[this post was authored by Peter Kemp, who has since left the LP collective]
At last some sense over the black hole known as Guantanamo Bay. The concept of “illegal combatants” designed to place prisoners outside the Geneva Conventions, has been held to be a legal nonsense. The US Supreme Court has finally confirmed what the rest of the world (minus some home-grown neo-cons) knew all along.
With Chief Justice John Roberts excusing himself from hearing the case because he had ruled in favour of the Administration’s position when he was in the Federal Court, the court ruled that the Bush Administration’s position that prisoners held at Guantanamo and elsewhere are illegal combatants and not covered by the Geneva Conventions is unconstitutional.
The decision threw the Administration into turmoil; it means it is back to square one in terms of setting up a system to try prisoners that complies with the conventions.
It means that at the very least, the Pentagon will have to set up standard courts martial for prisoners, with all the protections afforded them under US law.
This must be a big blow to the Bush administration with Howard, Ruddock and Dolly left with some egg on their faces as well in regard to David Hicks. The bad news for Hicks is that he is:
now faced with the prospect of…remaining in detention at Guantanamo with no prospect of a hearing for a year or even longer.
And of course under the Geneva Conventions “conspiracy to attack civilians” or “attempted murder of coalition forces” and “aiding the enemy” won’t cut the mustard at all, being outside any definition of crimes which can be committed by lawful combatants.
Time for Mr Howard to have Hicks sent home.
Update: Bush is looking at a legislative remedy, but IMHO the only “remedy” is for the US to withdraw from the Conventions and revoke the domestically legislated Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Update 2: Predictably Bush’s mendacious motor mouthed “man of steel” stated:
he was not embarrassed by the court ruling but admitted his government was wrongly advised that the military commissions were lawful. [That's what always happens when a deaf ear is turned to logical overwhelming "advice" to the contrary, ie Lord Goldsmith UK Attorney General just to name one]
“Our view in relation to Mr Hicks is that he should be brought to trial,” Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
“There clearly has to be another method of trial – a court martial or a civilian trial – which conforms with the Supreme Court decision.”
[ ie under US civil or Courts Martial law, the right to be present and cross examine, right of appeal, rules of evidence etc etc ie not guilty: guarding a tank is not a war crime]
Good. Give Hicks (and all the others) a proper, transparent trial process.
If they’re truly guilty of war crimes, lock them up. If they’re not guilty, let them go. If the Bushco warhawks are shown to have known for ages that they are indeed legitimate combatants, shame on them and pay all the detainees reparations.
Conspiring to attack civilians is lawful under the Geneva Conventions? No problem with that under the Fourth Geneva Convention???
Once again you present a novel point of view, but I shall quote it as authority if anyone posts anything suggesting that when coalition forces kill civilians they have done anything wrong. I’ll just say, “Nah. they conspired to kill them and that’s lawful. Don’t worry your pretty little head about the Fourth Geneva Convention. I have impeccable authority on that.” LOL
Unfortunately, I doubt that any kind of reparations are ever going to happen. Guantanamo will have to close now though, which is a small mercy.
May this see the end of the idea that to save democracy it must first be destroyed.
Slate has a handy round up of blogger reactions to the decision.
Na, they’ll just hold them without trial “until the end of the conflict” – ie forever. There’s no way they’re gonna admit they were wrong.
The decison does make torturing them illegal, and the definition of torture applicable is the Geneva convention’s rather than the Administration’s (waterboarding, hypothermia, sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation – all admitted to by the White House – are now out). Trouble is any torturer would have to be prosecuted for this war crime (as it now formally is) by the Attorney General.
The decision’s a rebuff for the Bushies – they can’t have their kangaroo court and say “see, I told you they were bad guys” – but it doesn’t really change outcomes for the prisoners much.
Why has my post, which challenged your claim that “conspiracy to attack civilians” is lawful under the Geneva Conventions, not been posted?
The decision is a sign of how great is tyhe US democratic system, and the significance of the separation of powers.
We will be writing more aboput this on our blog, but whether you agree with Gitmo or not, and whether you agree with the Surpeme Court of not, the ability of the highest court in the land to overrule the Executive is an important safeguard to democracy, and what is even important is that the Executive is beholden and complaint to that decision.
Can’t believe how low some people can be.
“I have sympathy for the principle that people should be brought to trial when they’re charged with an offence, but I don’t have any sympathy for somebody who trained with an organisation such as al-Qaeda,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean to say his rights should not be respected.”
That is our supposed Prime Minister speaking about an Australian citizen who has been ILLEGALLY imprisoned for years WITHOUT TRIAL.
Where was their respect for his rights during the last 4 years?
GregM, the operative word is conspiracy
Richard Ackland SMH June 16.
(Richard Ackland:)
http://www.saxton.com.au/default.asp?nc8=100&sc8=141&sd8=1461
In what way is David Hicks’ detention illegal? He was captured on a battlefield while providing military service to the then government of Afghanistan, the Taliban, which was, at the time of his capture, in a state of war with the United States an its allies, a state of war expressly authorised by a UN Security Council resolution. As such his status is as a prisoner of war and under international law he can be detained without trial, until the end of hostilities, however long that might be.
The conditions of his detention, which seem to be wretched, are another matter. From what I have read they do not meet the standards required under the Geneva Conventions so I welcome the US Supreme Court decision which will force the US Government to comply with its obligations.
The issue for Hicks is as to whether the circumstances of his being on the battlefield are such as to make him an unlawful combatant and therefore subject to punishment by imprisonment for a criminal act and deprivation of prisoner of war status and rights.
As I understand it, Greg, the way in which war was not declared (merely resolved) has been a deliberate ploy by the Bush administration to attempt to worm its way out from its Geneva Convention obligations. The US Congress has not formally declared war on either Afghanistan or Iraq, despite all the rhetoric of Bush the “war president” – its legal status is a military engagement ordered by the President alone, an arguably unconstitutional act.
Without a formal declaration of war, it has been possible for the White House’s lawyers to argue that soldiers serving the Taliban were illegal combatants rather than enemy soldiers, and thus they have been denied the status of “prisoner of war” and the rights that pertain to that status. Yet the Taliban was the lawful government of Afghanistan at the time that Hicks was working for them by defending Taliban assets. Why then was he not automatically given POW classification? And for his trial to be so long delayed is indefensible.
The only way that Talibanis in Afghanistan can be spun as unlawful combatants is to rely on the fact that war was never actually formally declared, and thus their status as enemy soldiers is formally unrecognised according to international law. Yet it was the Bush Admin that sent US troops to invade Afghanistan without actually declaring war. They’ve tried to have their cake and eat it too.
There is an interesting summary of the decision at Catallaxy.
Some cases that the Supreme Court sees could go either way. This is not one of them. The Supreme Court has fucked it up and come to an anti-legal decision.
To not be an originalist is simply to believe that might makes right so long as there is a superior utilitarian outcome and that you can retrospectively sign a sovereign nation up to committments that they did not nor ever would have signed up to.
Its the legal proffession getting above itself. And thinking they are so clever at fudging the meaning of words.
What do you have when you have a bunch of lawyers up to their neck in dirt?
Not enought dirt.
Greg, aside from all the very strong rational arguments why Hicks should not have been detained in this way, should not have been tortured, should have been given a fair trial and treated as a citizen, think of something. Every one of us has a David Hicks in their family. A son or brother or someone who was wildly adventurous, or a bit of a zealot. I have a close relative who’s a born-again, fundamentalist Christian, but he could have gone any way, in my view. His zealousness could have been directed to Islam, he could have been an adventurous soul like Hicks and ended up on the other side of the planet defending what was, in his mind, right. There’s not a scrap of evidence that I know of that Hicks actually harmed anyone. I think when the US discovered him he was looking for his passport. I think his letters that the AFP seized in Adelaide indicated that he thought it was time to leave what he was doing. In any case, that’s for a court to decide, in a fair judicial system. That’s the point.
