Government treatment of American "Enemy Combatant" [Archive]

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foodcourtdruide

12-04-2006, 05:49 AM

This is a pretty scary story. This was a U.S. Citizen that was deemed an Enemy Combatant by the President and not allowed trial or counsel for 21 months. It looks like they used similar sleep/sensory deprivation methods (ie. torture) as they used to Gitmo. Doesn't this defeat the lame "better us then them!" argument people have? This was a U.S. CITIZEN!I recall O & A having a discussion about torture once, in which Opie brilliantly opined something to the effect "Torture is not wrong", and Anthony said that he didn't mind torture because he knew the U.S. Government would never torture HIM. I think their opinions reflect most Americans. I wonder how they would defend brutal and illegal interrogation tactics in this case.<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/us/04detain.html?hp&ex=1165294800&en=d92b3532e5b950be &ei=5094&partner=homepage">http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/us/04detain.html?hp&ex=1165294800&en=d92b3532e5b950be &ei=5094&partner=homepage</a>

giannidesk

12-04-2006, 06:10 AM

If he did half the shit the article said he did - then I see no problem. The fact that he is a US citizen is meaningless. I don't think the government pulls completely innocent people off the street and tosses them in jail.As a matter of fact I'm more irritated by the fact that a US citizen would be doing these things.Drop him off on an island of all male prisoners (like the great Ray Liotta movie "No Escape").

Yerdaddy

12-04-2006, 06:42 AM

giannidesk wrote:  If he did half the shit the article said he did - then I see no problem. The fact that he is a US citizen is meaningless. I don't think the government pulls completely innocent people off the street and tosses them in jail.As a matter of fact I'm more irritated by the fact that a US citizen would be doing these things.Drop him off on an island of all male prisoners (like the great Ray Liotta movie "No Escape").And if there were such a thing as a truly magic magic 8 ball, then I wouldn't have a problem with it either. But there is no such 8 ball, thus the need for the US Constitution. And thus the fact that he is a US citizen is meaningful.From the same article: Mr. Padilla’s status was abruptly changed to criminal defendant from enemy combatant last fall. At the time, the Supreme Court was weighing whether to take up the legality of his military detention — and thus the issue of the president’s authority to seize an American citizen on American soil and hold him indefinitely without charges — when the Bush administration pre-empted its decision by filing criminal charges against Mr. Padilla.Mr. Padilla was added as a defendant in a terrorism conspiracy case already under way in Miami. The strong public accusations made during his military detention — about the dirty bomb, Al Qaeda connections and supposed plans to set off natural gas explosions in apartment buildings — appear nowhere in the indictment against him. The indictment does not allege any specific violent plot against America. This fits a pattern of how the Justice Department has consistently overreached in accusing suspected terrorists of far more than the evidence permits - barring any evidence that they actually have a magic magic 8 ball afterall. <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2479782,00.html" target="_blank">Just last week they were ordered to pay $2 million to someone they fucked over in a similar way.</a> Instead of finding out who the real terrorists are and stop them, the administration is instead wasting our money to prosecute anyone they round up - in order to cover up their own mistakes and make it look to us like they're going after bad guys. Oh, and shitting on the Constitution in the process. The financial waste and the waste of DoJ time alone should be reason alone to be concearned about this story, even if you don't give a shit about a person's guilt or innocence.

Jujubees2

12-04-2006, 06:55 AM

Well put Yerdaddy,I mean when the government can hold someone for 21 months without letting them access to legal counsel.  Remember, he has not been found guilty of a thing yet!  This is torture, plain and simple.  And if this is the way our government reacts to terrorism, then I guess the terrorists have won.Philip D. Cave, a former judge advocate general for the Navy and now a lawyer specializing in military law, said, “There’s nothing comparable in terms of severity of confinement, in terms of how Padilla was held, especially considering that this was pretrial confinement.”

foodcourtdruide

12-04-2006, 06:56 AM

johnniewalker

12-04-2006, 09:19 AM

Why do we listen to the constitution? Why should we have due process? They are merely traditions from a time early on. We can't really define what a tradition is and we have a hard time approximating a tradition so therefore it is not really a useful argument for or against something. Are we prepared to accept that traditions and morals hold value or are we going to keep on accepting that the means are justified by the ends, and any mistake along the way is jusitified by the ends? Point your fingers at the government all you want, but in reality the constitution is nothing unless the people follow it. The reason Supreme Court Justice Jackson insisted on trying the Nazi leaders at Nuremburg was to show the importance of our tradition of law. I take it that's what we are showing with the Saddam trial, but it would be better if we were consistant and were explicit in our reliance of that tradition. Until both sides can look back and truly appreciate our history and traditions, we can all just look at this and say "So what".

