Liberty's Court of Last Resort: Ashcroft Scores Another Victory Over the Constitution

Village Voice ^ | January 24th, 2003 5:00 PM | Nat Hentoff

[aristeides]

I agree with you and Hentoff.

[swarthyguy]

Allowing a lawyer ends any fruits from interrogation.

[Pahuanui]

The government says a lot of things. Hamdi is an American citizen, and until the executive branch can prove their case, he should be entitled to a fair (even if closed) hearing.

As long as John "I'd like to suspend Habeus Corpus" Aschcroft is around, I don't see that happening.

[Stavka2]

When they came for the communists, I didn't say anything, I wasn't a communist.
When they came for the trade unionists, I didn't say anything, I wasn't a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I didn't say anything, I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to say anything.

Welcome to reality folks, tyranny rarely starts all at once, but a little at a time.

[Stavka2]

Then let him be charged and tried, instead of kept without due process. Most tyrannical governments, if you do the research, rarely ever charge anyone with anything, they just keep them....forever.

[Stavka2]

Proof? He was in Jihadistan bearing arms and studying the koran(!). What more proof is required?

Then use that in court and prove it, don't just hold a man without charges, that is exactly what ole King George used to do...and even then Parliment usually sided against him....where is Congress?

[p. henry]

And I agree with all three of you.

[Stavka2]

Ok, so he's a POW, then at the end of the war he MUST be released and repatriated to his HOME country. Don't like that? Then try him as a criminal. POWs also get rights, under the Geneva Convetion, something the US came up with and is a founding signitary.

[Sparta]

I agree with you in principle, but take into account that trying POWs is a violation of the Geneva Convention. As I said earlier, the enemy combantant designation needs to be subjected to due process or scrapped altogether.

[Sparta]

Ok, so he's a POW, then at the end of the war he MUST be released and repatriated to his HOME country. Don't like that? Then try him as a criminal. POWs also get rights, under the Geneva Convetion, something the US came up with and is a founding signitary.

I agree 100% with you on this post.

[aristeides]

A hearing to determine whether a citizen like Hamdi is properly being held as an enemy combatant needn't be a trial.

[Sparta]

I think I can go along with that. If he's declared an enemy combantant(POW), it's hands off unless he's a war criminal(ie. an actual 9/11 plotter.). Otherwise, he must be given his Constitutional protections like all other criminal defendants.

[templar]

Then, if the evidence is sufficient that he was, indeed, fighting with the Taliban, toss him in the brig and don't open it until the war on terror is over.

Actually, I think the death penalty would be appopriate. Treason, you know. But that does need a trial first.

[Stavka2]

Point is: citizens get public hearings or tribunerals, but they do get something...not solitary minus charges. This is tyranny...if winning this war means that we must become just like those we dispise, have we really won?

[angkor]

Subjecting a POW to civilian or military legal procedings is a violation of the Geneva Convention.

It was wrong for me to say he is a POW, knowing that some would think he is subject to the Geneva Convention on the basis of the term "POW".

Actually the Geneva Convention goes into some detail on the issue of legal combatants. And by any reading of the pertinent definitions, Hamidi is not a legal combatant.

So he is a combatant, but not a legal one, and therefore not subject to the Geneva Convention.

However he remains a combatant nonetheless, and therefore can be incarcerated under the conventions of war, e.g., no lawyers, no habeus corpus.

International law is by no means vague on this issue. Hamidi has no standing whatsoever. However, U.S. law is somewhat vaugue and undefined, so don't go trotting-out these stageplays of outrage and self-righteousness.

Hamidi is a military enemy in a military brig. Period.

[DAnconia55]

Proof? He was in Jihadistan bearing arms and studying the koran(!). What more proof is required?

A lot, actually. Unless those things are now Unconstitutional.

[ExpandNATO]

A lot, actually. Unless those things are now Unconstitutional.

To quote columnist James J. Kilpatrick quoting Judge Wilkinson:

[Hamdi is] "an American citizen captured and detained by American allied forces in a foreign theatre of war during active hostilities and determined by the United States military to have been allied with enemy forces."

Is the US military now supposed to be prepared to present for anyone captured (as Judge Doumar of the Virginia District court ordered): the names and addresses of his captors, a description of Hamdi's uniform (if any), the name of the Taliban unit?

In short be clerks instead of soldiers.

[swarthyguy]

That's your viewpoint. Proof for what?

This is not a criminal case. This was a fighter bearing arms against the USA. In Afghanistan.

Interrogate the crap out of this little shit. Keep him incommunicado. Squueze him for any info.

And let him serve as an example to any other socalled citizens that being the bearer of a US passport will not protect you if you're a traitor and on the battlefield carrying arms to kill Americans.