(BTW, there’s no evidence that torture, even if it were morally justified, gives accurate information. It’s well-documented that the reverse is the case.)
I can only support what weathergirl says and add that I remain utterly baffled by those people who seek to defend holding ANYONE without charge or trial. What on earth is to stop those same processes being used to hold you, or one of your loved ones, without charge or trial?
If you think that you are somehow markedly different from the people in Guatanamo, what evidence do you have to support this thought? Clearly it could not be anything that has been verified by a court of law!
It boggles my mind.
Weathergirl, my view is that he and the other detainees should have been treated as prisoners of war from the start and accorded the protections that the Geneva Conventions apply to prisoners of war. As such there is no right to a trial at all, except to determine whether he is classified correctly as a POW and not, for example, as some innocent civilian mistakenly picked up off the battlefield.
Since he is not a citizen of the United States I cannot see that he should be accorded the rights of a citizen of that country and therefore he should expect no treatment other than accorded under the Conventions, any more than German prisoners of war were accorded the rights of US citizens in WW2.
The other issue you raise, whether he was a wild young lad who got into a spot of bother is pretty irrelevant. His current state of mind and future intentions are relevant, however. If it could be established that he has given up on his career as a jihadist and that he poses no future threat then he should be considered for release on parole, as provided for under international law, and sent back to Australia on whatever terms of parole are stipulated and he has agreed to.
Trackback (with reciprocal link) : Indict Bush. Indict them all.
GregM- saying something isn’t a justification for breaching the Convenions is obviously (to those of us on the side that is consistently being proven right in this debate) not the same as saying it is allowed under the Conventions.
And you can stop waffling about lawful combatants. It’s just embarrassing now.
I wonder why my favourite conservative blogs are all still silent on this decision??
History will judge the left to have been right on this one, it’s becoming clearer by the day.
To remove your bafflement the Third Geneva Convention provides for the detention of POWs without charge or trial until the end of hostilities precisely because they have done nothing unlawful just by being members of an enemy army and therefore that there is nothing to charge them with or try them for.
Are you suggesting that we do away with the Convention? What would replace it? Sending a POWs back to their home countries to resume fighting?
Greg it also provides that mistreating them is a war crime.
And no court (and we lefties are starting to demonstrate the upper hand in serious jurisprudential analysis) would hold that there is an ongoing state of war in afghanistan.
As you’ve seen today, the idea that Bush Spin can turn into binding legal maxim doesn’t have legs.
Armaniac, I agree with your first point. I’m not arguing in favour of Bush but the Supreme Court decision which affirms that the Guantanamo detainees should have been held as POWs, with full protection as such, from the start.
On your second point, well I’m glad to hear that Afghanistan is now an ocean of tranquillity and that no-one is shooting at anyone else so that all those NATO troops can go home. I don’t think you’ll find any US court agreeing with you though.
The silence is quite deafening, isn’t it?
If Hicks ever decides to return to this God-forsaken country, you can bet his home will be repeatedly ransacked by ASIO, just as they have done with the innocent Mamdouh Habib.
Cristy re:
So do I, particularly when so many detainees were picked up by bounty hunters, encouraged by this sort of advertising from the US:
http://www.talkleft.com/new_archives/013976.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0208-02.htm
That report was based on US defence Department declassified information here (5 pdf files):
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/index.html
Most interesting is the revelation that Hicks is no longer a Muslim, which certainly does cast doubt on the notion that he is some sort of Islamic terrorist fanatic.
http://ravingwingnut.blogspot.com/2006/06/gitmo-inmate-david-hicks-renounces.html
“Yet the Taliban was the lawful government of Afghanistan at the time that Hicks was working for them by defending Taliban assets.”
That’s not strictly true – Afghanistan’s UN seat was held by “President” Rabbani right through to NATO’s dismemberment of the Taliban regime:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/18/wafg18.xml
So the Taliban wasn’t even recognised internationally as the true “government” of Afghanistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
“The Taliban Movement or just Taliban (Persian and Pashto طالبان, Iranian plural of Arabic طالب á¹Ä?lib, “student”), is a Sunni Islamist nationalist pro-Pashtun Movement which effectively ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001. It gained diplomatic recognition from only three States: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the unrecognized government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.”
“the Third Geneva Convention provides for the detention of POWs without charge or trial until the end of hostilities precisely because they have done nothing unlawful just by being members of an enemy army …”
Well, I suppose that raises the question of whether hostilities are still continuing in Afghanistan. My impression was that it all ended some time back, at least as far as the US is concerned if only to clear the decks for the Iraqi invasion and occupation.
There is some talk that the Taliban is now fighting back, although it doesn’t seem to have led to any corresponding US commitment. And, of course, the self-government elections was held up as ‘proof’ of victory in Afghanistan.
So the question then is, GregM, if hostilities have ended, why is Hicks still held?
The other travesty of this whole situation is that although Howard and Bush will occasionally talk of ‘very serious charges’ being levelled at Hicks they won’t specify what they are. The last I heard, the USMC was still trying to dream up something to charge him with. The original attempt of alleging ‘firing on the US Embassy’ kind of fell apart when it was discovered that the Embassy had been unoccupied for all of the time of Hicks’s sojourn in Afghanistan. Who knows? Perhaps you could find a lawyer or military tribunal to agree that firing on an unoccupied embassy was anyway a hostile act.
Don, the answer is that hostilities haven’t ended. Usually wars end either with a treaty (eg.WW1) or the destruction or capitulation of the enemy (WW2). In Afghanistan the hostilities won’t be ended until the Taliban lay down their arms and accept the authority of the new Afghan government. Could take quite a while I think.
The US still has forces in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban.
You guys obviously read different right-wing blogs to me. The ones I read were full of this:
and
Hold on, isn’t there a problem here? If the Taliban isn’t a recognised government how can formal war be declared on them?
Precisely – it’s an “international police action” led by NATO, not a war. They don’t declare war anymore. It’s very sneaky of them, because it means that they can shred the Geneva Convention.
There is a good article on the whole Hicks saga in the monthly. It details some of the tactics that have been authorised at ‘Mo. The reality is, some of the stuff that is being perpertrated at Camp X-Ray is akin to war crimes and something that we now generally associate with Nazi treatment of the Jews etc (short of killing) Rumsfield is lucky that he is an old man because in 20 years time, with a revisionist Government in charge, he might be in a little bit of strife and rightly so. How we can claim any sort of moral righteousness in this whole sage is beyond me.
It is an absolute disgrace what is happening there. Johnny and Senator Palpatine (Ruddock) are just as culpable.
Thankyou, Steve Edwards, for the link about the international recognition afforded to the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.
I’ll only pout a little about you shooting me down in flames. Damn.
We can agree that the current USA administration are still sneaky buggers in the way they try and take an end run about the Geneva Convention though.
Everyone:
I see two issues concerning David Hicks:
i. SOVEREIGNTY
Bush’s refusal to hand over David Hicks immediately and unconditionally, and Howard’s failure to demand him show far more clearly than anything else the American government’s utter contempt for it’s closest ally and it is a crystal-clear manifestation of Australia’s status as a vassal state. It is a humiliating display of the impotence of Howard and his bunch; Bush has got a pet dog on a leash and he wants the whole world to see it.
If David Hicks is a terrorist then he’s OUR G-d m-f terrorist, not the American’s, and WE will decide ourselves right here in Australia and in OUR own courts whether he is guilty or innocent…..and if innocent, he must be set free immediately in accordance with OUR laws.
I’m amazed the Governor-General has not already demanded Howard’s resignation over Hicks and the Sovereignty Scandal. Peter Costello, now’s your chance …..
2. MILITARY INCOMPETENCE
When captured, David Hicks was an extremely rare and valuable treasure …. not so much in terms of intelligence that could be gleaned from him, whatever that may have been, but for his value in training. He would have been able to give the Australian Defence Force the benefit of his recent experiences and insights; things that could NEVER be found in a reference book or on a screen. David Hicks could have been persuaded to do this freely, without coercion and without offending either his religious beliefs or his pride …. but no, the ADF’s wimps left him in the hands of the misfits, losers, torturers and psychopaths. Whoever in the ADF failed to get David Hicks safely back to Australia within days of his capture must be stripped of their commissions and booted out for their dangerous incompetence, their moral cowardice and their lack of leadership.
