.
Leahy said he would try again to repeal the habeas corpus ban but that he was not sure when he would get another chance.
"The truth is that casting aside the time-honored protection of habeas corpus makes us more vulnerable as a nation because it leads us away from our core American values," Leahy said. "It calls into question our historic roll as a defender of human rights around the world."
In 2006, Congress passed and Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act, which established a military-run tribunal system for prosecuting those designated enemy combatants. The provision barring habeas corpus petitions means that only detainees selected for trial are able to confront charges against them, leaving most military detainees in custody without a chance to plead their cases.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the architects of the law, said the system includes checks and balances to determine whether a person is being held unlawfully.
The Leahy-Specter bill would have allowed terrorism suspects to go "judge shopping" around U.S. courts to find a sympathetic ear, he said.
Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said, "Never has such an unprecedented legal right been granted to a prisoner of war or detainee."
In June, the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether the ban on habeas corpus petitions is constitutional. No date has been set for arguments.
Specter, the only Republican to co-sponsor the bill, has said that he expects the court to rule the ban unconstitutional.
Habeas corpus "is a constitutional right that has existed since the Magna Carta in 1215," he said.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/na...story?track=rss |
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| Ass Boil |
If all those people are proven "terrorists", then why the need to prevent a day in court?
Seems we should have no problem convicting people if we have evidence they are actually "terrorists", right? |
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| VacateTheWord |
Quote: Originally posted by Ass Boil
If all those people are proven "terrorists", then why the need to prevent a day in court?
Seems we should have no problem convicting people if we have evidence they are actually "terrorists", right? |
Because if we catch a guy on the battlefield in Iraq or Afganistan and need to get information from him, we need to be able to suspend his trial until said information is received.
These are not people who we can accept name, rank and jihad number from. The more intel we get the better we will be able to avert another attack and if keeping terrorists until they give us the information they have, then so be it.
The issue is not getting a conviction but getting intel. The conviction will come in due time, and as the article clearly states there are checks and balances in place to determine if a person is being held unlawfully. |
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| Fdubya247 |
VacateTheRWAA(RightWingAuthoritarianAsshole)
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| Ass Boil |
Quote: Originally posted by VacateTheWord
Because if we catch a guy on the battlefield in Iraq or Afganistan and need to get information from him, we need to be able to suspend his trial until said information is received.
These are not people who we can accept name, rank and jihad number from. The more intel we get the better we will be able to avert another attack and if keeping terrorists until they give us the information they have, then so be it.
The issue is not getting a conviction but getting intel. The conviction will come in due time, and as the article clearly states there are checks and balances in place to determine if a person is being held unlawfully. |
Just admit you have no fucking idea what habeas corpus is......
Published on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 by the Associated Press
AP: Gitmo Detainees Say They Were Sold
They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
It's obvious. They knew Americans were looking for Arabs, so they captured Arabs and sold them — just like someone catches a fish and sells it.
Guantanamo prisoner
A former CIA intelligence officer who helped lead the search for Osama bin Laden told AP the accounts sounded legitimate because U.S. allies regularly got money to help catch Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Gary Schroen said he took a suitcase of $3 million in cash into Afghanistan himself to help supply and win over warlords to fight for U.S. Special Forces.
"It wouldn't surprise me if we paid rewards," said Schroen, who retired after 32 years in the CIA soon after the fall of Kabul in late 2001. He recently published the book "First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan."
Schroen said Afghan warlords like Gen. Rashid Dostum were among those who received bundles of notes. "It may be that we were giving rewards to people like Dostum because his guys were capturing a lot of Taliban and al-Qaida," he said.
Pakistan has handed hundreds of suspects to the Americans, but Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the AP, "No one has taken any money."
The U.S. departments of Defense, Justice and State and the Central Intelligence Agency also said they were unaware of bounty payments being made for random prisoners.
The U.S. Rewards for Justice program pays only for information that leads to the capture of suspected terrorists identified by name, said Steve Pike, a State Department spokesman. Some $57 million has been paid under the program, according to its web site.
It offers rewards up to $25 million for information leading to the capture of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
But a wide variety of detainees at the U.S. lockup at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleged they were sold into capture. Their names and other identifying information were blacked out in the transcripts from the tribunals, which were held to determine whether prisoners were correctly classified as enemy combatants.
One detainee who said he was an Afghan refugee in Pakistan accused the country's intelligence service of trumping up evidence against him to get bounty money from the U.S.
"When I was in jail, they said I needed to pay them money and if I didn't pay them, they'd make up wrong accusations about me and sell me to the Americans and I'd definitely go to Cuba," he told the tribunal. "After that I was held for two months and 20 days in their detention, so they could make wrong accusations about me and my (censored), so they could sell us to you."
