[quote]lixy wrote:
As opposed to the same old, same old usage of the term “war” for political purposes?[/quote]
War has always been an extension of politics. Go cuddle up with some good books at the local public library and begin to erase the useless noise that occupies your fevered brain currently.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
But I would like to hear what danger people think a measure of due process imposes.[/quote]
I don’t see a problem with some level of due process, and most don’t. The problem is the fine-tuning of it in a way that doesn’t hamstring warfighting.
Moreover, all due process starts with a presumption of innocence - that is the entire point of due process: to create a transparent procedure to determine whether someone’s rights can be taken away, as they are presumed to be entitled to those rights until proven otherwise.
In war, the presumption of innocence is a nearly impossible…unless you prefer to fight with one hand tied behind your back.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
But I would like to hear what danger people think a measure of due process imposes.
I don’t see a problem with some level of due process, and most don’t. The problem is the fine-tuning of it in a way that doesn’t hamstring warfighting.
Moreover, all due process starts with a presumption of innocence - that is the entire point of due process: to create a transparent procedure to determine whether someone’s rights can be taken away, as they are presumed to be entitled to those rights until proven otherwise.
In war, the presumption of innocence is a nearly impossible…unless you prefer to fight with one hand tied behind your back.[/quote]
The Supreme Court has said that the burden of proof can be modified in warfare situations. I think it was in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. The government must only present some evidence that an individual is in fact an enemy combatant/terrorist. The individual has the burden to disprove this. They can be held if they don’t make the necessary showing. I think this is appropriate.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
I think there would be an ample showing that these people were terrorists. [/quote]
The problem is there is no clear language to define what a terrorist is. It is just emotively driven rhetoric.
The US government causes terror on a very large scale throughout the world yet they do not see themselves as terrorists. It is a matter of perspective; and therein lies the flaw with using it to define a particular class of criminals.
We have tons of evidence of US terror committed abroad yet it assumes moral high ground in all of its activities…curious.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
I am not someone who thinks national security doesn’t take precedent over the ‘rights’ of foreigners if it comes down to it.
But I would like to hear what danger people think a measure of due process imposes. You really think terrorists are going to slip through the cracks if there’s a hearing to determine whether they are in fact terrorists rather than just seizing people with no oversight and holding them until and unless you decide to release them? With no standards to guide the decision? I don’t think so. I think there would be an ample showing that these people were terrorists. [/quote]
I agree.
The problem I have is applying the standards of a civilian criminal court to them.
Military tribunals are a different matter and that is in fact the historical precedent. I’m not quite sure why that hasn’t been done yet but I am guessing that the eventual sentence is the issue. The government is probably afraid of the fallout of beginning to execute these thugs en masse or they are unsure where to place them to serve life sentences.
You were right on about your assessment of the difference between the Russians during the cold war and the Wahabi terrorists we are dealing with now too. The Russians cared what happened to their children…the jihadis indoctrinate them with cartoons celebrating the glory of suicide bombing.
But didn’t they end up establishing military tribunals, an appeals process (through our courts), and a report of detainees and their status to congress?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
But didn’t they end up establishing military tribunals, an appeals process (through our courts), and a report of detainees and their status to congress?[/quote]
Yes, I believe so. What’s wrong with that? It should be a netural decision-maker that hears the case. The fox shouldn’t be guarding the henhouse. The important thing is the burden of proof. The military only must present some evidence to support holding a person. An appeal can be made to a court, but the petitioner still has the burden to prove that they did nothing wrong. The military doesn’t have to prove guilt. This is an appropriate concession to the exigencies of war. The military shouldn’t just be able to hold someone without some showing of wrongdoing that satisfies someone other than itself.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Sloth wrote:
But didn’t they end up establishing military tribunals, an appeals process (through our courts), and a report of detainees and their status to congress?
Yes, I believe so. What’s wrong with that? It should be a netural decision-maker that hears the case. The fox shouldn’t be guarding the henhouse. The important thing is the burden of proof. The military only must present some evidence to support holding a person. An appeal can be made to a court, but the petitioner still has the burden to prove that they did nothing wrong. The military doesn’t have to prove guilt. This is an appropriate concession to the exigencies of war. The military shouldn’t just be able to hold someone without some showing of wrongdoing that satisfies someone other than itself.[/quote]
Nothing. Though, others will find it draconian. Basically, I think a couple of folks here expect the same kind of trial and burden as we would experience in a criminal trial.
[quote]JD430 wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
I am not someone who thinks national security doesn’t take precedent over the ‘rights’ of foreigners if it comes down to it.
But I would like to hear what danger people think a measure of due process imposes. You really think terrorists are going to slip through the cracks if there’s a hearing to determine whether they are in fact terrorists rather than just seizing people with no oversight and holding them until and unless you decide to release them? With no standards to guide the decision? I don’t think so. I think there would be an ample showing that these people were terrorists.