I read the case and although I am no lawyer I can’t see where the court specifies these dudes have to be tried in a domestic court setting with all the rules of evidence that applies in the US court system.
Again my humble take is Hamdan isn’t going anywhere soon and in fact his day in court has been delayed even further as the Pentagon and the Administration decide on an appropriate setting that complies with the courts ruling.
My guess is that the Congress and the administration will finally have to figure this out which of course will take time.
I think this decsion makes Hicks chances of getting out soon even less likely. Whereas before the criticism of GITMO gave Hicks a chance he would be sent back home. If the US Admin agree on an appropriate court setting holding Hicks and trying him will be given more weight.
Whatever happens these dudes are not going to be tried in a US domestic court.
Even a court martial gives them more rights than the proposed military tribunal set up was going to.
JC, there were two essential parts of the ruling, (1) the military commissions were unconstitutional ie the President had no authority to set up ad hoc commissions using Bush/Rummy rules that they call Juss Tiss. The alternatives are regular military courts martials or civil trials where all the normal rules of evidence, rights of cross examination of witnesses etc apply. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, (2) the Geneva conventions Common Article 3 applies even to Al Queda prisoners ie all must be treated humanely.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/29/AR2006062900928.html
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/38306/
For those tried under a properly constituted courts martial which found no crimes of war had been committed, the reasons for further detaining those people would be highly questionable. This is why Bush et al set up the kangaroo court in the first place, to avoid international law and have all Gitmo prisoners declared guilty on trumped up charges purporting to be war crimes.
Beazley should petition the Governor-General to dismiss the government for failure to protect an Australian citizen being held illegally in another country.
Skribe, I should have been clearer that I was referring to our own beloved Aussie RWDBs. The American wingnuts were all over it, I agree, when they weren’t photoshopping blabbermouth posters for that treasonous NYTimes.
Not true at all. The Third Geneva Convention is about protecting POWs while in detention. As there is no crime in being an enemy combatant as such they can be detained without charge or trial until the end of hostilities.
Whether a person is charged with a crime, which may be a crime of war or other, is irrelevant to the right of the detaining power to hold him. What differs is that if charged and convicted of a crime he is then held as a criminal and not as a POW and may be detained in a prison with a prison regime, rather than as a POW in a POW camp.
When convicted and at the end of his sentence the detainee is not entitled to release but to return to a POW camp.
Silkworm, there is nothing illegal in David Hicks being held as a POW. What has been illegal has been the conditions in which he has been held, which do not meet the requirements of the Geneva Convention.
Peter
I don’t quite see it like that. The real meat in the hand down was an attempt to peel away some presidential authority.
The verdict requests that the administration and the congress have to work together and figure out a proper solution. It doesn’t give these people access to the domestic legal system. My guess is that the verdict is not one the anti-gitmo guys should be cheering about.
Congress is not going to advise the prez that the detainees be given access to a regular court as that would be politically unacceptable.
Hicks is in there for longer than people think with this verdict. If they released him it would open the flood gates for the rest.
From the links above re. bounty hunters:
Most of the detainees it seems were Arabs and many were apparently “sold” to the US, but the important statistic is that 55% committed no hostile acts against the US. The criterion of assessing by way of “belligerent status” processes, was as above “people who possessed rifles, used a guest house or wore olive drab clothing.” In other words, up to half of the detainees were arguably civilians who, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan packed AK47’s to the same extent that westerners carry mobile phones.
Keeping such people (not the proven hard core Taliban/Al-Q fighters) who have not been proven to have engaged in hostile acts (or committed war crimes) against the US; who were most likely civilians caught up after the Taliban were routed: is highly questionable. Further detention of these putative civilians also rests presumably on a US determination of what constitutes the cessation of hostilities–ie when the last 10 Taliban are killed in outer Mongolia? Or when the so called “war on terrorism” ends in 100 years? Or on the death of Osama Bin Laden’s last male descendant?
Shouldn’t therefore half the population in Afghanistan who carry weapons and wear drab olive clothing also be placed in internment camps? All these problems have arisen from illegalities at Gitmo (and other gulags) and the conflation of war crimes and acts of “terrorism” which has exacerbated terrorism, not ameliorated it.
Trouble now is the US won’t want ever to release these prisoners because their mistreatment of them, (more war crimes there), has probably turned them from people caught at the wrong place at the wrong time into the most vengeful people on the planet.
“Silkworm, there is nothing illegal in David Hicks being held as a POW. What has been illegal has been the conditions in which he has been held, which do not meet the requirements of the Geneva Convention.”
No it hasn’t been illegal. Whether its right or wrong is an entirely other matter. Its not illegal because the Geneva convention does not cover David Hicks. If the people who picked him up thought he was fighting against the Americans then he is not protected. In fact he is specifically excluded.
HERE IS WHERE HE IS SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDED UNDER GENEVA:
“A. Prisoners of war … are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
“1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
“2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this terrirory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
“(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.�
The purpose of this language is to make clear that NOT every combatant is covered by this treaty, i.e., that in order to receive the Convention’s protections, combatants must accept and comply with basic rules of war. Any literate person should understand this.”
JC re
Yes, that is most likely to be correct for assessing war crimes, but the rules and standards of a domestic legal system are largely followed in “regular” (as distinct from Bush’s They Are All Killers Juss Tiss) courts-martial. That standard is essentially what the Geneva Conventions mandate. Congress may enact legislation but if it does not substantially comply with the Geneva Conventions on trials (ie Military Commissions), a future defendant will make the same arguments as we have seen in Hamdan v Rumsfeld being non-compliance with the Conventions.
(Note that Hamdan v Rummy was in fact access to the domestic legal system, ie a writ of certiorari ie quash lower court ruling and impliedly habeas corpus ie produce the body)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brooks30jun30,0,339573.column
Silkworm
There is Buckley’s chance of that happening. No US court would even try and if the did it would thrown out on appeal. Any US judge who allowed such prosecution to go through would be hung from the nearest pole.
Peter
I accept that the court has said due reverence must be given to the Geneva convention. However this is where it gets messy. Seeing the War on terror has been ratified by the Congress at the request of the Prez, the Gitmos are now prisoners of war. It therefore means that under Geneva rules they can be kept for the duration of the war or at least until hostilities are formally over. This ain’t victory of any sort. As I said i ain’t a lawyer but the ramifications of the finding was very badly thought out, I think.
The Gitmos, it seems , can now be held forever without a trial.
Joe, the flaw in that analysis is that the “War on Terror” has not been authorised by the Congress by way of a declaration of war – as indeed Bush recognised by inventing the concept of “illegal combatants” in the first place – the Taliban never having been recognised as the government of Afghanistan at international law – also incidentally, why the UN resolution was necessary post the Taliban regime to give recognition to the interim government. The regime of the President ousted by the Taliban in 93 was still occupying Afghanistan’s UN seat.
Courtesy of commenter Tim Makinson on the Catallaxy thread about the decision, here’s a link to a good series of posts on Hamdan for the layperson at Positive Liberty:
http://positiveliberty.com/category/the-bench/
“as indeed Bush recognised by inventing the concept of “illegal combatantsâ€? in the first place – the Taliban never having been recognised as the government of Afghanistan at international law – also incidentally, why the UN resolution was necessary post the Taliban regime to give recognition to the interim government. The regime of the President ousted by the Taliban in 93 was still occupying Afghanistan’s UN seat.”
Bush didn’t invent any concept of illegal combatants. They are illegal in the sense that they are not covered by the Geneva convention. Those 5 OATHBREAKERS AND USURPERS at the Supreme Court can’t fool all the people all the time. And not on this most clear and obvious of matters.
