Republicans Decry Obama’s Decision to Try Al Qaeda Suspect in Civilian Court

[Jroc]

My comments are as meaningful as anyone else's, Jroc. The polls are out of date. I suspect that public opinion has swung in favor of civilian courts, particularly since the rejection of liberal neo-conservatism. Trying the suspects in civilian courts is the conservative option, not military tribunals.

Who cares what you suspect. if a poll was taken asking Americans if al-quieda terrorists should be captured brought to the U.S., given constitutional rights, and tried in civilian courts, would you be in favor of this? Most would reject such stupidity, as those polls already suggest

Since my opinion is as good as most, certainly better than yours, I am not worried about your concerns. The Constitution trumps your concern if the administration wants to use federal courts because they work faster and bring quicker justice.

Umm....Ok

 

[JakeStarkey]

You deny they are Constitutional, they work faster, and they bring quicker justice?

 

[rdean]

There are already 355 terrorists in American prisons. - Slate Magazine

Maybe these people don't understand what life is like in these "supermax" prisons. Take ADX Florence, the supermax in Colorado—"the Alcatraz of the Rockies"—that serves as the home to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh" who organized the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Zacarias Moussaoui, one of the Sept. 11 plotters; Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber; Theodore Kaczynski, the "Unabomber"; and Terry Nichols, who helped plan the Oklahoma City bombing, to name a few.
These are all truly dangerous people, but it's not as if they run into one another in the lunch line or the yard. There is no lunch line; there is no yard. Most of the prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. For one hour, they're taken to another concrete room, indoors, to exercise, by themselves. Their only windows face the sky, so they have no way of knowing even where they are within the prison. Phone calls to the outside world are banned. Finally, the prison is crammed with cameras and motion detectors. Compartments are separated by 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors; the place is surrounded by 12-foot-high razor-wire fences; the area between the wire and the walls is further secured by laser beams and attack dogs.

-----------------------------------------------

Took me all of 20 seconds to find that out. Took even less time to feel pity for you.

So easy for Republicans to completely ignore the other THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE.

Now go back to your 355 and cut out the ones who were picked up within the US. And any who were not enemy combatants. Can you see the difference? If we pick them up within our borders then we have to try them here. But if we pick them up elsewhere......

Uhh, hello, knock knock. If they are classified as TERRORISTS, by definition, that automatically makes them ENEMY COMBATANTS.

Does that really have to be explained?

So, are these right wingers SCREAMING that those 355 terrorists should be moved to Gitmo?

Well?

Well?


Thought so.

 

[JakeStarkey]

With the recent news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other suspected terrorists will face trial in military tribunals rather than regular civilian courts, leading Guantanamo expert Karen Greenberg has been all over the media lately. I wanted to highlight her article a week ago in The Guardian, which homes in on the key point that federal prosecutors have built up a professional expertise on terrorism cases.

We tend to forget that regular courts have a successful record of prosecutions numbering in the hundreds, while military tribunals can count their terror trials on the fingers of one hand. Greenberg’s perspective is interesting, looking at the issue from the vantage of professional guilds. In other words, it’s a turf battle between Department of Justice attorneys and the military JAG corps. It’s not that the military lawyers are eager to learn this specialty; as we know, the issue is intensely politicized. Greenberg gives her take on the politicization of terror trials in her concluding paragraph:

How ironic that the development of a true professional expertise is met with a refusal to let the courts practice what they are charged with under the US Constitution. Could it be that expertise in these matters is just what Congress doesn’t want? Could it be that “fair trials” and “just verdicts,” not to mention transparent trials and public accountability for the families of 9/11, are not what matter most? Could it, instead, be that thwarting the department of justice and obstructing the clear preferences of Attorney General Holder and the Obama administration are the politicians’ top priorities, even in the “war on terror?”

But this isn’t just about obstructing and opposing President Obama — though we get plenty of that from the right wing on other issues (see health care, reform of). As I’ve been arguing for a long time, the far right actively fosters an image of terrorists as too dangerous (even in custody) for our regular justice system to handle, too dangerous even to move to American soil. It’s a pillar of the political argument against Democrats generally for the DeMint-Sessions-Ihofe wing to set out demagogic markers of what counts as taking the terrorist threat seriously.

Read more: Military Versus Civilian Trials for Terror Suspects | Care2 Causes

 

[rdean]

With the recent news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other suspected terrorists will face trial in military tribunals rather than regular civilian courts, leading Guantanamo expert Karen Greenberg has been all over the media lately. I wanted to highlight her article a week ago in The Guardian, which homes in on the key point that federal prosecutors have built up a professional expertise on terrorism cases.

We tend to forget that regular courts have a successful record of prosecutions numbering in the hundreds, while military tribunals can count their terror trials on the fingers of one hand. Greenberg’s perspective is interesting, looking at the issue from the vantage of professional guilds. In other words, it’s a turf battle between Department of Justice attorneys and the military JAG corps. It’s not that the military lawyers are eager to learn this specialty; as we know, the issue is intensely politicized. Greenberg gives her take on the politicization of terror trials in her concluding paragraph:

How ironic that the development of a true professional expertise is met with a refusal to let the courts practice what they are charged with under the US Constitution. Could it be that expertise in these matters is just what Congress doesn’t want? Could it be that “fair trials” and “just verdicts,” not to mention transparent trials and public accountability for the families of 9/11, are not what matter most? Could it, instead, be that thwarting the department of justice and obstructing the clear preferences of Attorney General Holder and the Obama administration are the politicians’ top priorities, even in the “war on terror?”