I agree.
The problem I have is applying the standards of a civilian criminal court to them.
Military tribunals are a different matter and that is in fact the historical precedent. I’m not quite sure why that hasn’t been done yet but I am guessing that the eventual sentence is the issue. The government is probably afraid of the fallout of beginning to execute these thugs en masse or they are unsure where to place them to serve life sentences.
You were right on about your assessment of the difference between the Russians during the cold war and the Wahabi terrorists we are dealing with now too. The Russians cared what happened to their children…the jihadis indoctrinate them with cartoons celebrating the glory of suicide bombing.[/quote]
But the standards do not have to be the same as a civilian criminal court. The important thing is that the military make some showing of wrongdoing to someone other than itself. Procedures and sentences need not be the same.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Sloth wrote:
But didn’t they end up establishing military tribunals, an appeals process (through our courts), and a report of detainees and their status to congress?
Yes, I believe so. What’s wrong with that? It should be a netural decision-maker that hears the case. The fox shouldn’t be guarding the henhouse. The important thing is the burden of proof. The military only must present some evidence to support holding a person. An appeal can be made to a court, but the petitioner still has the burden to prove that they did nothing wrong. The military doesn’t have to prove guilt. This is an appropriate concession to the exigencies of war. The military shouldn’t just be able to hold someone without some showing of wrongdoing that satisfies someone other than itself.
Nothing. Though, others will find it draconian. Basically, I think a couple of folks here expect the same kind of trial and burden as we would experience in a criminal trial.[/quote]
Yeah. I don’t think that’s realistic. The risk of terrorists being released is too high.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
I think you give them a trial, and determine the appropriate sentence and put them in a maximum security prison. If they’re to be put to death, then do it. But I don’t trust any government, including ours, to operate secret prisons.
You have offered no solution at all - what goes into a trial, Irish? Evidentiary hearing to even see if a trial is warranted? What kind evidence can be offered by the prosecution?
If the captured says anything after being detained, does the exclusionary rule apply?
There are hundreds of unsettled questions that “give 'em a trial” doesn’t answer - and we haven’t gotten any further toward a solution.
Again, the same old, same old. Glib and snarky statements that are treated as foregone, obvious conclusions - “give 'em a trial, duh” - accomplish nothing in the real world of having to wage a war and handle the captured in asymmetric warfare.
What’s wrong with what I just said?
Are you serious? You didn’t propose anything.[/quote]
So we should just keep them in jail while… nobody, really, comes up with a policy?
These are things that should have been worked out over the last fucking eight years that the place has been open and we’ve been fighting this “War on Terror.” But apparently, no one has bothered, so I guess we’ll just let these people rot in a prison for the rest of their lives because we feel like it.
Sounds like a fucking plan to me.
They need to come up with a policy on what’s admissible, and what the process will be. I have no idea what should go into it- I’m not a fucking lawyer. But your “hundreds of unanswered questions” should have already been answered by the previous administration, who were obviously swinging their dicks in the wins instead of doing anything worthwhile.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Well it was written by me. Me and the Prof tend to agree on most things political. Besides that, maybe he’s one of the only ones that realizes that history, as a whole, ties together in very intricate ways.
Be serious - that was the dumbest thing written on this thread.
Setting aside Professor X’s limitations, the Left seems impossibly immune to the lessons of history, we see it over and over in their naive approaches to policy and war.
[/quote]
Bullshit. Evidence can be presented that both sides of the political spectrum constantly forget the lessons of history. Nice try on pinning that on liberals though.
Stop misrepresenting my argument. First of all, I wasn’t talking about specific leaders making choices. Lincoln with Habeas corpus- that’s a “horrible choice.”
Setting up systemic oppression of a race over the course of two centuries? That’s not a “horrible choice”. Slaughtering Indians en masse? That’s not a “horrible choice.” That’s violent, power hungry, sometimes sociopathic behavior on the part of a society.
Who the fuck are you kidding?
[quote]
Again, I’m not saying I won’t read it. I just didn’t agree with his pretenses for recommending it to me, as if that would instantly change my world view and turn me into an American flag wrapped martyr like some of you are.
I don’t see any martyrs here - what I see are folks that realize war is governed by the lowest common denominator any of the players choose, and onc made, hard choices have to be made in order to win.
You haven’t offered lesson one to mitigate this problem - you are merely peddling the utopian line wrapped in a predictable race/class/gender packaging that is somehow supposed to present a message that “since America has been bad in the past, it should be nicer in war to its enemies”.
Thank goodness Lincoln thought the opposite of you and your ilk.[/quote]
Man, you have turned into one sorry ass motherfucker.
So who thought like your side? Henry Wirz?