To save anyone interested in Birdy’s views the trouble of his reposting them here, he’s made his point at great length on Catallaxy:
http://badanalysis.com/catallaxy/?p=1883#comment-113505
PBB you need to have a look here-Professor Robert Goldman Washington College of Law:
http://www.crimesofwar.org/expert/pow-goldman.html
Hicks is not excluded: he was a privileged combatant of the Taliban.
Harvard’s Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (unprivileged status) here:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33617
JC re
Would that be like Republicans trying to impeach Clinton for lying about Monica hanging onto a Presidential pole?
Peter
Ah, let me think about that for a while. Just thought about it. No, I think the country has grown up a bit since the teenager was in the white house.
Mark.
My understanding is the prez has to request a commencement to hostilities from the congress and as far as I know he did that. Are you saying there was no formal request. For Afghan there was as the congress gave formal authority.
There was any need for Iraq because the request and approval was granted under Bush 1.
Again, I am not a lawyer but I don’t think the question of Bush lacking congressional legal standing to attack Iraq has ever been brought up.
One reason it is called the war on terror is that it was a formal declaration of war.
The Proffessor has got it wrong. To read what he says is to see a man clutching at straws. And it wouldn’t matter too much if they were bending the letter of the law. Well it would matter but not to the Supreme Court decision. Which actually changes the very nature of the treaty. The President makes treaties and I think the Congress has to approve them. It wouldn’t take long to verify this. But the Supreme Court does not get to make treaties. So they have screwed up bad. And Kemps Proffessors argument is not relevant to the decision and its very weak.
The Geneva convention makes it very clear who is included or not. I think Kemp would have it both ways. He would say that if David was not a soldier of the Taliban its cool he should be let free. But if he is well then he’s protected. A sort of heads I win tails you lose argument.
These guys aren’t uniformed so they are out. Its about that simple. And the Taliban is not a signatory in the first place.
Let us not hear any version of the poisonous catallaxy argument where it is believed it must be the right call since the umpire made it. That’s another topic.
The technical legal issues at stake here are well beyond my understanding; but since democracies employ laymen as jurors, it would seem that law should ultimately be sorta accountable, at least in broad terms, to some standard that is readily graspable by the lay population. So with that in mind (as well as Stevens’ grand principle, “I am a native of this world,/ And think in it as a native thinks”), a couple of crude, unscientific thoughts…
1. For once, Peter Kemp makes an admirably non-zany assertion: whatever their legal status, the mooks being held in Guantanamo must be treated humanely; and anything even remotely smelling like torture must be roundly and loudly condemned. There’s a great deal of smoke and noise surrounding the facts of the situation, but all the same, a principle’s a principle. Here at least we can agree.
2. The international diplomatic standing of the Taliban as a government strikes me as being entirely moot. Al-Quaeda is not an arm of the Taliban, but rather an international stateless entity which opportunistically exploited the hospitality of its hapless, witless Afghan buddies. Al-Quaeda kills people on behalf of the Islamic ummah, not on behalf of Afghanistan or its government agents. Al-Quaeda is Bud Abbott here, and the Taliban is Lou Costello.
3. Prisoners of war, whatever their legal status, are not held in the same spirit as common criminals are held, viz., the purpose of incarcerating criminals is complex, and includes retribution and punishment. This is not the case for prisoners of war, who are held not to punish them, but simply to neutralize them as combatant forces of an enemy agent. Since the struggle against al-Quaeda is ongoing, their ongoing, open-ended incarceration as dangerous enemy agents strikes one as entirely justified.
4. Therefore, who cares whether they get a trial or not? How on earth do they have a right to a trial? Would we have tried each individual member of the Wehrmacht? Their ‘guilt’ or ‘innocence’ is irrelevant, indeed the question makes no sense. They were captured out of uniform while bearing arms on behalf of a murderous stateless entity which had committed acts of war against a sovereign nation. And the entity in question was not the Taliban (I presume), so again, the sovereignty of the Taliban seems quite irrelevant. If the surrender or defeat of the Taliban is irrelevant as a condition of their release, it would seem that a proper condition for their release would be something like: a) bin Laden and his entire high command surrender, or b) the main centers of Islamic authority issue an un-ambiguous fatwa for the whole ummah, asserting that military jihad is a doctrine of devils. Don’t hold your breath for this one.
5. The statistically significant rate of recidivism back to pro-AQ terrorist activities amongst the Gitmo detainees who have been thus far released, seems to be a fair indicator that most of these mooks deserve to be exactly where they are. Considerations of a ‘mistake’ seem especially silly w/r/t foreign nationals: just what the fuck, exactly, were European, Australian and American nationals doing in military training camps in Afghanistan, if not what they are said to have been doing?
6. It’s important to remember that the Supreme Court’s decision w/r/t Mr. Bush’s actions mainly represents the US arguing with itself about its own standards and procedures: viz., no one cares about the actual fate of these chuckleheads, only that whatever method is used for dealing with them, be in accordance with our own highest standards and in accordance with our laws. A judgement against Mr. Bush is not a judgement in favor of these clowns, it is merely a judgement in favor of the rule of law. Which of course AQ exploits at every opportunity. Which oughta tell you something.
Moderator: There’s a rather longish comment of mine stuck in the filter; (actually it may be repeated, who knows?). Dunno if it’ll strike you as worth retrieving, but at least now you know it’s there. Cheers!
j_p_z re:
It is in favour of their humane treatment, and the corollary is that Bushovics are potential candidates for war crimes charges. And it is clear that the idea of usurping the legislatory/judicial powers by a “War Preznit” has had the legs cut out from underneath it, but time will tell the extent of that.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13814.htm
Cart before the horse. If they are POWs that’s determined by a combat status process–Bushovics declared before that process began that they (Taliban) were unlawful or unpriviliged combatants. Bushovics then wanted to put them on trial for war crimes but flopped because the charges like “conspiracy” are not applicable. The detainees point of view was always that if a trial was to forced on them Geneva Convention/USCMJ rules should apply.
That only ten detainees were ever charged to appear before the Military Commission speaks volumes of the collective evidence against the 500, and most of that evidence would be unsworn, hearsay etc.
All in all a decision of high significance.
Peter — well, we’re all in favor of denying oxygen to any and all attempts of the executive to “usurp the legislative/judicial powers” which is, or at least would be if you can show it, the very textbook definition of tyranny. So amen to that in principle, though I have no idea how the actual thing will work out in the real-time landscape.
At bottom, (because I simply cannot understand the intricacies of the details) there seem to be two defining points of tension in the case:
1. The situation is more or less unprecedented (i.e., egregious acts of war perpetrated by non-state actors, which clouds the diplomatic sense of who, exactly, is responsible for what, and in what sense), and
2. The ongoing struggle (50 years and counting) between the US executive and legislative powers over what is a constitutionally correct application of the executive’s powers to project military force.
w/r/t number 1, I admit I simply can’t make much sense of the thing; about #2, I have always been aggressively against the post-WWII position of granting the executive such loosely defined military powers. The thing has become quite mad. Granted, the changes in military technologies have made the original constitutional intent very hard to implement; nevertheless, I think an entire string of presidencies has egregiously abused the slack on the leash, and this MUST be curbed if the constitution is to survive in the future (not talking about now, but 200 or 500 years from now.) Al-quaeda will come and go, as did the communists; but the precedents that have been set since 1950 or so have been very dangerous for democracy.
I still don’t see what trials (which involve strict rules of evidence and so forth) as opposed to basic hearings, have to do with anything.
“A judgement against Mr. Bush is not a judgement in favor of these clowns, it is merely a judgement in favor of the rule of law.”
Not in this case it aint. Its a judgement against the rule of law and in favour of the “Living Constitution” philosophy of the Supreme Court exercising arbitrary power.
“It is in favour of their humane treatment, and the corollary is that Bushovics are potential candidates for war crimes charges.”
No you are lying Kemp. Now come on. How is that so?
You see the danger of this making things up as you go along third parties. People like Kemp can then just turn around and make baseless charges of this nature.