Another prisoner said he was on his way to Germany in 2001 when he was captured and sold for "a briefcase full of money" then flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo.
"It's obvious. They knew Americans were looking for Arabs, so they captured Arabs and sold them — just like someone catches a fish and sells it," he said. The detainee said he was seized by "mafia" operatives somewhere in Europe and sold to Americans because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time — an Arab in a foreign country.
A detainee who said he was a Saudi businessman claimed, "The Pakistani police sold me for money to the Americans."
"This was part of a roundup of all foreigners and Arabs in that area," of Pakistan near the Afghan border, he said, telling the tribunal he went to Pakistan in November 2001 to help Afghan refugees.
The military-appointed representative for one detainee — who said he was a Taliban fighter — said the prisoner told him he and his fellow fighters "were tricked into surrendering to Rashid Dostum's forces. Their agreement was that they would give up their arms and return home. But Dostum's forces sold them for money to the U.S."
Several detainees who appeared to be ethnic Chinese Muslims — known as Uighurs — described being betrayed by Pakistani tribesmen along with about 100 Arabs.
They said they went to Afghanistan for military training to fight for independence from China. When U.S. warplanes started bombing near their camp, they fled into the mountains near Tora Bora and hid for weeks, starving.
One detainee said they finally followed a group of Arabs, apparently fighters, being guided by an Afghan to the Pakistani border.
"We crossed into Pakistan and there were tribal people there, and they took us to their houses and they killed a sheep and cooked the meat and we ate," he said.
That night, they were taken to a mosque, where about 100 Arabs also sheltered. After being fed bread and tea, they were told to leave in groups of 10, taken to a truck, and driven to a Pakistani prison. From there, they were handed to Americans and flown to Guantanamo.
"When we went to Pakistan the local people treated us like brothers and gave us good food and meat," said another detainee. But soon, he said, they were in prison in Pakistan where "we heard they sold us to the Pakistani authorities for $5,000 per person."
There have been reports of Arabs being sold to the Americans after the U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan, but the testimonies offer the most detail from prisoners themselves.
In March 2002, the AP reported that Afghan intelligence offered rewards for the capture of al-Qaida fighters — the day after a five-hour meeting with U.S. Special Forces. Intelligence officers refused to say if the two events were linked and if the United States was paying the offered reward of 150 million Afghanis, then equivalent to $4,000 a head.
That day, leaflets and loudspeaker announcements promised "the big prize" to those who turned in al-Qaida fighters.
Said one leaflet: "You can receive millions of dollars. ... This is enough 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."
Helicopters broadcast similar announcements over the Afghan mountains, enticing people to "Hand over the Arabs and feed your families for a lifetime," said Najeeb al-Nauimi, a former Qatar justice minister and leader of a group of Arab lawyers representing nearly 100 detainees.
Al-Nauimi said a consortium of wealthy Arabs, including Saudis, told him they also bought back fellow citizens who had been captured by Pakistanis.
Khalid al-Odha, who started a group fighting to free 12 Kuwaiti detainees, said his imprisoned son, Fawzi, wrote him a letter from Guantanamo Bay about Kuwaitis being sold to the Americans in Afghanistan.
One Kuwaiti who was released, 26-year-old Nasser al-Mutairi, told al-Odha that interrogators said Dostum's forces sold them to the Pakistanis for $5,000 each, and the Pakistanis in turn sold them to the Americans.
"I also heard that Saudis were sold to the Saudi government by the Pakistanis," al-Odha said. "If I had known that, I would have gone and bought my son back."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0531-10.htm |
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| Fdubya247 |
Generalissimo El Turdo
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| Ass Boil |
| :jj: That fucking pic gets me every time! |
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| Fdubya247 |
Quote: Originally posted by Ass Boil
:jj: That fucking pic gets me every time! |
...a pic is always worth a thousand...
:D |
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| VacateTheWord |
Quote: Originally posted by Ass Boil
Just admit you have no fucking idea what habeas corpus is......
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I am fully aware of what habeas corpus is.
Perhaps you should admit that you live in a fantasy land where there is no threat from Al Qaeda and other terrorist elements and don't have the slightest understanding of what is required to keep the people of this country safe.
I'm not going to repeat my earlier post as to the justification of the suspension of habeas corpus for enemy combatants...read it again. If we were to establish a set amount of time where these terrorists are either charged or released, they will just clam up and wait out the clock without giving up valuable intelligence that is so desperately needed in this war.
All I know is that, at the end of the day, we need to thank the Senators who kept this legislation from moving forward. Our national security and, quite frankly, our very survival is at stake, and this should never be toyed with by a pack of Liberals and RINOs who want to establish a Terrorist Bill of Rights. |
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| Stonewall |
Quote: Originally posted by VacateTheWord
I am fully aware of what habeas corpus is.
