Journal pudge's Journal: Secret Prisons 23
OK, hit me. Tell me why it is wrong -- either illegal, or why it should be illegal -- for the U.S. to have secret prisons for high-profile, non-U.S.-citizen, terrorists, where extra information about those suspects could be a security risk.
Also, I realize they may violate the laws of the countries they are in, but that's a separate issue. Not an unimportant or unrelated issue, but separate.
I am not saying I necessarily approve of them, and I absolutely do not approve of them for U.S. citizens, or bona fide prisoners of war. But apart from simply saying "secrets are bad, mmmmkay?," or "our allies don't like it," or "Kofi Annan says it's illegal," is there a reason why this is actually wrong or illegal?
Convince me!
Basic premise (Score:2)
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First: I don't know that this is true, and I don't think you know it, either.
Second: if so, then that should be the issue, not the secret prisons themselves.
The question of torture has not been completely answered other than Bush saying "we don't torture", but declining to discuss details.
Well, of course he's not going to give details. You don't tell the enemy your interrogation techniques
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This is the problem with lack of transparency in government. We elect people to represent us and if they are no longer truly representing what we elected them to do or are occult in their dealings, we have lost a fundamental core of our form of government.
Second: if so, then that should be the issue, not the secret prisons themselves.
Exactly! I don't care one iota about whether or not the CIA is occupying a building somewhere, bu
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That answer is essentially nonresponsive. If followed to its logical conclusion, we can have no secrets in our government, which is national suicide.
We elect people to represent us and if they are no longer truly representing what we elected them to do or are occult in their dealings, we have lost a fundamental core of our form of government.
That seems to be question-begging, assuming that some measure of a lack of transparency means they are not
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Prisoner status as a "terrorists" is clearly defined by the omission in Geneva Convention (and many other) treaty. They were NOT even mercenaries, nor barbarians, nor even renegade soilders. Mercenaries are typically paid by the governments.
The preamble goes like this, "We, the People." These aren't even our people, nor immigrants (illegal or not).
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As there is no oversight, we have no idea what is happening in those prisons other than information that has leaked out when some of the countries that host them have discovered them and sought to close them down. There are reports of torture and possible
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Acc. to the President, the "secret prisons" are empty. There are no "rest."
If deaths do occur, then they are definitely illegal.
Doesn't it depend on how those deaths occur? What if someone has a massive heart attack because a CIA agent drops from the ceiling
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I don't believe this is true. The Supreme Court has upheld CIA kidnappings in the past. It may break domestic laws of the countries we are in, but that's not the same thing; we have (as a nation) no obligation to follow another nation's laws. Our courts recognize only U.S. law, including treaties we ratify, which is the only "international law" that exists as far as we are concerned.
So yes, there may be some "international law" that forbids kidnapping, but nothing that has anything to do with us, that I can
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You're talking about violating the domestic laws of Germany. But what I was referring to was your claim that kidnapping violated international law. Domestic law != international law. Domestic German law is defined by Germany's legislature and other lawmaking bodies within German
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No, that never happened. Hamdi could have been kept in the U.S. to stand trial, or he could renounce his citizenship and go to Saud
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Sorry, you're right.
So why didn't the US offer this proposal to its citizen that it was holding without due process until such a time as his Supreme Court objection was finally heard? Why not offer up that deal right away instead of pushing the courts to say what
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Well, I don't have a problem with any o
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These foreigners are, in essence, arrested on sovereign soil without a working and viable government entity to respond or answer to. Nor is the foreigners' native government are willing to answer for them either. They are armed-to-the-teeth nomads wi
Well (Score:3, Insightful)
On the flip side, is "Bush says it's legal" a good enough reason to favor them? Or even not oppose them?
I'm of the opinion (Note, opinion) that powers not explicitely granted to government, aren't powers of government. But I'm sure that the administration, or those better educated, can show exactly where the power to create this legal system is granted to them.
And, in a secret prison, with secret processes, and secret staff, who decides who is a POW and who isn't? What's the accountability if innocents, or POWs are imprisoned? What constitutes torture and what "unconventional" methods are used?
We can only speculate, because it's all secret.
That bothers me a bit.
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Uhhhh. I should oppose it just because Bush said it's legal. Riiiiiiiiiight.
And I never said I was in favor of them. I am not arguing in favor of them. I am, however, counteracting what I see as illegitimate arguments against them, in an effort to find some good arguments against them.