We see also the same anti-originalism at the outbreak of the war. When people lied and claimed it was an illegal war. The left are basically liars. And the idea of a “Living Constitution” therefore runs in their favour.
The constitution’s working fine.
There have been greater tests before and there will be again.
Instead of vitriol, who would like to supply best of the preamble or anything besides?
Over at Prodeo Samuel McSkimming has shown that the Congress gets to ‘make rules concerning capture”. Unless there was some sort of open defiance of the Congress by the Executive then the Supreme Court ought to stick to doing its job rather then trespass on the territory of the other two branches of government.
Birdy, “How is it so?”—that’s easy (but you need to read Common Article 3 first):
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/06/no-place-for-war-crimes-redrafting-us.php
Bush is prima facie a war criminal, it’s as simple as that.
(Oh no says Birdy, the lying drafters of the 4 lying Geneva lying Convention lies were lying liars, the lying publishers were liars, digital reproduction is a lie, that the USA signed the Conventions is a lie, the left are lying liars for pointing out unpalatable lying lies, the SCOTUS are lying oath breaking liars and couldn’t lie straight in bed)
Comrade G: “…Its a judgement against the rule of law and in favour of the “Living Constitutionâ€? philosophy of the Supreme Court exercising arbitrary power.”
Certainly arbitrary and unwarranted power has been exercised by the Court in the past, but in this instance you’d have to walk me through what they did, to show it. Frankly the whole thing is in such a knot I can barely comprehend it. This (i.e. degree of confusion) doesn’t seem like it was an inevitable outcome, but maybe the effort of some interested smoke-blowers. I think the original situation woulda been fairly clear to any referee with some base-line integrity…
Peter: “…It is in favour of their humane treatment…”
Well that, by rights, we shoulda been able to assume from the start; all the same, the idea of their *in*-humane treatment has not been clearly established (to my satisfaction, at least — I think the whole meme of Gitmo-as-Gulag is a trifle, well, hysterical, and plays to certain interested galleries in a disgraceful fashion); and furthermore one must keep in mind that the core group of prisoners are ideologically motivated actors who have had training in turning such situations to their advantage, e.g. behaving in ways that will provoke reactions, which will then cause the lazy media spotlight to focus on the wrong thing, as planned. See, this is one of the hidden perils of all youse guys fixating on the vast organized boredom known as soccer, instead of on a *real* sport, like baseball: you never learn the basic vital art of keeping your eye on the ball.
“…and the corollary is that Bushovics are potential candidates for war crimes charges.”
Gotta love that rhetorical ‘Bolshevik’ attribution. Huh. Talk about transference. (Anyone here got a guilty lefty conscience?) Also that insatiable hunger for some US president –ANY president– to be charged with war crimes. Afraid the bar’s a little high in this instance, though. But good luck, all the same! After all, it’s important to have goals in life…
It rolls on j_p_z “insatiable hunger” or not. Executive immunity is a thing of the past. Ask Milesovic’s executors and a certain Spanish magistrate/the people of Chile re. Pinochet.
After leaving office Bush, Blair and Howard will not IMHO be frequent visitors to Harvey World Travel. Trick would be to have them all tried together, (now that’s a real insatiable hunger.)
Oh and j_p_z re:
And they each had copies of the New York Times to see the media “focus on the wrong thing”?
Peter its simple.
The Geneva agreement is extremely important. Since it gives priveledges and a sort of lack of vindictiveness to the soldiers of each side of the conflict. It allows us to take prisoners (rather then kill everyone) who puts their hands in the air or waves a white flag. And if its discrimination against unlawful combatants is successful it gives folks no excuse to kill a whole lot of civilians.
So as a result of this the Geneva convention made it very clear who IS and who IS NOT and enemy combatant.
Now the Supreme Court is full of “living constitution” types who just make it up as they go along. And so they have chosen to undermine and ignore the Geneva convention.
But there is a far more compelling logic then that and it comes from PETER KEMP:
1. “It is in favour of their humane treatment, AND THE COROLLARY IS that Bushovics are potential candidates for war crimes charges.�
2. AND THE COROLLARY IS that Peter Kemp is God
3. AND THE COROLLARY IS that since there is only one true God then Peter Kemp is HE.
JPZ it ought be no minefield at all. The Supreme Court messed up. Scroll up and you will see that I’ve quoted the convention and its all very clear. It could not be more clear.
Lets continue with this theory of yours that the President is a law criminal. Lets get your reasoning here.
Now we know that between them the Congress and the President can do all the things they have done and the President is not in open defiance of either the Geneva conventions or the Congress. This is what we know.
So I say you are lying.
But do continue.
Peter, Peter, not still hankering longingly after the days of the show trials and public denunciations again are you? Your favourite revolutionary/reactionary is on the ropes meboy. The Beacon of Light expedition to Iraq has forced him to nail his colours to the minaret.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19658153-401,00.html?from=rss
It’s the beginning of the end of his united Islamist dream, as tribal Islam turns inward on itself once more. Now we and the Kurds can raise our glasses and say bon appetit luvvy Muslims! Don’t get into bed with the delusional Hickses of this world lefties, or you’ll end up looking just as lunar as Mamdouh Habib after Andrew Bolt finished with he and his Muslim convert lawyer. Mamdouh who..? You remember lefties, the Centrelink recipient off to Afghanistan to make a big killing in the cleaning industry over there.
The best thing to do with all the innocents in Gitmo George, is to fly them all to the Hague and leave them for the UN to handle mate. That should make the usual suspects over the moon. Chirac could stick them all in Paris.
j-p-z:
which makes the crazy and brutal behavior of those smoking non-tobacco substances to excess in the White House and The Pentagon so inexplicable. As Prisoners Of War, the United States could have locked up all the “enemy combatants” it wanted till H*ll froze over, treated them decently and firmly without any torture or abuse and thereby could have won World approval, genuinely willing allies, valuable and useable intelligence as well as, perhaps, enthusiastic recruits to the United States’ cause
When “9/11″ happened, the United States had Righteousness firmly in its grasp (and yes, we’ve all heard the various “they-had-it-coming” arguments). Despite a long and shocking record of atrocities and abuses by everyone from the CIA to the local dog-catcher, the World believed the U.S. were generally the Good Guys, unlike the Fascists, Nazis, Communists and Idi Amin. Now all that has changed …. thanks to purposeless, unproductive torture, “rendering”, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and despicible pseudo-legal tomfoolery.
Graham, you have been smoking something if you think that whatever label the Whitehouse called the Gitmo mob, the usual suspects weren’t going to see them all as innocent backpackers or freedom fighters. Now they couldn’t sustain that lunar argument, the moment Habib opened his mouth publicly. Can you imagine what Hicks would be like? After all the US finally viewed Habib as a release candidate and look how quickly he was dropped off the left’s agenda. Imagine what Hicks will be like in public? They’ll be wishing Cornelia Rau was putting their case.
“…thanks to purposeless, unproductive torture, “renderingâ€?…”
Yeah this rendering or rendition by the CIA is the real bizzare thing. They were sending them off to people like the Egyptians and the Syrians (an actual enemy nation) to get information out of them.
Not just cruel. But actual Alice-In-Wonderland madness.
Some of this craziness with the ruling might be a sort of ‘referred pain’ as it were. I too am disturbed by lack of clarity as to interrogation policy. And even moreso by sending people to Arab countries (I swear the CIA are madmen) and the trusting of intelligence gained from Arab dictatorship (mad as March Hares, gullible and stupid to boot. And they can’t even keep a secret).
But the Supreme Court weren’t dealing with any of this in the current case. And one has to seperate any such concerns in ones mind to suss out the really obvious presumptuousness in their latest rulling.
Observa:
No doubt the Land-Rights-For-Gay-Whales crowd and the Homes-For-Homeless-Homing-Pigeons Society would have been holding their usual protests …. but who would notice them this time either? By treating captured enemy as Prisoners Of War, it would not have mattered in the slightest who was protesting outside.