This message was edited by johnniewalker on 12-4-06 @ 1:21 PM

sailor

12-04-2006, 09:32 AM

i jsut read this post to confirm that it wasn't started by yerdaddy.  shocking!  :)

scottinnj

12-08-2006, 05:56 PM

The Constitution also provides the government the powers to revoke citizenship of anyone deemed to be an enemy combatant.That Constitution....what a pesky document! Oh that means I don't care about Padilla.And if sleep deprivation and water boarding is torture, then what is the classification of beheadings, limb removal and mutilation?

scottinnj

12-08-2006, 06:01 PM

I also find it funny that with all this "torture"  (TORTURE!!  IT'S TORTURE!!!!) the videotape of Padilla is him being transported to the dentist for a root canal.After the root canal, did he confess?  Or did we have to resort to the fearsome colonoscopy.I love the N.Y. Times.  Whatever it says, I disgree with it like clockwork.  It's better then getting talking points from the GOP.

HBox

12-08-2006, 06:06 PM

scottinnj wrote: The Constitution also provides the government the powers to revoke citizenship of anyone deemed to be an enemy combatant.That Constitution....what a pesky document! Oh that means I don't care about Padilla.And if sleep deprivation and water boarding is torture, then what is the classification of beheadings, limb removal and mutilation?Where in the Constitution that the President can unilaterally and without due process declare any citizen an enemy combatant and strip away all his rights? If it's really there I'd like to read it for myself.As for that last comment, it's an argument that I absolutely hate. We should not set as the standards of our own behavior based on the behavior of terrorists. We should act not only better than them, but infinitely better than them, to standards that meet the high quality of our own nation's history. We certainly shouldn't torture and then point to those thugs in the Middle East and say "At least we're better than that!"

This message was edited by HBox on 12-8-06 @ 10:06 PM

HBox

12-08-2006, 06:12 PM

scottinnj wrote: I also find it funny that with all this "torture" (TORTURE!! IT'S TORTURE!!!!) the videotape of Padilla is him being transported to the dentist for a root canal.After the root canal, did he confess? Or did we have to resort to the fearsome colonoscopy.I love the N.Y. Times. Whatever it says, I disgree with it like clockwork. It's better then getting talking points from the GOP.Come on. The guy is mentally damaged because of us. We did this without a trial or anything on charges so weak that we can't back up anymore and won't even attempt to prosecute. But even if we did it might get thrown out of court anyway if he isn't found to be competent to stand trial. He entered our custody a functioning human being and left mentally disturbed. Whatever it is you want to call what we did to him, THAT'S the result.And in the end they had trouble figuring out anything to charge him with.

scottinnj

12-08-2006, 06:15 PM

HBox wrote: As for that last comment, it's an argument that I absolutely hate. We should not set as the standards of our own behavior based on the behavior of terrorists. We should act not only better than them, but infinitely better than them, to standards that meet the high quality of our own nation's history. We certainly shouldn't torture and then point to those thugs in the Middle East and say "At least we're better than that!"This message was edited by HBox on 12-8-06 @ 10:06 PM You'd be dead, but at least you can know that as your head is leaving your body, you are the more civilized individual.  Theorectical arguments do not fly well in the world in which we live in.  They are going to kill us if they have the chance, and will not be placated or negotiated out of that decision.

HBox

12-08-2006, 06:22 PM

Bulldogcakes

12-08-2006, 06:28 PM

I agree with Yerdaddy. THe fact that he's a US citizen means he's entitled to the same basic rights as the rest of us. THere are no exemptions based on what you're being charged with. You're either a citizen, or you're not. He is and therefore this is unacceptable whats happening to him. One quibble. The word "Torture" conjures up images of people being whipped, beaten, you know tortured. Showing him pictures of Rosanne Barr naked while making him eat the Slim Jims with the cheese. That kind of stuff. I understand there's a legal definition of torture, but thats not what I'm talking about. When you call stuff like this "Torture" and then you see something thats certainly unpleasant but non violent, you lose people and then wonder why no one seems to care. Most folks chalk this up as another "news tease". Even the Abu Ghraib stuff was more embarassing and humiliating than violent (from what I saw).  Maybe if its called "inhumane treatment" or something else people would care more.    

