Left Screeching at Ashcroft Again:Detaining Enemy Combatants

efreedomnews.com ^ | 9/4/02 | Jonathan Rhodes

[efnwriter]

efreedomnews         WAR ON TERRORISM - AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE

Left Screeching at Ashcroft Again:
Detaining Enemy Combatants

Jonathan Rhodes
efreedomnews.com
September 4, 2002

General Ashcroft's Detention Camps: Time to Call for His Resignation
"The new Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, shows the government, some years hence, imprisoning "pre-criminals" before they engage in, or even think of, terrorism. That may not be just fiction, folks." Nat Hentoff  September 4 - September 10, 2002 Village Voice

"The Bush administration seems to believe, on no good legal authority, that if it calls citizens combatants in the war on terrorism, it can imprison them indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. This defiance of the courts repudiates two centuries of constitutional law and undermines the very freedoms that President Bush says he is defending in the struggle against terrorism."  August 8, 2002 New York Times editorial

This is garbage - a one dimensional liberal attack on the Bush Administration. Hyperbole - attack - that is the liberal playbook. It is destructive and unnecessary. Casting the US Justice Department in these screeching terms only weakens the argument for protecting Civil Liberties in these dangerous times. I wish they would grow up.

Let's look at the facts:

This is an old - and necessary - argument about the balance between the rights of one to justice and the rights of many to security.

"No civilized nation confronting serious danger has ever relied exclusively on criminal convictions for past offenses. Every country has introduced, by one means or another, a system of preventive or administrative detention for persons who are thought to be dangerous but who might not be convictable under the conventional criminal law." So writes Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School.

Mr. Ashcroft said there was legal authority "under the laws of war and clear Supreme Court precedent, which establishes that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy and has entered our country to carry out hostile acts".

The Supreme Court precedent he refers to dates from the Quirin case in 1942. Quirin (an American Citizen) and seven other German saboteurs were landed on beaches on Long Island and in Florida by submarine. All were arrested and handed over to the military. The court held that they were "unlawful combatants" who had entered the country secretly like spies.

The Supreme court stated: "All citizens of nations at war with the United States or who give obedience to or act under the direction of any such nation shall be subject to the law of war and to the jurisdiction of military tribunals."

In 1946, the federal appeals court in San Francisco arrived at a similar conclusion in the case of an Italian-American captured while fighting with Mussolini's troops in Sicily. He was transferred to the United States and held indefinitely until the war ended.

So Ashcroft's Justice Department has good legal precedence for his position arguing for more security. There are good and necessary arguments and actions that civil rights attorneys are taking to balance the administrations proposition. This is normal American jurisprudence. The courts are speaking and reviewing this issue.

Two American citizen prisoners, Yaser Hamdi (captured as an armed combatant in Afghanistan) and Jose Padilla (seized after disembarking from an airplane in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport after arriving on orders from al-Qaida who trained him to work on a "dirty" nuclear bomb), are the only ones being held in these "camps" - to denigrate the use of that term is obvious.

US District Judge Robert G. Doumar granted a legal petition by Hamdi’s father compelling the government to allow Hamdi to consult with a court-appointed lawyer.

The Bush administration appealed this finding to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which vacated the US district court’s ruling and sent the case back for reconsideration “because the district court appointed counsel and ordered access to the detainee without adequately considering the implications of its actions”. (regarding precedence of military rules in wartime)

The cases of Yasser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla, two U.S. citizens whose detentions are being challenged in court, will likely determine whether the Justice Department can indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without trials and without lawyers.


"I am not ashamed to say we have used every legal weapon available in order to prevent and disrupt future terrorism acts," Larry Thompson, the deputy U.S. attorney general, told a recent meeting of the National Association of Black Prosecutors in Los Angeles. "We have been especially aggressive with respect to detention and surveillance."