Giving the Red Cresent/Red Diamond/Red Cross regular and open access to the captured enemy who were obviously well-cared-for would have greatly enhanced the prestige of the United States ….. and it would have been a resounding victory for American Righteousness, one that no money could ever buy, and it would have been a serious moral defeat for Osama bin-Wheelbarrow too. And a minor note: PoW status would have put a lot more restrictions on the World’s news media than all the security follies at Gitmo.
Whether David Hicks is delusional or sky-blue pink does not matter in the slightest – for every day he is held by Americans, not Australians, that’s one day closer to the end of U.S.-Australia relations.
PBB
Yes he was, see Hamdan v Rumsfeld No. 05/184 USSC 29/06/06.
Good points Graham, as per usual Bushovic policy inevitably achieves the exact opposite of what was desired. The world has not been so dangerous since 1945, thanks to our modern day Caligula Primus Inter Simian.
“Whether David Hicks is delusional or sky-blue pink does not matter in the slightest – for every day he is held by Americans, not Australians, that’s one day closer to the end of U.S.-Australia relations.”
What the…!! The punters here don’t give a bugger about David Hicks, apart for some mild sympathy for his old man (unfortunately some fathers do have em!) For starters they know Hicks was no innocent backpacker by his own admissions and he’s even happy to be a pommy if it can get him out of facing the music. Aussies aren’t particularly thrilled with slippery bastards getting off on some smart-arsed legal technicality these days either. Neither are the poms by the looks of it. There is absolutely no political mileage in defending a friend of the Taliban and AQ and Howard knows that. If any of you don’t understand that oxymoron, then you are just as misguided as young Hicks and his fellow travellers. If you don’t want to be tarred as a terrorist, don’t hang about with the bastards as we have zero tolerance for those that do. It’s called self preservation in case some of you are slow on the uptake like Hicks was.
Hicks was and is a soldier of fortune.He played the game and backed
the wrong horse, and now he is screaming like a stuck pig.If you want
to fuck around playing soldier expect the worse.Hicks is lucky,a lot of
Brit mercenary’s who played around in Angola for a quik buck were put up against a wall and shot.
Fuck him.Oh and by the way I am a lefty.,so save the diatribe.
Phill
Observa & Phill have both very aptly and succinctly summed up the Mahommed Daoud/David Hicks issue.
And the mainstream opinion of it.
Phill:
Holy mackerel! I thought “Colonel Callan” and his comrades had been airbrushed right out of history.
It doesn’t matter in the least (except to OUR courts) if David Hicks was firing a 122mm field gun out of a Mil-24 chopper while singing a Wiggles song when he was captured. What is important is that his handling by the Yanks was a gross and unforgivable insult to Australia and its people. Howard should have been sacked over it; our Ambassador in Washington should have been recalled for consultations. Wakey, wakey …. what on earth do you think would have happened if it had been a United States citizen captured, tortured and imprisoned by Australians?
Observa:
Oh boy, is this your unlucky day.
…… well, that just doesn’t quite match the rest of my CV. Never mind, that’s best laugh I’ve had all weekend even if it was unintentional.
“PBB
the President is not in open defiance of…the Geneva conventions
Yes he was, see Hamdan v Rumsfeld No. 05/184 USSC 29/06/06.”
No he was not. The Supreme Court and you are simply doing what left-wingers do. They lied about it.
The President was not in defiance of either the Geneva convention or the Congress when it came to legal representation for unlawful combatants.
DON’T LIE ABOUT IT AGAIN.
Why do we know that this was a corrupt decision:
Well for many reasons. But one is that 4 (if you include the Chief Justice) disagree with it. Now you can have legal principles clashing that make a clear decision very difficult. That can divide the court down the middle. That’s fair enough.
But this is not one of these cases. And what gives it away is that the astounded disagreeing 3 have written dissenting judgements. Usually you will get 1 dissenting judgement because these guys have a heavy caseload. But this time you have three. So on that alone we can see the evil hand of the “living and breathing document” farce has reached out to create this massive propaganda coup for the jihadists.
And you guys are going along with it. Without a second thought folks on this thread are building on the nonsense by talking as if the Bush administration is engaged in some runaway power grab.
Crazy.
Observa re:
So that principle would also apply to Michelle Leslie in Indonesia?
Shorter Observa: Those who support the presumption of innocence, due processs and a fair trial are guilty of consorting with criminals.
Shorter PBB:
1st dissenting judgement = heavy caseload of legal secretaries to explore.
2nd dissenting judgement = evil creeping in like a leaky sewer pipe.
3rd dissenting judgement = positive evil and shitty tyranny by the majority
4th implied dissenting judgement (recused) = farce, propaganda coup, lying lefties etc.
5th hypothetical “dissenting judgement” all evil disappears.
(Conclusion: Number of Dissenting Judges > 4: PBB Principle of Lying Lefties disappears.)
“But this is not one of these cases. And what gives it away is that the astounded disagreeing 3 have written dissenting judgements. Usually you will get 1 dissenting judgement because these guys have a heavy caseload. But this time you have three.”
Actually the number of dissenting judgments depends on whether or not the dissenting judges have the same reasons for dissenting. One dissenting judgment by three judges will carry more weight than three different dissenting judgments that all argue different reasons for their disagreement with the majority. Each of these reasons only has the support of one supreme court judge (and very small minority in this particular matter) and is, thus, unlikely to be cited in any future judgments.
Exactly Cristy.
Let ignorance never become an impediment to the expression of an opinion, but when it comes to certain hysterical and quite unhinged ornithological creatures on this site, tolerance has surely reached its natural limit. Crowing ‘liar, liar’ ’til the cows come home can really achieve nothing other than convincing others in the paddock that you are a certifiable cuckoo.
Shorter PBB: I have more authority than the Supreme Court (unless you count the minority dissenting Judges, because they are on my side).
Observa:
Alas, last night, I did make too hasty a response to your
on reflection, it does indeed match part of my CV.
[exits stage right, laughing at his own joke]
Hey Graham,lets get one thing straight I aint no Callan and I hate John Howards guts,he should be on trial with Hicks along side Blair/Bush.
At the risk of repeating myself he is a soldier of fortune and it is in this context I make my point.So how the Americans treat him is of no consequence to me.If you like give him a fair trial then shoot him.I dont like mercenary’s and when they find themselves in a world of shit playing soldier fuck them.It wasn’t so long ago he could have been facing a hanging.,only then they were called traitors.yeh yeh yeh one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter,it don’t change nothing.He played he lost.I put him in the same category as drug dealers dispatch them with extreme prejudice.
He was up to no good he as much as admitted it.The only thing in common I have with calley is,,yes I am an x diigger and not some archair blog General.
Phill.
“Shorter PBB:
1st dissenting judgement = heavy caseload of legal secretaries to explore.
2nd dissenting judgement = evil creeping in like a leaky sewer pipe.
3rd dissenting judgement = positive evil and shitty tyranny by the majority
4th implied dissenting judgement (recused) = farce, propaganda coup, lying lefties etc.
5th hypothetical “dissenting judgementâ€? all evil disappears.”
Whenever I see you commie-witch-hunters pull this “SHORTER” business it always precedes mindless crap.
And this time is no different.
You are an idiot Kemp.
PBB re:
It’s been a long standing tradition here to try to distill repetitive, improbable, illogical, fallacious and non-argumentative assertions into single “shorter” principles easily understood by most people, in contradistinction to those whose cranial left and right hemispheres are connected by less than one necrobiotic necrophiliacal neo-con neuron.
Don’t you think this guy is a Lying Rodent?
“those whose cranial left and right hemispheres are connected by less than one necrobiotic necrophiliacal neo-con neuron.”
Oh c’mon Pete, that’s a rather harsh and overly convoluted way of describing two empty Watties baked bean tin cans connected by a piece of frayed string stretched taut across a head between the two ears.
Tho I bet Birdy has painted the tins awful nicely.
Phill:
Hold it! I wasn’t referring to you!