This message was edited by Bulldogcakes on 12-8-06 @ 10:30 PM

scottinnj

12-08-2006, 06:33 PM

As to the question of revoking citizenship-Article 1 section 9:"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

johnniewalker

12-08-2006, 06:35 PM

scottinnj wrote: As to the question of revoking citizenship-Article 1 section 9:"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."  Very true, but that gem hasn't been drudged up since 1869.  Still congress does have that right.

scottinnj

12-08-2006, 06:37 PM

Bulldogcakes wrote: I agree with Yerdaddy. THe fact that he's a US citizen means he's entitled to the same basic rights as the rest of us. THere are no exemptions based on what you're being charged with. You're either a citizen, or you're not. He is and therefore this is unacceptable whats happening to him. One quibble. The word "Torture" conjures up images of people being whipped, beaten, you know tortured. Showing him pictures of Rosanne Barr naked while making him eat the Slim Jims with the cheese. That kind of stuff. I understand there's a legal definition of torture, but thats not what I'm talking about. When you call stuff like this "Torture" and then you see something thats certainly unpleasant but non violent, you lose people and then wonder why no one seems to care. Most folks chalk this up as another "news tease". Even the Abu Ghraib stuff was more embarassing and humiliating than violent (from what I saw).  Maybe if its called "inhumane treatment" or something else people would care more.    This message was edited by Bulldogcakes on 12-8-06 @ 10:30 PM I think inhumane treatment is correct.  As for Abu Ghraib, I would have thrown them in jail just for the stupidity of throwing a camera in the mix.  Jesus Christ what did they think Al-Jazeera would have done with those pics?  Conduct Unbecoming a Soldier?  Absolutely!  Those pyramids and barking dogs were unnecessary and not performed by trained intelligence officers who know how to extract information from prisoners.Torture?  Nope!

HBox

12-08-2006, 06:37 PM

scottinnj wrote: As to the question of revoking citizenship-Article 1 section 9:"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." [color=navy]That's not the case right now. They couldn't even convince the Supreme Court they had the right to deny Habeus Corpus to non-citizens.

This message was edited by HBox on 12-8-06 @ 10:37 PM

scottinnj

12-08-2006, 06:44 PM

HBox wrote: This country has dealt with far greater threats than this wihtout resorting to this kind of systemic treament of detainees. Oh really?  The last big threat was from the Japanese.  Remember the internment camps?And the treatment we give these guys is NOT TORTURE!

scottinnj

12-08-2006, 06:45 PM

I sounded snotty in that last post.  My apologies HBox.

scottinnj

12-08-2006, 06:48 PM

HBox wrote: scottinnj wrote: As to the question of revoking citizenship-Article 1 section 9:"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." That's not the case right now. They couldn't even convince the Supreme Court they had the right to deny Habeus Corpus to non-citizens.This message was edited by HBox on 12-8-06 @ 10:37 PM True, but that wasn't the meat of the matter.  Bush never wanted to deny Habeus Corpus.  He merely wanted the trials to be done by a military tribunal.I disagreed with the Courts decision.  Precedent showed Bush had a right-the Germans who came here to booby trap American ports were detained by Roosevelt, and tried by a tribunal, then hanged.