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
The Supreme Court has said that the burden of proof can be modified in warfare situations. I think it was in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. The government must only present some evidence that an individual is in fact an enemy combatant/terrorist. The individual has the burden to disprove this. They can be held if they don’t make the necessary showing. I think this is appropriate. [/quote]
But this is first and foremost a habeas problem - what right do they have to a hearing?
There still are no clear answers as to what the procedure is supposed to be when a detainee asserts his “right” to challenge his detention. What standard of proof? What does a detainee have available to prove he shouldn’t be detained? His testimony?
What kind of evidentiary rights must he be afforded, and where do they fit in the context of battlefield action? Does a soldier have to announce Miranda style rights? What happens when the detainee doesn’t speak English - that seems hardly fair?
What if the military detained someone on a vague hunch that he was involved in am awful threat, but don’t have much evidence to warrant his arrest? Even with the presumption of guilt, if a military action is based on instinct, a very dangerous detainee can walk away.
Is that smart from a warfighting perspective?
The problem isn’t the procedure of a military tribunal - that can be handled. The problem is the duration of the detention, which is a different set of problems, even if the burden of proof is switched to presumption of guilt.
If a very dangerous detainee is afforded the “right” to have his capture challenged and walks free on a “technicality”, the consequences for warfighting are quite terrible.
We allow “getting off on technicalities” in civil society as a trade-off to preserve the presumption of liberty and innocence. In war, that is a recipe for failure.
Critics of Gitmo haven’t provided very good alternatives, ones that place winning a war at the front of the priority list.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
The Indians were allowed to be butchered like cattle.
And this is always a treat when presented as an argument.
Before, after and during the existence of Europeans on North American soil, guess what Indians did to other Indians?
They butchered them like cattle. They ruthlessly slaughtered one another in the name of blood feuds, territory control, and general rivalry.
The “noble savage” approach to history is nothing but failed hackery - and a word of advice, Irish: when it comes to history, read the whole story, don’t just stop where you want or where your tenured professor told you to when spoonfeeding you how awful the West was/is.[/quote]
Oh, oh, I got you now- so because the Indians had wars with each other, it’s completely admissible that we wipe them from the continent.
Right. Sounds completely logical.
I sure as fuck hope there’s no aliens up there watching us going, “Look at them: They fight with each other all the time, so that means it’s ok to annihilate them. Get your guns up.”
[quote]lixy wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Again, the same old, same old. Glib and snarky statements that are treated as foregone, obvious conclusions - “give 'em a trial, duh” - accomplish nothing in the real world of having to wage a war and handle the captured in asymmetric warfare.
As opposed to the same old, same old usage of the term “war” for political purposes?[/quote]
That’s completely different because conservatives are saying it. Obviously.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
The Supreme Court has said that the burden of proof can be modified in warfare situations. I think it was in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. The government must only present some evidence that an individual is in fact an enemy combatant/terrorist. The individual has the burden to disprove this. They can be held if they don’t make the necessary showing. I think this is appropriate.
But this is first and foremost a habeas problem - what right do they have to a hearing?
There still are no clear answers as to what the procedure is supposed to be when a detainee asserts his “right” to challenge his detention. What standard of proof? What does a detainee have available to prove he shouldn’t be detained? His testimony?
What kind of evidentiary rights must he be afforded, and where do they fit in the context of battlefield action? Does a soldier have to announce Miranda style rights? What happens when the detainee doesn’t speak English - that seems hardly fair?
What if the military detained someone on a vague hunch that he was involved in am awful threat, but don’t have much evidence to warrant his arrest? Even with the presumption of guilt, if a military action is based on instinct, a very dangerous detainee can walk away.
Is that smart from a warfighting perspective?
The problem isn’t the procedure of a military tribunal - that can be handled. The problem is the duration of the detention, which is a different set of problems, even if the burden of proof is switched to presumption of guilt. If a very dangerous detainee is afforded the “right” to have his capture challenged and walks free on a “technicality”, the consequences for warfighting are quite terrible.
We allow “getting off on technicalities” in civil society as a trade-off to preserve the presumption of liberty and innocence. In war, that is a recipe for failure.
Critics of Gitmo haven’t provided very good alternatives, ones that place winning a war at the front of the priority list.
[/quote]
By the way, who tells me when we win?
Do I get a memo faxed to me? How’s this work?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Bullshit. Evidence can be presented that both sides of the political spectrum constantly forget the lessons of history. Nice try on pinning that on liberals though.[/quote]
I never said the “right” wasn’t guilty of it - but clearly you needed a wak-up call if you thought you were giving conservatives a lesson on history they were ignoring.
Now to the fun part.
Slavery has been a part of every society since we started recording history - setting up “systematic oppression” has been ubiquitous regardless of race or geography. Slavery was a “normal” part of human history, right up until the West took the great pains to challenge it and end it.