I'm of the opinion
Sure, but this also includes all powers that are n
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But apart from simply saying
My counter argument to that is: Apart from simply saying "Bush says it legal, is there a reason why this is actually right or legal? And if that's the only reason, damn skippy you should oppose it. If there's another reason you believe it's right or legal, please point to relevant laws or elaborate. Or not, as you may well cho
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It's war, and it's always been done, and I need a reason to think it is NOT legal.
And if that's the only reason, damn skippy you should oppose it.
That is not how you framed it. You framed it as though I should oppose it BECAUSE Bush said it is legal. I'll chalk it up to miscommunication.
Maybe I'm confused, but I thought the CIA was an independent agency while the military is
No Man's Land. (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. This is closest I've seen, keeping combatants' identity a secret. A viable but strategic tactic used in the dismantling of terrorist cells.
2. POTUS is the Commander-in-Chief. That alone, dictates the war game strategy with the JCOS of which Supreme Court has little or no say over mass detention of non-citizens, either POW or detained terrorists. We did it with the Japanese during WWII (and in all probability, we'll do it again as future situation warrants them).
3. Geneva Convention does not apply if terrorists do not wear uniforms or having a clearly marked nationalities. A flag on the sleeve (or specially marked turban) would be sufficiently in compliance. Probably, none of GITMO detainees had any markings (except for Nikes logos).
4. Best defense is a strong offense. Keep them off guard. Captured or detained non-citizens keeps the peace at the expense of non-US citizen's individual liberty. Basically, us vs. them.
Basically, GITMO is a no-man's land. If the combatant failed to wear national markings, then all bets are off (Geneva or not). Heck, I don't even expect the declining (from the Ottoman Empire's heights) Islamic civilization to honor Geneva convention, although it would be nice.
The status quo as it is today fits the current situation. Supreme Court needs to recognize the needs of National Security and identify measures to support this.
An unrelated side note: Islamic population is nearly 1/3 of the world's and yet they only possess or garner less than 1/2 of 1 percent of all the Noble prizes to date. That alone speaks volume of their civilization and culture.
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I agree with your points on the whole, but I feel this is an odd statement on your part. Nobel prizes are picked by a committee from a closed nomination process. I wonder over the course of the existence of the prizes how many Muslims have been on the committee or allowed to nomin
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The nomination ratio is even less than the awards, so Nobel committee are aggressively (and unconsiously) awarding Islam scientists and apparently based on their fine merits alone, but not by much.
It is, just that, out of the Islamic civilization during middle ages, we got way many advancements in the area of arts and science (that much the world is grateful for).
Then lately, education is not high o
Terrorists vs. Barbarians (Score:3, Insightful)
Throughout history, barbarians have had some demonstrable terrorist-like characteristics. Each empire have had to deal with it, SOMEHOW. All empires ultimately handle these captured barbarian problem differently (execution, slavery, banishments or some combination thereof.)
The Geneva convention seeks to eliminate these mass execution and slavery by providing for an orderly Western civilization warfare in which it seeks to preserve the populace (namely women and children and medical personnel). In other word, banishments of ALL POW. Geneva PURPOSELY DOES NOT cover combatants with no nationality marking or clearly marked uniforms. That is how spys and traitors typically get executed on the spot usually without due process (unless two nations have a pre-existing treaty for spy exchange).
Getting back to the void...With each major conflicts, new treaty abounds in seeking to further restrict these weapon of mass desctruction (biological, sarin, nuclear). As the nation seek complacency within these treaties, false sense of security gets firmly established.
As history repeats, this treaty-created void has a marked emergence and evolution of sub-tactical warfare. Coupled with fanatical and suicidal combatants, new legal process, technology and counter-tactics has to be developed in addressing these threats.
These sub-tactical methods makes uses of non-identifiable combatants. Worse yet for our Western values, it leverages our soft spot by the use of women and children as suicidal combatants.
Lumping this newly identified (BUT historically old) category with the spys and traitors, they should have been summarily executed without much public fanfare. SCOTUS should very well recognize this by studying history of barbarians to further protect our national security.
Hence, my assertion is there is nothing illegal or immoral about this (man, woman, or child terrorists/barbarians).
Devil's Advocate (Score:2)
You're not getting many "why" we have secret prison, but more "why nots." So, I'll try and put on my dirty liberal hat on for a change for the sake of this discussion thread.
Pudge, we MUST NOT have these "black sites!" It's a sham to human decency and denigrates our Western Civilization and all things that stands for.
Kidnapping [wikipedia.org] is immoral and illegal. Innocents [aclu.org] have been taken and deprived of their moral rights to exists.
More over, these people are NOT terrorists, they are belligerent [yale.edu] armies.