“Colonel Callan” was the nickname of the Cypriot who, along with his fellow mercenaries, was captured, tried in public and then executed by the MPLA authorities in Angola way back in the ’seventies. He may or may not have popularized the American “Spray-Pack” (Mini-14 police semi-automatic carbine) among “Mercs” and gun-nuts. I assumed you had heard of the case.
Can’t remember whether the Fraser government brought in the anti-mercenary Defence[Foreign incursions and Recruitment]Act just before or just after “Colonel Callan” and his pals were executed but it stopped Australians getting jobs as “safari guides” armed with reckless rifles and other assorted tools-of-trade ….
Howard and his accomplices should face justice.
David Hicks should also face justice ….. but HERE in Australia, not in the U.S. nor in the Not-In-The-U.S so beloved by legal hairsplitters and other scoundrels..
Graham,fairy muff I apologise,yes I remember the Callan case well,there is a book written by, if my memory serves me well?,by a one Mad Mike Hoar called fire power that waxes about their exploits for cash in Angola, just a wank fest really.Its about a load of frustrated x Brit squadies who all thought they were Rambo.There is another mob of mercenary’s that operate out of London currently? the name escapes me at the moment but I think it is along the lines of”Executive Outcomes” or other such wanky name.To be honest I am sick to death of Hicks,is all I am saying is if you sleep with dogs you end up with flees.If he is who some say he is he should be kept away from the normal folks,Yea me too.Phill.
I stand corrected Nabs to your simpler version, but there was an allusion there for that last “string” breaking, equivilent to a certain surgical procedure for “One (who) Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Syphax:
Damn you. I’ve been ambushed. I have deliberately stayed away from that website – and others like it – so as to avoid being stuck on some over-enthusiastic temporary-acting-assistant-junior-deputy aide’s watch-list. Heaven only knows what analysis(??) an imperfect arcade-game program will churn out linking my interest in social issues on LP, vexillology, Japanese food and so on with the murderous activities of Osama bin-’Owsyafather. G.I.G.O.!
Lying Rodent? That’s what the monarchists will say WHEN the complete about-face on a republic happens.
Phill:
Don’t know but feel nowadays there are lot of very professional people operating in the nebulous area of military contractors, private security organizations, mercenaries and cowboys-looking-for-a- place-to-get-killed. Private armies and military contractors are very popular with some governemts and corporations (including our own) because they seem to be so cheap. Mind you, those who are so keen on them are bereft of any war service themselves and ignorant of some nasty happenings in political and military history …. so we mustn’t be too judgemental, must we?.
Graham,Well private contractors may be the way to go,I mean most of the states Police Services couldn’t track a menstruating female elephant in the snow/or am I being to hard?In Western Australia they want 50 grand a year for gods knows what.But I digress,.political and military history as you know is written by the winners.
Phill.
Phill:
Do you mean we should leap back a few centuries to where the most fearful thing a government could hear was “No Pay? No Swiss!!”…. no?
The Royal Army Ordnance Corps came into existence because private contractors and sutlers were manifestly unable to to feed and shelter and supply a modern army, and were comparatively expensive too.
“It’s been a long standing tradition here to try to distill repetitive, improbable, illogical, fallacious and non-argumentative assertions into single “shorterâ€? principles easily understood by most people, in contradistinction to those whose cranial left and right hemispheres are connected by less than one necrobiotic necrophiliacal neo-con neuron.”
No no. You are lying. That’s not the tradition.
The tradition here is for commie-witch-hunters to talk nonsense in their quest to do what commie witch-hunters do.
Shorter Birdy: summarising Comrade Graeme is impossible.
Look Mark.
Show some interest in the fucking truth for once snide-ass commie.
Is that too much to ask?
I don’t think thats too much to ask.
You know how hard it is living on the same planet as all you zombie dead-heads?
It aint easy believe me.
My advice is for you to cut yourself once in a while like some Goth-child lost in the black dog of depression.
Just so you might show signs of giving a fuck about something once in a while. Even if its only about putting the knife away.
What is wrong with you man?
Its like your some Soviet zombie and always about 4 pints short of blood.
Are you not the least bit motivated to find out the TRUTH about stuff?
Man you are just so fucking lost.
Graham,Ive got a hot flash for you,Id like to go back just over a decade so I could live in a world before John Howard became the P.M..Hey don’t take anything I say to serious,I would make most of the so called lefty’s on this web site look like right wing nazi facists.But take note my comments about our current crop of coppers is serious,I reckon the ones that can count to ten should be transferred to some where they could be more useful like ice berg patrol in the North Atlantic,for good measure they could take some parking grey ghosts with them, and politicians for amusement. But I digress,Oh yes private contractors,Ummm look at Halbirton a nice little earner the war on terrorism is.Phill.
Anybody else have a mental picture of Birdy leaping up in the public gallery of the Supreme Court, a four and twenty dripping down his scarf, to bellow “Ya fucking white maggots.”
“My advice is for you to cut yourself once in a while like some Goth-child lost in the black dog of depression.”
The inner workings of Birdy’s pysche are really coming into focus now aren’t they?
“Man you are just so fucking lost.”
I think he’s now reaching out now in his own inimitable way. Will someone take this quavering hand, only lightly splattered with pie juice?
“Oh yes private contractors,Ummm look at Halbirton a nice little earner the war on terrorism is”
You want to expand on that point black helicopter dude?
Nabokov:
Why not shout PanelBeaterBird a beer or two to go with his meat pie and have a long yarn with him; I’m sure you two must have a lot in common to talk about.
Phill:
It’s not just the ADF that has serious recruitment problems – Police too.
Back to Gitmo and Hicks….. What a farce! Canberra’s Gang-Plank Dodgers’ Club has successfully manipulated Australian returned servicemen to get all in a tizzy over David Hicks and yet nobody has challenged them over the bare-faced rubbish that Hicks cannot be brought back to Australia because (ha-ha-ha) he can’t be (ha-ha) detained or charged under any Australian laws. Still, they haven’t sought the advice of any First-Year Law students who would, without doubt, find quite a few ways of occupying David Hicks’ time once he was back in Australia. So why does the pretence go on unchallenged?
Hey PanelbeaterBird,no further explanation of Halbirton is necessary,they are making a motza out of the war in Iraq.A motza for a PanelbeaterBird is in the billions.Oh by the way black helicopters are an invention of the wacky right wing state side.Soooooooooo pleeeaaaaase no more birdy wanks.
PHILL.
The great one has had his say on this topic
and this classic
Huh?? Is Bolt engaging in his own form of relativism here, or has the US moved so much to the right that moderate conservatives are now in the firing line of Murdoch and his attack dogs.
Shorter Bolt: The Supreme Court are traitors.
Whatever.
Perhaps Birdy is his ghost writer? Did he mention “anti-originalist”?
Good theory Mark. I’m sure he peruses LP from time to time to know thy enemy, just as I’m positive he used to hang out @ Chris’s BackPages to observe the machinations of the ‘extreme’ left.
Hey, I didn’t know Bolt liked Pantera!?!
Ah, cal, that’s the profile that goes with Bolty’s blog, which sadly hasn’t been updated since February last year:
http://thoughtsfrommyanus.blogspot.com/
This Halliburton thing:
1. They’ve been dealing with the Pentagon for decades under both parties.
2. They are out of Iraq now I believe.
3. You don’t know how much money they made.
4. Its got nothing to do with the administration.
5. What is your point?
Cal and Mark: You two are just fuckiing idiots. Bolt spelt it out. He is right. You don’t have an argument against it…. And you are pretending to laugh dismissively???
Where does this dismissive laughter come from.
You are just idiots.
You got that.
Now have you got an argument against what Bolt is saying?
No question but that I would have toned that last one down had I known that I’d suddently been taken off moderation.
But seriously people. You are supposed to be educated individuals. Not a mindless lynch-mob. And some of you are teachers. What are you teaching the kids by example?
Is it cognition through smugness?
I mean that’s a pretty stupid epistemology isn’t it?
What is your argument?