Yerdaddy

12-09-2006, 03:30 AM

scottinnj wrote: HBox wrote: As for that last comment, it's an argument that I absolutely hate. We should not set as the standards of our own behavior based on the behavior of terrorists. We should act not only better than them, but infinitely better than them, to standards that meet the high quality of our own nation's history. We certainly shouldn't torture and then point to those thugs in the Middle East and say "At least we're better than that!"This message was edited by HBox on 12-8-06 @ 10:06 PM You'd be dead, but at least you can know that as your head is leaving your body, you are the more civilized individual.  Theorectical arguments do not fly well in the world in which we live in.  They are going to kill us if they have the chance, and will not be placated or negotiated out of that decision. Where is this beheading thing coming from? I've been in the Middle East for two years now and I've been offered head from Arab Muslims, but never had it threatened.And it's the average Muhammad here that our torture practices effects most. Al-Qaeda guys aren't going to change their ways whether we torture people or not. But Muslims are going to factor in our treatment of Muslims when they form their opinions of whether "the West" and America in particular is waging a war on Islam or not. That's what determines whether people sign up for al-Qaeda, ignore al-Qaeda, or work against al-Qaeda. And that, more than anything else, will determine whether we are winning or losing the Wurr on Turr. The other thing is it matters whether people are innocent or guilty when we do bad shit to them. If it was obvious that we were only torturing al-Qaeda, it wouldn't be much of an issue even here in the ME. But we've had too many people tortured or imprisoned for years and only then determined that they were picked up by mistake. People in the ME are VERY aware of that fact, and it has a strong effect on their opinions of us. Two years ago I met a couple of young Iraqis in Amman. One was from Falujah, the other from Samara. Both had been picked up in house to house sweeps and been thrown in Abu Ghraib - one for weeks and one for months. Iraqis knew about what was happening in Abu Ghraib long before those pictures got out. And commanders on the ground have said all along that Abu Ghraib was the most damaging event to the war effort to that point. The beheadings conducted by al-Qaeda in Iraq have sickened most Muslims. And they have had a serious impact on western perceptions of Muslims as a whole. Now, at the same time, Arab governments have always been known to torture people. So, when it's been publicized that the US has had suspects sent to Egypt and even Syria to have the Arabs do the torturing for us, that fact has had NO descernible impact on western perceptions of Muslims. Why? Because it's not surprising. We already expect them to torture. Bad conduct is relative. Beadings lower respect for Muslims, torture lowers respect for America. And lower respect hurts us. Punishing innocent Muslims - and denying them due process guarantees we'll punish the innocent - hurts us. That, along with the tendency to get bad information through torture, is the cost of our torture and denying people of due process. There are other costs as well, but I've posted all of them in earlier threads many times.

scottinnj

12-11-2006, 04:33 PM

FLORENCE, Colorado (AP) -- Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph laments in a series of letters to a newspaper that the maximum-security federal prison where he is spending the rest of his life is designed to drive him insane."It is a closed-off world designed to isolate inmates from social and environmental stimuli, with the ultimate purpose of causing mental illness and chronic physical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and arthritis," he wrote in one letter to The Gazette of Colorado Springs"Using solitary confinement, Supermax is designed to inflict as much misery and pain as is constitutionally permissible," he wrote in a letter. Now that is a partial part of a story that I found on CNN's Law Center section of its website.  It struck me that this man in the long run will be suffering more at the hands of the government-with our permission as citizens-then those being interrogated by our intelligence agencies.  I personally don't care about Eric Rudolf's plight; quite frankly, I wish they had executed that monster.  But the point I am trying to make is that a lot of people are upset about the treatment of people who are from other countries who are trying to do the same and worse as Eric Rudolf. There comes a time when it is necessary to suspend our beliefs in justice and law & order in order to survive.  Our justice system is designed to punish criminals who break our laws.  It is not designed to mete justice on those who have no respect for its laws, and especially who don't care about the outcome.  They don't care if they live or die, or spend forever in jail.  They only believe in killing us, and all the things we have here that put checks on normal people's behaviour (e.g. high fines for speeding, jail time for stealing, etc) that keep those of us tempted to encroach on others' rights or just say screw it and lose control, do not faze these people at all.  They want to kill, kill, kill, and the only thing these people respect from us is not our laws, or our sense of decency to our fellow men or our system of government that allows us to address our greviences against each other or the government but our ability to destroy and kill them in massive enough numbers so as to negate the ability they have to kill us.So my belief is that I am not worried about how other people in other countries feel about us, nor do I care about the individual liberties of those plotting against the United States and its citizens.  I do not want to pull back from where we are and allow the front move from Europe and the Middle East to here on our soil.  Because then my kids are at risk of being bombed, and that is not okay with me.  I know I have ruffled a few feathers with this one, but if you haven't figured out where I come from politically, well this post should make it pretty clear.

Bulldogcakes

12-11-2006, 04:54 PM

HBox wrote: scottinnj wrote: As to the question of revoking citizenship-Article 1 section 9:"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." That's not the case right now. They couldn't even convince the Supreme Court they had the right to deny Habeus Corpus to non-citizens.You lost me there. Jose Padilla is a US citizen. Are you referring to the Gitmo detainees?

scottinnj

12-11-2006, 05:23 PM

Both Padilla and Gitmo.  President Bush had been treating them all identically.