Michael Chertoff, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, also offered a strong defense.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft "is very, very conscious of civil liberties issues," Chertoff told the American Bar Association's annual meeting last month in Washington. "In our discussions, he told us he wanted people to think outside the box, but never outside the Constitution. . . . You shouldn't think you are dealing with a bunch of barbarians."

Chertoff added, "The basic issue is this: We are in a time of war. The consequences of missing another effort of conducting mass killing in the United States are horrendous."
 

Why does the left have to make this issue a screaming, name calling match? To quote former litigator with the Center For Individual Rights in Washington, DC, Ann Coulter:

This is how six-year olds argue: They call everything "stupid." The left's primary argument is the angry reaction of a helpless child deprived of the ability to mount logical counterarguments. Someday we will turn to the New York Times editorial page and find the Newspaper of Record denouncing President Bush for being a "penis-head." The "you’re stupid" riposte is part of the larger liberal tactic of refusing to engage ideas. Sometimes they evaporate in the middle of an argument and your left standing alone, arguing with yourself. More often, liberals withdraw figuratively by responding with ludicrous and irrelevant personal attacks. Especially popular are non-sequiturs that are savagely cruel. A vicious personal smear, they believe, constitutes a clever counterargument. Your refusal to submit to name-calling means you are overwhelmed by the force of their argument that you are a penis-head."

 "Liberals conceive of news reporting as political propaganda and assume, therefore, that everyone else does too."

 "The law imposes rules precisely so that liberals cannot endlessly jawbone hypothetical possibilities until they have their way."
 

Slander:Liberal Lies About the American Right

 

 

 

[Dane]

Don't expect much Libertarian/ACLU reaction at this momemt, they are over on the threads panting about how marijuana may be legalaized in Canada.

[Mike4Freedom]

Do you conservatives really think that it is OK for the executive branch to have the power to put someone in jail without any recourse? Even if you trust Dubya with all your heart, this nation works on precedent and he will not always be president.

Would you like a future President Hillary Clinton to take on that authority and imprison without trial all members of the VWRC. Freepers will be first in line for the reeducation camps.

[droberts]

Come on don't you realize that Bush and Ashcroft can do no wrong?

[GoreIsLove]

Reeducation sounds like fun. Beats working.

[marron]

Chertoff added, "The basic issue is this: We are in a time of war.

This is the point.

In wartime, you kill people without first getting a warrant, or serving papers, or letting them call their lawyers.

In wartime you kill people who are guilty of nothing at all except being within a hundred yards of the person you are trying to kill.

In wartime you kill people who you suspect are aiding the enemy, without much time lost proving it. He looks like he might be guilty, in the opinion of a 23 year old infantryman, so you grease him.

Thats why its called "war". Bad things happen, and no one calls the lawyers until its over.

[marron]

Would you like a future President Hillary Clinton to take on that authority

We already know what a Clinton presidency looks like.

They killed their enemies without any declaration of war.

For this they have never been held to account.

There is a difference between a president who kills his country's enemies, with the authorization of congress, versus a president who kills his personal enemies with no congressional approval.

Thats why it matters who occupies the oval office.

And, yes, we would be the enemy if another Clinton gets to the White House, but trust me, there will be no warrant and no declaration of war. Just corrupt prosecuters and contract goons.

[RJCogburn]

Left Screeching at Ashcroft Again

Not just 'the left' my friend.

[efnwriter]

My oh my. You asked "Do you conservatives really think that it is OK for the executive branch to have the power to put someone in jail without any recourse?"

STOP-READ-THINK!

The answer to your question is in the article:

"This is an old - and necessary - argument about the balance between the rights of one to justice and the rights of many to security."

The point of the article is that our government - all three branches- are working this out. They worked it out in World War II, many free nations have been faced with this same problem - security vs. privacy and rights. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT !!!!! From your question I assume you are a liberal.