It was the noted society you trip over yourself to slander - that “sociopathic” West - that actually got rid of the very institition you claim it is somehow uniquely guilty of.
In short - the West didn’t invent slavery, but it did end it.
Crawl back to whatever institution had the audacity to issue you a diploma and beg for your money back.
The “horrible choice” referred to was the difficult choice in defending a nation
C’mon, Irish - if you aren’t up to going round for round on the merits, just gracefully bow out. Instead, like an egg-timer, it has to become personal with you.
Here is the thing: you claim to be a student of history. When it comes to the Union victory over the South and Lincoln’s choices, you are the first in line to offer up bluster and bravado about how the South got its “ass handed to them” and how awesome you thought the drubbing was.
And yet. Lincoln engaged in - to insure and preserve victory - the very same actions that you now find so objectionable.
How do you square that circle? You don’t have a principled explanation. Every Leftist impulse you have makes you offended by even the bare thought of suspension of habeas corpus, stifling dissent, etc., - i.e., making the tough choices inherent in any war - but when it comes to a US President actually doing it, you are the first in line to cheerlead.
Same with FDR. First in line to cheerlead, but if a Republican president has to go through the same calculus in war, it isn’t a “well, I may not agree, but history has shown that these are tough questions and compromises without easy answers” - nope,
He is Chimpy McHitler and Gitmo is an affront to all things humane and there can never, ever, ever be an appreciation for the same kinds of modern difficulties a historical Lincoln or FDR faced.
You are either a hypocrite, or you haven’t thought about it enough to know you are speaking out of two mouths - either way, you look like a fool.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Oh, oh, I got you now- so because the Indians had wars with each other, it’s completely admissible that we wipe them from the continent. [/quote]
We didn’t wipe them off the continent, nor did we have any policy to engage in genocide.
Let me guess - you probably believe the “small pox blanket” myth as fact, don’t you?
And, of course, I never said anything related to our fights with Indians was “ok” - I merely noted that this tragic history - war, conquest, distrust, etc. - isn’t a brainless narrative of the mean, old Westerners and the peaceful Indians.
This tragic history infects all of Mankind, and must be viewed from that perspective, not from the perspective of bad politics dressed up as “history”, which is all you seem to have a clue about.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Bullshit. Evidence can be presented that both sides of the political spectrum constantly forget the lessons of history. Nice try on pinning that on liberals though.
I never said the “right” wasn’t guilty of it - but clearly you needed a wak-up call if you thought you were giving conservatives a lesson on history they were ignoring.
Now to the fun part.
Setting up systemic oppression of a race over the course of two centuries? That’s not a “horrible choice”. Slaughtering Indians en masse? That’s not a “horrible choice.” That’s violent, power hungry, sometimes sociopathic behavior on the part of a society.
Slavery has been a part of every society since we started recording history - setting up “systematic oppression” has been ubiquitous regardless of race or geography. Slavery was a “normal” part of human history, right up until the West took the great pains to challenge it and end it.
It was the noted society you trip over yourself to slander - that “sociopathic” West - that actually got rid of the very institition you claim it is somehow uniquely guilty of.
In short - the West didn’t invent slavery, but it did end it.
Crawl back to whatever institution had the audacity to issue you a diploma and beg for your money back.
The “horrible choice” referred to was the difficult choice in defending a nation
Man, you have turned into one sorry ass motherfucker.
C’mon, Irish - if you aren’t up to going round for round on the merits, just gracefully bow out. Instead, like an egg-timer, it has to become personal with you.
Here is the thing: you claim to be a student of history. When it comes to the Union victory over the South and Lincoln’s choices, you are the first in line to offer up bluster and bravado about how the South got its “ass handed to them” and how awesome you thought the drubbing was.
And yet. Lincoln engaged in - to insure and preserve victory - the very same actions that you now find so objectionable.
How do you square that circle? You don’t have a principled explanation. Every Leftist impulse you have makes you offended by even the bare thought of suspension of habeas corpus, stifling dissent, etc., - i.e., making the tough choices inherent in any war - but when it comes to a US President actually doing it, you are the first in line to cheerlead.
Same with FDR. First in line to cheerlead, but if a Republican president has to go through the same calculus in war, it isn’t a “well, I may not agree, but history has shown that these are tough questions and compromises without easy answers” - nope,
He is Chimpy McHitler and Gitmo is an affront to all things humane and there can never, ever, ever be an appreciation for the same kinds of modern difficulties a historical Lincoln or FDR faced.
You are either a hypocrite, or you haven’t thought about it enough to know you are speaking out of two mouths - either way, you look like a fool.[/quote]
Collectivist tripe. “The West” didn’t do anything. There were a few individuals who spoke out against slavery who happened to be from the west. Do not claim it as a victory for western thought.
You might as well say it was capitalism that ended slavery…which is not unique to “the west”.