Bulldogcakes

12-11-2006, 05:29 PM

I know, but Padilla's a US citizen and is entitled to a trial. I thought that was the whole point of this thread. Gitmo detainees are supposed to fall under the Geneva Convention, but thats another whole topic.

foodcourtdruide

12-11-2006, 06:27 PM

scottinnj wrote: The Constitution also provides the government the powers to revoke citizenship of anyone deemed to be an enemy combatant.That Constitution....what a pesky document! Oh that means I don't care about Padilla.And if sleep deprivation and water boarding is torture, then what is the classification of beheadings, limb removal and mutilation?Frightening.Just because the constitution gives the government power to declare someone an enemy combatant, doesn't mean U.S. citizens shouldn't take it VERY seroiusly when the government does so. It's like Ron says.. they start stripping away the rights of others and you think it doesn't effect you. Then gradually, as we lose more and more rights it will effect you.As for your second point, why does this matter? Do you think that people defending our civil liberties have the best interests of the awful human-beings that behead people in mind? This isn't an "us vs. them" debate.

HBox

12-11-2006, 06:43 PM

Bulldogcakes wrote: I know, but Padilla's a US citizen and is entitled to a trial. I thought that was the whole point of this thread. Gitmo detainees are supposed to fall under the Geneva Convention, but thats another whole topic. I was just making the point that the Bush Administration couldn't even manage to convince the Supreme Court they could deny Habeus Corpus to non-citizens, let alone citizens.

HBox

12-11-2006, 07:00 PM

scottinnj wrote: FLORENCE, Colorado (AP) -- Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph laments in a series of letters to a newspaper that the maximum-security federal prison where he is spending the rest of his life is designed to drive him insane."It is a closed-off world designed to isolate inmates from social and environmental stimuli, with the ultimate purpose of causing mental illness and chronic physical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and arthritis," he wrote in one letter to The Gazette of Colorado Springs"Using solitary confinement, Supermax is designed to inflict as much misery and pain as is constitutionally permissible," he wrote in a letter. Now that is a partial part of a story that I found on CNN's Law Center section of its website. It struck me that this man in the long run will be suffering more at the hands of the government-with our permission as citizens-then those being interrogated by our intelligence agencies. I personally don't care about Eric Rudolf's plight; quite frankly, I wish they had executed that monster. But the point I am trying to make is that a lot of people are upset about the treatment of people who are from other countries who are trying to do the same and worse as Eric Rudolf. There comes a time when it is necessary to suspend our beliefs in justice and law & order in order to survive. Our justice system is designed to punish criminals who break our laws. It is not designed to mete justice on those who have no respect for its laws, and especially who don't care about the outcome. They don't care if they live or die, or spend forever in jail. They only believe in killing us, and all the things we have here that put checks on normal people's behaviour (e.g. high fines for speeding, jail time for stealing, etc) that keep those of us tempted to encroach on others' rights or just say screw it and lose control, do not faze these people at all. They want to kill, kill, kill, and the only thing these people respect from us is not our laws, or our sense of decency to our fellow men or our system of government that allows us to address our greviences against each other or the government but our ability to destroy and kill them in massive enough numbers so as to negate the ability they have to kill us.So my belief is that I am not worried about how other people in other countries feel about us, nor do I care about the individual liberties of those plotting against the United States and its citizens. I do not want to pull back from where we are and allow the front move from Europe and the Middle East to here on our soil. Because then my kids are at risk of being bombed, and that is not okay with me. I know I have ruffled a few feathers with this one, but if you haven't figured out where I come from politically, well this post should make it pretty clear.  [color=navy][size=2]There's a huge, obvious difference here. Eric Rudolph was tried and convicted of a crime. Jose Padilla was accused of a crime, held for years with no plans to try a case against him until they were forced to and even then after years of holding him can't even prove what they initially accused him of. And at least Rudolph is still capable of writing a letter. Are we so sure Padilla is still capable of doing something like that?It's very easy to sit here when we know just because of how we look or where we're from or where we've been that there is no chance something like this is going to happen to us right now. We take for granted that we will always have the rights we believe we have. If we let them get away with this the day will come where it will snap back on people like us. Back in another thread you agreed with me that the government would not walk away from the revenue streams a "temporary" tax would give them and that it w

Contra

12-12-2006, 09:10 AM

I agree that the treatment is scary, because even if he did anything that he was accused of, the fact that now the government have this case to jusify others by is very dangerous.

Now that the above run on sentence is over, I'd like to say congrats to the topic starter for making me post my first ever post in this forum!