Gitmo In, Gitmo Out?

Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 17 June 2005 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

[88keys]

Just reading this today...I did a "search" after listening to all the latest "prattling" going on re: the Time story...

IMO, your article is so "right on", and even more timely today with all the latest Time PR, that you should re-post it to the "front page"!

I'd love to read this in my local newspaper...

[dixie sass]

Sent this to John after receiving the article in the email -
Dear John,

Way to go!!!!!! Sock it to them - hard! You should send a copy of this to every single person in the country! Oh, wait that won't work, most of them may be able to read but they can't comprehend "research", "truth", "history". The worst part is that it isn't just the liberal media, it is also the conservative media.

I get so tired of the "touch-feely" politically correct crowd that I just want to scream!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I should sic my dog on them. Think thats a good idea!

Dixie


PS - you have FReepmail

[OXENinFLA]

These are not “insurgents.” Insurgents are people who disagree with their group. Senators Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee are insurgents.

That's funny......

[beachn4fun]

Thank you so much for putting these "ducks" in a row. It is always good ammo for liberal (friends or not) when they try to pull that same crap. I hope you don't mind if I copy and paste this to another document. I am trying to compile a list of FACTS to use when needed. Knowing that the best way to deflate a liberal is with facts!

[Lurking Libertarian]

The Geneva Conventions do NOT apply to anyone captured in plain clothes, behind the lines, hiding among civilians (and also killing civilians). Anyone can read the Geneva Conventions for themselves. Fighters/soldiers must meet four conditions to be covered. Terrorists fail to meet at least three of those.

But the Geneva Convention also says that there must be a "competent tribunal" to decide that threshhold issue of whether someone is a lawful or unlawful combatant.

[prairiebreeze]

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

John Stuart Mill

(thanks for the article Congressman BB)

[Congressman Billybob]

The "competent tribunal" you refer to is a military tribunal. I dealt with that in my article. Read up on the trials and executions of Nathan Hale and Major John Andre, as I suggested. They were tried and executed under the Law of War, which to the extent it was not changed by the Geneva Conventions, remains in full force and effect.

You may be assuming that reference means a regular civilian court in the US, or even some international court. If so, your assumption is dead wrong.

John / Billybob

[CFC__VRWC]

My local newspaper, a leftist rag called the Lakeland Ledger which is owned by the New York Times, has a daily telephone poll in the local section where they ask questions about various local and national issues. Since most regular Ledger readers are leftists, and since leftists love to slam any poll they can find, the poll results usually end up mirroring the paper's left-wing, Bush-hating editorial stance. And this in a conservative county (60 percent voted for President Bush in November, much to their chagrin).

At any rate, yesterday's question was,

"Should the US close Guantanamo Bay?"

The results were 24% Yes we should, 76% No we shouldn't. I know that the Rats must have pulled out all stops trying to get that poll to show "overwhelming support" for closing down Gitmo, slamming that thing for all they could, but in the end they could only get 24% to say yes. Despite all the MSM hand-wringing about Gitmo, most people could care less how the terrorists there are being treated. This is as much a loser issue for them as their Abu Ghraib hyperventilating was.

[Lurking Libertarian]

You may be assuming that reference means a regular civilian court in the US, or even some international court. If so, your assumption is dead wrong.

No, I understand that a military court will suffice. But, except in the heat of battle, something a bit more than a "drumhead" court is called for. The Nazi saboteurs in Quirin had a trial before a military court with appointed counsel, cross-examination of witnesses, and a right to testify in their own defense. I don't believe the prisoners in Gitmo have received that.

You could also look up the fact that, in the Japanese War Crimes trials after WWII, we tried and executed some Japanese officers for the "war crime" of convicting American POWs of being "unlawful combatants" without affording them sufficient due process.