EVERYTHING FOR YOU GUYS IS DUBYA THIS AND ASHCROFT THAT - ad hominem attack and lack of substance. YOU DRIVE US CONSERVATIVES CRAZY BECAUSE YOU DO NOT HAVE LOGICAL DISCUSSIONS OR ENGAGE IN DEBATE.

Read Ann Coulter's book Slander, you probably won't get it, but it is the most concise, insightful and witty response to probably 90% of your questions. THIS IS AS CLEAR AS I CAN BE. DO NOT EXPECT ANOTHER REPLY.

[efnwriter]

silly

[efnwriter]

I hold to my Headline that the left is screeching. There are good, sound arguments to be very careful in protecting American's rights while improving on security in time of war. Those arguments MUST be listened to.

But those arguments do not screech. It is nonsence ad hominem attacks from the liberal playbook that sound like nails on the blackboard to me - because they are only destructive and fear mongering - the politics of division.

[Dazedcat]

I need to ask a question. Who did the Clinton's have executed? What personal enemies of theirs died in contract hits during his presidency?

I ask only because I've been accused of being a "tin foil hat" type on this beloved web site........and I've read stories during the Clinton administration of suspicious deaths, which many here take as the gospel truth. I guess questioning an apartment building explosion or a bridge collapse as a terrorist act (when the feds issued warnings to the like) not days before brands me as a conspiracy nut. Yet talk of a sitting president giving the order to unseen "hit" teams to take out political or personal foes is just accepted fact.

Oh and please hold back the demo-rat rhetoric; I loathe Clinton,........and his "wife" isn't worth the effort to mention. So I ask this in clear conscience: where's the proof? Where's the link to irrefutable proof Clinton had them executed? Inquiring minds really need to know.

Regards;

[Mike4Freedom]

From your question I assume you are a liberal.

A LIBERAL, what an insult! I am a Libertarian who understands the meaning of the protections in the constitution. No one is to be deprived of life, LIBERTY or property without due process of law. NO ONE, not even people in a demonized group.

As much as you fear and loath anyone that the govt says might be a terrorist, you have to realize that this illegal combatant stuff opens the gate to anyone being arrested at any time with NO RECOURSE.

It is a sure thing that this will be used in the future by liberal presidents to shut up inconvenient conservatives who argue too well. Try arguing from inside a military brig.

[efnwriter]

Being called an "inconvenient conservative who argues too well" is too much of a compliment for me to pass up. I recind my previous statement denying replies.

I apologize for failing to recognize your Libertarian stance. The thought of another, meaner, uglier President Clinton just sent me over the edge of civility.

I agree mightily with many Libertarian positions, but find others too constrictive - like this one for instance.

A personal metaphor for me is that when I am armed,(usually) I have a responsibility to limit my personal freedoms in that I am more aware of avoiding encounters that could lead to use of force. I don't drink alcohol when I am armed for obvious safety reasons - although that is a personal freedom I otherwise quite enjoy.

President Bush and his cabinet are nothing if not men of character. Regardless, the checks and balances of our system provide for protection of individual rights even when it is in our best interests to limit some of them for our national security (safety reasons). I believe in that system and believe we can have both - we have done it before.

The justice department is making a test case of these two individuals. Do you really think that they would announce it if they really wanted to keep someone under wraps? There are a few guys being interrogated in Pakistan - instead of Cuba - for that very reason.

Keep up the good fight. I like your style.

Jonathan

[TraumaDoc]

Bump and Bookmark

[snooker]

A quick read of history will show you the term enemy combatant was coined by FDR before and during WWII when many German terrorists were caught planning to attack the US. They were detained, tried in one of those secret tribunals that FDR personaly chose the military personel to sit in judgement.

They were convicted and put to death.

One of the bombs they set off in NY was bigger than WTC 1, nearly leveling a whole city block. Many dead and wounded.

Ever notice how the libs keep re-inventing the world the rest of us try to keep straight.

No wonder they want to keep re-writing history. Look it up for yourself.

There are lies and there are damn lies. You pick which.

snooker