Are the two of you seriously saying that your best guess is that this was an originalist decision???? Because that’s a pretty strange conclusion. Particularly since all four originalists thought differently.
What is there to argue? Whether we’re “at war” with terror, or not? By any reasonable definition, Bolt loses that one.
I’m not pretending anything PBB, I am laughing dismissively.
Where do I start with Bolt?!?
Howabout his view that the the non GWB appointees are mostly lefties. Of the 9 Judges, 7 were appointed by Republican presidents with only 2 by Democratic presidents.
My original point was that is Bolt here engaging in the kind of relativism that he normally despises or has the Bush admin gone so far to the right that so called ‘moderate’ republicans are now up for attack by people like Bolt?
I would have thought that a true conservative would agree with the Supreme Court ruling that
In fact the majority opinion mentioned above was made by Justice John Paul Stevens, who was nominated by the Republican President, Gerald Ford.
There’s plenty more Bolt stuff to laugh about but this will do for now.
Its not about who nominated the miscreants…….. Ford wouldn’t have known or cared that much about originalism. And Kennedy slobbered all over (according to one witness) Reagans attorney general swearing he wouldn’t legislate from the bench and then when he got the job he just went ahead anyhow.
So its you getting confused here. Not Bolt. Does the judge interpret the law in a fair manner? Or does he just make it up as he goes along? That’s the question. So far we’ve only been able to rely on Scalia and Thomas. And one can even find some pretty odd decisions from Scalia.
Originalists can and do disagree on cases. But they could never disagree that the court fucked up on this one (or on Roe v Wade for example). But at least they are making a good faith effort to interpret the constitution and the law.
No good faith effort was made in this case. They are simply going to have to term limit these people. If we let the lawyers undermine L.A.W. LAW then we lose everything.
PBB: “They are simply going to have to term limit these people.”
Term-limiting the Supreme Court is not a bad idea at all. A regular rotation would limit power, encourage sobriety of decisions, and make the nominations much less of a political nail-biter. This idea that presidents, through appointments, can reach out beyond the grave has always struck me as a little unnecessary.
Besides, then we could be a lot more secure from the dangers of living under a duns SCOTUS. (Sorry, I’ve been wanting to make that joke for ages…)
PBB
That’s a common RW redneck cognative process. Especially in the form of a presidential “swagger” (but possibly that’s long term damage from spilt straight whisky and/or urinary incontinence)
Good word:”epistemology |iËŒpistəˈmälÉ™jÄ“| noun Philosophy the theory of knowledge, esp. with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
The smugness, righteousness and proclaimed infalliability of those who instigated Guantanamo bay’s illegal regime has been clear for all to see for years. Belatedly now, the USSC have indeed identified the illegal opinions of the Bush administration.
Disagree j_p_z, Judges need tenure. They are not politicians nor appointees of the administration so “term limiting” them to say 4/8 years would be the ruination of the legal system–just when they become experienced you want to chuck them out.
It is good news that the estabishment of Gitmo Bay and military tribunals is now legally suspect in the highest court in the land. In this case Supreme Court legalistic conservatives prevailed over those militaristic “constructives” in the White House who sought extraordinary and unaccountable increases in US executive power.
These authoritarian power grabs were suspect on the face of it. And they have turned out to be ineffective, if not counterproductive in the GWOT.
Bush was too concerned with a militaristic prosecution of the GWOT and too little concerned with legalistic process. The legalistic Owls deserve a pat on the back for putting down the militaristic Hawks at home. One hopes they can turn the same trick abroad.
Still, the legal status of terrorist symps, susps. and perps is always going to be a curly one to determine for those seeking to reconcile national interest with due process. Terrorists are definitely criminals and definitely at war, but evidently they are not “war criminals”.
FWIW I favour treating terrorist susps like apprehended psycho-killers. They should be given a quick fair civilian trial. If found guilty lock ‘em up and throw away the key. Otherwise release them back into the community with a warning that one more strike and they will be condemned as outlaws to be hunted down and killed.
Jack, I was agreeing with you til the last paragraph. Probably a good justification for the three paragraph rule.
Mark, what part of Jack’s last paragraph do you disagree with? It only has two sentences. Do you disagree with the first or the second? Or both? For each option, why?
I am genuinely curious.
The second sentence, Greg. Because he presumes a legal process then chucks those principles out the window with some sort of state sponsored vigilante killing. But perhaps Jack understands “bring him to justice” in the same sense George W. Bush does.
Incidentally, there was an article in a recent edition of the US foreign policy establishment journal Foreign Affairs which looked fairly objectively at the Israeli “targetted killing” practice – eg with regard to Hamas leaders. The context was – should the US adopt it? The conclusion was that it’s not just ineffectual but counterproductive in that historically it can be shown to have strengthened the violent resistance to Israel. So the arguments for extra-judicial execution can be shown to be as ineffective – even in a practical sense (leaving aside the contradiction between upholding justice and inhumanity) – as those for state sponsored torture.
Peter K. — yeah, I agree with you that judges need at least a species of tenure, also about the fruits of experience; but there’s no reason the terms couldn’t be very long, yet still limited, say 15 years or so. And after all, supreme court judges don’t ‘run’ for office, so their approach to things is or should be different. I’m not about to run out and beat the drum for a constitional amendment on this one, but all the same, the idea does have its merits. Presumably the life-long terms were meant to discourage the Court’s becoming overly politicized, but the exact opposite has happened (one rare case where the Framers didn’t see a problem coming light-years away!). I for one am exasperated by the irritating Machiavellian chess moves made on all sides every time a seat opens up, as well as by the wearying subjection of all and sundry to the same weird Roe v. Wade litmust test/loyalty oath (it might well have been, say, another issue; but the fact that there IS such an issue is worrisome, and indicates a structural problem).
This basic mistrust of the constitution (presidents acting legislatively, judges giving what amount to executive orders and so on) as well as a politically cynical distrust or avoidance of the genius of democracy (Bush is fighting TWO wars without resorting to a draft, because a draft would open up a whole new dimension to the debate over his intent; this alone should cause his aims to be suspect), are a slowly spreading disease that should be diagnosed and treated holistically, if such a remedy exists.
Mark: “…The conclusion was that it’s not just ineffectual but counterproductive in that historically it can be shown to have strengthened the violent resistance to Israel…”
While the idea of targeted killings has problems of its own, I’m not sure that recourse to data from Israel will ever ‘prove’ or ’show’ anything. The situation in Israel is simply far too strange to ever be trustworthy as a universal example of anything. I could probably ’show’ that the favored use of the Nimzo-Indian defence in chess games in parks in Jerusalem simply stiffens Arab resolve to destroy Israel.
“The conclusion was that it’s not just ineffectual but counterproductive in that historically it can be shown to have strengthened the violent resistance to Israel.”
No thats not right. Its been quite successful. And if you could do it for all the regimes that are assailed against Israel instead of the least important (ie Arafatia) then you would expect it to work.
Well, if anyone hasn’t got access to the paper copy of the journal, and is willing to cough up USD5.95 to read the article, you can do so via this link (and also read a preview):
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85208/daniel-byman/do-targeted-killings-work.html
If your summary is right its bullshit for starters. Had they been able to target assasination of the Saud, Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian regimes that would have worked swell.
How can these guys claim it hasn’t helped or how can they possibly say its made matters worse? Just liars and incompetent social scientists.
j-p-z:
Belated Independence Day greetings …. great idea about 15year limited tenure for Judges but watch out, dangerously innovative ideas like that might get you snatched as a rebel and rendered to Gitmo East or Gitmo West.
Cal:
Thanks for the link. Wonder why Howard, Ruddock, Downer and now Bolt seem so frightened about having Hicks back here in Australia even though if he was declared innocent of anything (not likely) he could still be kept under virtual house arrest and incommunicado for the rest of his life under Australia’s new anti-dissident laws? Has Hicks seen something awkward? Does Hick know something that would bring scorn or an investigation on the Howard government? How come Hicks is still alive; when is he due to have his “accident”?