[Congressman Billybob]

Okay, you are almost up to speed. The DoD has announced (about a year ago) that all the detainees at Gitmo will receive reviews by military tribunals. The delay in that is ACLU-types and some US courts in which the claims are made that civilian or criminal courts are required. The US SCt has already tentatively rejected the idea that anything more than military tribunals are required. The Padilla case should have put the final nail in the coffin of those arguments. But the SCt rejected that case, waiting for the Circuit Court to rule on the case. John / Billybob

[Lurking Libertarian]

Padilla is, IMHO, a much tougher case than any of those involving the Gitmo detainees. The Gitmo detainees were taken in a war zone during armed conflict. Padilla is a U.S. citizen, arrested on U.S. soil after arriving on a commercial flight, without any weapons in his possession. Although one of the saboteurs in Quirin claimed U.S. citizenship, they all admitted that they had entered the country in German uniforms and on a German submarine. They nonetheless got much more in the way of due process than Padilla has received.

[Congressman Billybob]

TWO of the saboteurs in Quirin claimed to be US citizens. One of them, Bruno Haupt, clearly was, having been born in Chicago. The unanimous SCt decision against them was NOT based on whether they came by submarine, nor whether they landed in German uniforms. (All were in civilian clothes, when captured.)

Those saboteurs were deemed "illegal combatants" and subject to trial and execution because of their plans to sabotage American plants, and because they had materials including maps and money, to carry those out. When you get into the relevant facts, Padilla is identical to Quirin.

Also, you are not up to speed on legal representation respectively for the 1942 saboteurs compared to Padilla, today. Padilla has already received more attention from lawyers (mostly military ones) and courts, than the saboteurs did all the way from their arrest to their executions.

Padilla is not a tough case at all. Unless the SCt is willing to throw out its own, prior, unanimous decision, Padilla loses. It's as simple as that.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "Gitmo In, Gitmo Out?"

[ken5050]

Just superb...

[Taxman]

Taxman Bravo Zulu! Most excellent article deserving of widespread dissemination.

Send it as a LTE to Time, for starters!

I read the Time article earlier today, and I am still pissed!

The word "Traitor" in re: Time Magazine does not begin to capture my thinking!

What can they be thinking? That we are playing some sort of college Tiddlywinks game with these murdering Muslim Bastards?

DubYah got it right: "You are either with us, or. . . ."

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Excellent commentary...this whole Gitmo thing really has me agitated!

[harpo11]

Gitmo..no mo' Get-Mo' on my hard earned tax dollars to support these scum bastard terrorists while incarcerated at the request of Uncle Sam.

I'm wonderin' how much does it cost/terrorist to provide such cushy lodgings in a prison camp/day?

Hey, Senator Durashbin, at least these vermin of hell have their heads still intact with their necks.

Where were the loud leftist democrat leaders voices during Viet Nam Era for our brave and courageous US POWS treatment at the hands of the Viet Cong?

The democrat leaders are padding the evil that surrounds the Islamo-terrrorists just as they perpetrated upon our nation and young men who fought for their country during the Viet Nam War.

Will we lose this vital and crucisl war on terror because of the lefts relentless unreasonable and insane attack on President Bush and our military's mission to combat Islamo-terorists? I cannot answer, but I can only surmise that bin Laden and his gang of bloodthirsty headcutters are very well pleased with the anti=Americanism that is frothing from the mouths of these leftist politicians and pundits.

[happygrl]

What I think is that we need straight, common-sense thinking like yours in Congress.

I'll share one thought of my own:

What the Leftist press, politicians, academics and trust-fund protesters want is for these prisoners to be located on American soil so they will have focus points for non-stop demonstrations.

Gitmo is too far to swim to, although the sharks along the way would give them a pass as "professional courtesy."

Believe me, with the Left is all about the Drama.

[Shazolene]

One of your best. Bravo, Billybob.
You are right: They are not insurgents.
Another thing they are not: criminals.
They do not get a trial in US courts with all the benefits of the US constitution.
Bozo and Angry Liberaltarian to the contrary.
Thanks for bringing your knowledge and intelligence to bear on this problem, and for your clear writing.

[Smartass]

SAVE GITMO - RELEASE TERRORISTS - JAIL DEMOCRATS