Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said today he favors immediately closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison and moving its detainees to U.S. facilities.
The prison, which now holds about 380 suspected terrorists, has tarnished the world's perception of the United States, Powell said.
"If it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo. Not tomorrow, but this afternoon. I'd close it," he said.
"And I would not let any of those people go," he said. "I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system. The concern was, well then they'll have access to lawyers, then they'll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them. Isn't that what our system is all about?"
Nice to see a (nominal) Republican who views this issue from the perspective of the United States Constitution rather than from the script of 24.
13 comments:
I sometimes hear the question if people are not guilty what do they need to fear?
How come no one has asked if our system is so great why do we have to skirt around it to feel like it's working?
Three cheers for the General.
To coin a phrase, indeed.
first off, we need to have a answer to the question: are these POWs, or accused criminals?
POWs have no rights to habeaus corpus.
i dont know the answer, and i dont think there is a clear one.
Well, I am not a lawyer, but I believe that POWs are defined by (gasp) international laws, to which the U.S. is a signatory and is thereby bound.
And to be POWs, they need to have been fighting in the armed forces of a state on which the U.S. had declared war (or that had declared war on the U.S.) AND (lawful) POWs are to be sent home upon cessation of hostilities.
Thus, the fact that the U.S. is in open-ended conflict with stateless forces makes this problematic to say the least. But the guys in Gitmo are pretty clearly not POWs.
To my (non-lawyerly) mind, this means they are being held as suspected criminals by default.
The problem is that the government has been trying to develop a third way to deal with them, which is essentially making this shit up as they go along. Which also more than a bit problematic if you look beyond the next five minutes or so...
All of this is to say that there are much larger issues at stake here. We have much more to lose by eroding due process than by giving Gitmo detainees access to it.
...and it would appear that the 4th Circuit concurs.
Did the Iranians have a right to hold Americans hostage for 444 days? There were no charges or trials, as I recall, there was just arrest.
We didn't like that because, we said, it was morally wrong. If it was morally wrong when someone else did it, and we were right in saying they should be released, then it is morally wrong if we do it. Elastic morality is the great motivator for liberal worldviews but not for worldviews that believe in an absolute right and wrong.
Foir all their skankiness one could still see how the Iranians may have had a problem with our interference with their country (thank you CIA) and so there was a concern for who those hostages were and what they may have been involved in.
Why is this suddenly different and the holding of people OK?
so where does an al queda(sp) operative fit in?
if he aint POW, then he aint criminal either becuase the laws of say... iraq,or yemen, where he is captured dont outlaw jihad against america.
our law only applies within our borders, dont it?
i think maybe we need a third way to deal with a third kind of prisoner.
i dont know where i stand,really.
i was sympathetic to johny lind, and didnt consider him a traitor, but the govt disagreed.
in my eye, he was a POW.
If we don't bring anybody to trial how can we prove they're an al qaida operative?
Because we say so? That's what the Iranians said too.
but is it a violation of american law to be an al qaida operative in yemen?
cant try them in the US for a law they didnt break in the US.
If we can't figure out a fair way to handle these guys, just let them go. The worst possible outcome is that they end up doing something dastardly which will only justify their treatment thus far upon which many politicians can simply say "told you so" and that can be the end of it.
It's painfully obvious that terrorists are of small concern as compared to natural disasters. It seems that even if we factor in years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq we still just about break even with Hurricane Katrina.
But...but...THEY HATE US FOR OUR FREEDOM!!!
way back when, soon after 9/11, on another forum, i stated they hated us for our foriegn policy, not our freedom. i got smacked for that.
but it is scary isnt it? that the 'they hate our freedom' was a line fed to the people by bush, without any back up explanation?
he decreed.
99% bought into it.
without a second thought.
"Freedom itself was attacked today"
yeah, like some cave dwelling hairy wife-breeding, rag wearing goatherd really cared how we pick our schoolboards., as we drive to the polls with mandatory seat-belt laws in a heavily regulated automobile.
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