Good Question

If, ladies and gentlemen, Osama Bin Laden is brought to the United States under these new Supreme Court rules -- as supported by the haughty John Kerry and Richard Clarke and everybody else in Obama's foreign policy apparatus -- and we bring Osama in under the presumption of innocence, somebody explain to me why we are trying to kill him?

TerryRC wrote:Let me see. We have prisoners that may be innocent and have been held for years with no trial or counsel.

Then we have Bin Laden that has admitted his crimes.

These are alike how?

It isn't a good question, Keli. It is ignorant and typical of that pill-popper, Rush.

TerryRC wrote:Does smoking marijuana affect one's judgment? (I wouldn't know.)

I dunno. Probably depends on how much.

Opiates definitely do.

So, where is the logic in comparing Laden to the Gitmo prisoners?

Is there any, or did you just want to put Obama with Osama, like some preachers have been doing?

Did you give your congregation the "Obama is the Anti-Christ predicted in Revelations" sermon, or are you saving it until just before the election?

Meh...

TerryRC wrote:Should the rights and responsibilities of the COTUS be applied to everyone in the whole world--or just Americans? What Constitutional rights do ObL or the Gitmo captured armed combatants have?

Not the whole world. These people are held by Americans in an American military base - American soil, to all intents and purposes.

Why are we so embarrassed by it that we hide them down there?

Give them a drumhead court marshal and shoot them as an enemy combatant, or give them a trial in the courts.

To hold them, indefinitely, without doing either violates the spirit of our law, if not the letter.

And you still haven't peddled your logic as to how the Gitmo prisoners are comparable to bin Laden, who has proudly admitted his crimes?

Aaron wrote:What uniform are these men wearing and what country are they fighting for?

Aaron wrote:If they are wearing the uniform of another country, they are afforded the rights of the Geneva Convention. But the US doesn't afford the rights under the Geneva Convention and the reason we use is that they aren't fighting for a country or wearing a uniform, they are individuals.

If they're not soldiers thus granted rights under the Geneva Convention then they are criminals with basic human rights. This administration wants to designate these prisoners one way when it suits one need and another when it suits that need.

This is not the principals this country was founded on and for anyone to say that this is the standards we must lower ourselves to guarantee freedom is pure and utter bullshit!!!

All they have to do is bring each individual criminal before a military judge, read them the charges for their dentention and show them what they are being held for. To do any less is un-American.

Aaron wrote:Then if they've been charged as enemy combatants, they have rights under the Geneva Convention, correct!!!

Aaron wrote:To hold them indefinately violates Habeas Corpus, which predates our constitution (and yes, it is in our constitution as well) by nearly 500 years.

If we're a nation built on certain inalienable rights, so ingrained that many of our founding fathers felt a Bill of Rights was needless, then how can we as a nation violate such a basic fundamental right of a human that is being detained by our government.

I'm not advocating that a non-citizen has US Constitutional rights. I'm advocating that a human has basic rights and we are violating them. We are no better then the cold war KGB that took people out of their homes for no reason.

We can set back and ignore this but what happens when the 'terror' suspects resides in anytown, USA? What do we do if the government goes in, takes them and sends them off to Cuba? It's only a matter of time until it happens.

So who has won? Not the detainees. The Court's analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation to determine the content of their new habeas right, followed by further litigation to resolve their particular cases, followed by further litigation before the D. C. Circuit—where they could have started had they invoked the DTA procedure. Not Congress, whose attempt to "determine—through democratic means—how best" to balance the security of the American people with the detainees' liberty interests, has been unceremoniously brushed aside. Not the Great Writ, whose majesty is hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost, with no tangible benefit to anyone. Not the rule of law, unless by that is meant the rule of lawyers, who will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy for alien enemy combatants. And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges. - John Roberts in his dissent to Boumediene

Armon Ayers wrote:

Aaron wrote:Then if they've been charged as enemy combatants, they have rights under the Geneva Convention, correct!!!

No.. They are not signatories to the Geneva Conventions. Are they? However, most Marines carny applications, and if they will approach any Marine--or GI--and ask to sign up for the GC, then I am certain that our soldiers will be glad to assist them.

Aaron wrote:

Armon Ayers wrote:

Aaron wrote:Then if they've been charged as enemy combatants, they have rights under the Geneva Convention, correct!!!

No.. They are not signatories to the Geneva Conventions. Are they? However, most Marines carny applications, and if they will approach any Marine--or GI--and ask to sign up for the GC, then I am certain that our soldiers will be glad to assist them.

Doesn't matter. We are. What's more, we're Americans.

Armon Ayers wrote:

Aaron wrote:

Armon Ayers wrote:

Aaron wrote:Then if they've been charged as enemy combatants, they have rights under the Geneva Convention, correct!!!

No.. They are not signatories to the Geneva Conventions. Are they? However, most Marines carny applications, and if they will approach any Marine--or GI--and ask to sign up for the GC, then I am certain that our soldiers will be glad to assist them.

Doesn't matter. We are. What's more, we're Americans.

We are Americans! We respect the Geneva Conventions rights to those who are signatories. What GC rights have these enemy combatants extended to captured Americans? All that we owe these enemy combatants is to treat them humanely until they are repatriated after the cessation of hostilities.

Aaron wrote:

Armon Ayers wrote:

Aaron wrote:

Armon Ayers wrote:

Aaron wrote:Then if they've been charged as enemy combatants, they have rights under the Geneva Convention, correct!!!

No.. They are not signatories to the Geneva Conventions. Are they? However, most Marines carny applications, and if they will approach any Marine--or GI--and ask to sign up for the GC, then I am certain that our soldiers will be glad to assist them.

Doesn't matter. We are. What's more, we're Americans.

We are Americans! We respect the Geneva Conventions rights to those who are signatories. What GC rights have these enemy combatants extended to captured Americans? All that we owe these enemy combatants is to treat them humanely until they are repatriated after the cessation of hostilities.

Seems to me someone once said that we should treat others as we expect them to treat us.

Armon Ayers wrote:Aaron,
Are you in favor of extending constitutional rights to illegal aliens here in the USA?