But this isn’t just about obstructing and opposing President Obama — though we get plenty of that from the right wing on other issues (see health care, reform of). As I’ve been arguing for a long time, the far right actively fosters an image of terrorists as too dangerous (even in custody) for our regular justice system to handle, too dangerous even to move to American soil. It’s a pillar of the political argument against Democrats generally for the DeMint-Sessions-Ihofe wing to set out demagogic markers of what counts as taking the terrorist threat seriously.

Read more: Military Versus Civilian Trials for Terror Suspects | Care2 Causes

I thought this part was hilarious:

We tend to forget that regular courts have a successful record of prosecutions numbering in the hundreds, while military tribunals can count their terror trials on the fingers of one hand.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Trying enemy combatants in US Criminal Court, an idea so so so stupid and lacking in legal foundation, only Obama could have thought of it

 

[JakeStarkey]

Trying enemy combatants in US Criminal Court, an idea so so so stupid and lacking in legal foundation, only Obama could have thought of it

Your objections are dismissed in #64.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Trying enemy combatants in US Criminal Court, an idea so so so stupid and lacking in legal foundation, only Obama could have thought of it

Your objections are dismissed in #64.

Its going to be fun watching the Criminal defense ask for discovery on our Intel methods and sources

 

[Katzndogz]

Trying enemy combatants in US Criminal Court, an idea so so so stupid and lacking in legal foundation, only Obama could have thought of it

Your objections are dismissed in #64.

Its going to be fun watching the Criminal defense ask for discovery on our Intel methods and sources

It will be even more fun if the defendant just fires his attorneys and gets the discovery himself. Then he can incorporate whatever he finds into a public tirade that the press will lap up and regurgitate to a puppy public for them to lap up too!

That's the part that's the most fun.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Did Obama's Hit squad Mirandize Osama bin Laden?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

What are the charges, 3,000 counts of murder and 30,000 counts of attempted murder?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Your objections are dismissed in #64.

Its going to be fun watching the Criminal defense ask for discovery on our Intel methods and sources

It will be even more fun if the defendant just fires his attorneys and gets the discovery himself. Then he can incorporate whatever he finds into a public tirade that the press will lap up and regurgitate to a puppy public for them to lap up too!

That's the part that's the most fun.

The defendant has the right to include the fact of torture publicly if it happened.

That will not act as a defense for any crimes he committed.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Its going to be fun watching the Criminal defense ask for discovery on our Intel methods and sources

It will be even more fun if the defendant just fires his attorneys and gets the discovery himself. Then he can incorporate whatever he finds into a public tirade that the press will lap up and regurgitate to a puppy public for them to lap up too!

That's the part that's the most fun.

The defendant has the right to include the fact of torture publicly if it happened.

That will not act as a defense for any crimes he committed.

What are the charges against him, Jake?

Was he read his Miranda warning when he was "Arrested"?

 

[SFC Ollie]

Plain and simple, Obama has stopped the legal military tribunals from doing their job as blessed by both the US Congress and the United States Supreme Court. There is no denying this.

The tribunals should have already been pretty much wrapped up by now. Why have they little experience? because they haven't been permitted to do their jobs.

It is asinine to bring enemy combatants into the US and try them with all the rights and privileges of an American citizen when we have the tribunals already to go in Gitmo.......

But the Obamabots are all lined up to kiss his ass again.

 

[S.J.]

If Obama reverses himself on this tomorrow, I guarantee every one of his sycophants on this board will do the same. They have no real thoughts of their own, they're just programmed to defend Obama's policies, no matter what they are or how many times they change.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Its going to be fun watching the Criminal defense ask for discovery on our Intel methods and sources

It will be even more fun if the defendant just fires his attorneys and gets the discovery himself. Then he can incorporate whatever he finds into a public tirade that the press will lap up and regurgitate to a puppy public for them to lap up too!

That's the part that's the most fun.

The defendant has the right to include the fact of torture publicly if it happened.

That will not act as a defense for any crimes he committed.

LOL

Sure, Jake.

Q: Were you tortured into confessing?

A: Yes

Q: OK, coolio yo!

 

[JakeStarkey]

It will be even more fun if the defendant just fires his attorneys and gets the discovery himself. Then he can incorporate whatever he finds into a public tirade that the press will lap up and regurgitate to a puppy public for them to lap up too!

That's the part that's the most fun.

The defendant has the right to include the fact of torture publicly if it happened.

That will not act as a defense for any crimes he committed.

What are the charges against him, Jake?

Was he read his Miranda warning when he was "Arrested"?

Was he? Or not? Why does it matter, Frank? Do you support the jihadists if you are defending them?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The defendant has the right to include the fact of torture publicly if it happened.

That will not act as a defense for any crimes he committed.

What are the charges against him, Jake?

Was he read his Miranda warning when he was "Arrested"?

Was he? Or not? Why does it matter, Frank? Do you support the jihadists if you are defending them?

Hey Jakeass, I said they belong in a Military Tribunal.

Stop lying.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I guarantee you reactionaries and libertarians will oppose Obama if he reverses himself on this tomorrow.

One, the Constitution is better fulfilled with use of the courts.

Two, the trial process will be much faster.

Three, you weirdoes will simply complain period.

 

[JakeStarkey]

What are the charges against him, Jake?

Was he read his Miranda warning when he was "Arrested"?

Was he? Or not? Why does it matter, Frank? Do you support the jihadists if you are defending them?

Hey Jakeass, I said they belong in a Military Tribunal.

Stop lying.

Tell us if he was read his Miranda warning or not, and tell us why you think that is important.