Perhaps you should admit that you live in a fantasy land where there is no threat from Al Qaeda and other terrorist elements and don't have the slightest understanding of what is required to keep the people of this country safe.
I'm not going to repeat my earlier post as to the justification of the suspension of habeas corpus for enemy combatants...read it again. If we were to establish a set amount of time where these terrorists are either charged or released, they will just clam up and wait out the clock without giving up valuable intelligence that is so desperately needed in this war.
All I know is that, at the end of the day, we need to thank the Senators who kept this legislation from moving forward. Our national security and, quite frankly, our very survival is at stake, and this should never be toyed with by a pack of Liberals and RINOs who want to establish a Terrorist Bill of Rights. |
I know of no other conflict where the detained have a right to habeas. Imagine during WWII all the habeas petitions flowing in, millions of them. In German too I suppose.
These people need not even be tried at all, just held till the end of the conflict. |
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| VacateTheWord |
Quote: Originally posted by Stonewall
I know of no other conflict where the detained have a right to habeas. Imagine during WWII all the habeas petitions flowing in, millions of them. In German too I suppose.
These people need not even be tried at all, just held till the end of the conflict. |
To your last point - that's the great irony in the Liberal outrage over this, Stoney. What Liberals either fail to recognize or are oblivious to is that we have let a large number of detainees go....many of which were found to be back on the battlefield in Afghanistan later on. Also, we'll go to release some detainees but their country of origin won't want them back. |
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| Reverend Tyler |
| How did the Brits like it when we detained some of their citizens without habeus? Canada? They support it, right? |
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| Jeton |
suspending Habeas is one more nail in the coffin of America's international reputation,whihc has always kept us safer than all our nukes put together. the threadsatrter is one of the many idiots who would throw away a millenia of developments in civil society for apparently no gain, since the 'anti-terrorism' efforts of our leaders are so inept as to be farcical.
BushCo has produced MORE terrorists, and there is no credible argument to the contrary...sadly.:( |
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| Fdubya247 |
Quote: Originally posted by VacateTheTurd
I'm not going to repeat my earlier post as to the justification of the suspension of habeas corpus for enemy combatants...read it again. If we were to establish a set amount of time where these terrorists are either charged or released, they will just clam up and wait out the clock without giving up valuable intelligence that is so desperately needed in this war. |
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| rod_jammer |
| We gave German saboteurs habeas corpus rights during WWII even though they were enemy combatants captures far from a battlefield. It would be difficult if not impossible to argue that Al Qaeda is currently more dangerous to civilization than Nazi Germany was. Al Qaeda has killed and is still capable of killing many Americans, but I do not believe they have the capability to destroy American civilization (no invading army or ICBM's). The worst they could do would be a dirty bomb, which although awful, we would survive and endure (just look at the city of New Orleans being completely destroyed by nature). The Nazis did have the capability to destroy the US, and not only did ALL Americans sacrifice, but we also maintained the rule of law for even our worst enemies. |
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| Ass Boil |
Quote: Originally posted by Stonewall
I know of no other conflict where the detained have a right to habeas. Imagine during WWII all the habeas petitions flowing in, millions of them. In German too I suppose.
These people need not even be tried at all, just held till the end of the conflict. |
What "conflict" is that, stumpy? The "war" on common sense you have been waging? The "conflict" you keep referring to is just as ambiguous as your definition of "variance".
What's next, the "war" on lust? |
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| Stonewall |
Quote: Originally posted by rod_jammer
We gave German saboteurs habeas corpus rights during WWII even though they were enemy combatants captures far from a battlefield. It would be difficult if not impossible to argue that Al Qaeda is currently more dangerous to civilization than Nazi Germany was. Al Qaeda has killed and is still capable of killing many Americans, but I do not believe they have the capability to destroy American civilization (no invading army or ICBM's). The worst they could do would be a dirty bomb, which although awful, we would survive and endure (just look at the city of New Orleans being completely destroyed by nature). The Nazis did have the capability to destroy the US, and not only did ALL Americans sacrifice, but we also maintained the rule of law for even our worst enemies. |
No they did not get habeas rights. |
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| Tomofnnh |
Quote: Originally posted by Stonewall
No they did not get habeas rights. |
And neither will you. (you'll open your eyes one day, hopefully) |
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| Stonewall |
Quote: Originally posted by Tomofnnh
And neither will you. (you'll open your eyes one day, hopefully) |
Open my eyes to what? That in the past our enemies were able to flood our Judiciary with habeas petitions over their confinement? That did not happen.
If you want to change the way things are done, that is one thing, but we cannot change the past. |
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